Fated Souls (22 page)

“What?” Iris asked the girl.

“You don’t have any love for her?” Maeve had gotten to her small, dirt-specked feet and leaned against the table. Her tender little fingers moved to Iris’ arm and the old woman didn’t pull away.

“No,” Iris answered quietly. “And don’t look at me like that. You call her my sister but you’ve never let me meet her, so … don’t put that on me. You have no right — you know that — no right to call yourself mother to either of us.”

Maeve looked stricken. A heartbeat later, she nodded but her eyes had lost none of the silent demand. Iris was used to it — but it would never stop feeling entirely too strange to see a child’s face with her mother’s ancient expression. Caught in a stalemate, they both fell silent, listening to the harsh sounds of the knife parting flesh from bones.

• • •

Devali was fast. Her legs were short but muscular and in the busy evening hours, she had an easy advantage against a horse. Fairester was easy to follow back to his family’s city estate; a large house and well protected. Devali, however, didn’t mean to attack anyone. She just swished her skirts and walked up the servant’s entrance.

However much the head of staff had meant to send her away, by the time she leaned against the doorframe in a way that ever so accidentally exposed the sliver of skin between her tight blouse and her skirts, he had forgotten all about that. Devali was given fine maid’s garb and by the next day, had secured the job of knocking at the young lord’s chambers at night to take him that last drink he’d rung for.

Niamh had been right. Humans were easy. So very easy.