"Oh," Alice said. "My sweet toy James."
The words hung in the room longer than they should have.
James didn't look at her face for long. His eyes moved instead — the throne, white-gold and raised above wide marble steps; the drained men lying and kneeling around its base; the doors sealed shut behind the raid; Maeve's hands already lifting; Marcus's grip already tightening on his sword.
Then, once, to Alice's wings.
The room was beautiful the way rot could be beautiful before the smell reached you. White-gold pillars ran the length of the hall. Red silk hung from the ceiling in long unbroken sheets. Carved angels lined the walls, every halo above them cracked or broken clean off. Roses bled color across the floor in a pattern too deliberate to be decoration.
Maeve had already stabilized what she could before they'd reached this door. Finn's curse was gone. Marcus's chest wound had closed under her light. Saoirse's bleeding had stopped. Their bodies weren't falling apart anymore.
