Angels of Darkness

light of his life beginning to flicker in the slightest wind. “Fen was there. He held me through the terrible dark of that night, until Keir was able to come. If I could Make Fen, I would in a heartbeat, but I cannot.” Tears clogged her voice. “He is my dearest friend.”
    Noel went motionless. “He can walk freely into these rooms?”
    â€œOf course.” She and Fen had never again been lady and liege after that stormy night as her babe bled out of her. “We speak here so we will not be interrupted.”
    Noel’s hands clenched on her arms. Frowning, she went to press him for his thoughts when the import of his question hit her. “Not Fen.” She wrenched out of his embrace. “He would no more harm me than he would murder Amariyah.”
    â€œI,” Noel said, “have no idea of how that safe works, much less the combination. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But Fen . . . he knows so many things about you. Such as the date you lost your babe, or the day your child would’ve been born.”
    The gentle words were a dagger in her soul. Because he was right. Five decades ago, she’d changed the combination to what would have been her lost babe’s birthing day. It hadn’t been a conscious choice as such—the date was the first that had come into her mind, embedded into her consciousness. “I will not believe it.” Frost in her voice as she fought the anguish that threatened to shatter her. “And I will not allow this evidence technician to come here.”
    â€œNimra.”
    She cut him off when he would’ve continued. “I will speak to Fen. Alone.” If her old friend had done this, she had to know why. If he had not—and she couldn’t bring herself to believe him capable of such treachery—then there was no cause for him to be hurt by the ugliness of suspicion. “Unless you think he’ll rise up to stab me while I sit across from him?”
    Noel made no effort to hide his irritation, but neither did he stop her as she headed for the door. Exeter was waiting to speak to her at the bottom of the staircase, as was Asirani, but she jerked her head in a sharp negative, not trusting herself to speak. Nothing would be right in her world until she’d unearthed the truth, however terrible it might be.
    Fen wasn’t at home, but she knew his favorite places, as he knew hers.
    â€œAh,” he said when she tracked him down at the sun-drenched stone bench on the edge of the lily pond, his near-black eyes solemn. “Sadness sits on your shoulders again. I thought the vampire made you happy.”
    Noel had dropped back as soon as Fen came into sight, giving her the privacy she needed. Heartsick, she took a seat beside her old friend, her wings draping on the grass behind them. “I have kept a secret from you, Fen,” she said, eyes on a dragonfly buzzing over the lilies. “Queen died not because her heart failed, but because she drank poison intended for me.”
    Fen didn’t reply for a long moment undisturbed by the wind, the pond smooth glass under the wide green lily pads. “You were so sad,” he said at last. “So very, very sad deep inside, where almost no one could see it. But I knew. Even as you smiled, as you ruled, you mourned. So many years you mourned.”
    Tears burned at the backs of her eyes as his wrinkled hand closed over her own where it lay on the bench between them. “I worried who would watch over you when I was gone.” His voice was whispery with age, his fingers containing a tremor that made her heart clench. “I thought the sadness might drown you, leaving you easy prey for the scavengers.”
    A single tear streaked down her face.
    â€œI wanted only to give you peace.” He tried to squeeze her hand, but his strength was not what it had been when he first strode into her court, a man with an endless store of energy. “It broke my heart to see you haunting the gardens as everyone slept, so much pain trapped inside of you. It is arrogant of me to make such a claim, ridiculous, too, but . . . you are my daughter as much as Mariyah.”
    She turned up her hand, curling her fingers around his own. “Do you think me so fragile, Fen?”
    He sighed. “I fear I learned the wrong lessons from my other daughter. She is not strong. We both know it.”
    â€œThere would’ve been no one left to protect her