A Sliver of Shadow Read Free Page A

casual chic to an entirely new level. Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, he cut a nice figure in the dim light, his long hair tied in a loose queue and a bit of hipster scruff on his chin setting off the strong jaw. Frankly, I found that the oddest thing about him, given that I’d always thought elves couldn’t actually grow facial hair, but I was hardly an expert.
    Besides, I liked it.
    The delicate points of his ears poked between the sable strands of his hair, silver hoops gleaming near the tips like tiny stars. He still retained the leather eye patch, though. My threats to glitter it up had been met with a slightly chilly smile, and in the end I’d decided to leave well enough alone.
    “Ah. I didn’t hear you come in.” I peered up at him. “Good trip?”
    “There is much to discuss, but I think it can wait until tomorrow.” He watched the baby, a strange expression ghosting over his face. “My sister wasn’t overly happy to hear about the wings, as you can imagine, but she’ll manage.”
    I grunted, not really sure I cared about anything other than getting back to my bed. Not at this hour, anyway. “When do you think the trial will wrap up?”
    He gently took Benjamin from me, cradling his nephew’s head with a careful hand. “Maurice is not being cooperative, as we suspected. His refusal to explain how he removed all that succubus blood is becoming most … vexing.” Talivar’s mouth compressed in a way that left little doubt that vexing probably wasn’t the word he was looking for, but it curved into a crooked smile a moment later as he shrugged at me.
    “I don’t think it’s the removal so much as what he did with it.” Although probably insane on some level, Maurice had somehow discovered a way to use the blood of succubi in the form of paint. Which sounds harmless enough—until he used it on Moira and myself, among others, to trap us in portraits made of our own nightmares.
    “No doubt. And Moira has given her testimony, but …” He hesitated. “Well, the truth is our mother is not doing as well as she might. Moira is keeping an eye on her.”
    “Translation: Things are fucked,” I quipped with a sigh. “I already know where this is going.” Visions of raising Benjamin to his college years filled me with a weary sort of resignation. “What are the chances I’ll be seeing Moira again before my Contract is up?”
    “Well enough, I’m thinking. The Queen won’t keep her there forever.”
    Easy for him to say. Maybe six years didn’t seem like much to a nearly ageless elf, but it might as well have been forever as far as I was concerned.
    “I still think we need to tell Robert. Benjamin is his son,and however uncomfortable that makes people, he should know. After all,” I said dryly, “who’s going to teach him to fly?”
    Talivar shifted Benjamin to his shoulder and shook his head. “We do not recognize paternal claims in Faerie, Abby. All lineages are drawn through the mother. By that logic, I’m actually more closely related to my nephew than Robert is.”
    “Yeah, I can tell, what with those wings and all. Still makes no damn sense.”
    “Yes, well, we’re a rather promiscuous bunch. We cannot trust our wives to be faithful, any more than our wives could trust us. At least this way I know my sister’s children are related to me. But my wife?” He shrugged at my raised brow, a wan smile on his lips. “My hypothetical wife, anyway. She could take a hundred lovers over the course of our marriage and I would have no right to gainsay her that.”
    “And that doesn’t bother you? Knowing that you have no real acknowledgement of your own children?”
    “Children are rare and precious to our kind. We tend not to look too closely at where they come from. Usually.” He looked down at the baby, his gaze distant. “And that, I think, is enough for one evening. Or morning, as the case may be,” he noted, glancing at the false dawn through the blinds. “I’ll tend to him