More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Even in the dark, she wasn’t afraid of him, whether he wielded an axe or not. What she wondered was how anyone could ever be afraid of his soulful face.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The pace of Tin’s now-beating heart tugged him slowly from a deep sleep. His chest was raw and vulnerable over the unfamiliar organ. He hadn’t expected to regain a real heart—hadn’t wanted to—but he felt more alive than ever now. It returned to stone so long ago that he forgot how the steady rhythm flowed from head-to-toe.
His heart had never truly been lost to the curse. It was waiting. Waiting for Dorothy to return and break it open again. All it took was her touch, genuine and unafraid.
“Damn it!” Tin’s blood boiled at his negligence. At Dorothy’s utter disregard for her own safety.
Tin would have to fight for Dorothy. When Tin fought, he won, and he didn’t particularly want to slaughter Crow. At least not in front of Dorothy, when she clearly cared for him.
The thought soured his stomach. No. Whatever Dorothy did, however she hurt him, he wouldn’t give her to Lion or Langwidere. Any thought of doing so now was as silent as his chest had been yesterday morning.
Crow stared Tin in the eye, unfazed by the violence. “If Dorothy isn’t with you and she isn’t with me, it seems we share a problem.”
His heart was beating fast, urging him to calm down, and he wanted to rip it out and slam the bloody thing against a tree. He ignored it once more and instead slammed his axe into the nearest trunk. “Damn, stubborn woman!”
Her eyes widened. “Lion,” she whispered.
“I’ll go with you, but what about Crow?” Dorothy couldn’t forget about him. He’d already been without a working brain once. What if this Langwidere had already taken his head after he’d gotten here? She held the nausea stirring inside her back. “He’s already there.”
He would rather save Dorothy, even if it meant losing her to the mortal world again. Fuck. His. Heart.
“She’s not a mortal. And, for the record, my brain is perfectly intact because I took the time to nurture it. You let your heart harden, just as Lion let his courage deprive him of a real connection with anyone.”
Tin had heard how love was made of magic—perhaps Dorothy’s love broke through the stone walls of his heart. His breath caught. Love? What was he thinking? Dorothy didn’t love him, did she? No. How could she? He wasn’t worth something so pure and good. But there were different kinds of love, weren’t there? The love of friendship. Which sometimes turned into more over time.
Crow waved a dismissive hand through the air. “But you’re right. Fuck it. I see the way you’re worried about Dorothy, and my daughter deserves better than you.” Tin froze. His daughter? That was impossible.
What was he doing? Bringing Dorothy here? Taking Lion’s money for a job like this? He was every bit the monster everyone thought he was. No. He was worse.
“If he harms one hair on my daughter’s head, I’ll cut his off and shove it down Langwidere’s throat,” Crow vowed.
“And stay, you shall.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a smile she knew from Lion.
“Hold on,” Crow warned quietly, throwing an arm in front of Tin before he could storm the door. “It’s too quiet.” “I think what you mean is blissfully empty of Dorothy’s screams.”
If this was it and Crow killed him, at least he would’ve died with someone knowing the truth. “I didn’t want you or anyone else to take her from me. When she woke up, I planned on sending her home. Or letting her stay and protecting her. I don’t know, Crow. We didn’t get to discuss it because the next morning she was gone. But Langwidere wasn’t going to touch her, I swear it.”
“I see your heart has returned. But it doesn’t matter, Tin, because you’ve broken hers as much as you’ve broken my trust.”
“You’re not going to kill me?” Tin wiped the blood trickling from his cut lip. “I deserve it.” “Oh, you will die,” Crow promised. “But first you’re going to fix this. You’re going to use that cruelty of yours and thirst for blood to save my daughter, then you’re going to tell her the truth. After, Dorothy will decide your fate.”
Ah, he thought. There’s an emotion I remember. The shattering pain in his chest could be nothing other than heartbreak.
When they found Dorothy, when Lion and Langwidere were dead and Dorothy heard of his betrayal, he hoped she would be the one to end his suffering. Though perhaps letting him live would be the harsher punishment.
“Locasta wasn’t lying. She spoke the truth about you,” And instead of coming after her with his sword, the coward took off running in the opposite direction.
“It looks as though you’ll be the one losing your head,” she spat. “Not me.”
Tin’s breath caught in his throat. Dorothy? It couldn’t be. She looked so different … so fae. If she was beautiful before, she was strikingly gorgeous now.
“If it’s my head you want,” he rasped, “it’s yours. I won’t fight you.”
Confusion flickered through Dorothy’s expression. “What?” “It’s no less than I deserve.” Tin lifted his chin to give her better access. When she didn’t move to strike, he closed a hand around hers, on the handle of the machete, pressing the blade deeper into his skin. A trickle of warm blood leaked down his throat. “Go on.” Dorothy launched herself off him with heavy breaths. “What is wrong with you?”
Tin wanted to tell her that he wasn’t—not anymore. That he could feel his heart beating in his chest again, and all the emotions that went along with it, but it didn’t matter. He’d messed up. “I wasn’t going to let Lion take you, not anymore,” he said quietly. “Please believe me.” “Believe you?” Dorothy laughed bitterly. “I was the only one who trusted you, but I see now it was foolish of me to do so.”
Tin wasn’t sure he could change. Bloodlust was ingrained in him now, but he could continue fighting it. And if Dorothy could find it in herself to forgive him, maybe he wasn’t a lost cause.
“No, sweetheart.” Crow paused and fidgeted with the ropes hanging down his chest. “You’re fae. A changeling who was glamoured to live among humans.”
“You’re my father?” Dorothy asked in a hoarse whisper. Crow nodded, his throat bobbing. Had the bastard been planning on keeping it a secret? Too bad. “You were taken from your mother and I. Once the Wizard corrected my brain and I remembered, it felt wrong to keep you here. You were safer there with the family you’d been given to.”
Dorothy would unquestionably ask him not to kill Lion, and he wasn’t ready to let her down again so soon.
“Our priority is keeping you safe.” Dorothy adjusted the machete on her back. She hadn’t once looked at Tin—it was as though he wasn’t even there. “If that’s true—” The way she spoke was an accusation of a lie, and Tin dropped his gaze. “—then you’ll follow me to Glinda’s, because I’m going.”
He would make this up to Dorothy. First by killing Lion and Langwidere; then, he suspected, by exiting her life forever.
Maybe all of them were, Lion included. Was that what led to their individual demises? The need for a sense of belonging like the four of them had while traveling together? None of them appeared to have found it again until, perhaps, now.
From the other side of the door, Dorothy sniffled. Tin leaned up on his elbows and listened harder. Was she … crying? Shit. He’d had his heart back for all of one day. The instinct to cheer her up warred with his usual response to emotions: ignoring them. Easing to his feet, eyes glued on Crow, he cursed himself. It seemed he couldn’t help trying, but he braced himself for her instant rejection. And then there was the fight he would have with Crow when her screams woke him. With a sigh, he slipped quietly into the room. “Dorothy?”
Tin winced at the anger in her words. “I wasn’t going to give you to Lion.” “Liar.” He was a liar. When he’d opened that portal and dragged Dorothy back to Oz, he’d had every intention of delivering her for a huge sum. “I was but I changed my mind once I spent time with you.” Dorothy grunted. “I don’t trust you.” “I know,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry, Dorothy. But I’m different now.” Dorothy laughed bitterly. “You’re so full of shit.” Tin took her hand and pressed it over his heart. Then he waited. Waited for her to feel it, to understand what it meant. “Your heart,” she whispered, her eyes full of wonder. “It’s beating. How?” He exhaled a laugh. “It seems you’ve broken my curse.”
“You still believed in me when no one else in this wretched land would. Because you cared about me, because you didn’t give up despite everything, your compassion helped to break my heart from its stone prison.”
“It’s yours,” he vowed. “You resurrected my heart when I thought it was gone forever, so its fate is yours. Rip it out and burn it to ash if that makes you happy. But know this: no matter how long you allow me to keep it, I will cherish this gift and use it to protect you.”
Instead of pushing him away as he expected, Dorothy set her head on his chest and snuggled against his side with a contented sigh. She tucked a hand beneath her chin, right over the powerful thump, thump, thump of his heart. “Don’t think this means I forgive you.”
Her father. He was her father… She was still confused, with too many questions and not enough answers. But even when he hadn’t remembered her, when she’d just met him, there had been something between them. He’d held her hand when she’d missed her family. She’d felt closer to him than anyone. And now she understood why.
After everything, she was still angry, and he wasn’t forgiven. But, perhaps he eventually could be. Dorothy was good with forgiveness—Aunt Em had taught her that.
“Have you been controlled before?” He shook his head. “No one knows my true name except for me, but I’ve seen it happen to others.”
Tin blew out a huff of air and groaned, as if he was struggling with himself whether to speak or not. “When you went back to Kansas, I truly smiled for the first time. Not because I was given my heart, but because I knew you would go on to do great things. Your heart was always good, selfless and kind. It still is. And now that you’re back, you’re someone new, different. It’s like we’re meeting for the first time, you know?”
“I know I’m getting too fucking deep here,” he said. “But if I tell you my name, would you forgive me?”
“No. It’s just, if you can control me, then you can order me not to harm you. You’ll never have to worry about—” Dorothy’s eyes widened and she flung her body forward, pressing her hand to his lips and straddling his hips. “I trust you.” She threw the words out and smiled. “I forgive you. But if you betray my trust again, my machete will be put to use, just as your axe has been.”
Tin wrapped his strong arms around her and leaned forward. The words came out in a rush as he whispered them at her ear, his breath tickling her flesh. “Tarragontin Aodh Greenbriar.”
But he was fast, and he gripped her wrists, smiling. Smiling. And even in the dark, she could see that frustrating smile, the same one he’d given her before she’d left the Land of Oz. He’d believed in her then, and he believed in her now.
