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...it's too bad bad you're not like the Suriel, spouting any information I want if I'm clever enough to snare you.'
For a moment, he blinked at me. Then his mouth twisted to the side and that metal eye whizzed and narrowed on me. 'I suppose you won't tell me what you want to know.'
'You have your secrets, and I have mine,' I said carefully. I couldn't tell whether he would try to convince me otherwise if I told him the truth. 'But if you were a Suriel,' I added with deliberate slowness, in case he hadn't caught my meaning, 'how, exactly, would I trap you?'
Lucien set down the knife and picked at his nails. For a moment, I wondered if he would tell me anything at all. Wondered if he would go right to Tamlin and tattle.
But then he said. 'I'd probably have a weakness for groves of young birch trees in the western woods, and freshly slaughtered chickens, and would probably be so greedy that I wouldn't notice the double-loop snare rigged around the grove to pin my legs in place.'
'Hmm,' I didn't dare ask why he had decided to be so accommodating. There was still a good chance he wouldn't mind seeing me dead, but I would risk it. 'I somehow prefer you as a High Fae.'
He smirked, but the amusement was short-lived. 'If I were insane and stupid enough to go after a Suriel, I'd also take a bow and quiver, and maybe a knife just like this one.' He sheathed the knife he'd cleaned and set it down on the edge of the table- an offering. 'And I'd be prepared to run like hell when I freed it- to the nearest running water, which they hate crossing.'
'But you're not insane, so you'll be here, safe and sound?'
'I'll be conveniently hunting on the grounds, and with my superior hearing, I might be feeling generous enough to listen if someone screams from the western woods. But it's a good thing I had no role in telling you to go out today, since Tam would eviscerate anyone who told you how to trap a Suriel; and it's a good thing I had planned to hunt anyway, because if anyone caught me helping you, there would be trouble of a whole other hell awaiting us. I hope your secrets are worth it.' He said it with his usual grin, but there was an edge to it- a warning I didn't miss.
Another riddle- and another bit of information. I said, 'It's a good thing that while you have superior hearing, I possess superior abilities to keep my mouth shut.'
He snorted as I took the knife from the table and turned to procure the bow from my room. 'I think I'm starting to like you- for a murdering human.
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))