THE HEIR THE FAE FORGOT

BOOK TWO: A COURT OF THIEVES AND TRAITORS

ANALEIGH FORD     EDEN BECK     SABRINA THATCHER

The Heir The Fae Forgot by Eden Beck and Sabrina Thatcher

© 2022 Eden Beck and Sabrina Thatcher

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of including brief passages for use in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For permissions contact:

authoredenbeck@gmail.com

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

A Note From The Author

Also by Analeigh Ford

Also By Analeigh Ford Writing As Eden Beck

Also by Sabrina Thatcher

CHAPTER ONE

ALL MY LIFE the Wildness had called to me, and now it had finally gotten what it wanted.

The Wildness held me in its grasp, and I had a feeling it had no intention of ever letting me go.

In one instant, the moment the fae Shiel, the Lord of the Western Court, stumbled upon me in my home village, my life was forever changed. It was more than the sweeping return of the glamour that rocked back through the human realm in that moment, it was the fact that he’d recognized me as something I’d never dared dream was possible.

He’d recognized me as fae.

And he wasn’t the only one.

While he and his men were busy determining how they might save me from the humans I’d been entrusted to, humans who—while masquerading as my own flesh and blood—had abused and tormented me, another fae found me too.

Another lord.

One who now strode before us, his massive black wings gleaming in the dark behind him as he guided us all towards a new uncertain fate.

Icarus, the Lord of the Wildness, had gotten his claws in me before I knew how dangerous that could be. He’d called us bound together, our destinies now irrevocably entwined. I felt it now, not like the ebbing river that had drawn us closer together, but like the ever-spinning silk of a spider’s web—fragile at first, but growing stronger with each passing second.

I couldn’t imagine the others felt this, too.

Otherwise Shiel, my captor as much as my rescuer, wouldn’t be leading us so steadfastly towards the doom now surely awaiting us. I had to ignore my own instincts screaming at me to run or hide, because where would I run? Where would I hide?

I was in Icarus’ domain now, a domain even he claimed he no longer had full control over. It was a place that wanted me dead as much as the fae lords and human rebels outside it.

I hated it, but the only safe place was to stay closest to the fae that needed me—for whatever purpose that may be.

With Icarus’ messenger crows departed, a heavy silence blanketed the forest as he led us further into his Wildness. The trees, their trunks and limbs made of a bark contorted to form many anguished faces looking out at us, twisted as if to let them watch us pass. The crackle of their warping wood sent a shiver down my spine, my stomach clenching at the reminder of those countless eyeless faces looking on.

The air was thick, heavy with more than just the quiet broken only by our horses panting beneath it, their eyes rolling in their sockets as they made soft, frightened noises at the trees observing our pilgrimage. Slowly, the trees began to thicken, growing closer and closer together until it was impossible to see the space between them. We stopped before one larger than all the rest, so large it had to have been more than one tree grown together, but it was impossible to tell where one tree ended and the next began.

Before I had the chance to figure it out, the tree sensed Icarus’ approach.

We all felt it the moment it did.

Something rustled first through the trees forming the tight canopy overhead, but then I felt it underground. I heard it, too.

It was almost like the rushing of blood, an energy flowing from the Wildness towards the tree that began writhing before us. The twisted, curling trunk shifted and groaned until it began to split down the middle, not revealing the tender inners of a tree, but rather unfolding more and more trunk until a doorway formed—not to the forest beyond, but to a narrow, dark stairway formed by roots leading down into the ground.

It was just wide enough for us to enter one at a time.

A hint of light glowed at the very far end of the tree’s tunnel, just enough to convince Shiel and the others, it seemed, that Icarus wasn’t about to lead us into the very pits of hell—or wherever fae believed a dark lord like he might reside.

I alone wasn’t entirely convinced.

And still, I had no choice but to follow.

Ahead, I might find death. Behind me, alone in the Wildness, it was imminent.

Shiel stepped towards the door as if to plunge straight inside in a show of confidence, only for Icarus to reach out a hand to stop him. Neither of them spoke right away. They just stood like that with Icarus’ clawed hand barring the Lord of the Western Court from his court. Their eyes met and a long moment passed as something unspoken passed between them.

Another shiver raced down my spine as I remembered something Icarus had told me those first times we’d met.

He’d claimed to be able to read my mind—or, if not my mind, then at least to know my thoughts when I was here in his forest. I’d never considered that this might be a trait of all the lords. Had Shiel been able to read my thoughts, too? Had he used that ability against me too? Used it to manipulate me into trusting him, however briefly?

The closest we’d ever been to his own court was that day we met in the village. Had he manipulated my thoughts then?

Bile rose in the back of my throat as the silence stretched out between Icarus and Shiel.

Here, I’d only been worried about how much of my interaction with Lord Icarus was in my mind…when I should have been worried about all of it.

Worried about every interaction with every one of them.

At long last, something flickered across Shiel’s face, something almost like the slightest bit of surprise, and he took a half step back. That was the only invitation Icarus needed.

He seemed to grow taller, his shoulders pulled back and his wings tugging their pointed peaks slightly higher over his head.

“My ravens have prepared the way. You will find a safe welcome in my court. I will follow to close the path behind us—and to ensure my Wildness doesn’t get any ideas.” His dark eyes lifted to search the ever-tightening canopy closing in over us. “She can be a tricky mistress.”

Shiel shared a look with his two men, his eyes still conspicuously avoiding mine.

Only then did he take the lead, his hand on the reigns of his mare with Finch following close behind with the second. Zev alone remained behind with me and Icarus.

“Don’t worry, Prin—”

He caught himself only at the last second, his words tumbling over each other as he realized what he was doing. “—Arra,” he corrected, shame coloring his cheeks. “You’re safe. So long as you’re with us, Icarus won’t dare try anything.”

Zev reached out to me as if to offer a reassuring hand, but I stumbled back, out of his reach.

“It’s not Icarus I’m worried about,” I hissed, much to both of their surprise.

Zev went to argue, but then I felt another arm reach for me, this one snaking around my waist, pulling me tight to the Lord of the Wildness’ side. Even Zev, the tallest of the three Western Court fae, had to tilt his head up to look into the dark fae’s face.

“You heard the lady,” Icarus said, voice as smooth as honey. “Go on ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”

Once more, Zev’s hand had gone instinctively to the hilt of his sword. The moment his hand wrapped around the weapon, the trees reacted too. Their trunks came alive, the faces opening their mouths and letting out an unearthly, whistling screech. The tunnel leading into Icarus’ court began to writhe, the doorway shrinking as the tunnel of roots and earth shuddered with a deep, undulating bellow that began to roll out from deep within.

The corner of Icarus’ mouth turned up in a snarl. His hand pulled me tighter until his claws dug through my shift and pressed painfully into my ribs.

I sucked in a breath, but it went unnoticed amidst the chorus of unearthly voices reverberating around us.

Zev and Icarus’ gaze remained locked together this time.

“Unless you want that tunnel to squeeze closed around your friends before they have a chance to reach the safety of the other side, I recommend you let go of your blade.”

I could tell it pained Zev to follow his orders. His hand released the blade, but it hovered over it a moment longer, his face twisting as if the space between him and the steel physically pained him.

But then he met my gaze instead, and his face softened. There was confusion there as he struggled to understand the choice I was making.

I offered no explanation.

He was Shiel’s man. I couldn’t trust him not to share anything I told him with his master, and in turn, his master would use whatever Zev told him against me. Use it to get me back on his side.

Still, knowing that did nothing to stop the stab of pain that shot through my chest at the sight of his face before he left me and Icarus alone at the edge of his court.

The trees had stopped their screeching, the tunnel had stopped wringing itself shut.

In their place, in the silence that fell inside my own head, I couldn’t help but remember the tenderness with which Zev had once treated my wounds. I couldn’t stop remembering the way he’d saved me from Icarus’ Wildness, how without him I wouldn’t have even made it this far. I remembered the feel of the needle I’d used to ink my own name—my name, the beautiful shape of it never known to me before that moment—onto his skin.

Surely, that hadn’t been all show, too. Surely, that all couldn’t have been a part of some plan to manipulate me onto their side so they could use me.

Could it?

I shivered beneath the shadows of the trees.

As if that had reminded Icarus, I felt his claws suddenly retract.

“I’m sorry, My Storm,” he whispered as his hands brushed more gently over the place where those claws had dug into me, “sometimes I forget my own strength.”

A warmth spread over my side until the prickling pain faded, replaced with that lingering warmth in its place.

I tilted my head up to look him in the eyes, then.

Here, alone in the Wildness together again, I saw in him what I’d been searching for. He’d allowed a hint of it to show before, but now that the other fae were gone, I watched as he let down the rest of his guard.

Or maybe I was the one letting down my guard.

Together, we watched as Zev’s figure disappeared into the darkness leading into Icarus’ court. Once he was gone, Icarus ducked his head to press his lips close to the back of my ear to speak. The touch of him was electric, every place where our bodies brushed together, however faintly, lighting up.

“Looks like fate has once again brought us together, Aurra, My Storm,” he said, his hand reaching up to brush a matted strand of hair away from my face. “Now, let us see if we can free ourselves of this darkness at last, together.”

He took my hand in his, and together we descended into the depths of his Wildness.

CHAPTER TWO

I HAD no idea what Icarus meant when he spoke of this darkness. Twice now, he’d claimed to be trapped in a cage of his own. Twice now he’d blamed fate for drawing us together, when each time it had been his own Wildness that had truly called. Twice now he’d said we could be freed, together.

But from what?

I was already free of the life I’d once been condemned to. As far as I knew, I was free.

Why then did the words of the dark fae resonate with me so?

It was because he was right, of course. I wasn’t free. Not really. Not yet.

Not until, I was reminded as I emerged into the dim light on the other side of the underground tunnel and laid eyes on the three fae waiting for me on the other side, I was free of them. Not until I was free of all the fae who would lie and use me, would I truly be free.

I needed power to be free of them, and right now, I had none.

Icarus made no move to touch me in front of Shiel and the others, though I had no doubt it had nothing to do with any concern for their rection, but rather, to protect me—and the secret that we now shared. It was better if Shiel didn’t know Icarus and I had met before, let alone of the bond we’d shared. As much as I didn’t fully understand all that Icarus claimed, I knew he was right about that, at least.

He knew me in a way that no one else did. He’d awakened something in me that I couldn’t deny—even if it was his Wildness that had awakened it, and not quite himself.

But the dark fae didn’t need to touch me again for Shiel’s eyes the flash as we stepped through the doorway and out into the Wildness court. He looked over us too closely, his jaw set and his lips pressing tighter together as whatever he found displeased him.

The horses were the only creatures to voice their dissatisfaction. They tossed their manes and their eyes rolled upwards again, their feet pawing at the soft grass beneath our feet as they took in this strange new world.

And strange it was, indeed.

Far overhead, the trees formed a tighter canopy than before, their leaves making up for the lack of sky and the bright twinkle of fireflies for the lack of stars. The court delved deeper and deeper beneath this canopy of living stars. The court sprang from the earth with a polished glitter, not unlike the gleam of Icarus’ wings. It was a wild place, still, but it had been tamed.

Overhead, magnificent platforms had been built between trees that welcomed them by growing their branches into intricate, connecting bridges. Even from where I just stood now, I could make out great glass panes of something that looked like a cathedral, another a dining hall, and then higher up still, smaller platforms glowing with soft light from within as figures passed by, busy with court business.

Below, a deep ravine wound further beneath the canopy. Market stalls carved from beneath the roots of the trees promised peculiar goods, their purveyor’s voices just starting to ring out as the market opened for the day. The court was larger than seemed possible, stretching out of sight between the maze of massive trees growing like pillars from the earth below.

Servants of a kind I’d never seen before were waiting to take the horses, leading them away to be stabled as more of them came to peer out at us as we walked by. They stared unblinking with large, round eyes and sunken faces, their willowy bodies too tall to be human but too spindly to be fae. There was something almost insect-like about them, their fingers long and bony, their eyes fully black and glassy when they met mine.

They were the kind of creatures that would terrify me had I met them anywhere else. But here, they didn’t dare to come close, only watched as their master led us towards the largest of the trees and the staircase that wound around it.

Theirs weren’t the only faces that watched with curiosity as we were led up into the trees along a narrow, winding staircase.

Fae that shared the same blue-tinged skin and dark hair as Icarus stopped their tasks as we passed, their eyes watching us a little too carefully. It was clear that we were the curiosity here, fae of other courts not often wandering so deep into the Wildness that they were actually invited into its court.

I watched them with the same interest as I struggled to work out the hierarchy of a fae court such as this. Aside from the merchants I’d briefly glimpsed, the fae that resided here seemed to take on other very human-like roles. I saw a female pause where she led what must have been a fae cow by its lead, the bucket of milk under one arm swinging, forgotten, as droplets scattered across the ground. Wherever the droplets of milk landed, small white flowers sprung up to devour it before wilting and shriveling—returning just as quickly to the earth from whence they’d come.

Above us, in the open windows of the intricate buildings set into the trees, more faces peered down. These faces were painted, dark makeup highlighting eyes made to look even bigger against that distinctive pale skin. Their hair was woven into intricate patterns to resemble horns, their cloaks long and fluttering like dark wings. Despite that, only Icarus himself seemed to actually have either.

His court only mimicked him, their equally strange beauty merely a shadow compared to the real thing.

My calves already ached by the time we reached the top of the stairs. A platform stretched between two of the largest trees, forming a sort of long, narrow balcony looking down on the lowest layer of the court. Above us, many more platforms filled the space between the ground and the firefly sky. The trees themselves had woven together to form the ground we walked on, but intricate artwork made of every shade of black and gold glass—or perhaps even gemstones—had been laid out in intricate mosaics for us to walk on. They depicted dark scenes of the Wildness, of great creatures with glowing eyes and of withered vines reaching out like gnarled hands.

The same magic of the Wildness emanated from the mosaics, as if it had been trapped inside the pieces they were made from.

Lights were set along the bannisters of the stairs and the edges of the platforms, glass-paned lanterns that flickered every color from within. More of these light hung in the air, bobbing along untethered overhead as they floated lazily along an unseen breeze. They made the entire court glitter, illuminating shadows that would otherwise have been threatening and turning them into a mesmerizing sort of dance.

Finch stood slack jawed as he took in the unexpected wonder of Icarus’ world. At his size, Zev had finally seemed to forget the hilt of his sword, that hand instead preoccupied with trying to touch one of the floating lanterns that seemed always to flit just out of reach.

Even Shiel couldn’t hide the intrigue from his own expression. Try as he might, I saw the way his gaze wandered from the fae he should have been keeping a close watch on, drawn instead to the countless unexpected sources of beauty in this dark new place.

“There will be an official welcome at noon tomorrow, where I will introduce you to the members of my private council,” Icarus said, at long last breaking the spell that had fallen over each of his new visitors—myself included. He stood now between the four of us, but he wasn’t alone.

Four of the insect-like creatures now stood in a semi-circle behind him, each one carrying a basket nearly the size of the creatures themselves.

“My servants will lead you to a guest room you can share, since I’m sure you’ll wish to remain together. Most of my visitors—few as they may be—often prefer this arrangement.”

“Your consideration is most welcome,” Shiel said, his voice still guarded. “But forgive me for asking—will any of your guard be assigned to us?”

“My guard?”

“It’s customary when a dignitary from another court arrives,” Shiel continued, either ignoring the danger flashing in Icarus’ eyes, or was too preoccupied to see it for himself. “Not all your subjects may be as welcome to our presence as you are.”

Icarus cocked his head as he looked over Shiel, reading him. “You have no need of my guard. You will not be bothered by the fae here. They’ve been instructed not to approach you without my express permission.”

“Surely—”

“Surely,” Icarus cut him off, “that will be sufficient. I don’t know how the other courts conduct themselves, but in mine, anything other than exact obedience is considered sedition. As I promised before, as long as you remain under my protection, you will find no danger here.”

Once again, I wondered if Shiel noticed the threat buried within the dark fae’s promise.

But once again, all he did was offer a stiff nod in thanks.

Still, I saw the way Shiel watched the servants standing behind Icarus closely, his eyes refusing to leave them. I couldn’t blame him. I was fighting a crawling sensation at the back of my own neck at the sight of them, at how they watched us back with an uncanny shrewdness.

They were not fae, after all. I didn’t need to be coached on what exactly they were to know that.

“I have my own business I must return to,” Icarus said, his arm sweeping out, a gesture that prompted the four servants behind him to scuttle out and around to stand behind each of us instead of him. They moved far too quickly and too unhuman. The baskets in their arms did nothing to weigh them down despite their size. “Unless there is some other pressing matter you must bring up with me, I’ll leave you to settle in.”

He’d barely turned, those great wings of his shimmering beneath the glow of the lanterns, before my own voice froze him in his tracks.

“Wait!”

He stopped and slowly turned to me, a question in his eyes.

I glanced once at Shiel, and then at Zev and Finch. They stood awkwardly beside the servants trying to prod them in the opposite direction, their hands once again remembering the swords strapped to their sides.

“I wish to have my own quarters.”

The question in Icarus’ eyes deepened—even as Shiel’s own darkened.

“You wish to be housed separately from the Western Court?”

I fought down the guilt that rose up in me when I saw Zev and Finch’s confusion. They were a part of this as much as Shiel, I reminded myself. They were his men, they merely obeyed his orders, sure, but at the end of the day, they were just as responsible for his deceit.

I turned my back to them to face Icarus and nodded once, hoping I looked more sure than I felt.

It was dangerous, I knew, to face this new court on my own. But better to face danger than to have it wheedle up inside me, watching me, waiting for its opportunity to strike when I once again found myself vulnerable.

“Very well,” Icarus said, and with another wave of his arm, the servant closest to me began nudging me towards another path.

Shiel, it seemed, was not so quick to welcome this idea.

He glared at me, jaw working. “This is ridiculous. Aurra will stay with me and my men.”

Icarus let out a long, tired sigh as he turned again to the golden-haired lord. “Is Aurra a member of your court, Lord Shiel?” he asked, that same tiredness now seeping into his voice.

“I don’t know yet, but—”

“But then, what, Lord Shiel? Are you telling me now that it’s customary for other courts to command fae they don’t know to be theirs?”

Shiel floundered for words for a moment before finally straightening himself up. His momentary outburst disappeared behind a stoic, unyielding mask.

“Of course not.”

“Well then,” Icarus said, “I see no reason not to accommodate Aurra’s request. You can, of course, visit her—should the invitation be offered.”

“Invitation? I need an invitation now to visit her? I brought her here.”

“Regardless of how she came to be here, as a guest of my court, my protection applies to her as well…even that means I need to protect her from you.”

Icarus didn’t remain long enough to see the fury that broke through Shiel’s careful mask. He was gone, as he so often was, before I even had the chance to see where he’d gone.

A slight shiver raced down my spine.

He was more than master of this court, he was this court. There was no denying the way he melded into it like the very trees that swayed overhead.

The servants, now tasked with leading us to our quarters, nudged us again, impatience creasing their otherwise inhuman faces. It didn’t look right, the way the emotion tugged at their features.

Shiel, of course, ignored the way they urged him along with Zev and Finch. He strode up to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me close to whisper in the slight space between us.

My heart raced, the memory of the last time he held me soured in the hours that had passed.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I pulled free of him, but didn’t do him the honor of stepping back. I had no reason to fear him. Not here, not now, not with the way I felt Icarus’ presence still lingering, wrapping around me even in his absence.

“I should be asking you the same, Lord Shiel,” I hissed back. Only then did I step away, letting the cold air sweep in to replace the heat that burned between us.

He licked his lips, his square jaw once again clenching as he struggled to hold back whatever it was he wished to spit back out at me. But then he stopped, his breaths evened, and he seemed to once again remember where he was. Who he was.

“Just promise me, then,” he said, “promise me you’ll be careful. Stay away from Icarus, for my sake. He can’t be trusted.”

“Trust?” I let out a guffaw. “You’re one to speak of trust.”

It was my turn to measure him up. “No,” I said, the word hitting him like a brick aimed squarely at the middle of his chest. It was so unexpected that he actually stumbled back half a step as he struggled to register it. “No,” I repeated again, “I’ll make no such promise.”

I left him there, like that.

And this time, I felt no guilt at the look of betrayal on his face.

CHAPTER THREE

TRUE TO ICARUS’ word, I was safe in the guest room he sent me to—even from the fae who’d first rescued me.

I’d been led by the impatient creature of a servant into the highest reaches of the dark fae’s forest domain, up until that leafy canopy was nearly close enough for me to reach out and brush my fingers against. The rest of the court wound down below me, the streets disappearing beneath wide-leafed trees shading the darkest recesses lit only by the tiny tinkling lights and the glow of far-off mushrooms.

It was impossible to tell how large the court actually was, since it spread up as well as out. It was, I supposed, akin to a kind of fortress, a castle made of trees and roots instead of stone and mortar.

And also like a fortress, no matter how Shiel tried, he was unable to force his way in.

It wasn’t long after the door to my rooms had shut behind the servant at my side before his footsteps broke the silence behind us. I’d not even had time to sit on the edge of the bed, let alone explore the full suite of rooms, before his fist was beating on the door, calling out my name as he demanded to be let in.

The servant set her—I only assumed it was a she based off the softer features of her face compared to some of the other’s I’d seen—basket on the ground and looked slowly toward the door. She lifted two fingers, as if preparing to snap them.

“Should I silence him?”

Her question caught me off guard.

It was the first time I’d heard one of them speak. I considered what she said, my eyes lingering on the fingers set at the ready. I supposed she mean to use some kind of magic, and though I was interested to see it firsthand, I ultimately shook my head.

“No,” I said, raising my voice loud enough that I was sure Shiel would overhead. “Let him shout himself hoarse.”

The flurry of muttered swears on the other side of the door reassured me that he had, in fact, heard me.

Though Shiel continued his attempts, no matter how much he rattled the door or shook the ceiling with his shouts, there was no sign of any of it giving way. In fact, the tree seemed to pulse with every jolt, the walls and door pulsing with it, as if the tree was feeding it, strengthening it with every flurry of blows.

I let out a soft half sigh, half laugh, too low for Shiel to hear this time.

Little did the Lord of the Western Court know, the harder he tried to get to me, the more impossible it became.

“I too enjoy watching the fae make fools of themselves for love.”

My head snapped towards the servant, now standing over a tub slowly growing from the floor.

Once again, the creature’s words caught me off guard.

“It’s not love,” I spluttered, trying—and failing—to keep the rush of blood from coloring my cheeks. Once again, the memory of Shiel’s arms wrapped around me only the night before flooded my mind, unbidden. Like the door still strengthening beneath Shiel’s fist, the harder I tried to fight it off, the more impossible it too, became. “He only wants to use me,” I said, as if I could explain away the blush burning in my face. At least that truth seemed to finally cool the heat rising in me. I dropped my eyes to my feet, to the mud caking my calves and thighs and staining the tattered shift I’d borrowed from the woman I’d once called my mother. I’d forgotten, for a moment, how exposed I was.

No wonder all the creatures—fae and otherwise—had watched us so curiously when we arrived. We must have truly been a sight to behold. Three fae warriors half-dressed and one human-looking girl barefoot in a bloody, see-through shift.

“They all want to use me.”

A snap of the creature’s fingers once again drew my eye back to where she stood over the tub. The basin had finished sprouting from the winding vines and was now filled to the brim with water so hot the steam had already begun to fog up the glass of the window overlooking the court sprawling far below.

She waited, unmoving, until I finally understood what she meant for me to do. I fought the urge to hide from this strange creature and instead, made myself more vulnerable in front of her. I had to peel the shift away from where it clung to my body, a mixture of blood, mud, and sweat plastering it to my skin. I dropped it unceremoniously at my feet before climbing cautiously into the soapy water.

I had to fight the urge to let out a very inappropriate moan as the hot water rose to envelope me.

No sooner had I settled into the tub than the creature suddenly had a sponge in her hand, which she immediately drove straight into the depths of the water between my thighs.

I let out a small shriek and snatched the sponge from her with a speed I didn’t know I possessed. She gave me a puzzled look, as if I was the odd one for not wanting a clawed stranger poking around between my legs.

With nothing to occupy her otherwise, the creature returned to staring at me with her wide, unblinking eyes. “When you say they all try to use you, you speak of the lord of this court, too, do you not?”

The hair on the back of my neck rose again as I realized my mistake. My hands stopped working the sponge over my mud-caked legs and mouth dropped open, but before I could scramble together an apology, the creature’s mouth once again curled up in its imitation of a smile.

“No need to worry about your words reaching the lord’s ears, fae. Though we serve the master of this court, our allegiance lies only with ourselves.”

Relief washed through me, even as I reminded myself that she could be lying. Though, even as I thought it, I felt myself wanting to believe her. What motivation would she have for lying to me? I wasn’t about to confide my deepest secrets in her either way.

“Ourselves?”

The creature cocked her head at me. “I’ve never met a fae like you before. Are you sure you’re one of them?”

I glanced at the door where, I realized for the first time, the steady thud of Shiel’s fist against it had finally stopped. Part of me was surprised he gave up so easily—but then again, perhaps he finally noticed the door had already thickened to nearly twice the size it was before. Even Shiel knew when he was beaten, it seemed.

“I’m not sure of anything,” I admitted. “That’s why we’re here. To find out.”

Something inside the creature shrank back at that. She didn’t move physically, but it was as if some small light dimmed inside her eyes.

Her lips parted a small hiss issued out from between them. “You speak then…of the oracle?”

I froze at the sound of her voice.

The water seemed to chill around me, a shiver once again building at the base of my spine and running along me until even my shoulders shook.

“Is there…something wrong with the oracle?” I asked. I knew literally nothing of this so-called soothsayer that would be able to tell me who I was. I didn’t even know if it was an actual person, or a construct, or a spell, human, fae, creature…it was a complete mystery to me.

Her mouth twitched for a second before she answered. “The oracle is no friend of ours.”

“Ours?”

Once again, she ignored my question.

In fact, at the very suggestion of the oracle, she seemed to be finished with me entirely.

“Hot towels and a set of bedclothes are in the basket. Unless there is something else you desire of me, I have other duties to attend to.”

Somehow, I doubted that very much. I had a feeling her only duty was to me tonight, but the very last thing I was going to do was press her to stay—let alone accuse her of shirking Icarus’ orders.

She snapped her fingers once and the water, already darkened with mud from my body, was replaced once again with hot, fresh water. The scent of something deep and sweet like some flower just past the peak of its bloom rose to envelope me.

“Fair warning,” she said, before snapping her fingers once more to disappear, “the golden-haired lord is still outside your door.”

She was gone before I had a chance to respond.

My head snapped towards the door, but try as I might to listen for any sound of Shiel on the other side, I heard nothing.

My interaction with the servant creature had left me shaken, the shiver in my shoulders refusing to let up despite the new basin of steaming water. I hurriedly washed the rest of me, dunking my head under the water for just long enough to hope some of the tangles that had started to take up permanent residence on my scalp might start to soften.

I tried calling out to Shiel to let him know that I was aware of his continued presence, but there was no response. I hurriedly wrapped myself in a towel before creeping up to the door to press my ear against it.

“Shiel?” I asked again, starting to wonder if perhaps the servant had lied.

There was once again no response.

I hesitated only for a moment with my hand on the doorknob. There was no creature here to stop Shiel if he was simply waiting for his chance to barge in, but when one more attempt to call out to him came unanswered, I dared open it to peek outside.

The doorway was empty.

He’d gone after all.

I went to step out, only for my foot to land on something soft sprawled out across the door to my room.

I had to stifle a shriek as I leapt back, the towel nearly slipping off as my hands flew up to cover my mouth.

Shiel wasn’t gone, after all.

He’d simply fallen asleep, his body propped up against the doorframe as his head lolled to the side. His hand was wrapped around the handle of his sword, even in his sleep.

Exhaustion had claimed him so thoroughly that if it wasn’t for the slight rise and fall of his shoulders, I’d have thought he’d dropped dead.

I considered waking him, but thought better of it. Instead, I fetched another one of the hot towels and laid it carefully over him before once again bolting the door behind me.

I doubted there was anything Shiel could do to protect me if Icarus actually wished me harm, but I had to commend his dedication. He might only be protecting me because he needed me for his own purposes, but he was protecting me still.

And that had to mean something.

CHAPTER FOUR

A PROPER DRESS, instead of the flimsy lace and silk nightgown that had been provided me the night before, was hanging in the window, waiting for me when I awoke. It wasn’t the only thing, waiting for me, however.

A figure sat inside the window frame, one leg wedged up along the sill, the other dangling lazily along the wall. It took me a moment to blink away the dream that I’d been having, and another moment still to realize he was not just another part of it.

It sat up so quickly that I nearly fell straight back into the same deep unconsciousness that had taken hold of me the moment my head hit the pillow the night before. My hands flew up to clutch at the searing pain in my head, my own sleepy groan nearly drowning out the soft chuckle echoing from the figure still perched precariously across the room.

“Good morning, Princess. I was wondering if you planned to sleep through dinner, too…seeing as you’ve already missed lunch.”

Finch’s voice pulled me out of the last remnants of sleep.

I was suddenly aware of just how flimsy the nightgown was that I wore. My hands slipped down to cover my breasts, practically exposed beneath the thin silk.

“What are you doing here, Finch?” I snapped, immediately glancing at the door to check that it was still locked. It was.

Finch kicked out his foot absentmindedly.

“Oh, you know, just thought I’d come check on you and Shiel after he didn’t come home last night. Did you know he slept outside that door all night?”

“STILL PROBABLY OUT THERE, for all I know,” Finch said with a small shrug. He glanced out the window, the panes now cracked open just wide enough for a warm morning—or afternoon, if Finch was telling the truth—breeze to rustle his chin-length golden curls.

“Wouldn’t you know?” I asked, struggling to scoot to the edge of the bed while still keeping my chest covered. “He sent you, after all.”

“Shiel doesn’t know I’m here,” Finch admitted. “In fact, I’m under strict orders not to bother you.”

“And yet…you’re here.”

“I was curious. Can you really blame me?”

I pulled the blanket up a little tighter. “Actually, I can.”

Finch stuck out his bottom lip in a pout before he turned back to the window. He reached up to rap twice against one of the panes of glass.

“This whole place is a web of magical locks,” he said. “It’s like a maze to navigate, with one exception.”

His eyes sparkled when he glanced back at me. “Ravens. Ravens can get through all of them in here. So, imagine my delight when Zev let slip that he shifted into a bear. Compared to that, shifting into a raven was nothing.”

He snapped his fingers as if to demonstrate the ease, but the sound of it only made me flinch. I found myself glancing around the room for any sign of one of the Icarus’ strange servants.

“There’s only one problem, though,” Finch continued, a small groan escaping him as he shifted his awkward position perched along the narrow sill. “Now that I’m fae again, I can’t seem to get out of this damned window without your invitation. Would you mind very much?”

Finch’s beseeching look quickly fell when he found no sympathy in the one looking back at him.

“Why don’t you just turn into a raven again?”

He licked his lips. “Um, well, about that…”

He glanced down at himself, a shiver slowly building within him for a moment—only for nothing to happen.

He glanced back up at me, offering only a pitiful shrug. “I guess I’m stuck in the middle of one of those webs. Can’t get in, can’t shift. I’m at your mercy, Princess.”

I measured him up for a moment. “There’s two ways through a window, you know,” I said, pointing towards the glass propped open.

Finch’s face paled for a moment. “You’re not really saying…”

I raised one of my eyebrows in response.

“Please, Aurra,” he begged, a tiny bit of desperation seeping into his voice. “It’s a long way down.”

“You should have considered that before you broke into my bedroom,” I said. “Maybe if you hadn’t let me sleep through my official introduction, then I might have been more willing to forgive you, too.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I missed it too,” Finch said, gesturing down at his own precarious perch again.

I paused, halfway through finally standing now that I’d figured out how to wrap the blanket around me so it covered all the sensitive parts of me without too much danger of slipping.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

A slight blush rose in Finch’s cheeks.

“You looked so peaceful…”

I fixed him with a glare. “You tried, didn’t you?”

He let out an exasperated sigh and let his head fall back against the sill.

“No amount of shouting could wake you,” he admitted. “I’m honestly surprised no one came running to your aid. It must have sounded like a madman was in here with you.”

For a second, hope flickered across Finch’s face as I crossed the room toward him, only for it to die again as I snatched the dress from the window and turned away from him, towards the changing screen in the corner.

“Come now, Aurra,” he crooned, that desperation seeping into his voice again. “Let me in. How long are you going to force me to sit here? This sill is slowly splitting me in two, I’ll have you know.”

It was my turn to shoot him an exasperated look. “You know,” I said, “sometimes I wish I had glamour too, just so I could make you behave for once.”

Finch just waggled his eyebrows. “Lucky for me, then.”

Something about his expression finally got to me. I lost my patience then, wholly.

I returned his ridiculous expression with a glare.

“Well then, hopefully you can shift back into your raven form if you fall,” I said, tossing the dress onto the bed and striding right up to stand before him. “Can’t imagine that web you’re stuck in now reaches all the way to the ground.”

And with that, I let the blankets covering my modesty fall to the ground so I could plant both my arms on Finch’s shoulders and give him a single, firm shove out the window.

A momentary look of bliss flitted across Finch’s face before it was replaced by fear. My own heart seized for a moment as I leaned out the window to watch him fall, until—as I’d suspected—his form almost immediately shifted into a massive, cawing raven.

I made sure to shut and lock the window before he could swoop back up to tap angrily against the glass.

“Good luck getting through now, you bastard!” I called out to him, making sure he met my angry glare one last time before I tugged the curtains closed.

It wasn’t until he was gone, and my own momentary satisfaction began to wane, that the true nature of my situation started to settle in.

A swear dropped from my lips.

I’d slept through most of my entire first day here in Icarus’ court, missing the welcome that was supposed to introduce me to the most important members of the dark fae’s court. Had he sent for me, only for Shiel to send his messengers away? I was sure Shiel wouldn’t have deterred Icarus himself, had the lord been the one to come for me.

But knowing that didn’t make me feel any better.

It only meant that the dark fae hadn’t come for me himself, and though I had no right to expect him to…I found myself unable to shake a feeling of disappointment. Had he cared at all that I’d not been present? Had he even noticed?

Aside from the dress I now slipped over my shoulders, there were other signs that his servants had been attending me in my sleep. The tub was gone, the vines unwound and returned to the main part of the tree from whence they’d sprung. A cold basin of water sat on the vanity, different cosmetics laid out in front of the glass along with so many brushes and combs that their use was less of a suggestion than it was a demand.

Two trays were laid out for me, a breakfast of now-warm fruits and a lunch of now-cold soup, both left at the foot of my bed for the hour I chose to finally wake.

That also meant, I realized with a small sense of satisfaction again, that the servant had been all-too aware of Finch’s predicament stuck in the window and had made no move to free him.

I didn’t trust the creature that I’d been entrusted to, but it was awfully hard for me not to like her—at least a little bit.

Though my stomach rumbled, I had no appetite. I needed to find Icarus, to explain, to apologize. He’d been nothing but welcoming despite my initial reservations, and I’d immediately turned around and showed an utter disregard for his hospitality by sleeping through my own official welcome.

Whatever my thoughts were on the lord of this court, or his Wildness, I needed him now as much as he needed me.

If anyone was going to give me answers, it was going to be him. Or, at least that was what I hoped.

I knew I certainly wouldn’t be getting them from Shiel.

Any brief relief I felt when I opened the door after dressing and discovering Shiel had finally gone was almost immediately dashed a moment later when, no sooner had I stepped out and closed the door behind me, a second familiar shadow fell over me.

Zev waited for me, leaning against the stair rail just past my own door.

Try as I might to be finished with the Western Court and its men, it seemed the Western Court and its men weren’t finished with me.

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOU TOO?” I asked, arms folding across my chest.

I felt naked still, in the dress Icarus had provided me. It was made of a fabric similar to that inky shine of his wings, so thin it barely concealed a single curve of my body—now filling out thanks to the fae food I’d been scarfing down like I’d never eaten before.

Which in a way, I hadn’t.

I wanted to be cross with Zev too, but I couldn’t, not when his mouth dropped open at the sight of me, his eyes close to popping out of his skull in the moment before he forced himself to look away.

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he struggled to fixate his gaze somewhere—anywhere—else.

“You’re awake.”

“No thanks to you,” I snapped. “Or Finch, for that matter.”

“I don’t think a banshee could have woken you, Princess,” Zev said, only using the familiar pet name after he’d checked once over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening in.

“Yeah, well, now I have damage control to do. So, as much as I appreciate the ogling, I have a lord to find.”

“Shiel?”

I shot him a look that had his footsteps stumbling down after me. “You should stay away from the Lord of the Wildness, Aurra. He’s bad news. I know you don’t trust Shiel, but you really shouldn’t trust Icarus. Ask any fae of any court and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

Ask any human and they’ll say the same thing about any fae.

“I don’t need your help!” I called over my shoulder, even though I knew no matter how much I protested, there was nothing I could actually do to stop Zev or any of them from following at my heels.

“You can pretend I’m not here at all,” Zev said, almost knocking into me as I came to the bottom of the first flight of stairs.

“Yes, well,” I said, as I struggled to disentangle my trailing skirts from Zev’s feet now trampling all over them, “that might be easier if you weren’t the size of an orc and about as graceful as one.”

For a moment, I wondered if I’d finally gone too far.

Something like genuine hurt flickered across Zev’s face for a moment when I glanced back at him. Before I could even open my mouth to apologize, however, he succeeded in making me fully cross with him, too.

“You won’t find Icarus this way.”

I halted my steps then, and once more, it was all the giant fae could do to keep from slamming into me. I refused to look at him this time, refused to see those wide, innocent—or as innocent as a fae’s could be—eyes of his. I didn’t think I could stay angry with him if I did.

And I wanted to be angry.

Oh, how I relished the feeling.

I was tired of being ordered about. From the moment of my birth to my rescue to being dragged out here, to the Wildness I’d been avoiding so very hard, all I’d done was be told what I could and couldn’t do.

And I was tired of it.

“And why is that?” I snapped back, even as my own resolve to find the dark fae lord wavered a bit. I’d gone down several flights of stairs, the winding pathways weaving in and around trees like a maze of its own. I had no idea where I was. No idea where Icarus may be.

All the times before, he’d found me.

Now that I was here, in his very court, I had no idea where to find him. No idea, even, where to begin.

Zev and I weren’t alone in the treetops of his court. Other fae skirted by us, giving us a wide birth as their searching eyes lingered on us in the moments when they thought we weren’t looking. I could ask one of them, but did I want to? Would they even give me the answers I sought, or like all the other fae before them, would I be met with silence and half-truths?

Or better yet, more lies.

“He’s with his council.”

I did look at him then, if only to make sure he got a full view of the disbelief on my face. “And how do you know that?” I snapped back.

Zev shuffled his feet beneath him. “Some of us didn’t sleep the entire day away.”

I bit my tongue, feeling the sharp spike of anger ebb as quickly as it had come.

“And his council is?”

Zev was silent for a long moment before he admitted, “I don’t know.”

I swore beneath my breath.

“But what I do know,” Zev added, hastily, still several steps behind me. “I’ll be happy to share if you just let me join you.”

I considered this for just long enough to give him hope, it seemed.

His next response came out breathless, as if he’d sensed his chance and was rushing to take advantage. “There’s to be another council held tomorrow. A proper one. Icarus moved it when he heard you needed to rest. It was only me, Shiel, and Icarus today.”

“And what did you say?”

I felt Zev’s presence slipping up behind me. “You want to know?”

Though part of me longed to lean into Zev’s warmth, his familiarity, the larger part of me couldn’t forget who he was—or what he’d done.

“No,” I said, decidedly. “It doesn’t matter. Anything you say is probably going to be full of lies anyway.”

I heard the intake of breath as Zev prepared to defend himself, but I was already moving again. A new resolve had overtaken me.

There were other ways of learning what this new world had to offer than the lords and their lackeys were willing to tell me. If I was this so-called secret heir to the kingdom, then the last thing I needed was to rely on anyone other than myself.

Besides, if I really wanted to learn about this court and its secrets, then I knew exactly where to look.

THE SIGHT OF THE WILDNESS’ market, strange as it was, caused an even stranger sense of familiarity to wash over me. The winding streets, the stalls of wares, the hurried steps of merchants passing by with bundles slung over their shoulders—the sight of it brought with it a rush of that happiness I’d once shared with my sister, Ada.

But all those happy memories were tainted now.

Because this time, for the first time, I was at the market alone.

I’d been careful not to think too much of the sister I’d left behind. She wasn’t my blood, but that didn’t matter. She was my sister still, and I’d left her.

I’d left her.

I might not have had a choice, but that fact remained.

And it quickly soured any fleeting happiness the market had brought me.

I started along the narrow path between the stalls with heavier footsteps than the ones that had carried me down here. I focused on the wares spread out at the stalls to keep from thinking of the price I’d paid to be here, now. They were, at least, a more than adequate distraction.

Most of the stalls carried things I couldn’t begin to comprehend. There was searing meat and bubbling cauldrons, steaming mugs of something that had to be far sweeter than ale, if the looks of delight instead of grimaces that crossed the fae’s faces that tipped the glasses to their lips was any indicator.

Zev still trailed behind me, as close as he could without eliciting another tongue-lashing. I knew it was pointless to try and get him to leave me alone entirely. He was acting, once again, on Shiel’s orders—orders I’d long since learned neither he nor Finch would defy.

Not even when it meant betraying me.

Future queen or not, I knew where their loyalties lied. If it was the same for all the courts, then I didn’t much see the point of having a queen at all.

What was a queen, after all, without the loyalty of her subjects?

Shiel, it seemed, wasn’t the only fae who commanded a loyalty my own rank didn’t yet possess. I drew glances here too, but true to Icarus’s promise, that was the extent of his court’s assault. I was growing used to ignoring them, but couldn’t get used to the way their footsteps skirted mine to make a path for me wherever I walked. It was unnatural in the bustle of the market. Part of the draw of market day had always been the ability to disappear into those crowds, to forget for a moment who and what I was.

There was no forgetting that, here.

As loyal as Icarus’ subjects may have been, however, it seemed the promise of a little coin was still worth something. As I drew near to one of the shops built into the sprawling roots of one of the great, towering trees, one of the shop owners not only caught my eye, but started to wave me over.

I paused in my tracks, checking over my shoulder to see if the female fae was waving to someone else—but there was no one else.

That was when I saw my opportunity.

Zev had gotten stuck behind a cart. The driver had apparently been trying to swerve to the side to give him a wide berth, but in doing so, had gotten one of the wheels stuck and sent the small cart sprawling—barring the entire path for a moment.

And a moment was all I needed.

While Zev was distracted with trying to push his way past the cart, I slipped into the shop and hurried around the first few rows of shelves until I was sure Zev couldn’t see me. If I was lucky, by the time he figured out a way past the cart, he’d think I’d gone on ahead along the road.

It wasn’t until I’d slowed my steps and the fae female who’d waved me over was sheepishly sidling over to greet me that I took a moment to look around at the shop I’d entered. Dried herbs hung from the rafters and peeked out of bowls made from bleached-white skulls on shelves packed too tight with more oddities than I could name.

It looked something like an apothecary shop, but only in the loosest sense.

There was a counter at the back of the shop, and behind that were long glass containers filled with strange, glowing liquids. They bubbled as if heated from an unseen flame, and in front of them, along the counter itself, were small cauldrons from which dark steam crawled like the fingers of creatures trying to escape.

Or, perhaps, to beckon you in.

I was so engrossed in this that I’d nearly forgotten the fae that had waved me in, right up until her hands were suddenly reaching out to grasp my arm.

Her touch was gentle, however, and her expression closer to thinly-veiled excitement than it was any kind of malice. She looked at me the same way I looked at the curiosities of her shop.

“Welcome, welcome,” she whispered, her eyes darting towards the door as if she too was wary of watchful eyes. “I hope you don’t mind. I know we’re not supposed to bother you, but I couldn’t help myself.” Her eyes flitted over me in curiosity. “It’s been so long since I saw a human, I was starting to wonder if they’d been made up.”

I laughed aloud. “The humans think the same thing about fae,” I said, finding it surprisingly easy to talk to the female now gently leading me back towards small paper-wrapped packages lined along one of the shelves. “But sorry to disappoint you, I’m not actually a human, either.”

Her eyebrows raised when she looked back up at me. “I’ve never seen a fae like you before.”

“Well, you know,” I shrugged, “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

She stopped suddenly, her grip on my arm tightening just a little bit as that tiny spark of excitement in her eyes grew to something brighter.

“I have just the thing for that!”

“For being human?” I asked as she finally let me go to dash behind the counter. She disappeared behind it for a moment, the only sign of her now the words she muttered to herself as boxes scraped out of the way and small glass vials clinked between her searching hands.

She reappeared a moment later, holding something small and round in her hands. It was wrapped in cloth, but the weight of it was enough to make the muscles in her forearms strain.

“For not knowing.”

She motioned me to step closer to the counter.

I checked once behind me, and seeing no sign that Zev had followed me, I did as she asked.

“Lucky for you, the Wildness Court is renowned for this kind of magic,” she said, her voice low and secretive. “This here, in my hands, is the key to unlocking your fortune.”

“My…fortune?”

I’d seen enough wandering gypsies fleece my fake of a father over the years for her words to bring out a level of skepticism in me that I didn’t know I possessed.

“Your past, your present, your future…all of that. This here can give you answers.”

Her hands practically shook with excitement, but for the first time, it made me uneasy.

“Isn’t there some kind of Oracle here for that?”

Once again, the very mention of the Oracle brought something like a fit.

“Don’t you mention that creature here,” she hissed at me. Her eyes were wide still, but now in fear. She dropped the heavy, round object on the counter suddenly, her hands scrambling along the top of the counter for something she desperately needed even more.

While her hands were busy, a great glass ball rolled out from beneath the cover she’d placed over it, threatening to plunge over the edge of the counter and shatter on the hardened floor the roots had woven beneath my feet.

I reached for it on instinct, but the moment my hands touched the glass, I knew what a mistake I’d made.

All at once, I was no longer standing in the shop.

I stood in a void surrounded by nothing but thick, choking smoke. Somewhere, not too far off, I heard the sound of crackling fire. From between the clouds of smoke and ash, I caught glimpses of that orange fire’s glow. Heat radiated towards me, threatening to singe my hair and skin—if I had any body to speak of. I was weightless, drifting, nothing more than a specter here.

I needed no body to feel, however and I felt myself pulled towards that fire.

That need grew as the fire did too.

The orange and yellow tendrils of it climbed higher and higher, reaching up towards a sky obscured by smoke.

The more I ignored the call to draw near, the more I felt that need deepen and darken into something that tugged at my very soul. I was overwhelmed with a deep dream, the sensation that something terrible was going to happen if I didn’t go towards that fire, but without a body to answer the call, that demand only grew and grew until it consumed me.

It dragged me so deep into that bottomless, endless pit of dread that I feared I’d never crawl out of it.

Just as I was sure I was lost inside the vision, it finally chose to let me go.

I dropped the ball the moment I felt its hold loosen on me. It fell not to the floor, but straight into the waiting cloth-wrapped arms of the shopkeeper. She bundled it away in a flash, her eyes never leaving mine for a moment—not until she’d reached out once again and this time dug her long, curling claws deep into the flesh of my arm.

Gone was the friendly female that had beckoned me into her shop. She’d been replaced my something far more evil, something that now bared its teeth at me as it yanked me halfway across the counter between us.

“Pay up, now. You’ve gotten what you came for, fortune-seeker, now give me the gold.”

I blinked up at her in shock, surprise freezing me to the spot. Not that I could have pried myself free of her if I wanted to, it was all I could do to keep from crying out as her claws broke the surface of my skin and sank into me like hooks.

“I—I didn’t mean to—”

“You knew exactly what you were doing when you came into my shop,” she snapped at me. “They all do. They all think they can get a little looksie for free. Well, you want to know what I do to the fae that try and trick me? Do you?”

Despite the fact that I was furiously shaking my head, telling her that I did not in fact have any desire to know what she did to the fae that she tricked into taking part in her little charade, she was determined to show me. She dragged me along the edge of the counter, barely avoiding knocking over those dark fogging cauldrons as she did, to a curtain separating the front part of her shop from a back room. With one fluid, jerking motion, she used her free hand to pull it back—revealing the horrors beyond.

Row upon row of skulls—not even pretty white skulls, skulls in various states of decay.

Some at the very far back, looked like they still had skin and flesh attached.

I tried not to look at them, to see the fate this fae was trying to condemn me to, but I couldn’t avoid the smell.

“Didn’t anyone ever warn you not to mess with the dark fae of the forests?” she hissed at me again, grip tightening again as she started trying to pull me back behind the curtain with her. My heart thundered in my ears, drowning out any thought of escape. My mind had gone blank at the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh. I couldn’t even scream at the way her nails dug deeper, piercing now into muscle.

Then I saw the table laid out behind the rows of skulls, the implements already prepared and ready to remove my head from its proper place upon my shoulders, and I knew this had been no mere coincidence. She hadn’t intended to have me pay. She probably wouldn’t have even taken my money.

This was the very reason she’d called me in here.

And no one in the market had stopped her.

Not a single one.

I knew how they watched me, how their eyes never left me. They’d seen me answer this murderess’ call just as they’d watched countless others go before her.

So much for a loyal court.

I may not have had a court of my own yet, but it seemed there was still one fae in this world who’s loyalty to his own court meant he was still, in a way, loyal to me.

“One step more, and I will start a war this world will be unlikely to survive.”

Zev stood in the doorway, the sword he was always so ready to draw now held between fingers so tight, they’d begun to turn white.

The female only dug her fingers deeper, and this time, finally, a scream managed to claw up my throat as those claws of hers scraped bone.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed at Zev, sizing him up and finding no threat there.

Not, it seemed, until he moved with an unnatural speed so even she had no time to prepare. In a flash of silver, Zev was suddenly standing behind the female, his blade pressed to her throat.

He stood head and shoulders above her, his form a great looming shadow behind her willowy one. His head bent lower as his voice dropped too, his whisper somehow even more terrifying.

“Are you quite sure of that?”

The female bared her teeth as she let out another hiss, but her fingers finally let go of me.

I stumbled back, clutching at the arm now dripping red droplets onto the fine dark fabric of my gown.

Zev remained in his place a moment longer as he contemplated killing the fae anyway. I didn’t know much about politics in this new world, but I did know killing one of Icarus’ subjects was unlikely to spark friendly relations. Things were already strained enough between the courts, so as much as I might hope to put an end to any future traveler’s pain at this fae’s hands, I reached out my bloodied arm to rest my hand upon Zev’s shoulder.

The moment I touched him, the murder in his eyes softened. He let the female go with a final, angry hiss, before he led me from the shop, one hand clamped protectively on my shoulder now. I didn’t shrug him off until the market was far behind us, the sound of it disappearing into the quickly darkening night.

“That’s twice now,” Zev said, the moment I pulled away from him at last. “Twice that I’ve saved you, and you still can’t forgive me?”

I froze, one hand on the railing of the stairs I was about to climb. I shot Zev a look over my shoulder.

He stood several paces behind me now, his sword returned to his scabbard, and his hands now dangling listlessly at his sides. The adrenaline, now faded, had left him defeated in its wake. He looked up at me through the messy strands of his long hair, his braid having come half undone in the scuffle beneath the shop.

“Do you even know what it is you did, Zev?” I asked, hand wrapping around the railing to grip in a little tighter. “What it is you’re asking me to forgive?”

It was all I could do to keep him from seeing the way I shook, still. He wasn’t the only one who was still processing how close we’d come to death or war beneath the roots of the great trees towering over us.

“Honestly, Aurra, no,” Zev admitted, which was perhaps what surprised me the most. It was the closest thing to true honesty I’d gotten from the Western Court. “I understand you’re mad at Shiel, but even that…” He shook his head. “What was he supposed to do?”

“Telling me the truth would have been a good start,” I snapped back, immediately feeling guilty as I looked once more at his downcast face. I was angry, and I had every right to be, but Zev was right. He’d saved me now. Twice. That had to count for something. I forced my face to soften, pried my fingers up one by one from their vice-like grip on the railing as I took a deep, steadying breath.

“How did you even find me, back there?”

Zev paused a long moment before he answered. “You know the…the tattoo?”

I shot him a look, then. “You mean my name? The one you had me carve into you without telling me what it was?”

He nodded again, and for a moment, even in the dark, I thought I saw his cheeks flush. “I think…it created a sort of bond between us.”

“A bond?”

That blush deepened. “I could feel you,” he admitted. “I could feel your heart beating next to mine. I knew you were in danger, so I found you. I don’t know how I knew where to look…I just did.”

It was my turn for blood to rush to my cheeks.

I couldn’t look at him, not now that I knew he felt the moment my heart quickened at his words.

“I know you have to do as your lord commands you, Zev,” I said, more calmly this time. “I understand why Shiel lied to me, why all of you concealed the fact that he’s lord of your court. That doesn’t change the fact that you did lie to me. Whatever Shiel’s intentions with me, noble as they may be, they’re still skewed in favor of his own interests. How could they not be? The very fact that he’s protecting me means that he needs me alive for some gain of his own. Unless Shiel is ready to share what that is with me so I can make a fair judgement of my own, whether or not to trust him, and to decide if going along with him is also in my own best interest, then there’s no forgiveness to be had. I won’t be used against my will, Zev. Never again.”

He couldn’t argue with that, it seemed.

He just nodded once, his shoulders straightening as he resumed the silent role of my shadow that followed me up into the trees. I was grateful for the darkness that had fallen, because it meant that no one, Zev included, could see the tears I’d been unable to hold back.

I’d held my ground, but it didn’t exactly feel good. I was more shaken by the encounter with the fae in the shop than I was ready to admit to myself. I’d known the Wildness was a dangerous place, but I’d been promised safety—and like a fool, I’d believed myself immune to that danger. I couldn’t begin to think what would have happened if Zev wasn’t there to rescue me again.

I was a poor excuse for a fae, let alone one who was supposedly meant to inherit the crown of the entire kingdom. All I wanted was to forgive Zev long enough to let him wrap his arms around me once more, to forget for a night that the fae following me was sworn to another, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Whether or not I turned out to be the heir to this kingdom, if I intended to survive in it, I needed to learn how to take care of myself. I needed to figure out how to protect myself, and that started with protecting my heart.

CHAPTER SIX

MY HEART WAS, unfortunately, the most treacherous of organs.

It was a wonder that Zev didn’t find a way to barge into my rooms in the middle of the night from the way my heart raced at the nightmares that flooded my dreams. They were worse than the fever dream of the Wildness that once led me so far into its clutches. These dreams were the kind that held onto me well after sleep no longer claimed me, the kind that made me startle at the sight of the servant when she reappeared with a new dress for the new day, and then again when she returned with a steaming basket of pastries that I immediately wolfed down in an attempt to banish the last of the lingering nightmares.

There was to be no exploring the court today, not until I’d figured out how to protect myself from the fae still willing to stray from their lord’s orders.

Though…I soon learned…I doubted I’d have any more trouble with the court of the Wildness. Not once the rest of his court learned the lengths that their lord would go to deter any further deviation from his demands.

It wasn’t just one body that hung from the branches of the tree outside my door when I emerged, but seven. At first, I feared the worst, my heart stopping as I searched among the swinging bodies.

“Don’t worry,” Shiel’s voice said, from where he stood waiting for me on the platform half a level below. “You won’t find anyone you know among them.”

He was wrong about that, however. One of them I did recognize, the female strung up closest to my door, the long claws that had once dug into my arm now hanging lifeless at her side.

I’d never seen a body before.

They were like hollow shells of their former selves. Their skin had paled, that slight blue hue of the Wildness Court making them look more like mannequins than creatures that had, until recently, been very much alive.

“This was…”

“Icarus’ doing,” Shiel answered, his eyes still on the lightly swaying bodies as I half stumbled down the stairs towards him. Anything to get further away from them. His hand reached out to catch me, but he stopped a hair’s breadth away before we actually touched.

He withdrew then, uncertain, as he finally tore his eyes from Icarus’ message to look at me, instead.

“Zev told me about yesterday. Are you alright?”

“Of course, I’m alright,” I snapped, even though I felt anything but. “Clearly, the issue was dealt with. “

Still, I didn’t complain as Shiel followed me down the stairs at my side.

The eyes of the court that had once followed me now glanced away in fear, or anger, or hate, I wasn’t really sure. I supposed it didn’t really matter. If it hadn’t been clear enough already, it was clear now the fate that awaited anyone who dared defy the lord of this court.

All that remained to be seen was whether that fate also applied to all fae who fell out of Icarus’ favor, not just Wildness fae.

Before either of us could voice the thought I was sure we both shared, one of the insect-like servants appeared at my side, as if out of nowhere. This one was male—at least as far as I could tell—and from the finery he wore, clearly a higher ranking one than the servants that had been assigned to our bathing, dressing, and feeding.

He bowed low before both of us, those black eyes of his still watching us closely, as if to make sure we didn’t try to run at the sight of him, before he straightened up. “Come,” he said, offering out his hands. “Icarus and his court await.”

Both Shiel and I stared at his hands for a long moment, unsure if he meant for us to take them, or if it was one of those gestures that simply didn’t look right on these inhuman creatures.

I glanced once more over my shoulder at the swinging figures now barely visible overhead. It didn’t matter that I was no longer close enough to see the color of their lifeless, staring eyes. The sight of them still took hold of me, making my skin crawl and my stomach twist.

It should have made me wary of trusting anything to do with the Wildness court, but instead, it only made me reach out for the servant’s hand to take it.

I didn’t want to be the next fae swinging at the end of Icarus’ rope.

THERE WAS no end to the mystery of the court of the Wildness.

The moment Shiel had taken the servants hand, too, we’d simply appeared somewhere else. There was no moment in between, no travelling, not even the stir of a breeze. We were simply on the stairs outside of my room one moment, and the next, we were here, in the very midst of Icarus’ courtroom.

This place where the fae of the Wildness held court was a room that had been built—or rather, grown—to look like it was in the deepest parts of his forest. The outer edges of the room encircled us in what I was able to quickly guess was the inside of the one of the great trees that grew through the center of the court. Smaller trees sprouted between the throne and the outer walls, more seats and hammocks formed from the roots and branches. Elegantly dressed fae clustered around these, their eyes turning to look at us as we appeared, only to glance away just as quickly. There were no lingering looks now. Even the fae closest to Icarus feared him.

More impressive than this indoor forest, however, was the throne that sprouted from its center. The greatest tree of all grew from floor to ceiling, its branches twisted into an elaborate, dark throne.

The silence that had fallen over the council at the sight of us was broken only by the trickle of dark water that ran in deep grooves alongside either side of the throne. The water split at the bottom, spread out amongst winding rivulets that branched out along the uneven ground towards the outer edges of the room . It created the illusion of a glittering system of roots stretching out from the base of Icarus’s throne.

There was no sign of the false sky here, no floating lanterns. The only source of light came from torches sprouted from the trees, the fire in them willingly tempting fate.

Just as we had, and still were, the moment we agreed to enter Icarus’ domain.

I spotted Finch sitting closer to the throne than any of the rest of the court dared today. He’d chosen a swing made of dark, curling vines for his seat. The moment he saw me, his legs stopped their gentle sway and began pumping excitedly until he was swinging so furiously back and forth that Zev had to reach out a hand to stop him before he swung straight up into the ceiling.

The rest of the council was here, but its lord, Icarus himself, was conspicuously absent.

Only here, in the relative safety away from Icarus’ gaze, did the fae of his court start to watch us once again. Even as Finch continued trying to swing despite Zev’s hand on the vines that held him, and with Shiel’s stiff form standing at my side, it was me their gazes lingered on. Before, when the fae of the Wildness stared so unabashedly, they stared at all of us. We were all strangers to this court, to this world that had begun to feel more like a prison than its own small kingdom, but Icarus’ actions had cemented me as a curiosity among curiosities. The message he’d sent had turned me into a target as much as it had ensured my safety.

Now the whole court looked at me as a threat, not simply a stranger.

Who was I, that their lord would sacrifice so many to simply send a message that I was not to be touched? I doubted he would have done the same had it been even Shiel, a rival lord, who the female had made her attempt on.

But then, again, Shiel never would have found himself in my position. None of them would.

My skin burned at the reminder of my weakness among them, at the disadvantage I faced to not have been born into a court as the rest of them had, but to be walking into this world an entire lifetime behind. I was without knowledge, but more than that, I was without power. I’d heard no end to the talk of this ‘glamour returning’, but the fae had access to some power before. Zev had let that slip, and then Finch too, when he turned into a bird to sneak into my rooms. They had ways to protect themselves that I did not.

At least, not yet. Not while the fae that were my so-called protectors continued to protect me from a truth that would put me in a position to no longer need them.

Finch, alone, it seemed was oblivious to this new position we found ourselves in. Oblivious or willfully ignorant. He kept trying to kick Zev away from where he bound him, the frustration only growing on his face as the other fae refused to so much as acknowledge his attempts.

“Come now,” Finch said, finally turning to me. He nodded down to his lap and wiggled his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to take a ride? I promise, I make a more than adequate steed.”

“Stop, Finch,” Shiel growled, his voice sounding too loud between these trees. Even as he kept his voice low, I saw more faces swivel towards us. Watching. Listening. Waiting.

“What? Just jealous you didn’t think to pick so perfect a seat to invite our fair Princ—”

“I said, stop.”

This time, at least, Finch listened. He followed Shiel’s glare and finally saw the eyes boring into us and managed to clamp his mouth shut before he blurted out his damning pet name for me.

Now, thanks to the both of them, my ears burned for other reasons.

“What’s going on?” Finch asked, still somehow oblivious. “Has something happened?”

That’s when it hit me. Finch didn’t know about the bodies, about the murder that Icarus had committed on my behalf.

I didn’t know if it mattered, if even that would still the way his body ached to move, to fight off the bonds of propriety that might somehow stop him from behaving like an absolute ass at any given moment.

Just as Shiel was leaning in to whisper something to the both of them, we heard a shift in the court. It was subtle at first, a change in the air, in the rustle of the leaves and the quiet trickle of the water making its course down the throne tree to spread out beneath our feet. Then I felt the shift in a different way as the eyes that had glued themselves to us began to shift too, moving to look upward until every face in the throne room looked to the same place.

Not to the throne, but to the place above it.

No sooner had I followed their gaze, then I saw why.

A great grating, groaning sound rumbled out from the massive tree that formed the court around us. Zev had let go of Finch’s swing in a second, his arm reaching out to steady me instead. I grabbed his arm instinctively, pulling my body flush against his as the very ground beneath our feet began to writhe and quake until, just before panic could fully take hold of me, the dark ceiling overhead split open.

Bright light spilled in as the canopy far overhead was broken for a moment, illuminating a great winged shadow hovering over our heads. The entire massive tree had split down the middle to allow the lord of his court to join us, his wings flapping slowly as he began the slow, measured decent down to join the rest of his waiting council.

Once more, the power of his glamour preceded him. He moved with a supernatural grace, as if the air cradled him, holding him with invisible threads that defied the very laws of nature. It was as if his wings didn’t move the air to make him fly, but rather, commanded the winds to do his bidding, turning the air into a solid thing around him through which he was held, simply suspended within it.

Even Finch stiffened as that power rolled over us at Icarus’ descent.

The tree began to close in around the dark fae lord, the trunk groaning into place, enveloping the council once again, that bright light fading as the canopy regrew far overhead.

The tree returned to its rightful place, encasing us deep within its trunk, just as Icarus took his.

The moment Icarus sat on his throne, the branches of the tree overhead seemed to shudder once more, as if his power now flowed directly into it. The throne itself came to life, pulling the lord further into it, cradling him between the grooves of its trunk. He and the throne were one, the throne a further extension of his body. It moved with him as he surveyed the room, twisting to face wherever he looked. It breathed with him, rustled with his emotions as he met the eyes of the fae shrinking back beneath his gaze, their eyes suddenly averting the moment his fixed on them.

They bent the knee, one by one, their faces turned towards the floor long after his gaze had swept past them until it came at long last, to rest, on me.

I went to bend the knee too, felt the sweeping power urging me to do so, but Zev’s arm only tightened around me. Finch’s hand was wrapped around my forearm too, as if lending me his strength. It was Shiel that leaned in close, the whisper in my ear meant for me, and me alone, even in this echoing cavern.

“It is not our place to bow to this self-made lord.”

Self-made lord?

This was the first time Shiel, or anyone else, had called into question the validity of Icarus’ reign. I was surprised enough to finally tear my eyes away from Icarus, if only to search Shiel’s face for something more.

There was nothing there to find, however, nothing but the tight muscle of displeasure working in his jaw.

When I looked back at Icarus, his gaze still lingered on me. The weight of it made me shiver, made me fight back the desire to shrink back inside myself, to form a boundary between us that might protect me from the way those eyes pierced so deep inside me, I swore he knew my very thoughts.

Because, I knew, there was a good chance he did. He’d once told me as much, told me he could scent them. I’d been on the outskirts of his court then. How much more could he sense here, in its heart?

If this Lord of the Wildness knew the dark thoughts of my mind, however, he didn’t let on. He showed no displeasure, in fact, he showed nothing other than certainty—the absolute assurance that only great power could bring.

“We are here today, to mark a momentous occasion,” Icarus said, at long last breaking the silence that had waited only for him. “Today, we welcome another lord into our court. We welcome Shiel, Lord of the Western Court…and with it, we bring in a new era.”

I felt the hands still holding me tighten, felt every muscle in Shiel’s body still.

Icarus tore his eyes from mine at long last. His eyes scanned the court, taking in the forms only now returning to their full height before him.

“Today,” he said, his voice deep and silken, “today marks the first time our court has been recognized by one of the great fae courts of this kingdom. For the first time since we fled our homeland in search of peace, we have found our welcome amongst the fae that once abandoned us. And in turn—we welcome them.”

There was no welcome in his eyes, however, when they came, once more, to rest not on me—but on Shiel over my shoulder.

“Just as I’ve been saying, there’s no reason to fear whatever caused the glamour to return to us, because already it’s begun not to wreck our kingdom—but to return it to its rightful state.”

His eyes then dropped back to mine, and he looked at me then the way only he could.

I felt the bond between us, the one that he had promised me that first day in the forest. Whether it was formed that day or long before by something dangerously close to fate, it was a bond that should have made me feel secure, should have made me feel at least as if I was in the right place, on the right path.

But instead, it terrified me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THERE WAS no mention of the fae strung up outside my door, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was at the heart of the fae’s strained chatter around us.

Icarus was not here to hold court in the formal sense, it seemed. As soon as he’d finished his introductions, the trees all around us had shuddered and begun to reform, stumps growing out of the ground to form tables around the clusters of hammocks and chairs. The servants of Icarus’ court appeared in that way that only they could, but this time bearing platters of steaming food and jugs of wine that they served in a sort of intricate dance between the fae still pretending they weren’t waiting for their lord’s next execution order.

Though Finch and Zev immediately downed the dark faerie liquor, I turned down the glass that was offered to me. It smelled sweet and syrupy, nothing like the ale I’d tried—and failed—to drink that one disastrous night at the inn, but I wanted my wits about me.

I wasn’t accustomed to the ways of court, let alone faerie court, but I knew this wasn’t the casual luncheon Icarus was trying to play it off as. This was a game, a test, and I needed to make sure I came out of it on top.

Or, at the very least, not buried deeper in than I already was.

The food was, of course, another matter.

My stomach rumbled at the sight of the platters of meats and cheeses despite the bile that had been churning in it since I’d discovered the present waiting for me outside my door. My body still craved the proper food it had been denied all of my life, and though I was quite sure I’d long since replenished whatever meager power it provided me on its own, I couldn’t keep my hands from piling my plate high with everything in sight.

At least, in that, I wasn’t alone.

Shiel was the only one who didn’t touch the feast laid out before us. He didn’t even sit, just stood behind the chair that had grown from the ground specifically for him, his hands clutching at the intricately woven wooden back like a shield.

He wasn’t paying attention to any of the idle chatter Finch had filled the air with—whenever his mouth wasn’t too full to speak. His eyes stared ahead, watching Icarus as he surveyed his court from his throne, his own wine glass full, but his plate empty.

“What is this charade?” Shiel asked, when, at long last, he grew impatient with himself.

Zev and Finch glanced up at him in surprise, as if they’d forgotten him in their race to see who could choke on their food the fastest.

Before either of them could answer, however, Icarus finally did it for them.

“This is no charade,” he said, his figure suddenly looming in front of us. It was as if Shiel had finally given him his cue, and with that smoke and shadow that always followed him, he’d taken it.

Before my eyes, the table elongated and the seats around it shifted slightly to accompany the new throne that grew in the space beside me. Icarus took this new seat with ease, leaning back to survey us more closely as his wine glass refilled itself in his hand.

Only then did Shiel sit, but in that stiff way only he could.

“What’s the point of all this, then? To make a spectacle of us?” he asked, motioning to the fae seated at their own tables, their eyes flitting away as soon as they realized we were looking. “Your court hardly seems in a welcoming mood.”

“Can you blame them, really?” Icarus asked, still so seemingly unbothered that it only served to bother Shiel even more. “They’ll warm up to you with time. It’s been a long time since we had visitors to my court. And longer still since those visitors were of your…caliber.”

That muscle in Shiel’s jaw flexed as it always did when he was biting back what he really wanted to say. “I doubt it, we won’t be here long enough for that to happen, I assure you.”

Icarus ignored that, instead, turning back to me. He watched me for a second, his eyes narrowing slightly and his wine-stained lips parting as he searched for something on my face before he spoke.

“Did you enjoy my…gift?”

I froze, immediately regretting the meal now churning in my stomach as I realized what it was he was referring to.

I had to force myself to swallow the mouthful of food that now tasted like ash on my tongue.

Regret overwhelmed me that I’d turned down the faerie wine. This was all too much to face entirely sober. I had no excuse now if I said the wrong thing.

I kept my eyes on the plate in front of me as I answered. “There was only one fae who attacked me yesterday,” I said, carefully.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Icarus cock his head, as if my answer amused him.

“Ah yes,” he said, all too calm for a murderer, “but there were six more fae there who saw you go in after her. Six fae who could have stopped her, but didn’t.”

He leaned forward suddenly, any pretense of calm banished by the intensity in his eyes. “I told you, Aurra, my court does not disobey me. There’s a reason for that.”

“I can see that. That reason is now rotting over the place I’m supposed to sleep.”

He raised one of his eyebrows. “Are you not pleased with my gift? I could have it moved. I debated it. They really should be hanging somewhere for everyone to see, to help them…remember themselves.”

He didn’t so much as have to snap his fingers before one of his servants was at his side, as if he’d simply sensed his lord needed something.

“Move the traitors to the market. Our guest doesn’t like her gift, but I think the rest of my court will enjoy it in her stead.”

The servant bowed slightly and then was simply…gone.

Finch, still oblivious to what we were even talking about, sat up sharply and shook his head. The faerie wine or mead or whatever it was they drank had finally loosened his tongue enough to speak directly to the fae lord still lounging leisurely at my side, as if ordering the moving of bodies was just another task he was used to.

“What the hell are those things?” Finch asked, nodding towards one of the passing servants as he downed another sip from his glass. “I hate them. They’re always creeping about where you least expect them to be, and then popping up out of nowhere to give you towels and chocolates and face creams.”

I hadn’t thought it possible for the heaviness that had hung between us to be shattered in a single, simple sentence, but I was wrong.

Finch’s complaints bordered on insulting, and yet they were at the same time so innocent and unassuming that I found myself having to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Thankfully, it had some of the same effect on the other fae at the table.

Shiel settled back a bit in his chair, some of the fight slipping out of him as he remembered himself. Icarus, meanwhile, simply raised one of his eyebrows as he fought his own smile at Finch’s words.

“Do you…not want towels, and chocolates, and what was that…face creams?” he asked, amusement now dancing in his eyes in place of his usual intensity.

“No, I love the face creams, my skin has never been so soft,” Finch said, rubbing either of his cheeks between his palms, as if to demonstrate. “I just don’t like it when they’re served to me on bones-for-fingers by a creature that wasn’t there a second before.”

A half-snort made its way past my fingers, despite my best efforts.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, “I just…” I glanced between Icarus and Finch, their faces waiting for my reply. “He’s not wrong.”

I glanced then at the servant who had taken that very opportune moment to reappear at Finch’s side to refill his glass and gave him a sheepish, apologetic smile.

Icarus just looked on as if the whole thing was an elaborate skit planned for his own, personal amusement.

“My demons can have that effect on people,” he said, as the servant bowed and left to fill more glasses. “I can always assign a fae to tend to you, but in a court like this…you might find it difficult to get those towels, chocolates, and…”

“Face creams,” Finch reminded him.

“Well, it might take those things a bit longer to get to you. I hope you understand.”

Finch’s face screwed up for a second. “Demons, you say? Well…” he took another sip of his wine. “Better demons serving me than one of your fae.”

In an instant, the temporary camaraderie between us was gone.

Even Icarus stiffened this time, any mirth that had lit his eyes darkening in an instant.

“Have I not made every effort to show you a proper welcome? Have I not shown you a measure of respect that—let’s be honest here—no other court has dared bother to show me?”

Despite the careful measure of his voice, a familiar muscle—one I was more accustomed to see working on Shiel—bulged at the sharp angle of his jaw.

“Oh, you’ve put on a show alright,” Finch said, the wine having clearly loosened his tongue a little too much, now. There was no way he was this oblivious to how what he said affected not only Icarus, but the entirety of the court. A silence had once again fallen between the trees, broken only by Finch’s voice when he raised it yet again. “How long is this show going to last?”

“That’s enough, Finch,” Shiel growled, his eyes trained on Icarus as his hand inched ever closer to the sword at his side. I didn’t need to peek beneath the table to know Zev was almost certainly doing the same.

Only Finch didn’t seem to be paying attention. He too watched the dark fae, his eyes scanning the horns and points of his wings with a slowly growing sneer.

“Think it’ll last long enough for your forces to assemble? Or, perhaps, for word to spread that the lord of the Western Court no longer sits on his throne?”

“Finch, I said that’s enough.”

Shiel’s order finally seemed to reach Finch, then. But it was too late. By the time Finch had sat back, his eyes wide as his senses began returning to him, Icarus had been thoroughly baited.

“What exactly are you accusing me of?”

For one, awful second, I saw Finch look at Icarus again. I saw him open his mouth, prepared to speak something likely to light a fire that would be unlikely to go out, given the air that practically crackled with how ready it was to be set ablaze.

“It’s my fault, I’ve been…tense,” I cut in, surprising myself as I came to Finch’s rescue.

But Icarus was not ready to be so quickly appeased. His head swiveled to look at me, the same anger burning in his eyes now focused on me.

“And you…what reason have I given you not to trust me?”

Rather than answering with a truth as likely to spark a war as anything Finch was about to say, I settled on a half-truth, instead. I was no practiced liar under the best circumstances, and these were anything but.

“It’s not you,” I said, my nerves causing my heart to quicken within my chest. “It’s…it’s …” I wracked my brain for a moment before blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “It’s my sister.”

“Your…sister?” Icarus asked, eyes narrowing.

Shiel’s lips pressed together as the dark fae turned to look at him. “A human she was raised with.”

It was Icarus’ turn to sneer. “A human? Come,” he settled back into his chair, his hooded eyes taking me in now. “You’re better than that, now Aurra. No human should ever be able to affect you so.”

“Yeah, well, some of us aren’t entirely heartless.” I had to fight the anger that rose up in me at his suggestion. I couldn’t expect him to understand. I was the fae who’d been human up until last week, he was a fae who’s scorned humans for—who could even guess how long. To him, they were like ants, their lives short and insignificant.

That, at least, had the intended effect of the dark fae. Icarus shot forward, eyes bright and searching now.

“Heartless? That’s quite the accusation.”

“Well, you’d have to be, to forget your sibling so soon after abandoning them,” I said. “Forget human or fae, would you not miss a dog if you’d left it behind?”

That sneer on Icarus’ face softened just a little. He stroked the end of his chin, that sordid interest returning to his eyes.

“You make a fair point, Aurra,” he said, after a long moment. “So, you miss your human sister, you say? Would you like very much to see her again? Would that help ease all this…” he trailed off, looking over me with a lingering glance, “tension?”

What would really ease the tension causing my blood to pound in my ears would be if Icarus hadn’t killed over a half a dozen of his fae and left their bodies hanging above my bedroom for me to find. But since that was not only already done, but that bringing it up was only likely to once again spark the near drawing of swords, I was just relieved that Icarus had bought into my lie.

Half-lie because, of course, I really did miss my sister.

The trip to the market had done more than left me shaken. It had brought back those memories together that I’d already begun to let slip into the vague mist of ‘before’. Before the fae arrived and changed my life. Before I learned that my parents weren’t really my parents, my sister not really my sister. Before I entered one life of abuse for another, before I was subjected to a new set of lies meant to get something out of me without actually ever letting me know what that was.

Before all of that, there was just the two of us.

And now, without her, there was an emptiness that I’d never be able to fill. There were some people whose places inside of us had become a permanent part of us. I doubted I’d ever walk into a market again without thinking of her and wondering if her life had taken a true turn for the better. That was my only hope in all of this. I’d escaped the false parents that had made it their mission to torture me, but she remained. Would their scorn fall on her next, or would they heed Zev’s warning and send her to a place where she would, at least, be out of their reach for a while?

I hadn’t delved into this half-truth with the anticipation that it would overcome me here, in front of Icarus and his court, but that’s what it did.

I was shaking by the time I answered Icarus. I knew he was baiting me, half teasing me, still not willing to believe that a human girl could affect me so.

“Yes,” I answered, near breathless. “If I could see my sister again, be sure that she was safe, then that would change everything.”

I expected him to scoff, to sneer, to laugh off the desperation soaked into my voice. I’d made the mistake of being vulnerable with him, but rather than take advantage of that, something softened further in the dark fae before me.

He lifted one hand, and in a second, one of his demon servants stood at his side.

“Fetch me the crystals.”

The order had barely been issued when the servant blinked out of existence then straight back into it, this time holding a huge stone bowl filled with glittering crystals the size of my hand or larger. Though the demon carried the bowl like it weighed next to nothing, the table nearly collapsed beneath its weight as it was set down. The tree beneath us shot new vines and branches up to support the sudden weight, these vines growing up to wrap around the bottom of the bowl, as if cradling it.

These new vines lifted and tilted the bowl slightly until it faced Icarus. A new look had taken over his features, an excitement that was palpable.

And not only from him.

Shiel had frozen at my side. His eyes were glued on the bowl with as much curiously as there was trepidation. He clearly wanted to stop Icarus, to put a halt to whatever it was the dark fae was preparing to do, but he seemed unable.

Icarus drew back the sleeves of his shirt, exposing the blue veins racing up his forearms as he held them over the bowl of crystals.

“Come, Aurra, let us see how this human sister of yours fares.”

I didn’t even feel myself consciously give my body the order to move. I was simply suddenly pressing to his side, my eyes widening at the sight of slight glow starting to form deep inside the clear glass-like facets.

“What is it you’re doing, Icarus?” Shiel growled from across the table. His curiosity hadn’t been enough to banish that trepidation, it seemed. His hands were now gripping the table so tightly that I could practically see the vine and branches that formed it shuddering beneath his grasp, as if they wanted to wriggle free.

“Simply performing a magic pulled from one of the courts we left behind.”

Icarus didn’t look up. His gaze remained transfixed, wholly focused on that ever-growing light emanating from the crystals within the bowl.

“Pay attention, Aurra. This is the power of the fae without the strict boundaries the other courts put in place. This is what you, too, could do—if you so desired.”

The always-emanating power within Icarus pushed outward as he concentrated on the crystals, growing and strengthening with an intensity that drew every fae in the room to the edges of their seats, as if they too were pulled by their lord’s draw on the glamour.

Shiel half rose from his seat, but stopped, frozen in place again as the dull light inside the crystals suddenly erupted in a near-blinding flash. It took a moment for me to blink away the glow, but what I saw in its wake made everything else disappear. Icarus and his games, Shiel and his concern, even Finch’s insufferable inability to sit still or shut up for more than two seconds, all of that disappeared when I looked down into the bowl and saw Ada.

My sister.

I was so transfixed on the sight of her that it took me a long time to pay attention to anything else—let alone where she was, or what she was doing. But then as the shock of seeing her again wore off, the rest of it started to settle in. She sat at a desk, one hand pressed into her cheek as she let out a bored sigh. I couldn’t see much outside of her figure, but I didn’t need to know exactly where she was. It was all too clear where she wasn’t.

She wasn’t home with my parents.

She’d escaped. She’d been saved.

Whatever fate had in store for her was a mystery, but she at least now had a chance at something more than I’d ever been able to hope for her before. I’d left her, still, but I hadn’t abandoned her.

That realization swept through me with a wave of emotion so strong, I nearly burst into tears. I hadn’t known how much that fear had weighed on me until that moment. I lifted my eyes from the scrying bowl to thank Icarus—only to be frozen in place as I caught sight of the hand still hovering over the bowl, holding the window open between me and my sister.

The skin darkened before my eyes, blackening and shriveling until there was soon little more than a husk showing beneath the elbow.

Icarus didn’t seem to notice until my own shriek pierced the air. As if shaken from a trance of some kind, he suddenly glanced at his own arm and sat back, the image of my sister fading as quickly as it had appeared.

The blackened, ruined arm, however, remained.

Icarus’ face betrayed none of the horror that stretched across mine. He simply turned his wizened arm back and forth in the light, as if it was curiosity and nothing more.

Shiel was the one who finally choked out his own disgust. “See?” he blurted, glancing to his men, and then to me as his hand reached out to try and steady me. “This is what happens when you mess with magic that isn’t yours. If this is the kind of magic your court practices, then you wonder why the rest of the fae say you’ve been perverted by it, Icarus. Pay no attention to him, Aurra, unless you wish to be perverted by it, too.”

Even Shiel’s harsh accusations could do nothing to shake the dark fae, however.

“Funny how power works,” Icarus said, calm as ever. “There is a price to be paid, you know, but when you’re as powerful as I am, it’s rarely a price I’m unable to.”

As if to demonstrate, Icarus held out his hand again and sure enough—even as we looked on—the skin began to thicken again, the muscle reforming beneath as color began to return to the blackened husk it had become.

Shiel was on his feet now with Zev and Finch jumping up to stand at his side. They muttered curses, their eyes wide and their hands already on their swords, as if expecting an attack at any second. The rest of the faerie court was starting to press in, looking on in wonder. Icarus looked up at me as if expecting to see that same wonder now spreading to my face, but what he found instead made him freeze, too.

I was reminded of another vision I’d seen in crystal, of smoke and fire and an all-consuming dread, and this time, in my waking form, I couldn’t break free of it.

I shook where I stood. The convulsions wracked through me until my teeth chattered, and try as I might to force myself to still, I couldn’t.

This was the glamour. This was that magic that supposedly ran through my veins.

It wasn’t a silly little magic trick that might allow me to turn into a fox or a bird or even a bear. It was a weapon, sharp and dangerous.

This was why these fae were here. Somewhere, deep inside me, was a glamour that they wanted. That they needed.

The glamour that Icarus had shown me was dangerous and powerful. If he wanted mine, despite that, it could only mean one thing.

Whatever glamour lived inside me was even more powerful. Even more dangerous.

Icarus met my eyes for a moment, a single, terrifying moment, before I looked at Shiel and his men, at the rest of the court and the demons all watching, and I fled.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I DIDN’T KNOW exactly how I left Icarus’ courtroom. I ran until I found a door, dark and half hidden by some of those ever-growing vines, and simply plunged through it. I flew out onto a staircase winding as they did around these great trees and simply began to climb.

Higher and higher I rose, waiting for the tree to split and Icarus to rise up from its middle, ready to swoop down and confront me. It may have been smarter to go down, but I couldn’t bring myself to go anywhere near that market a second time. I doubted any of the fae there would dare go near me again, but that wasn’t what I feared.

I dreaded to see the look on the faces of those left behind, to see the empty shop and the stalls nearby where the fae who’d had the chance to intervene had not. I didn’t want to look and see what my own foolishness had bred. Sure, the fae female had tried to kill me, but could I really blame her?

All fae were out to get something. All fae were out to use each other.

Even the fae who were supposed to protect me.

Eventually, however, my footsteps did finally begin to slow—and with it, so did the winding, twisting mess of my thoughts.

Why had I run? I shouldn’t have shown my fear. I’d shown my hand all too soon, and now I cursed myself for it.

How quickly I’d forgotten that this was all a game.

At least, for them, it was. For me, it was all too real—and that was what had scared me so much that I couldn’t hide it. I’d known they planned to use me, all of them, but I hadn’t considered just how they planned to do that.

Not until I saw what Icarus could do.

What kind of magic did I possess that even Icarus, with his horrible brand of glamour, would be so desperate to possess it?

It all made sense now, why Shiel and the others were so careful to avoid telling me anything about my birthright. They didn’t want to scare me, but more than that, they probably wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be able to access this power of mine before they were sure they could control how I used it.

They wouldn’t help me until they were sure I wouldn’t use it against them.

It was more than court politics. It was more than the political leverage they could use if they had my favor.

For the first time, as my footsteps finally slowed and that deep shiver once again overtook me, I hoped that the fae were wrong. I hoped I wasn’t this lost princess. I prayed to whatever powers were at work, to fate, to destiny, to the glamour itself that Shiel and the others were wrong.

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want whatever power was so great that multiple lords were willing to risk all to possess or suppress it. I’d just wanted a better life, and maybe a parent who actually cared about me. I didn’t need to be the heir to a kingdom. I didn’t even need to be fae.

Was that really too much to ask?

As if they’d sensed that I’d started to calm, I took a step further up the stairs, and suddenly I wasn’t on the stairs anymore. Somewhere between the moment my foot lifted from the step below and when it landed on the next, one of those demon servants appeared at my side, took hold of my arm, and transported me to somewhere else.

It took me a second to realize where I was, and a second longer to see who stood before me.

I was not surprised to find the figures of Icarus, Shiel, Zev, and Finch standing before me. I was, however, a little surprised to find all of them standing in my bedroom.

“Aurra, My Storm,” Icarus said, stepping forward the moment recognition registered on my face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Stop!” I said, holding out my arms before me. The ground was unsteady beneath my feet as my mind struggled to process so much sudden change. I held up one hand and pressed it to my pounding temple. “What are we doing here? What are you doing here?”

A beat of silence passed before it was Shiel who answered, his voice surprisingly calm. “We thought it best to meet on your territory, in a place where you felt safe.”

A laugh bubbled out of me, unbidden.

“Safe?” I finally opened my eyes again, ignoring that pounding headache as I took in the sight of them standing there, before me, in an awkward semi-circle. “Whatever made you think I felt unsafe?”

I shook my head a couple of times, the motion spreading into my shoulders as I tried to break free of the crawling sensation spreading across my skin. I took a few careful steps of my own so I could sit down on the edge of my bed.

“Was it the dead shriveled arm, seeing my sister, or the fact that you all were about two seconds from cutting each other’s throats out again?”

Several of them looked about to answer, but I cut them off before they could.

“Or was it that, in that moment, I finally figured out what it is you’ve all really been keeping from me?”

That shut them up.

My voice was quiet, the words barely spoken above a soft whisper, but they heard every one.

“Did you realize, when I left, that I’d finally figured out what it is you’re all trying to get out of me? Why it is you’ve been so careful to protect me without actually teaching me how to protect myself?”

Four pairs of Adam’s apples bobbed silently in the fae’s throats.

“You don’t want to use me,” I said. “You have no choice. Whatever stupid glamour you think I have…you’re afraid of it. All of you. You aren’t willing to leave me alone because you don’t want anyone using it. Not, of course, unless it’s you.”

It was Shiel’s turn to step forward this time. “You’ve got it all wrong, Aurra. We’re just—”

But Icarus, it seemed, saw his chance then. And he took it.

“You’re right, My Storm,” he said, the bluntness of his voice making Shiel’s lies shrivel with a hiss. He ignored the glare from the Lord of the Western Court and continued, his head dipping slightly as he fixed me with his steady gaze. “Try as Shiel here might to keep his plans for you a secret, I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that there was something special about you. Something…unique.”

Shiel stared on as if he could murder Icarus here, on the spot, but he said nothing. He and the others watched Icarus closely, their faces betraying nothing—though I knew where their thoughts strayed. It was the same place mine now danced.

How much, exactly, did Icarus suspect?

The lord of this court was now cocking his head as he looked at me again. “There’s a powerful spell over you, Aurra,” he said, after a moment of his own silence. “But it can’t conceal the power brewing beneath.”

A lump had started to form at the back of my throat.

“I think I know why Shiel so desperately tried to keep you from me.”

Hands were once again twitching towards blades. I saw the way all three of the golden fae refused to look at each other, and yet still, their posture spoke volumes. They were ready for this. This was the moment they’re prepared for, the moment when another fae lord spoke his suspicions of me aloud and our cover—however flimsy—was blown.

Icarus drew himself up, his eyes hooded as they drank me in. “There’s only one place a power like that could come from,” he said. Hands inched closer. Zev and Finch finally exchanged a split-second glance. “You, Aurra, I believe are a lost daughter of the most powerful court in this kingdom. You, My Storm, are one of mine.”

Genuine surprise flickered across my face. The tension I’d felt stretching between the Lord of the Western Court and his men dissipated in a single instant, even as they tried not to show it.

“What?” Icarus asked, glancing from me to the other fae a moment after they’d once again managed to compose themselves. “Did Shiel not tell you?”

I had to fight the urge to let my jaw drop open—this time, because I had to consider the possibility that Icarus was right. After all, what evidence did Shiel have that I was this long-lost princess no one even knew was lost? A fragment of a blanket? A shred of another fae’s glamour? He swore he recognized it, but then, so now was Icarus claiming to recognize my own glamour.

“I don’t…I don’t look like a fae of the Wildness,” I said, at last, a sorry explanation for the complicated feelings now warring inside me.

“You, Aurra, don’t look like fae at all,” Icarus said, his continued bluntness refreshing compared to the circles I was usually expected to dance when trying to get Shiel or any of the others to tell me something. “But I think that has more to do with the same spell binding your glamour than it does anything else.”

“So…so how do I lift this spell and find out?”

“That,” Icarus said, cutting Shiel off before he could get in a word of his own, “may be a question for the Oracle, should that be the question you choose to ask. But there may be another way for you to find out what court you’re from.”

Something flickered across Shiel’s face again. “Come now, Icarus,” he interrupted, brows furrowing. “This is starting to sound like a thinly-veiled attempt to force us to stay in your court.”

“Well, let me do you the favor of removing that veil entirely,” Icarus said. “This is absolutely an attempt to get you to stay in my court a while longer. You think I would willingly step aside and let you take Aurra from me if there’s even the smallest chance she’s one of my own? Aurra is right. We’ve kept the truth from her long enough. Until either you or I can claim her as one of our own, she has the right to act of her own free will.”

Something soured inside me at his words.

Until either you or I can claim her.

Icarus spoke of my so-called free will only because he believed he had a right to it. The fact that Shiel hesitated at his words meant that he was right, too.

Icarus continued. “You know as well as I that Aurra can only ask one question of the Oracle. Let her stay here, with me, while we work to see if she’s a member of my court like I thought. If I’m right, then she can save her question for something simple trial-and-error cannot solve.”

That, it seemed, even Shiel couldn’t deny.

“What exactly are you getting at, Icarus?” he asked.

Icarus’ eyes shone as they only could when someone’s carefully laid plans were finally coming together. He held out his arm towards Shiel, his long claws glittering even here, in the dim light of my bedroom.

“Let us make a pact, then, Shiel of the Western Court. I promise to do nothing to prohibit Aurra from leaving if you promise to do nothing to keep her from staying.”

Shiel looked down at his hand as if it was poisoned—even though any remnants of the shriveled, blackened skin had long since healed. The only sign that remained of the spell that had drained him were dark lines crisscrossing beneath the skin, and even those were fading. It was a reminder of the power of the glamour that flowed through this dark fae’s veins.

“And how long do you expect it to take you to figure out if Aurra here is one of yours?” Shiel asked, refusing to take his hand yet. His eyes bored into Icarus, searching his face for any sign of deceit. “Months? Weeks? Years?” He pressed his lips together for as second, the distaste plain on his own face. “I’m not a human you can so easily trick, Icarus.”

“No tricks,” Icarus said, his tone remaining all too smooth. “I know you feel the power this girl possesses as well as I do. That magic of hers can only stay so bound. It will soon begin to leak out, if it hasn’t already. Give me a week. If I have not coaxed out my own magic from her by then, then I will let her go with you willingly.”

He glanced at me, a tiny spark alighting in his eye then. “If she chooses to, of course.”

“A week? Why an entire week?” Shiel narrowed his eyes. “That brings us dangerously close to Midsommar, and you know it. I have no desire to spend it here, in this court.”

A tiny bit of anger flashed across Icarus’ face. If it was any other fae other than a lord of his own caliber, I imagined Icarus never would have allowed a slight like that to go unpunished.

“Why?” he asked, once he’d once again regained his composure. “Because that is how long it will take for me to throw Aurra’s ball.”

Once again, Icarus had managed to surprise all of us.

Finch was the only one who’s eyes lit with an excitement he couldn’t conceal. “A ball?”

“It’s only customary for a fae to celebrate her coming-of-age,” Icarus said, head bowing. “She just turned eighteen, did she not? If Aurra is one of my court, then it will make for an appropriate welcome. If she is not, then it will be a fitting sendoff. It isn’t every day that we have a lord such as you in my court, Shiel. A ball and a hunt. Surely, you can’t deny Aurra that?”

Shiel grimaced, but instead of answering Icarus, he turned to me.

“Is this what you wish, Aurra?” he asked.

What I wished?

What I wished was for this game to be over. Icarus could play the honesty card all he wanted, but it was clear this was no split-second decision he made now. This was all a part of his strategy. Even Shiel now only pretended to offer me a choice, and only because he’d been forced into it.

But this game wouldn’t be over until I’d learned who I was and how to control my powers for myself, and since this seemed the best way to do that, I really had no choice but to agree.

So, I did.

“One week,” I said, nodding. “And then I—and I alone—get to choose where fate takes me next.”

CHAPTER NINE

AND SO THE deal was struck between the two lords.

Fate, however, was a fickle mistress. I knew there was little chance I’d be given any real choice of where I ended up at the end of this trial with Icarus. If I turned out to be one of his fae, then he’d simply claim me and demand I stay. If I didn’t, then would he really be so willing to let me go after all the trouble he’d taken to get me here?

I could, of course, go visit this so-called Oracle that made the demons and fae alike shrink back. She…or he, I supposed…could give me the answer I sought. But apparently, I could ask only one question, so I had to choose it carefully. It might not matter what court I belonged to if we didn’t know how to lift the glamour over me. We could wait until we found my mother and ask her how to lift it, but that relied on her being willing to share that information, not to mention still alive.

Icarus’ claim had a strange calming effect on me, because as much as I doubted I was actually one of his dark fae of the Wildness, he’d given me hope for something else. Maybe there really was a chance that I was just another fae, not the heir to the kingdom with far more to lose then there was to gain. The idea of harnessing the glamour within me was far more enticing if it meant I wouldn’t be hunted and hated for whatever it turned out to be.

I was grateful for the chance to be Icarus’ student for one reason, and one reason only.

Maybe, at long last, that meant I might finally get some real answers.

Even if it meant awakening in me something so powerful, it could suck the life out of me in an instant, as it had done to Icarus before my very eyes.

I expected to find the fae lord encased in some self-made cage of darkness, a piece of the Wildness where his quarters had been grown up above the rest of his court to protect him with those shadows that the rest of his fae craved. Though I was right about the cage, it was not a place of darkness.

Vines and branches had grown out of the forest below to form a half-open room that encased me on all sides. The final layer of leaves formed a shifting roof over my head that allowed the light in still, but so that it formed a constantly shifting pattern across the floor so intricate that it rivaled the glass mosaics down below.

I was breathless, already, from the climb that had led me up the greatest tree in Icarus’ domain, and then higher still. The breaths dragging up from my ragged lungs was nothing compared to the strained muscles in my thighs and calves—a feeling the dour demon servant waiting down below actually seemed to share.

One of the stipulations of my agreeing to study under Icarus was that I would not be transported like cargo around his court by the servants that seemed to have a very dubious understanding of the concept of consent. More than once, I suspected the demon considered breaking the latest of Icarus’ demands rather than waste the very considerable time it took to cross the court on foot beside me.

I should have just been glad that my wishes were being honored, a rare thing in the world I’d found myself thrust into, but instead, all I felt was a deep unsettling. Something told me that it wasn’t a good idea to find myself at odds with the demons of this court. They were perhaps the strangest creatures in a court that was nothing but strange. They followed Icarus’ orders, sure, but there was something about them that felt wild, untamed in a way that even the Wildness couldn’t claim. At least Icarus had some control over his court. The demons, however?

They struck me as creatures who would rebel if ever given the chance—and I’d rather not be on their bad side when they did.

Though, as I took in another deep breath of the fresh air that flowed freely outside the confines of Icarus’ court, I seemed in danger of ending up on everyone’s bad side the way things were going. At this rate, I’d be at odds with every fae lord, layman, and servant—demon or otherwise—before I even figured out which court I truly belonged to.

Icarus, meanwhile, was a creature that seemingly belonged to both nowhere and everywhere at once.

He was waiting to greet me as I rose into his chambers, the leaves and vines growing together until there was no sign of the stairs that had led me to him. The air hummed with a sound I’d never heard before. It was a shuddering, shifting kind of sound that individually was disjointed, but together was its own kind of music. It came from all around me, from somewhere in the trees that made up the elaborate cage of a room. A moment passed with my neck craned upwards to search the branches until I discovered what it was.

Ravens.

Icarus’ ravens.

There were hundreds of them perched among the branches, their beady black eyes watching me—every last one of them.

The last time that I’d seen them, they were dispersing in a massive black cloud above the Wildness, their caws echoing out the message the dark fae had sent out with them. At the time, I’d been so sure of what it was.

Now, here with Icarus as he drank in the sight of me, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

For a fae who’d once claimed to know my very thoughts, he was looking at me like a mystery he’d yet to solve.

“My Storm.”

His voice was smooth as it had been that first day we met beneath his forests, but though it was, itself, the same, something about how it resonated with me had changed. I’d caught him in the middle of something, some spell I imagined, from the containers of steaming salt water he’d been leaned over, fingers dipping various herbs and roots into them to observe their reactions. I saw nothing, but whatever he saw, it apparently pleased him.

Or it made him terribly angry.

He was far better at keeping the emotions from his face than I was.

We’d found ourselves alone together, not for the first time—but for the first time since we’d arrived at the sullen doorstep to his court. I could remember the last time we were alone. After all, how could I forget?

I still felt the way his hands caressed me, the way his body reacted alongside mine, how he’d coaxed from me a magic all of its own. The image of him there with me in the river was burned in my mind as much as the feel of him was imprinted on my flesh. I felt him still, try as I might to forget it if only for long enough to keep my mind clear.

But that was before I learned who he was, what he was, and more importantly still…what that meant for me. What he wanted from me.

But I wanted something from him now, too.

“So, this is where the great Lord of the Wildness gets to finally be himself?” I asked, turning in a small circle as I took in the enclosure he’d claimed as his quarters. Everywhere I turned, those ravens watched me closely.

Too closely.

Icarus had finally finished what he was working on. He fixed me with a look as he finished washing his hands in a basin, only for a sharp breeze to rush through the open walls and dry them in an instant.

“I, dear Aurra,” he said, finally stepping around the table to move in front of me, “am never anything other than myself.”

My mouth went dry as he approached.

It might not be the first time I’d seen him, the first time I’d been alone with him, but it never ceased to overwhelm me just how much he was. It wasn’t just that he was beautiful, that dark, dangerous version of beauty, and it wasn’t just that he was powerful. Those two things alone would have been enough to make even the most indomitable of females weak in the knees.

But then there was everything else that he was, the unseeable things, the parts of him that couldn’t be put into words. It was a feeling, more than anything. That bond that drove me to him time and time again, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. I’d thought it was the Wildness calling me to it, but it had really been him.

I felt it now, more than ever, here in the midst of his Wildness. In the midst of him. It was all I could do to force my lips to part and something deeper within me to stop aching.

If I kept looking into those large, black eyes of his, I was going to fall into him once more. I’d escaped once, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it again.

So, instead of tempting the fate that had bound us together as he once claimed, I forced my gaze away, only to once again be met by the gaze of another.

“I’ll admit,” I said, suppressing a shudder as I glanced up at one of the ravens that had chosen to perch far too close to me. “I expected you to want a little more…privacy.”

“Is it privacy you were hoping for?” he asked, brows raising slightly. “And here, I thought I was giving you an innocent lesson on the glamour.”

My face flushed as his meaning became clear. “No, I mean, I am. Here for the lesson, I mean.” The redness in my cheeks only deepened at the way my words tumbled over themselves.

His face softened then. He nodded up at the raven closest to me, and without a single word, it took off—followed shortly by the others. They swirled overhead before dispersing, their black forms disappearing into the canopy of trees below us.

“It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the court while they think I’m otherwise busy, anyway,” Icarus said, stretching his neck from one side to the other, the muscles in his wings barely containing their own desire to stretch out in flight.

“So, the birds…”

“Are an extension of me,” he finished for me. “What I say, they do. What they see, I see. We are one, but we’re separate.”

I made a mental note of that, reminding myself to watch for ravens if I ever planned on doing something I didn’t want the lord of this court to know about. Not that it would matter much if he could truly read my thoughts.

“Come, we should get started. We already have little time as it is.” Icarus stopped a moment before beckoning me to follow him. “And don’t worry, My Storm, as much as I wish I could read every one of the thoughts that pass through that mind of yours, that would ruin some of the mystery, wouldn’t it?”

CHAPTER TEN

THE WORDS MEANT to reassure me, in fact, had the very opposite effect.

Sure, Icarus might not know every one of my thoughts, but he certainly knew enough. No wonder the fae of his court—to say nothing of the others—feared him. It was one thing to be loyal to a lord, even to a fault, but another entirely to be loyal to a lord who knew each and every indiscretion—quite possibly, before they’d even been performed.

No wonder the other fae lords refused to visit Icarus.

No wonder they called his court, his glamour, what they did.

Perverted.

As if I needed one more reason to hope Icarus wasn’t right. I didn’t need to be the heir of this kingdom and possess whatever powers that crown might carry with it, but I certainly didn’t like the current alternative.

I had to remind myself, briefly, why I was really here. I was here for my own peace of mind, to prove to myself as much as Icarus that I was not one of his fae. But more than that, I was here to learn. Not just about his glamour, but about all the glamour, about the fae, their courts, and my place in this world—whatever that may end up being.

Knowledge was power, and it was something I’d been denied too long.

My knowledge of the fae was limited to the fairy tales I’d been fed as a child. It was time that changed.

Rather than take me to his own worktable, Icarus led me through the slight maze of trees that broke his quarters up into several individual spaces. There was everything I’d expect from a fae lord’s suite. There was a study with hanging chairs, shelves of rolled up scrolls, and a writing desk scattered with half-written letters. The workspace, with the bench Icarus had been preparing his concoction, had all manner of implements ranging from crystals to cauldrons tucked underneath. A washroom grew from the middle of the rooms, the only on where the trees grew close enough for actual privacy. And, of course, there was the bed massive enough to accommodate him and his wings, the branches forming it curved up on all sides, as if the downy mattress resided in the middle of some great creature’s claws.

Though the canopy of trees usually formed a thick ceiling over the rest of the court, I noticed that changed when Icarus walked near the edge of his rooms. Whenever his wings brushed along the gapped trees forming the open walls of his quarters, the leaves of the canopy shivered and shuddered and parted slightly so as to reveal small slivers of the court down below.

I shivered, too.

The ravens were bad enough. This was…something else.

I imagined Icarus up here, looking down at his court from above like some kind of omniscient being. He wasn’t just the lord of his court. He was more like their god.

And if he had his way, he’d be my god too.

If Icarus sensed the direction my thoughts had taken, he didn’t let on. He led me into the study where, at his beckoning, two of the chairs grew closer together, separated only by a small table that sprung up between them. He caught the way I stared, not yet moving to take my place in the chair clearly meant for me.

Instead of demanding I sit, I was surprised when Icarus shifted his steps slightly until he stood behind me, his hand reaching around to take my wrist so delicately, I could barely feel the touch.

Or, I would have barely been able to feel it if the very brush of his skin against mine didn’t send electricity racing across its surface.

“Here, try and feel the glamour as I instruct it,” he said, voice low and slow again. He ducked his head down so that his breath warmed the top of my head, and with his gentle nudging, I followed his command and reached out to grasp the vines that held the chair swaying gently in front of me. “You have nothing to fear from this glamour. This is the magic that runs through our veins as natural as blood.”

It was hard to believe him completely, given what I’d seen happen to him only the day before. Still, I hadn’t seen any other fae affected the way he was, so maybe there was some truth to Shiel’s accusations. Maybe Icarus was right too, maybe the only reason the glamour effected him so was because of the corrupt way he’d been using it for so long.

I was half expecting to feel Icarus’ heartbeat pulsing slow and steady through the vines the way I felt it now, in the fingers still wrapped around my wrist. But try as I might to feel something, anything, the vines felt just like that—like vines. Living, but not alive.

“Try closing your eyes,” Icarus said, his voice still as steady as the gentle pressure he held me with. “I’ll let go of you, if that will help you focus.”

I nodded, even as I felt the loss of his touch the moment he did as I asked.

It took no little effort, but I forced myself to concentrate only on the feel of the cool, green vine between my fingers. I closed my eyes as I was instructed, but even without the feel of Icarus’ hand on mine, I was all too aware of how close he still stood behind me, of the shape of his body still so imprinted on my own, of how it would feel if he closed that space between us once more.

It was no wonder fear and desire were considered sisters. Whenever Icarus stood this close to me, I could no longer tell which of the two I felt.

Sensing my frustration, though hopefully not why I was actually frustrated, Icarus finally stepped back from me and briefly set a hand on my shoulder instead.

“Even without a glamour like the one placed over you, something like this will take time. Now, sit. We’re only just beginning.”

The heart of Icarus’ magic drew from the Wildness itself and all that was in it. His lessons consisted mostly of me trying to feel the magic that he cast, ranging from small summonings of seedlings and insects to larger ones, things like causing the trees around us to whither and die, only to spring back up again as fresh, young saplings.

Though he was patient with me, that patience began to wane slightly after an unexpected visit from one of his demon servants. He appeared in the midst of a new test—where Icarus had me sticking my finger into various half-finished concoctions to see if I could sense any of the properties of the ingredients he’d made them from—and stood in silence, ignoring Icarus’ obvious attempts to wave him off until the fae lord finally stood to see what he wanted.

They spoke without words, or so quietly that I didn’t even see either of their lips move, but whatever the servant had said to Icarus made the patient mask on his face start to slip.

Curiosity prickled at me, daring me to wonder what could unsettle a lord like Icarus, until I finally could contain it no longer. It was half that burning curiosity that drove me to it, and half out of the equally burning need to find literally any excuse to stop the endless train of disappointment this lesson was quickly turning into.

I’d expected to feel something. If I had this so-called overwhelming glamour that both Icarus and Shiel wanted for themselves, why wouldn’t it show itself, even a little? Icarus had said there was a new glamour now, but apparently, I couldn’t even call on that. It could easily be that I’m simply not a member of Icarus’ court, but it wouldn’t exactly play well into either of our hands if that became obvious too quickly.

Better for Icarus to think I may be one of his, then for him to start suspecting the truth.

Or Shiel’s truth, anyway. I still wasn’t convinced of that, either.

I waited until I caught Icarus glance over his shoulder, his eyes scanning something only he could see on the horizon as he had several times already, before I took my chance.

“Something’s bothering you.”

His eyes were narrowed in suspicion when he looked back at me. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about this whole time?”

“I—” There was no use in lying, so I clamped my mouth shut for a moment. I knew from his lack of an answer the first time that I was pushing my luck, that I should just let the matter die, but the thought of sticking my fingers into one more potion made me want to tear my hair out. “You told your demons not to bother you unless it was an emergency, but that one wouldn’t leave.”

This time, when Icarus looked at me, that suspicion had transformed into a more intense kind of interest.

“I didn’t tell you that.”

“You’re not the only one who can understand the unspoken things,” I said, all too aware of the fact that I sounded far more confident than I actually felt. “I don’t need to read your mind to know something’s up.”

A sly smile had spread across Icarus’ face.

“See, finally some progress,” he said. “Maybe you are Wildness Fae after all.”

Something small leapt in my chest despite myself. I might not want to be one of his fae, but that didn’t mean a fae lord showing pride in me wasn’t going to affect me—objectively, of course.

Icarus fixed his eyes on something over my shoulder this time, and for a long moment, he seemed to be considered something.

“It’s just a small thing,” he said, at long last. “Nothing I can’t handle. But it may mean I have to cut some of these afternoons a little short.”

A slight frown creased my brow. “Is it that serious?”

His eyes flickered back to me then, and he reached out a hand to clasp mine. With it, my heart melted, just a little.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, My Storm,” he said. “I have this well under control.”

His hand slipped from mine at the same time his eyes dropped once more to the remnants of our failed lesson.

“But for now, perhaps we retire. You might not feel the draw on your own glamour, but I can assure you, it’s happening. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

I wanted to argue, but the moment he stood, the female demon he’d assigned to me appeared at his side. Several steps behind him, the trees and vines were opening to the staircase beneath already.

Icarus might be finished with me for now, but I was only just getting started.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I’D LEARNED LITTLE from the dark fae in our first lesson, but it was just enough to make me crave more. I’d yet to have so much as a hair shrivel from trying to use the glamour, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still have my reservations about using it.

If I even could use it.

However short—and ineffective—my first lesson was with Icarus, it left me drained in a way I’d never experienced before. Icarus had warned me that I was drawing on some kind of glamour, even if I couldn’t feel it, and from the way my mind and body ached by the time the demon servant and I had descended first, and then ascended back to my room, every ounce of my energy was spent.

I was too tired to even complain when I awoke tangled in the blankets of my own bed shortly before dawn, with no recollection of having changed out of my dress and into the thin black nightgown now clinging to my body. It was, undoubtedly, the work of those bones-for-fingers, as Finch had so accurately dubbed them.

However tired I was, I was not too tired to at least mutter, “Damn you, demon,” into the darkness as I rolled over with a moan to snuggle tighter into my pillow.

That moan, however, was cut short when I realized through my eyelids, only half open, that it wasn’t a pillow at all. That moan soured, curdled into something that was more like a scream, until the not-pillow reached out a finger to gently press it to my lips.

The fae’s touch calmed me even before my tired eyes registered who he was.

“Come now, My Storm,” Icarus purred in the dark. “There’s no need for that, here.” His black wings shuddered like many small shadows over his shoulder. They draped over his back and onto the floor, covering more of his body than the scant silk robe he wore, one that had long since slipped from his shoulders to reveal the hard cut lines of chest and stomach. Exhaustion had me looking over him with all the subtlety of a drunk.

I found my gaze shifting lower, only for Icarus to let out a low, growl-like noise in the back of his throat.

“Looking for something?”

I had to force my gaze back up to his face, but not before heat flooded my cheeks—because he was right, and I’d certainly found it. A thin sheet of silk could do little to conceal what this fae lord possessed.

“What are you doing here?” I finally managed to croak, once I’d been able to force the image of his visible excitement away enough for my mouth to form actual words. Then, before he could answer, I reached out and hesitantly pressed my hand to his chest.

Surprise, and a little relief, flooded through me when my hand felt his cool skin. I became transfixed again on the way his jaw cast a shadow across the elegant line of his throat. His skin was so smooth and perfect, I had to press my fingers into him to be sure he wasn’t carved from marble, but from flesh.

“Were you worried I was some kind of ghost?”

I glanced back up to his face, realizing how close I’d come to losing myself. I snatched my hand away from him, cradling it with my other arm, as if he’d attacked me, not the other way around.

“It wouldn’t be the first time you showed up in a vision,” I said, hesitantly.

At the mention of our first encounters, something sparked in Icarus’ eyes. His lips parted as his face took on a dream-like state of its own. A memory consumed him, and for a moment, he allowed himself to be lost in it where I had not, one finger lifting to trace the outline of his lips.

“I prefer to call it a dream, or perhaps…”

“A delusion?”

My words pulled Icarus back into the bed beside me. The far-off look in his eyes sharpened onto me, his hand now pressing so hard to where it lingered on his lips that I was worried for a second that he was going to draw his own blood with those claws.

An overwhelming sensation came over me then, as for the first time, I realized just how entangled in him I was. I wasn’t just lying beside him, I was pressed up against the arm that supported him now, cradled in it, even. How long had he been here? Had he been holding me all night?

Worse still, had I been the reason for his…excitement? Had I felt him in my sleep and rather than move away, or better yet, wake, had I pressed further into him?

As if sensing the sudden flood of emotions, Icarus reached out with his free hand to cup my face. He was gentle, his claws once again surprisingly soft—when he wanted them to be.

“I came only to tell you I’ve been called away from the court, just for a few days.”

“Something to do with that little nothing you refused to tell me about, earlier?”

He ignored me, but the slight twinkle in his eye was all the confirmation I needed. “Though, I suppose I could linger here a while longer if you wanted to make that last…delusion…we shared a little more real?”

And I thought my face was red before.

It didn’t matter if Icarus could read my thoughts, I knew from the way another growl, a hungry growl, began to tear its way up his throat, that he could smell the arousal his threat had damningly pulled out of me. It was impossible here, half wrapped in this gorgeous, powerful fae’s arms, to ignore the way my body ached for him again. Even in our shared vision, he’d left me craving more of him, all of him.

But that was before I knew him, who he was, what he was.

And that was the only thing that stopped me this time, however reluctant my body might have been to respond to the words I forced out between gritted teeth.

“How am I to know this isn’t just another one of your visions?”

A soft, low laugh erupted from the back of Icarus’ throat. His finger curled a bit and he traced the line of my jaw slowly, carefully, until he came to the point of my chin. He tilted my face up slightly then and looked me deep in the eyes.

It was a difficult gaze to hold, looking straight into the deep, black eyes of this fae lord. Even I, with my limited access the glamour inside me, couldn’t help but tremble at the power that swirled within him.

“You’re too smart for your own good, My Storm,” he said, at last, before dropping my chin. The arm around me vanished, sending me falling back into the actual pile of pillows as Icarus appeared in smoke and shadow at the foot of my bed instead.

Was that it? The sign that he was a vision, and not the real thing?

I reached out, trying to use the one lesson I’d gotten from Icarus to see if I felt his glamour the way I had that first time we met. But then…then there’d been smoke too. Perhaps there was no way of telling when this lord was a vision or the real thing.

Perhaps it didn’t really matter.

Real or not, he certainly felt real. I felt the absence of his body wrapped around mine as keenly as if he’d really been there. It was a cruel trick Icarus played, but he’d grown as distracted as I was by the time I looked up again, his half-dressed form now pacing at the end of my bed.

Lucky for me, he didn’t see the disappointment on my face.

“I’ve made plans for you in my absence, for you to continue your education,” he said, his body already darkening as the shadows at his feet rose higher, slowly starting to envelop him.

I sat up, my heart racing as I realized what was happening. “Why don’t you just take me to the Oracle?” I asked. “Why go through this charade of trying to get a glamour out of me that clearly doesn’t want to come out?”

If Icarus was leaving for a few days, where did that leave me? We had only a few days together before Shiel was leaving, and at present, that meant I’d be going with him. I didn’t trust the lord of the Western Court for a second, but I also wasn’t about to find myself stuck in the Wildness…which was sure to happen if I let him leave without me.

“I could go to the Oracle and ask about lifting my glamour, get that out of the way,” I said, my mind reeling as I tried to solve this newest predicament. “We’d still have time, after, to find out what kind of glamour that might be.”

The idea seemed the obvious solution to our problems, or at least, it did, until Icarus stopped, finally, hands pressed together as he met my eyes once more before he left. “Don’t give up on me yet, Aurra. You and me, we’re only at the beginning. There’s no need for the Oracle, not yet.”

And just like that, as that first ray of light broke through the panes of glass, Icarus was gone—just as he’d done before.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND what Icarus meant.

The Oracle was the reason we were here, in the Wildness’ Court to begin with, so I didn’t see how going to see her was giving up. We’d promised to stay until the ball, so Icarus had no reason to fear that Shiel would whisk me away the moment we saw her.

But with Icarus already gone, it wasn’t like I could exactly ask him.

When the dark fae mentioned homework, he failed to mention the three fae females that would come with it.

My face must have once again betrayed my emotions all too plainly, because the moment I opened the door to my room and saw them standing there, the tallest of the three simply pursed her lips and spoke in a way that told they she felt the same way.

“Icarus left instructions. He thought you might be more comfortable in our care than with the demon.”

That way we all felt? Something stronger than simple reluctance.

The fae introduced herself as Vanya just as reluctantly, and the other two as Nissa and Envi.

There was no point in arguing with them, however, no point in voicing what we all felt. Not because they were wrong, but because I had no desire to find any one of them hanging from the trees outside my door next for the crime of so much as thinking about disobeying their lord’s wishes.

I thought I recognized Vanya, at least, from my short stint in Icarus’ courtroom, but I couldn’t be sure beneath the elaborate hair and makeup. I’d not had many opportunities to look at the fae of this court up close, not after that first day—when the only fae who dared get near enough ended up being one of those dangling at the end of a rope.

One of the other females—Nissa, I thought—passed me a basket containing the implements for whatever it was Icarus had planned for me, while the other, Envi, handed me a stack of steaming buns. The servant assigned to me hadn’t brought dinner last night, since I’d fallen asleep right away, so I tore into it with a ferocity that made all three fae females watch me a little warily.

I didn’t care, though.

They were scared of me already.

Steamed buns and weird metal tools were hardly a fair replacement for the lord that had abandoned me, but it would have to do. I’d chosen this, I reminded myself. I could have insisted we leave the court already, gone on with Shiel, and Zev, and Finch before they made the deal to stay with Icarus…but for what? Another court where they’d sense the same mysterious glamour in me and try to use me for themselves without even knowing who I was?

The four of us soon found ourselves condemned to the seemingly endless spiral of stairs—this time, leading ever-downward. From the way their pale faces flushed and their own breaths caught when they’d showed up at my door, they weren’t used to doing so much travel on foot through their court, either.

To their credit, however, none of them complained that they’d been forced into this on my accord—not even when the long trek down turned into a long winding path through tunnels carved beneath the roots of the trees. They didn’t even complain when the silence was broken by the distant sound of footsteps following us.

I didn’t need to look back to know who I’d find.

Still, I allowed myself one glance—just one—and despite myself, had to fight a smile at the sight of the two fae trying, and failing, to sneak behind us out of sight. They might have been more successful if either Zev had been willing to concentrate on keeping his footsteps light instead of watching the shadows silently for any sign of attack, or better yet, if Finch could get himself to stop whispering loudly to Zev approximately every fifteen seconds.

I couldn’t make out everything that he said, but more than once my cheeks reddened when I was quite certain the words he kept whispering had something to do with the shape of my ass in the latest dress that had been added to my wardrobe.

It was a welcome change from the heaviness that had settled over me in the last few days, a heaviness that, from the dour looks on the females that walked beside me, had infected them, too. I wondered if it was because of the fae Icarus had executed on my behalf, or if it had more to do with whatever had pulled Icarus away from his own court so suddenly.

I could have asked, but I had a feeling that would bring more trouble than it was worth. The last thing I wanted was for news to get back to the lord of this court that I was asking questions, and I had no doubt it would get back to him. Whatever I did here would get back to him. If he didn’t see it himself through his ravens, the spies he’d sent in the costumes of companions would be sure to report it to him the moment I turned my back.

Perhaps it was this that had me glancing back at the two fae following in our footsteps more than once. They were spies too, in their own way, but at least the sight of their faces didn’t make my stomach turn up in knots.

The three females led me towards a dark corner of the court, where the market stalls and buildings thinned and the forests and rocks drew close to the outer walls formed by those tight knit trees. Before I had the chance to ask exactly where they were taking me, I heard it.

It started as the gentle trickle of water, but then it grew and grew until—just as we turned a bend and reached the final stretches of Icarus’ inner court—it became a great roar. Water tumbled down from a gap in the trees above, the waterfall casting a soft, cold mist across our faces. I knew the minute the boys saw it too, because Finch let out an audible gasp that echoed loud enough to finally draw the attention of the three females who’d led me here.

Vanya, the only one of my new companions who’d spoken to me so far, ignored them. She set about unpacking the implements that we’d carried with us, her back turning to the fae of the Western court without a second glance.

The other two fae were far more interested.

I supposed the same fear that had been instilled in them about me hadn’t trickled down to the fae that had accompanied me.

As they scrutinized Zev and Finch a little closer, trying, I thought, to decide if they were a threat or not, I took the opportunity to do the same to these females.

From afar, the fae of the Wildness all appeared to look the same. But up close, beneath the elaborately wrapped dark locks and smudged kohl ringing their eyes, they were as different to each other as any other species. That wasn’t what surprised me, however.

It was the fact that, aside from Vanya now straightening up from her place along the dark river, the other two fae females were…for lack of a better way to put it…not particularly beautiful.

I felt immediately guilty for even thinking it, but I couldn’t help myself.

I’d assumed from my first encounters with fae, with Icarus and the others, that all fae were beautiful. It was an aspect of their race I took for granted, something I assumed was universal. I didn’t know if it was simply that I’d been lucky—or unlucky, depending on how I looked at it—to be rescued by such specimens of their race. Now that I really thought about it, though, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Beneath the elaborate inky clothes, the hair, the makeup, the posturing and preening, the members of Icarus’ court were…unique…more than attractive. There were some that possessed that beauty of the fae I’d come to take for granted. But there were others, the vast majority, that did…not. It was better to treat them like the demon servants I’d only just started getting accustomed to and to avoid looking at them too closely, not only for my own peace of mind, but to avoid making even more enemies than I already naturally had.

And would, I realized as even Nissa and Envi tore their eyes away from Finch and Zev to help their third companion ready me for the task Icarus had left in his stead, no matter what this time spent with the lord of this court revealed about me.

At least, in that, Shiel had told the truth.

The men of this world hated me for what I was.

The fae, they hated me not for who I was, but what I may be. Those that didn’t hate me yet might hate me still, once they had the chance.

One thing both the human and fae realms shared, if they didn’t understand it, they feared it. And what they feared?

What they feared, they hated.

But what they didn’t fear, they took advantage of. So if they feared me, then at least that was preferrable to being used as a pawn. I might be new to this world of politics, but I’d spent enough of my life under another’s boot heel to know I’d spend the rest of my life fighting to make sure I never found myself there again.

The task Icarus had set for me today involved panning the river for precious stones—something made all the more difficult as I discovered the thick sludge that served as the river bed. He’d sent his fae down with four sets of small silver sieves, small curved bowls made of a mesh so fine that anything other than the slick, silky mud that formed the boggy bottom of the river would remain inside once washed beneath the roaring water.

Vanya demonstrated to me how I was supposed to somehow feel the stones I was panning for, how she and the other fae females could simply dip their own sieves into the water and pull out dark glittering stones by the handful.

No matter how I stained my arms with that dark, muddy water, the only stones I found were by chance—enough trial and error that my back and legs were sore from trekking back and forth from pool to waterfall without so much as luck on my side—let alone a shred of glamour.

Vanya and the others tried to nudge me in the right direction, but their attempts were…unsuccessful, to say the least. They were as patient with me as they could be, but it wasn’t long before even they were matching my own muttered swears under their breaths.

“Great,” Vanya hissed at long last, after another unsuccessful trip back to the waterfall. “Now there’s three of them?”

I followed her gaze, then felt my body seize a little when I saw what she meant.

Shiel had come to stand beside Zev and Finch, who’d already been inching ever closer, their own sleeves stained with the dark water as if they’d gotten bored enough of keeping watch that they too had started looking for the sand-sized gemstones buried deep within the mire.

“Should we invite them to sit with us?” Nissa asked, her gaze flitting first to Envi, then to Vanya—avoiding mine entirely. “They are kind of cute.”

I felt my teeth grit together until my jaw began to ache.

Before I could answer, Envi leaned forward a little, her black eyes taking in the sight of the three gold-haired fae standing just far off enough that they were unlikely to hear her whisper.

“I’ve never been with a fae of the Western Court before. Do you think it’s different?”

“What I want to know,” Vanya said, her voice as tired as the rest of my felt, “is whether or not they like to shift in bed, too.”

I could hold my tongue no longer.

I told myself it was Shiel’s glance, the way his lips pressed together in distaste as he looked at me still hunched by the riverside, that made my blood boil. I told myself that, even though I knew it was a lie.

“They shouldn’t be here. I’ll deal with them.”

I started to rise, but all three of them, Vanya, Nissa, and Envi, suddenly shrank back a bit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Vanya said, reaching out to touch my arm, but not quite reaching me. “We thought you didn’t care for the fae who coerced you into coming here. Or were the wrong? You know how court gossip can be.”

“No, actually, I don’t,” I said.

“Then what is this all about?” Vanya asked. She shared a glance with her two companions, and something in them softened, just a little. “If they’re your friends…why can’t they help you with this?”

I narrowed my eyes at her, still keeping sight of Shiel and the others watching out of the corner of my vision.

“If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to do this.”

Vanya waved her hand and shrugged, the other two matching her posture. “Icarus called on us, and so we answered,” was all she admitted.

“Usually, the demons do the sifting using their own magic,” Nissa added with a small sigh as she examined the dirty nailbeds of her own short, blackened claws. “I thought this might be some kind of test for us.”

“Or maybe a punishment,” Envi added, her own lips pressing together in thought.

That…actually made a lot of sense.

Vanya was the only one still watching me closely. “If you don’t mind me asking…what are you and Lord Shiel doing here?” she asked. “You’re clearly possessive of them, and yet you seem to hate them. We’ve only rumors to go on, and in a court as small as this, you can imagine how those rumors spread.”

“I’m not…I don’t…”

I had to wrestle not to defend myself. What was I even getting so defensive about? Vanya was clearly trying to get something out of me, an answer she could add to the rest of the court gossip she was all too happy to keep reminding me of.

I opened my mouth to respond, still unsure of how I planned to answer her, but before I could say anything, a shadow suddenly hovered over us.

“I think it’s time you leave Aurra with us,” Shiel said, a dangerous, deep grit in his voice.

My head snapped up to look at him, and I was ready to snap back, only what I saw in his face made whatever I’d been about to say wither and die.

Zev and Finch stood behind him, at the ready. I doubted any fae would look at them and think they were ‘cute’ now.

Vanya’s eyes widened, and she went to argue, but Shiel only tilted his head down slightly and bore his teeth at her.

“Say I forced you. Then Icarus can deal with me.”

She looked like she was still unconvinced, but then Nissa reached out to touch Vanya gently on her upper arm. She glanced first at Nissa, and then at Envi, who both shared the same worried look before she finally nodded once and agreed.

They left, but not without casting one last, lingering look of suspicion at me and the golden fae that had driven them away.

I wondered what kind of rumors would be spreading now.

Whatever they were, they’d be more harmless than whatever would be spreading had Shiel not come to my rescue when he did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ONLY ONCE THE three fae females were well and truly gone did I whirl on Shiel, fury sharp on my tongue.

“What was that about?”

He was so accustomed to this sort of response from me, by now, that it didn’t even phase him. His voice remained calm, his posture relaxed, though his eyes still watched to make sure the three fae females didn’t decide to change their minds and make a hasty return.

“I didn’t trust them,” he said, simply—an answer that immediately drew from me a whistling huff of frustration as I threw my hands up in front of me.

“You don’t trust anybody.”

“I trust Zev and Finch,” Shiel said, nodding his head for a moment before he finally turned to look at me. “And believe it or not, I trust you.”

“Bullshit.”

The word was out of my mouth before I even had the chance to think it.

I kept my gaze locked with Shiel’s as I scrambled to my feet, waving away Zev and Finch’s arms reaching to help me despite nearly losing my footing on the slippery bank more than once as I did.

“What reason do you have to trust me?” I asked, still looking Shiel dead in the eye. “Isn’t that why you just sent Vanya and the others away? You thought I was going to tell her something I shouldn’t?”

“I sent those three fae away because they’re trained in the art of getting you to say what you shouldn’t,” he said, the outer corner of his mouth turning up slightly in disgust. “They’re a staple in every court, an unavoidable consequence of the natural jostle for power that occurs the moment a fae puts a crown on their head.”

Beside him, Finch wrinkled up his nose. “Don’t even get me started on the crotch fleas.”

“I think you’re the only one who has any problem with that…Finch,” Zev said with a more than generous helping of disapproving side-eye.

“What we’re trying to say, Aurra,” Shiel said, his own disapproving glare making Finch shrink back a little, “is that it isn’t about you slipping up and saying something you shouldn’t on accident. It was about them digging it out of you against your will. It’s happened to the very best of us at least once.”

“And some of us more than once,” Finch muttered.

I stuck my tongue in my cheek, thinking for a moment. “What are you really here for, Shiel?” I asked. “Surely Zev and Finch could have shooed off the busybodies, you know, since they trust you so much.”

“I’m here because I saw my opportunity,” Shiel said, simply.

“To?”

“To try and win back your trust,” he said, after a moment, his words finally hesitating a little. “By giving it, first.”

“What—”

“I was wrong, Aurra,” he said, stepping forward ever so slightly. I didn’t step back this time. I let him take another step, and then another, until he was standing so close I could smell the warm scent of him fill the narrow space between us. “I should never have kept my title from you. I should have told you where we were going. I should have told you about your glamour. All of it. I shouldn’t have kept a single thing from you.”

He paused just long enough for his Adam’s apple to bob in his throat. “The only reason I agreed to Icarus’ deal, to stay here in his court a moment longer, was because I hoped it might allow you to finally trust me, or at least begin to trust me,” he said. “I don’t believe you’re a member of this court. But if you need to learn that for yourself, then I suppose I can stand by until you do.”

Finally, an answer that shocked me into silence.

At least for a moment.

“Is that…an apology?” All the animosity of a moment before had drained out of me, “from the Lord of the Western Court?”

I glanced over my shoulder, as if someone was watching us, before turning back with a smug look spreading across my face. “I thought you didn’t make apologies, even to fae like me.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Shiel’s mouth, but it was Finch who, having been unable to hold his tongue a second longer, threw his arm over his lord’s shoulders and beamed at me as he answered for him.

“If not, it’s the closest thing to one that you’re ever gonna get from our delightful Shiel, here.”

Zev was already trying to pry Finch off Shiel, but he wasn’t having much success. The sight of the two of them wrestling was so ridiculous that I couldn’t fight the laughter clawing its way up my throat.

It was a welcome feeling, the way it bubbled up and over, carrying with it some of the weight that had come to settle over me in the last days.

“What’s gotten into you?” I asked Finch, once Zev had finally managed to get him to let go of their lord. They both stood beside him now, panting and hair falling into their eyes, as they struggled to catch their breath.

“I’m just glad you’ve forgiven us,” Finch said between gulps of air.

And just like that, the brief moment of weightlessness was gone.

“I see who you’ve been talking to,” I said, glaring at Zev for a moment. “But it’s not so simple as that. You have to realize that.”

“Why not?” Finch asked, confusion painting his face with concerned lines. He glanced first at Shiel, then Zev, then back at me, his eyes pleading. “Can’t we just start over?”

“Maybe not start over,” Shiel said, locking eyes with me again. “But we can start something new. Something that can build real trust between us. If, of course, you’ll allow it, Aurra.”

I stepped away slightly then, looking over the three fae warriors looking at me with bated breath.

It wasn’t long ago that I’d promised myself not to trust them, that I’d felt the sharp sting of their lies and betrayal twisting in my gut. I couldn’t forget that feeling, no matter how much I might want to.

But telling them that, rejecting them now, what good would that do me?

I took a deep breath. “If we’re going to build trust between us, then there can be no more lies.”

“Of course!” Finch said, answering for Shiel before he had a chance.

Zev nudged him into silence while Shiel bowed his head.

“I can’t promise to give you an answer on everything,” he said, “but I can promise not to lie.”

I nodded along. “I suppose that’s a place to start.”

“And now, as good as ever.” Shiel held out his arms to either side, gesturing up at the wall of water and the roar that might help conceal our conversation. “What else do you want to know from me?”

There was so, so much, but one thing in particular came to mind.

“How did you really plan on figuring out who I am?” I asked. “Before Icarus, before this court, these stupid tests.”

He opened his mouth for a second, but then he hesitated.

“I suppose, I planned on taking you somewhere safe first, and just hoped the rest would fall in line.”

It sounded honest enough. I cocked my head at him, examining him.

“You really don’t think Icarus’ tests are going to work?”

His face darkened then. “I think the only thing you’re going to get out of spending time with that lord is poisoned, mind and body,” he said, voice closer to a growl with every word. “There’s something wrong with his glamour. There always was, but now…now it’s worse than ever.”

“And what does that have to do with me, if you’re so sure I’m not one of his fae? One of the Wildness?”

“Because,” Shiel said, that darkness in his eyes softening, “I don’t want you to be corrupted by it. This magic, the magic of the Wildness, it has a way of poisoning all that it touches. The longer we stay here, the longer you play with fire at Icarus’ command, the harder it’s going to shake free of this place.”

Something about his words made a nervous feeling flutter inside me.

I wanted to believe that Shiel was wrong, that his distrust of the lord of the Wildness was unfounded, but I couldn’t. It was Icarus’ idea that we stayed. Icarus who insisted I try to draw at the magic of his court. And it was Icarus who refused to take me to this Oracle, even though I’d asked, and more than that, even though she was the very reason Shiel had agreed to take me into his court in the first place.

Everywhere I turned, it seemed to me that the true answer lay with this Oracle, and yet the more I pushed towards her, the more Icarus and his court pushed me away.

I was finally getting answers, so close to getting the truth I’d sought for so long—when we were, of course, interrupted.

Overhead, a new noise joined the roar of the waterfall. It started with a sound of creaking as the trees began to shift, making room for the flapping of wings and the cawing of ravens as they swarmed in from overhead.

It could mean only one thing.

Icarus was back, and he was listening.

I turned once to Shiel and pressed my finger to the middle of his chest. “We’re not finished here,” I hissed. “I’ll get my answers, and you’re going to get them for me.”

“And how am I going to do that?” Shiel asked, eyebrow raising.

“You’re going to find out how I get to this Oracle on our own,” I said, glancing up at the ravens descending with an increasing feeling of dread. “That way, I don’t have to rely on Icarus and his corruption—or on anyone else—to find out who I am.”

Shiel caught my arm before I left. “Promise me you’ll be careful. If Icarus discovers you’re not a fae of the Wildness, for sure, there’s no telling what he might do. Right now he’s offered us his protection, but if he thinks he’s losing his control over you, have no doubt he’ll do what he must to change that.”

I looked deep into his eyes, at the genuine concern there, and this time, I nodded.

This time, I didn’t refuse him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I HAD ONCE AGAIN FOUND myself stuck in a strange place between two lords.

I’d seen firsthand the corruption of the glamour that Shiel feared, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear it too. The only thing that sent me back up to Icarus’ quarters to test my own glamour again was the reminder that I the spell binding my access to my own magic was so strong I couldn’t even sense the Wildness’ glamour when I tried to call on it—let alone pull enough of that glamour to actually corrupt me, too. I’d worry about that another time.

For now, I only needed to worry about surviving through Icarus’ damn ball and maintaining my own free will once it was over.

I might be stuck between Icarus and Shiel, but I had both of them working for me, too.

Between the two of them, I’d learn who I was—one way or another.

There were only three more days until this ball. Three days to pry information out of Icarus, and three days for Shiel to find out how I could get to this Oracle to pry a little more. The court was already starting to bustle with preparations. The market had transformed, tradesmen and women busy with nothing but arrangements for the night fast approaching. Whatever Icarus had threatened them with this time had worked. There was not an idle fae hand to be found in his court.

In the meantime, I rose once more to the top of the court to let Icarus try and draw a magic out of me that I was growing more and more sure we wouldn’t find. If it weren’t for what Shiel said, about how there was no telling the lengths Icarus would go to keep me under his control until he found some way to use me, I’d still be going to him now.

Not because I wanted to, but I needed the answers only he seemed willing to give—even if he was only giving them to me because he thought it would bring down my guard.

As if he needed anything other than his mere presence to do that.

Icarus hadn’t called for me the day he returned to his court. Nor the day after.

If he’d been trying to pique my interest, he’d succeeded. Two days alone in my room was enough to make me feel like I was on the brink of going mad. The closest thing to human interaction that I’d encountered was continually turning away either Vanya, Nissa, or Envi when they came to my room to deliver meals.

There had been so sign of the demons since the day Icarus left, not that I minded. Either they were too busy preparing for his ball, or something far more important had called them away.

Now, as I rose above the canopy and heard the vines begin to weave themselves together behind me, I couldn’t help but notice something had changed about the fae lord’s quarters in the short time since I’d been gone. The remnants of his work had been scattered across the table, the dried herbs crunching underfoot as I stepped further in. The chairs in the study had returned to their corners, but the table remained, my failed experiments remaining on display like some sad reminders of the glamour even Icarus couldn’t coax out of me.

It took me a second to spot Icarus himself, only to find him hunched over in the middle of his mattress, his head bent over a notebook he was scribbling in, the rest of the bed strewn with half-finished letters. He wore the same robe he’d worn in our shared dream and his usually silky hair had become a tangled nest about his horns. The dark rings under his eyes indicated that he hadn’t slept, and from the number of untouched plates stacked along the bedside table, hadn’t so much as left his room for some time.

Not, at least, since he’d arrived back in his court two days prior.

He didn’t so much as look up at me as I entered. I felt like I was intruding on something private, that perhaps my summons by the three female fae had been a mistake, or worse, some kind of joke. I was considering leaving before I disturbed what was clearly more important work when one of Icarus’ ravens let out a loud squawk from over my head.

Only then did Icarus look up and see me, his features looking even more tired than they had before.

“Aurra, come. Join me,” he said, his voice hoarse as he beckoned me over to him. It took me a moment to step between the winding trees, my footsteps careful as I avoided more papers scattered across the floor. Either a great wind had blown over the treetops earlier, or—and more likely, judging by how many of the papers appeared to be hastily balled up and discarded—this was more of Icarus’ doing.

I stopped at the foot of his bed, hovering over him awkwardly as he continued to furiously scribble at the letter still in his hand. He didn’t look up again, just brushed some of the scattered papers out of the way to make room for me beside him.

I didn’t crawl up into the bed right away, however. I hesitated. It was one thing to awake to a vision of the fae lord in my own bed, another to willingly climb into his when I was certain, this time, that both of us were very, very real.

My hesitation was finally enough to make a deep, annoyed growl form at the back of Icarus’ throat as he tore his eyes from the paper in front of him to meet mine.

“Get on the damn bed, Aurra. I don’t have time for this,” he said, exasperation thick in his voice. “I’m not going to touch you, not unless you’re willing. When you come to me, My Storm, it will be because your need for me is so great that neither heaven nor earth could stop you.”

That betraying heat flooded through me, but I did as he said, crawling up over the claw-like appendages that cupped his mattress to settle beside him, my knees tucked up under me.

He’d gone back to scribbling notes, his face turned down to the paper, everything else forgotten.

While he was fixated on the words themselves, however, it was something else that caught my eye. I froze where I knelt, my gaze fixated on Icarus’ hand. His robe was pulled tight, not draping loosely over his torso as it had the other night. Only a little of his skin showed, but what did was now crisscrossed with deep, black veins.

It wasn’t just his hand, either. It was all of him.

I recognized it at once. I’d seen it in the moments after Icarus had cast the spell for me to see my sister, to be sure that she was safe. It was the sign his body was healing from a strong surge of glamour, strong enough that it had taken Icarus two whole days to heal this time.

My stomach curdled at the thought of how Icarus must have looked when he arrived back in the court. For it to have taken him this long to heal, for him to only be able to call on me now, whatever glamour he had cast, it must have nearly killed him.

Instinctively, I reached out a hand to touch the healing flesh, as if to be sure he was actually here, actually real, actually still alive.

The moment my finger touched him, however, Icarus flinched back so violently that his other hand knocked over the pot of ink he’d been writing with, sending the black ink spilling over the letter he’d been so desperate to finish. Icarus let out a string of curses and immediately pointed towards a stack of towels across the room.

I leapt up and hurried over to grab them, but by the time I’d once again reached his side, it was too late. He dabbed at the blackened paper, but there was no saving it—or the stack of letters that had been completed beneath it, each one peeling out from beneath the last, completely ruined.

Icarus let out another swear and threw back his head as that swear turned into an outright growl of frustration.

“Damn it! If only one of us had a single spark of glamour between us, then maybe we could spare these,” he snarled. “But I am spent, and you…” he finally looked at me, his dark rimmed eyes boring into me with an anger I’d never seen from him. “Instead of studying and practicing as I instructed, you chose to fritter away your time with another lord.”

It took me a long, shocked moment, to understand what he meant.

I shrank back a little, uncertainty causing my heart to race. “Are you…jealous?”

Icarus let out a half laugh, more of a scoff, really, but at least my question seemed to temper his momentary rage just a bit. That anger in his eyes softened into exhaustion, the kind of tiredness that weighed on his eyelids until they barely agreed to stay half-open.

“Jealous?” he said, with another half laugh. “Why would I be jealous of that little boy who calls himself Lord of the Western Court?”

He looked back down at the ruined stack of letters in his lap and sighed. “I was there when he was born, and I’ll be here long after he’s dead—unless, of course, this new glamour has changed that, too.”

His words struck me deep. “What…what are you saying?” I asked, my mind reeling as I tried to pull every wives’ tale I’d heard about the fae to the forefront of my mind, all at once. “Aren’t fae immortal?”

Icarus took one last lingering look at the letters and then set them aside, allowing himself to fall back into the bed, instead. I moved back to stand at its edge, my fingers wrapping around the spiked bedframe as if they were the teeth of some great creature preparing to swallow the dark fae in its maw.

The lord let out another, small sigh in the silence.

“Fae were immortal, once,” he said. “But then there was a war in the faerie realm, a place called Avarath. Our ancestors split from one of the courts there and fled to the human realm. But to escape the war entirely, they made a deal.”

I didn’t dare move, hardly dared to breathe for fear I might stop Icarus from continuing. In just a few short sentences, he’d already taught me more about the fae than I’d been able to glean in all the prior weeks. In my entire life, really.

“A deal?” I asked, finally, hesitantly, when Icarus’ silence stretched on a little too long.

He nodded, only to cringe as if even the small movement caused him pain.

“Not with each other, but with the glamour itself.”

I waited as the silence stretched again and then, despite the thudding of my heart and every instinct inside me telling me to keep my distance from this already dangerous creature, I carefully stepped up into the bed to kneel beside him.

Icarus was staring up at the trees loosely forming a ceiling over our heads. He’d called me later in the afternoon, and by the time I’d climbed high to meet him, the sun had already come close to setting. Soon, I imagined, I’d be able to see the twinkle of stars—real stars—looking down at us from up above.

“The glamour granted their wish,” he said, continuing his story as I settled down in the down mattress. “It bound them to a new kind of glamour, one divided between four new courts to keep the balance. But no deal is made with the glamour without an exchange.”

“And the exchange?”

A sly smile tugged at Icarus’ lips. “Their immortality.”

“But you?”

He finally tore his eyes from the ceiling to look at me. “I, Aurra, am not from one of those four courts. My court was born from the Wildness, an anomaly that the glamour created when the fae brought it here. I was born in it, from it—and so, I was never bound to the same rules as the other courts. I and my court were different, and so the other courts called us perverted. That was why when you spoke of jealousy earlier, I had to laugh. We could have been the fae courts’ greatest allies, their freedom from the harsh rules imposed by their new deal with the glamour, but instead, jealousy drove them to make us their enemies. They trapped themselves in cages and pretended they protected them, and now that the glamour seems to have changed its mind, now that it is flowing freely through all the courts as it once did so long ago, they do not know how to handle it.”

I couldn’t help the way my gaze wandered from his eyes to look over his body then, at the markings his own use of the glamour had left on him.

“But you think you do?” I asked, knowing I was venturing into dangerous territory.

But any fight that had flared up in the dark fae had long since died down. All he had the energy for now was a small sigh.

“A fae’s glamour flows through their veins as they use it,” he said. “The more you use it, the more it molds you, shapes you, becomes a very part of you. Even I, who has used the glamour in ways that the other courts here could only dream possible, struggle to use the new magic. I’m carved deep with the glamour of many lifetimes. But you…”

He trailed off, his eyes looking over me with a small spark.

That was when I understood.

I was breathless when I answered. “You think I can use this new glamour…because I never used the old one.”

I narrowed my eyes at him then, suspicion drawing my brows together.

“You never thought I was a Wildness fae, did you?”

Icarus held my gaze for a long, long moment. “I could hope. It would be far easier for me if you were.”

The almost tender moment that had passed between us suddenly hardened as a buzzing noise filled my ears. It felt, for a moment, as if the floor was dropping out from beneath me as the sky above simultaneously collapsed in.

I was on my feet, staring down at Icarus in disgust before I realized it.

All because I remembered what he’d said to entice Shiel into letting us stay longer in the first place.

Until either you or I can claim her as one of our own, she has the right to act of her own free will.

“You know, I was this close, this close to forgetting you’re just out to use me,” I said, forcing my voice to steady. I didn’t want him to know just how bright the fury burned within me. “You thought you could force me to do some Wildness magic using this new glamour that would make me think I’m one of yours. Then Shiel couldn’t take me from here. I couldn’t even take me from here. I’ve seen how you treat your court. You were trying to trap me.”

Icarus was suddenly sitting up. “How I treat my court?”

“Don’t deflect. That’s not the real issue here,” I said, but still, I backed up as the fae lord started to rise from his bed. His movements were careful and deliberate, but that was somehow more terrifying than if the pain had left him lurching. He was so focused on me that the pain and the exhaustion were entirely forgotten. “You lied to me,” I said, the knot tightening in my throat with each step I took away from him. “Not in so many words, but it was a lie still.”

Something must have shown on my face, because just as quickly as he’d risen to stalk me, Icarus froze again. His eyes widened slightly, lips parted, and he started to raise his hands as if to try and placate me,

“Aurra…”

“Don’t!” I snapped, and this time, there was no controlling my voice. “I’m done, Icarus. No more lessons. No more traps. You’re just as bad as the rest of them. No,” I stopped, holding up my hand to stop the steps he’d started to make toward me. “You’re even worse than them. At least now I know exactly how you planned to use me. For that, I guess, I should be thanking you.”

I bared my teeth at him as I swept down into a mock bow.

I must have made my point, because Icarus did nothing to stop me when I left.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I KNEW Icarus planned to use me. He’d been up front about that.

But this latest betrayal, it was somehow so much worse. Worse, perhaps, because I couldn’t tell Shiel or the others about it without giving them the idea to use me the same way, too. And the way Icarus wanted to use me…

I pulled the blanket up higher over my head, pretending it could block out the sight of his arm shriveled in his throne room the day he conjured the image of my sister. That was what he planned to do to me. Or, even if he could try and claim it wasn’t part of his so-called plan, he couldn’t deny he was willing to let it happen, if that’s what it took.

Not for the first time this morning, I heard a loud groan from the other side of the door.

“Aurra, we can talk about this. It isn’t what you think.”

I only pulled myself deeper into the cocoon of darkness, my arms clamping even tighter over my ears. “Go away, Icarus.”

I wasn’t sure he heard me from beneath the piles of blankets, or if he was simply still ignoring me.

He’d followed me down shortly after I left, once the shock of me figuring out his plan had worn off, apparently—or perhaps simply once he’d gained enough strength to follow. Not enough strength, though, it seemed to simply break through the door, or even to project his vision-self into my bed as he had the last time.

Either that, or he’d simply decided that forcing himself into my bedroom might be the final nail in the coffin—which it would have been. The last person in this kingdom that I wanted to so much as smell right now was the fae still banging on the outside of my door, demanding to gaslight me into thinking that it was a good idea for me to cast the sort of magic that would drain me from the inside out until I was nothing more than a blackened, half-mummified husk.

More than that, to do it willingly, for him, because he’d tricked me into thinking my loyalty belonged to him. That was, it seemed, where I truly drew the line when it came to satisfying the whims of a fae lord.

Just as I’d started to wonder if Icarus would remain at my door, demanding and unrelenting until the ball came and went, he finally left. Not without issuing a promise that sounded more like a warning.

“I’ll be back, Aurra. Once this is dealt with, I’ll be back. I won’t let you build this wall between us until you’ve heard me out.”

Whatever it was that drew him away, I didn’t care. I couldn’t bring myself to. All that mattered was that he was finally gone. I waited beneath the safety of the blankets just long enough for his footsteps to recede. The moment they were gone, I took my chance.

I knew what I had to do.

Where I had to go.

I’d never seen Shiel as shocked as he was the moment I appeared in his doorway, with a bundle of clothes torn from my closet in my arms.

More shocked still was his face when I regained my breath enough to speak.

“We need to go, now.”

Shiel froze where he stood. It took him a moment, more than few moments during which he stood slack-jawed and unspeaking, before he managed to gather himself together.

“Leave the Wildness? Now?”

His eyes darkened as he glanced towards the door. “Has something happened?”

I didn’t answer. I was already striding over to the nearest wardrobe where I began pulling out anything I thought might be of use to Zev or Finch on the next leg of our journey. After everything that the Lord of the Wildness had put us through, he could spare a few extra shirts.

Zev and Finch were nowhere to be seen. I’d half expected them to be waiting outside my door when I finally stumbled out of my room earlier, or at least to be waiting somewhere along the route leading down towards the rest of the court. It didn’t matter, though. Wherever they were, they were bound to be nearby. They never strayed too far from their lord. For once, I was grateful for it.

“Aurra…”

Shiel was standing behind me when I whirled back, ready to fight from the tone of his voice.

“Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind all of a sudden,” I said. “You were all too ready to leave a few days ago.”

“No, Aurra. I made a deal, remember?”

“And nowhere in that deal did it say that I couldn’t leave this court if I wanted to,” I countered.

Shiel’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. “No, but our conversation yesterday…Aurra…” he trialed off a little. “It could be taken the wrong way.”

I opened my mouth to object, to remind him that he was the one who agreed to let Icarus lead us into this cursed court in the first place, but in the end, I knew he was right.

I cursed aloud.

The deal was too vague. Of course what Shiel had said, warning me of the dark far Icarus, could be taken as doing something to get me to leave this court earlier. It didn’t matter that Icarus had done far worse, because that wasn’t a part of the deal.

Shiel might have been the one that decided to take us into this court in the first place, but I was the one who agreed he should make the deal that made us stay.

My mouth clamped shut as defeat flooded my veins.

I slumped down onto the edge of the nearest bed. No sooner had I landed on the mattress—one significantly less comfortable than the one I’d been sleeping on these past days—then Shiel was kneeling before me, his hands reaching to steady my shaking knees.

“Aurra,” he said again, his voice deep and measured. “If something happened, I need you to tell me. I’ll break a deal if I have to, but I really, really hope I don’t have to.”

I nearly told him then, exactly what Icarus hadn’t done to me, but what he planned to.

Nearly.

But something about his hands on me, steadying me, it stilled not only my shaking legs but the racing of my heart. Without the wild pumping of my blood, my breaths became more measured and my wildly spinning thoughts finally began to settle—and with this new clarity, I remembered not only who I was, but who Shiel was.

He may be my protector, but he was a fae lord like Icarus, still.

Who was to say that he wouldn’t use me the same way too, if he learned the dark fae’s plans for me? Even the best of men couldn’t resist that kind of temptation if it came down to it. And from what he and Icarus had been hinting at, it very well might—sooner, rather than later.

Even though I hadn’t said anything, Shiel’s face still darkened further.

Before he could say anything, however, Zev and Finch chose that opportune moment to burst through the door and then abruptly stop, the same shock mirrored on their faces that had been on Shiel’s not long ago. They took one look at me, and then at Shiel, and then they were striding forward as if they were ready to commit murder on the spot, the armloads of food in their arms forgotten in an instant.

“What is it?” Finch asked, his face as serious as I’d ever seen it. “What’s happened?”

Zev’s jaw worked. “It’s Icarus, isn’t it? If he’s done something…”

“He’s not done anything,” I cut in, cringing inwardly at how easily the lie sprung from me. I closed my eyes for a second, gathering my thoughts a second time before I opened them to peer into all three sets of their concerned faces. “Nothing’s happened. I just want…” I trailed off, considering for a moment.

What did I want?

I wanted out of the Wildness Court, as much space put between me and that monster, Icarus. I knew that, but that was the one thing I couldn’t have—not without telling Shiel and the others exactly what had practically driven me straight into their arms. Shiel might still agree to it without knowing, but from the sound of his voice, the consequences of breaking his deal with Icarus might not outweigh the danger of remaining here, for just a few more days.

At least I knew one thing with certainty.

I didn’t want to be alone with Icarus again, not when he might find a way to trick me into staying again. But for that to happen, with the dark fae lord’s particular proclivities, that meant I couldn’t be alone…at all. It wouldn’t be long before he was strong enough to be able to force himself into my presence again.

“I want to stay with you,” I blurted out, at last. I glanced around the room, at the three beds lined up one next to the other, each one bearing the subtle signs of their temporary occupants. Shiel’s cloak folded neatly atop an immaculately made blanket. Finch’s gold purse, half-empty from more gambling. Zev’s tattoo needle half-tucked under his mattress. “I want to stay here, so you can keep me safe.”

I didn’t say from what they were keeping me safe, but I didn’t have to.

Shiel did a sweep around the room, checking the doors and windows before he nodded once to Zev first, and then Finch, something unspoken passing between them.

“I have to go for a while, but I’ll be back before long. If there’s any trouble, Finch, you know what to do.”

Finch glanced at me and wiggled his eyebrows as his hands went up to mimic the flapping of a birds’ wings. “I’ve been practicing.”

Shiel just pursed his lips, pausing just long enough in the doorway for him to take one last look over me. “Thank you for trusting us,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I know it wasn’t an easy choice to make. Staying, I mean. I promise, I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll find the way to the oracle, as you asked. We’ll leave this court the moment we can, but we won’t leave it empty handed. This whole ordeal won’t have been for nothing.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EVEN WITH SHIEL GONE, neither Zev nor Finch pressed me for the reasons that had driven me to them. I wondered if it was because they simply were trying to respect me, or if they were afraid of scaring me off. Either way, it was a strange spending the day together doing simply…nothing. In all the time we’d spent together, there was always something to keep us preoccupied. Walking, tending to the horses, watching for other travelers on the path…even castrating old acquaintances and running from angry townspeople.

Now, here, in the midst of the bustle of a court preparing for a dance as if it was war, we found ourselves in a cocoon of silence.

Or, at least, as silent as any room could be when Finch was in it.

The longer we waited, the more nervous energy seemed to overtake him. It wasn’t long before he was up on his feet, pacing in front of the windows until I was worried he was going to wear a path along the ground in front of them. He stopped every so often to peer out between the filmy panes, his eyes narrowing as he soundlessly mouthed something towards that false starry sky.

Just watching him made me feel anxious, too. It mightn’t have been too bad if every time his foot made a slightly louder scuff, or every time he pressed a little too close to the window so that he made the sill creak, it made me jump. Every time, my head snapped towards the door, expecting it to burst open, or worse still, for Icarus to simply ignore the Western Court’s privacy as he had mine, and simply appear in their bedroom, too.

It was only a matter of time before Icarus came looking for me again.

He didn’t seem the type to simply lets someone like me slip away, not when he’d already spent so much time laying his trap.

Eventually, it seemed even pacing wasn’t enough to keep Finch preoccupied. He whirled suddenly, the light of what little afternoon sun made it through the canopy illuminating him from behind as he clapped his hands together once, decidedly.

“You know what we could do?”

“We don’t have any money to gamble, Finch.”

Zev didn’t even look up from where he’d started sharpening his sword. From the looks of it, he’d been doing a lot of that lately. It was already razor sharp, so sharp that it had started to look a little thin.

Finch’s face fell, but only for a moment. He started reaching for the half bag of coins beside his bed.

“We can split this and—”

“And you’ll end up with it all either way?” Zev cut him off again. “We’re not taking your money, Finch, even if you lose.”

Finch’s lips pressed together. “It would still be a game.”

At last, Zev’s eyes flickered up to meet his. “You’re a sore loser,” he said. “And an even more insufferable winner.”

Finch threw up his hands in frustration. “So, what are we going to do here for the next two, three days, then? Putter around, waiting for the Dark Lord or one of his cronies to come use their shrivel magic on us?”

I had to choke back a laugh, and nearly gagged in the process.

“What did you just call him?”

Both Finch and Zev looked first at each other, and then at me. Zev looked nervous, but Finch beamed with pride.

“The Dark Lord?”

“Yeah,” I said, stifling a laugh again. “Is that seriously what you call him? Are you scared of Icarus or something?”

“Scared of Icarus?” Finch let out a scoff and waved me away. He started turning around, only to suddenly stop and whirl back to face me, finger wagging. “But the Dark Lord?” He let out a long, whooshing breath. “Now that, that sounds like someone to be afraid of.”

I couldn’t stifle my laugh a third time.

Leave it to Finch to somehow lighten even the darkest of moods.

Even Zev’s face softened, his hand finally stilling with the whetstone still clutched between his fingers. “What is he like, in person?”

The question caught me off guard. I wasn’t sure how to answer it, but from the way both Zev and Finch were looking at me now, I didn’t really have any choice but to try.

I was tempted to spew words like bastard, liar, and evil…but I stopped myself. It would be easy to fall into a trap of my own where I demonized the lord of the Wildness just as he’d said the other courts had. Sure, I might have reason, maybe even more reason than some of those courts, but was that really what I wanted? I had the choice now to decide what kind of fae I wanted to become.

The last thing I wanted was to admit that Icarus was right about anything, but he’d been right about that, at least. He’d been focused on the glamour, and how I had the rare opportunity to shape the way it flowed through me. But more than that, I had the chance to shape the way I chose to look at this new world. At the fae. At its courts. At its magic.

Allowing myself to be shaped too much by any one thing the fae did to me, whether it be betrayal or forgiveness, cruelty or kindness, was letting the lords shape me, it was letting them control me, just as Shiel had warned me.

So, instead of allowing myself to feel the well-deserved spite I currently held for the Lord of the Wildness, I forced myself to focus, instead, on the more objective things I knew to be true of him.

“Well…Icarus…”

“The Dark Lord,” Finch corrected me, nodding his head, the solemn look on his face only making me giggle, again.

“Well, The Dark Lord is surprisingly calm when you’re alone with him,” I said, thinking back to the handful of times I’d found myself in that position. “He’s patient and careful. He doesn’t do things by accident. There’s always a purpose to what he does and what he says, even when you think there isn’t.”

“So, he’s manipulative,” Zev said, and though his words were true, they were all too true.

I flinched, slightly, despite myself, and had to close my eyes for a second while I forced my thoughts back to the light.

“Yes,” I admitted, anyway. “He is. He’s a lord, after all. He knows how to get what he wants.”

“And how, pray tell, does a lord do that?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHIEL’S VOICE made all three of us leap to our feet, his unexpected silhouette filling the doorway.

I opened my mouth, but before my cheeks could redden with the embarrassment I felt rushing over me, Shiel stepped out of the shadow and held out his hands in a gesture of goodwill.

“I mean that in the best way, I promise,” he said. “I simply…I’m interested. Really.”

I didn’t notice the basket he held in his hands until he went to gently set it down on the ground beside the door. No sooner had he straightened up, then a sweet, floral scent began to fill the room. The basket was brimming with fresh picked flowers.

I’d never seen Shiel blush before, but I swore a hint of red colored his cheeks when I looked back up at him.

“I stole them from the florists whenever they weren’t looking. Figured they wouldn’t miss one here or there. Didn’t want to drown you in the stench of three males.”

“One of which hasn’t bathed since the first day he got here,” Finch added, his side eye darting over to Zev in a far less-than-subtle way.

“What?” Zev snapped, suddenly defensive. He glanced between all three of us, his body frozen where he stood. “Are you telling me you’ve all be wasting your time taking baths every day?”

Finch just scrunched up his face until Zev repeated, even more incredulously, “Every day?”

It was his turn to color a little as he glanced sheepishly down at his feet, his arms suddenly clamping self-consciously down to his sides. “It’s not like we’ve been hiking through the forest. Who needs a bath when they’ve been sitting around eating bon-bons all day.”

“You do,” Finch said, without hesitation, his eyes still fixed on Zev.

It was Zev’s turn to throw up his arms, but he immediately turned and marched across the room, where a metal tub sat beneath a spicket. He turned on the spicket, and without a moment’s hesitation, began stripping off his clothes.

It was my turn to freeze in place.

“For goodness’ sake, Zev,” Shiel muttered, striding across the room to pull a privacy screen between us just before his trousers were the next garment to pool around his ankles.

From the high-pitched sounds Zev made as he stepped into the tub, without the demons to magically heat it, it was going to be a very miserable bath, indeed. Shiel grabbed a bar of soap and tossed it over the screen, and then followed that with a wide-toothed comb and one of Finch’s beloved face creams.

Zev made a snorting sound of disapproval, but from the quiet scrubbing, sloshing, and brushing sounds that ensued, he reluctantly used those, too.

I, meanwhile, finally settled down on the end of Shiel’s bed and put my back to the tub, providing a little more privacy since the screen was more decorative than actually functional.

Shiel, apparently satisfied with Zev’s effort, came to sit beside me—not so close as to actually touch me, and for once, I almost resented him for it.

“So, about this lord,” he said, tilting his head down as he nudged the conversation back to where he’d interrupted us.

I was grateful for the protection Shiel had offered me, but I was not such a fool that I’d immediately put all my trust in him, now. But I had to trust him a little. He’d earned that much, at least.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I considered what to say. “Icarus is…delusional…” I said, finally.

Finch raised his eyebrows. “I’ll say.”

Shiel shot him a look that was clearly meant to shut him up before leaning in towards me slightly, his elbows resting on his knees. He said nothing, but the invitation was obvious.

“He’s acting like this new glamour that’s come back, or whatever, like it’s going to destroy the courts,” I said, carefully. “He’s trying to find ways to control it before anyone else does.”

Not carefully enough, it seemed.

“And what does that have to do with you?”

I cringed, inwardly. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I looked first at Shiel, and then Finch, and then even over at Zev, who’s face I caught peeking over at me from just beyond the edge of the screen.

I wracked my brain, trying to remember exactly what Icarus had said about the glamour, and how his was different from the other courts, even before this new one swept in. Did they know how this new glamour worked at all? Did Icarus, even…or was his grand scheme based entirely off a fairy tale he’d constructed in his own mind?

The fae before me didn’t seem close to guessing Icarus’ true intentions with me, that he thought I would be able to channel this new glamour in a way that other fae could not—not because of my heritage, but simply because I’d yet to form my own bond to the old glamour, first. It was in my best interest to keep that information a secret for as long as I could, even from them. Especially from them.

So, I couldn’t tell them the truth, not the whole truth, but I could tell them some semblance of it.

I swallowed, hard. “I don’t know,” I lied, my eyes dropping to the hands clasped together in my lap. “But I think it has something to do with how the magic is divided between the courts. He thinks some of the fae might be able to use it better than others.”

“Well,” Finch said, brightening again. “I hope I’m one of them, because I’m already liking these new changes.”

As soon as he’d finished saying it, he leapt into the air and transformed. One second, there was a slightly goofy, broad-smiled fae standing before me, the next there was a glittering yellow hummingbird. It zipped across the room to hover in front of my face, the eyes surprisingly intelligent as they looked into mine. He hovered there just long enough to make sure I was caught off guard when he swooped in closer for a hummingbird kiss on the cheek before he zipped off again—this time to attack Zev in the bathtub so violently that he had no choice but the crawl out of it fully nude and start stumbling about the bedroom while swatting at his two-inch attacker.

I screamed out a laugh and tried to cover my eyes, but not before I got more than a generous look at Zev. His body was a work of art, that I already knew, but I’d almost forgotten just how…impressive certain parts of that body were. A brief memory flashed into my mind of the night we shared in the tavern, of how his body had reacted to the feel of me tattooing my own name across his ribs. I saw that tattoo again now, and my cheeks burned even hotter.

I was grateful when Shiel slid closer to me, his eyes on me while his two fae companions darted back and forth across the room in the closest thing to a fae dance that I’d seen yet. I needed something more than my own fickle hand to keep me from staring at Zev in a way that was very, very indecent of me.

“You should know, Aurra, if you are the…” he trailed off, eyes searching the outer corners of the room for ravens that might signify Icarus’ listening ear, “princess, then there’s something you should know about your powers.”

All at once, the world stilled. Everything else disappeared. The court, the bedroom, even Zev and Finch’s raucous display.

I leaned in closer to Shiel, so close that our knees brushed and I had to hold in the slight sigh that tried to escape me.

“Your court is different from mine,” Shiel said, quietly. “The fae don’t like to talk about it, even amongst ourselves, even under the best of circumstances.”

I knew there was a good chance that this was another tactic Shiel was using to try and gain my undeserved trust, but no matter how hard I searched his face for any sign of deceit, I couldn’t find any. It would be best to let him continue, to not risk causing him to back down and change his mind about telling me, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked, my voice low, even though there was no sign of eavesdroppers. “After all the time you’ve spent keeping this from me?”

Shiel’s brow furrowed a little as he admitted, “Because something happened with Icarus that you’re not telling me,” he said, his words causing a pit of guilt to form in my stomach. “I promised to protect you, Aurra, and for a while that meant keeping this truth from you. What do you know of the powers of the Eastern Court?”

I shook my head. Shiel’s words were loaded with potential, the energy of possibility so strong that it was all I could do to keep my breaths coming one after the next.

“No one’s told me anything. Not about the Eastern Court. Not about any of them.”

Shiel nodded again, his hand edging closer to mine.

“The Eastern Court…it’s always been different,” he said, carefully. “The fae of that court don’t all possess the glamour as the fae of other courts do.”

The answer surprised me, but it didn’t shock me. It didn’t warrant the way Shiel reached out to take my hand, though I did nothing to stop him. I relished the touch, the warmth, the unusual sign of tenderness from the lord I’d grown to associate with coldness.

“Only one fae in that court holds their glamour. And that one fae possesses a great glamour indeed, the power of an entire court wrapped up in one, single fae.”

A chill began to build at the base of my spine, the tingling sensation spreading as Shiel’s admission grew.

“There’s something we didn’t tell you, Aurra, in the very beginning. The real reason it took us so long to come get you.”

“It wasn’t the ribbon?” I cocked my head as I looked at him. “I thought you said you could sense my mother’s glamour on it…that it was how you knew.”

“It started with the ribbon,” Shiel said, “but the real reason it took so long was because when I felt the power on that token, I began to suspect something. Do you know how this kingdom is ruled?”

I could practically stab him, the tension was so thick. I wanted to demand he stopped leading me on so slowly, that he stopped asking me stupid questions and would just get on with telling me the one thing I so desperately needed to know.

Even Zev and Finch had caught on. They’d stopped their bickering and were drawing closer, both of them in fae form now—though only one of them was still clothed. I was too engrossed in Shiel and his words and the way they made his face crease with concern for it to so much as phase me, now.

“We have a fae king, now,” I said. “The king of the Eastern Court rules all of Luxia.”

“Yes, typically,” Shiel said, and for a moment he paused again, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “But that’s not the case, anymore, Aurra. The reason it took us so long to get to you, and the real reason we travelled in such careful secrecy, was when I felt the glamour on that token, I began to suspect that something wasn’t right in the Eastern Court. It took weeks to uncover the truth, a truth that has yet to spread to the rest of the realm. It’s a truth that I don’t believe even Icarus is yet aware of.”

“He wouldn’t even be pretending to be treating us as guests if he did,” Zev said, any sign of the mirth that had passed between him and Finch now lost in his hollow tone.

Shiel took a deep breath, and then let it out, slowly. “The king, Aurra, is dead. He died the day the glamour returned, the very moment we met, when it struck you and I down in the middle of that market square.”

All three of them looked on at me in such solemn silence that I couldn’t help but feel the weight of what they were trying to tell me, even if I didn’t yet understand what it meant.

“But then…then what does that have to do with me? With Icarus? With my so-called powers?”

Shiel licked his lips again. “The moment the king died, his power would have transferred to his heir. To his daughter, the princess.”

He glanced over at Zev and Finch, and then once more around the room, his voice dropping even lower.

“But Aurra, it didn’t. Without the king’s power, at this very moment, the Eastern Court sits completely unprotected. Any lord who wanted to take it could do so easily. There’s no power there to challenge them.”

He took another breath. At long last, I was beginning to understand why the weight settling over me felt like lead.

“That is why news of the king’s death hasn’t spread. It’s a secret so tightly guarded that…that the only fae in this kingdom who know the truth are the Queen, her daughter…and the fae sitting here, now, in this very room.”

“Once word gets out, it’ll be a bloodbath,” Zev said. He’d finally sobered enough to realize his own nakedness and had the decency to cover himself with a bundle of flowers he’d snatched from Shiel’s basket.

“Icarus is right about the courts being on the verge of destruction,” Shiel said, though his gritted teeth told me he was far from happy to admit it, “but he’s focused on the wrong thing that’s about to do it.”

I processed what they said for a long moment.

“So, you think that the reason the power never transferred to the princess…is because she isn’t actually the princess.”

It took a second for Shiel to nod. “The way we discovered you, Aurra, in that moment…it was too convenient, Aurra. And when it comes to the glamour and its ways, nothing is ever just convenient.”

I once again found myself staring down at my hands. Shiel still held one of them in his, but even his warmth couldn’t stop the ice that chilled them until they started to shake.

“So, the reason the glamour struck me harder than it did you that day, was because it wasn’t just this new wave. You think it was my father’s glamour, his power that surged into me, too?”

I looked up, finally understanding…everything.

I understood why Shiel had left his court and risked all to come find me on his own. I understood why he’d been so cautious, so careful, so on edge at every turn.

I even understood why they’d kept this from me, the burden of it alone was overwhelming. He’d told me just enough to make me understand the weight of my own position, of my own potential, but not so much as to make me run from the path fate had so treacherously laid out for me. He’d kept this from me…to protect me.

Sure, there could be—and almost certainly was—some alternative, more selfish reason he’d kept it from me, but here he sat. He could have taken the information he’d learned and taken his own army straight to the Eastern Court, but he didn’t. Instead he remained with me, doing his best to figure out if I was who he suspected before he plunged the whole kingdom into chaos.

“Now you know the real reason we were taking you to the Southern Court,” Shiel said. “They’re masters of illusion. I’d hoped we might find someone there we could trust who might help us see through the one that’s over you now.”

“Though trust…” he trailed off, our eyes meeting.

“It seems a hard thing to come by in these courts,” I finished for him.

We all sat in silence together for a moment as the reality of our situation sank in.

“For now,” Shiel said, “we focus on keeping you safe while I find out how to get you to that oracle.” He let go of me only to brush back some of the hair that had fallen forward into my face. “But in two days’ time, we’ll be free of this place, for good. That’s my promise to you, Princess.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I UNDERSTOOD, now, why the oracle had enticed Shiel into the court in the first place.

Now that I knew what was on the line, I understood that there was no room for error. He couldn’t bring me to a court and claim I was the long-lost heir without some kind of proof. If word even got out of what he was doing, of who he thought I was, it could spark all-out war. It was never just about protecting me from the other fae. It was about keeping our entire world from descending into chaos.

Icarus never came for me while I was with the fae of the Western Court. He knew where I was within hours, however, thanks to his ravens. Once they’d first discovered us, the sound of their beaks tapping on the glass become a constant nuisance that even drawing the curtains wouldn’t drown out—if anything, it only made it worse.

There was no point in trying to drive them away. I had no doubt that Icarus would find another way to keep an eye on us if we did. Wherever we went in this court, even if it was staying in our rooms, we were being watched.

There was no need for another bed to be brought in. Shiel had volunteered his without question—not that Finch didn’t make a very convincing argument after that I should sleep in his, while he was in it, no less. They agreed to take watch in shifts throughout the night, so there would never more than two of them asleep at one time, anyway.

I might as well have offered to take watch all night while the three of them slept. I was awake, my reeling mind and beating heart refusing to let my body drift anywhere close to sleep.

After everything that Shiel had told me—and everything he still had not—I was no longer so sure that staying through the ball as promised was the right choice to have made. But Shiel was right, in one way. Better not to arouse any further suspicion in Icarus, not when his plans for me were already bad enough.

His end of the deal had to be upheld as well as Shiel’s, after all.

I’d been tempted to share the exact nature of Icarus’ plans with Shiel after all, once he’d told me the truth of why he’d hidden so much for me in the weeks after we first met, but at the last second, I found myself unable to do it.

I had, for the first time, a card in my hand…and I’d decided to hold onto it until I best knew how to play it. Besides, it wouldn’t do any of us any good if Shiel, Zev, and Finch started a full-on war at tonight’s ball. They were angry enough at Icarus already, just assuming he’d done something wrong, I didn’t even like to imagine the level of rage that would consume them if they actually knew.

I’d been nervous about the ball in the days leading up to it, but now that it was upon us, I was an absolute wreck.

Shiel and the others kept reassuring me that everything was going to work out fine.

They kept reminding me that it was no secret we planned to leave after. Icarus had failed to prove I was one of his own fae, and so there was nothing he could do to force me to stay once the requirements of the deal were met…as they would be as soon as the ball was over. Still, we’d done everything we could to prepare for our departure as soon as it ended without arousing too much suspicion.

No matter how we prepared, however, I couldn’t help the drowning, nagging suspicion that we hadn’t done enough.

No matter how much Shiel or Zev or Finch or all three of them together reassured me, I doubted very much that Icarus was going to just let us leave.

Not without putting up a fight.

And if that fight failed?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to all-out war over that, too.

War and bloodshed, that was what this all so quickly kept coming around to.

The only thing that kept me from falling apart completely as the hours ticked by, was the fact that at least Icarus’ demons still seemed preoccupied with whatever it was he’d called them away to do. The one thing I didn’t have to worry about tonight was being snatched from thin air at any given moment.

It was a small reassurance, but I would take what I could get.

We were the only fae, it seemed, who were not assigned some role in the preparations for the impending ball. Just from what I could see out the raven-lined windows, it seemed as if every other fae in the court was on the verge of panic.

Shiel seemed certain he was on the verge of learning how to get to the Oracle when he left the morning before the ball. The hours ticked by, and before we knew it, all too soon, the time had arrived.

But Shiel had not.

It was my turn to take up anxiously pacing the floor where Finch once had. My gown, a waterfall of delicate black silk and soft satin, rustled with every step, until I sounded like just another one of Icarus’ listening ravens.

The neckline plunged almost down to the narrow taper of the waist, and though the sleeves were long, the back of the dress was open, revealing the many scars my father had left on my skin. Unlike Zev’s tattoos, which I’d spent the afternoon touching up to keep my hands occupied, those seemed unwilling to fade.

It was fine by me, though. They served as a reminder of the life I’d led before, the one that had been meant to break me, but had failed. I didn’t like to claim that the cruelty I faced at my human father’s hands had made me stronger, but it had certainly taught me just how much I was able to bear.

If nothing else, I hoped that would at least give the fae something else to gawk at tonight other than my face. Because my face was an even worse liar than I was.

Zev and Finch had chosen not to wear the colors of the Court of the Wildness, opting instead for their own dark breeches and plain white shirts. They didn’t look like they were going to a ball, but it didn’t matter. I preferred them that way. At least, when the three of us stood before the washroom mirror, I recognized at least two of the fae peering back.

At long last, there was a knock on the door, but when we opened it, it wasn’t Shiel.

It was Icarus.

I’d expected him, of course, but nothing could prepare me for the sight of him standing there. Any lingering signs of weakness had faded from his body, leaving him standing tall and straight in the doorway. His hair had been braided at the crown so that it looped around his horns, but the bottom half was left down to tumble around his shoulders in perfect, inky black waves. His eyes were rimmed now with that kohl the other fae often wore, and on his head, perched perfectly between those curling horns of his, glittered a tall, spiked crown.

He bowed his head at me, his wings shuddering over his shoulders.

“My Storm,” he said, once he’d risen yet again to tower over me. “I was hoping you’d still choose to join me.”

Something about the words made a shiver race up my spine. I heard the double meaning, just as he’d intended.

Behind me, from the deep, low growl I heard come from either Zev or Finch, they had too.

But Icarus ignored them as he extended his hand out. He only had eyes for me.

“Come. You’re my guest of honor. It’s only right that you walk by my side.”

I noticed that Icarus had come alone. Better, I thought, in case I rejected him.

Or, perhaps, this was simply always how he acted. I remembered the way the canopy parted only for him, how he looked down on the court from above as well as through the eyes of his many ravens. That was the sort of thing that only a person who trusted no one, not even his own court, behaved. That was someone who no one else could trust, either.

When I looked up into the dark fae’s eyes, all I felt was resentment.

We stood locked like that, Icarus’ hand outstretched, waiting for me to take it, until I felt the gentle touch of a hand on my shoulder from behind. It was Zev.

“Go on,” he whispered, and I felt, rather than saw, the way he and Icarus exchanged glances, just for a second. “We’ll be right behind you.”

I wanted to ask him about Shiel, but it was better if Icarus didn’t know he was gone. The last thing I wanted to do was take his hand and let him lead me to the ball he’d planned, surely, as just another part of his elaborate trap, but that was exactly what I did.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ICARUS’ magic must have returned to him, because he’d used it to transform the entire court.

I saw it the moment I stepped out beside him. Zev and Finch followed close at my heels, their breaths stolen at the same moment mine was.

Far up above, the sound of music began to carry down to us. A great platform had been grown where there were many small ones before, the length of it spanning nearly the entire width of the court.

No sooner had we taken a few steps out to admire it with necks craned back to see, then a staircase began to spring up before our feet. It grew from the vines and the leaves and the tree roots reaching upward, growing before us with each step that we climbed.

Soon the ground had fallen far below, a terrible plunge always waiting just a step ahead, should Icarus’ magic fail. My hands began to shake as terrible images flashed into my mind. One wrong step. One wrong move. One foot caught on one of these steps, and I’d be seconds away from breaking my mortal neck.

But the moment my hand so much as trembled, Icarus took my hand to steady it. I wanted to pull away from him, but his cool hand in mine calmed me so that I couldn’t. Though he kept his head held high, his eyes finally caught mine in the fading light.

“If you fall, I will catch you, Aurra. You are safe with me, even if you don’t yet feel it.”

I didn’t want to feel safe with Icarus. But I also couldn’t bring myself to tear my hand from his. I tore my eyes from him instead, only to once again that terrible emptiness stretching out only a step ahead.

My footsteps faltered, my feet still refusing to move from where they were planted.

Behind me, I heard Finch swear as he barely caught hold of Zev’s shoulders in time to keep him from running into me. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would have most certainly been the last, given the vast emptiness before me.

Icarus’ hand tightened on mine again.

“Aurra.”

I ignored him at first, but then he turned to face me, his second hand coming up to cup my face. I wanted to lean away from him, to escape the intoxication of his touch. But once more, I found myself unable to move away, unable to move at all until the feel of his cool palm on my skin finally allowed at least my eyes to lift away from the emptiness before me and up, instead, into his.

I saw in his eyes the look I’d seen many times before. It was the look that had drawn me in at the river, the look that had made me melt into him and forget everything else.

“Keep your eyes on me,” he whispered, bowing his head slightly.

His one hand remained holding mine, his eyes kept locked on mine as he stepped up once, and then again. And then once more.

I didn’t realize it, at first, but I was stepping right along with him.

Together, like that, we rose into the ballroom that Icarus had grown for me.

Only then, when the swell of music fully enveloped me, could I finally bring myself to look away.

All around us, fae twirled and twisted in all shades of black. Zev and Finch stood out among the crowd like two pinpricks of light in their white shirts. At least, I thought, they’d be easy to spot if I got separated from them.

Not, I reminded myself, that I planned to let that happen.

We’d made our entrance in the very middle of the ballroom floor, but in the brief moment before the arrival of their lord disrupted the bodies gliding in time to the music, I had a chance to see the full magnificence of what Icarus had arranged.

The last remnants of the day had faded, the only light now coming from the many lanterns filling up glass-paned hall. It was as if Icarus had gathered all the lanterns from the court into this one place, giving the feeling that the revelers danced among the stars, not beneath them.

A long buffet table lined the far end of the room, with elaborate sculptures made of live berry bushes grown in the shapes of faerie beasts. Stacks of glasses refilled themselves magically with that same sweet wine that had been served at Icarus’ luncheon, and from the glassy look in the eyes that slowly turned our way, it had been steadily flowing for some time already.

Those eyes continued to turn our way, the bodies they belonged to each one slowly coming to a halt as they recognized their lord. It started slowly at first, those closest to us spinning to a halt with small shrieks of surprise as they struggled not to run into the other twirling figures before they’d seen us too. The disturbance rippled through the crowd, quickening until, all at once, the orchestra ground to a halt and suddenly every last eye was turning our way.

It was a second before I realized their eyes were not on Icarus, they were on me.

It was a second longer before I realized why—I still held onto Icarus, but not the way I had when he’d led me up the stairs. I’d moved closer to him, pulled his arm to my body where I clung to it like a pillar for support. I imagined how it looked, us standing together, like this, in the middle of his ball.

It might have been thrown for me, but the way we clung together, it looked like it was thrown for something else. Like it was not an announcement of my coming of age, but rather, of something we planned to share together.

I tried to let go of him, to step away and break the illusion I’d willingly taken part of, but Icarus’ refused to let me go.

He leaned in close, his lips nearly grazing my ear as he whispered for only me to hear.

“All this, for you, My Storm.”

His hand squeezed mine at the same time that his wings shuddered slightly. They came forward over his shoulders a bit until they encased both of us slightly, their ends brushing along the back of my arms in a way that made my skin prickle.

That wasn’t what made my heart skip a beat, however.

No, that was the look in Icarus’ eyes when I lifted mine to meet his again.

I knew, in my head, that this beautiful ball was all part of Icarus’ plan for me, that plan being to get me to stay here, with him, so he could take advantage of the fact that he thought I could channel this new glamour without the same trouble as the other fae. It was one more part of an elaborate puzzle he’d put together long before we showed up at the doorstep to his court.

But my heart, that treacherous organ, couldn’t seem to hold onto that truth the same way. That part of me looked around the ballroom at the faces turned our way, imagining what they saw with me in the dark fae’s arms, and it liked it.

More than that, it longed for it.

There was no hatred in their eyes when they looked at me beside their lord. No jealousy. No venom. No hint that they thought me unworthy to stand by his side. I’d come to this court as a stranger, nothing more than a curiosity who had all too quickly come to represent something worthy of their hate. But now, now they looked at me like something more. Like one of them. Like I belonged.

I’d never belonged before. Not for a moment.

Icarus made a motion towards the orchestra, and they once again fumbled back to life, but no one else in the room dared move yet. They were waiting for something. Icarus finally loosened his hold on me slightly, still holding onto my hand, but not pulling me completely to his side.

He bowed his head slightly. “Dance with me.”

I considered him, looking out at the crowd once more as it shuddered back to life.

Here, at Icarus’ side, I was not the child who’d been pawned off on strangers. I was not the despised daughter. I was not the girl sold like cattle for a pitiful price.

I hadn’t known how much I longed for this until the moment I had it, however brief that moment lasted. Because even as the feeling settled deep inside me, something deeper began to take hold.

These fae only looked at me like this because I stood at Icarus’ side, because of his power. Because of who he was.

But they should be looking at me like this because of my power. Because of who I was.

Because that was why I was here. That was why Icarus had me at his side.

I wasn’t here because I needed him.

I was here because he needed me.

That was what gave me the strength to look up into Icarus’ eyes, to meet that gaze that still made my knees want to buckle beneath me, and give him the only answer he truly deserved.

“No.”

The shock on Icarus face was worth every repercussion my very public refusal might have. I turned my back on him before he could try and grab hold of me again and stepped, instead, to loop my arms into one each of Zev and Finch’s.

“Come now,” I said, fixating my face towards the table at the far end of the hall. “I’m going to need a drink.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I WAS right about the faerie wine.

It was nothing like the ale I’d tried back at the inn. Nothing like the wine I’d sipped once or twice from my human father’s bottles when I thought he wasn’t looking.

No, this was far better.

And far, far more dangerous.

All it took was one sip to numb the fear I felt at refusing Icarus in front of his court. A second to make me forget the way that same court’s faces distorted as we passed.

We’d only just arrived at this cursed ball, and already, I knew, nothing good was going to come of it.

I didn’t dare look over my shoulder at Icarus after we’d left him behind. I didn’t need to, not when I’d already seen his own face mirrored back a hundred times.

Eventually, the orchestra had swelled back to life as the fae returned to dancing, but their voices now carried with them the harsh tones of whispers that all too often carried the sound of our names.

We found a space in an outer corner of the ballroom by one of the windows that no one had yet claimed. For once, I had no stomach for the faerie food as we passed. That was, perhaps, what worried me the most.

“So…” Finch said, after downing one drink and turning around so quickly, the wine already refilling his glass nearly spilled all over the front of him. “What was that, back there, with the Dark Lord?”

“I don’t know what you—”

“Your moment,” he continued, not giving me time to finish the lie, “when you were making googly eyes all at each other.”

“I…I…” I stammered, my mind going blank as I tried to come up with a response. I pointed back towards the swirling dancers, to where Icarus’ imposing figure was now conspicuously missing. “Did you not see what I just did, what’s making everyone look at me like I just dropped a baby on its head? I refused him.”

“Yes, well,” Finch said, taking another hearty swig, “I also saw what you did before that, so…”

I turned to Zev, expecting him to back me up, but he was also a little too deep in his own cup.

He saw my stare and just shrugged, his moustache stained red as he said, “I saw it too, Princess.”

I looked between the two of them, hoping to find that this was a joke, but they were all too serious. This was not the time nor the place to admit the true nature of my relationship with ‘The Dark Lord’ as Finch insisted on calling him—certainly not when I was uncertain myself what that was.

I looked at Zev and Finch and said nothing. Instead, in the uncomfortable silence that stretched between us, we all just took another drink.

All around us, the ball had taken on a life without us. I supposed the guest of honor didn’t need to be acting her part for a ball to continue being a ball...especially when there was enough faerie wine involved, which their certainly was. Instead of dancing and reveling alongside them, the guest of honor was busy hoping she might find the reason her two companion’s accusations unsettled her so much.

Aside from, of course, the fact that they were true.

A moment had passed between me and Icarus, more than a moment. From the second our hands touched as he led me up towards the ballroom, I’d found it impossible to hate him for what he’d planned to use me for. I’d found it impossible to hate him at all.

Maybe it was because I’d known he planned to use me all along. Maybe it was because I’d had some sneaking suspicion about what that plan was, even before I saw it for myself. Or maybe it was just because when I was with Icarus, I knew without a doubt that he wanted me.

He wanted me.

From the very beginning, before Zev, or Finch, and certainly before Shiel showed me a single shred of kindness, Icarus wanted me.

Sure, it would be easy to claim he only wanted me for my powers, but I’d felt the bond he claimed had formed between us. I’d felt him, felt the way he desired me, seen the way he looked at me. It might have started with him wanting me for my powers, but I knew there was something more to it, too.

And that, I realized, was what frightened me the most.

That was why, when I finally understood what staying with Icarus would mean, my only thought was to leave. That was why, as I finished my glass of wine and turned back to the two fae at my side, I knew one thing, and one thing only.

We needed to find Shiel so that as soon as he felt the deal was done, we got out of here—Oracle or not. Only, the moment I turned back to Finch, I was distracted, because he’d gotten distracted first.

One of the lanterns had, at last, floated close enough for him to catch. He held it in his hands now, his face pressed so close to the glass that his nose was actually squished up against it. Any sign of his displeasure with me from a moment before had vanished, the look on his face replaced now with one of curiosity.

“It’s a pixie,” he whispered, as if saying it aloud would make the tiny creature I now saw hovering inside the glass vanish. His eyes lifted for a moment to scan the hundreds—if not thousands—of lanterns floating all around us. “They all are.”

I tore my eyes from the tiny, glowing creature encased in the glass to follow his stare.

When I looked back down, Finch was already fiddling with a small catch on the outside of the lantern. There was small popping sound as he finally undid it, and in the blink of an eye, the moment the glass cage was unlocked, the pixie was zipping out.

It was gone even faster, but not before stopping for a single second to look back at Finch, as if silently thanking him for setting it free.

I watched the pixie fly off in a colorful streak until it was no longer distinguishable from the rest of the tiny pinpricks up above. But when I looked back, Finch wasn’t looking at the pixie he’d rescued.

He was looking at me.

His brow had furrowed like he was deep in thought. Something about the way he looked at me, it made me shift uncomfortably where I stood. I tried looking for Zev, but he was gone too—presumably to get some food to put in Finch’s stomach, which was obviously already far too poisoned from the amount of faerie wine he’d drunk.

When I looked at him again, his own gaze still fixated on me the same way, he’d started swaying on his feet.

I caught him around the shoulders and started helping him towards the wall, where he could at least lean on something to steady him. He accepted my touch with a spark of delight, his hands wrapping tight around me and refusing to let go once we’d stepped even further out of the throng of dancers.

But when I went to pry him off of me, his hands only tightened.

“Aurra…” my name came out slurred between his lips.

“Just a minute now and Zev will be back with food and some water,” I said, even though I was only guessing. I craned my neck to try and spot any sign of the massive fae in his white shirt. I’d just thought I’d spotted him starting to weave his way back towards us when Finch reached up and cupped the side of my face, forcing me to look back into his eyes.

His face was mere inches away from mine now.

Normally, I’d have found myself pulling away. His breath was hot on my face, but it wasn’t sour. It drew me in further with the scent of sweet wine and berries plucked from the buffet when I wasn’t looking.

His feet had gone steady at last, or maybe I was just swaying with him now.

“You’re so very beautiful, Aurra,” he whispered, his eyes as glassy as the fae dancing around us.

Despite myself, I blushed.

“You’re drunk, Finch,” I said, trying to push him back—but not enough, I seemed.

His brow furrowed deeper. “No, I’m not drunk enough. I can never be drunk enough, not as long as you keep refusing to look at me the way you look at…at…at him.”

My lips parted. “At Icarus?”

“No!” His foot slipped just a little then, and I had to catch the both of us. Faces were starting to turn our way. “Not just him. At Zev. At Shiel, even. Anyone but me.”

I was lost for words then.

“I want you to look at me like you think I’m beautiful too, Princess,” he said.

At the use of his pet name, my eyes shifted to the faces looking on. My face, already red, turned a full shade of scarlet. I spotted a balcony not far off and started pulling Finch towards it. He resisted again, at first, but then he saw where I was leading him and relented.

The night air sobered him a bit once we stepped outside and the swell of music dropped again. He let go of me and went to lean against the balcony, his hands gripping the wound vines tight.

I considered leaving him to go find Zev, but his voice once again made me stop.

“Did I do something wrong?”

His head turned slowly, and this time, there was a sadness in his eyes when he looked at me.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When we first got you, you and I…” he trailed off, his face finally turning from mine to stare out into the darkness. The court was nearly pitch-black outside without the pixies to light it. “There was something between us. A spark. And then it died.”

He turned back to be suddenly, just for a moment. “And don’t tell me it has anything to do with Shiel and his lies,” he said. “It was something else.”

I almost told him he was wrong, that he was imagining it, but then I stopped. Because, as his words settled into me, I couldn’t tell him that. Not without lying.

And after all the lies I’d been weaving in the last weeks, I didn’t want to add one more.

“Zev warned me…about you,” I said, quietly. I thought back to that night in the inn, when Zev had looked at his friend as he snuck off to gamble. He’d warned me not the get my heart broken, and I supposed I’d listened…because the more I thought about it, the more I knew that Finch was right. There had been more than a moment once when a single glance from Finch had made my heart flutter, had made my mind conjure unholy fantasies that involved him in the forest river with me instead of Icarus.

But I wasn’t about to tell him all that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Zev searching for us inside, where he’d last seen us. He turned in a circle that grew more frantic each time he turned around the room and didn’t see us. I wanted to wave him down, to save him the panic that was surely rising in his chest, but Finch was still looking at me like his was the heart in the midst of breaking.

So I admitted to him what little of the truth I could.

“I don’t want to be just the next girl in the parade of females you take to your bed, Finch.”

“Is…is that it?” he asked. “Is that all you’re worried about?”

“I mean…Finch…” I stammered, “there’s a thousand reasons you and I shouldn’t be together.”

“But you’re saying there’s a chance? You’re saying you might one day…consider me?”

I took a moment to look at Finch, to really look at Finch for the first time since that night in the tavern. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d taken Zev’s words to heard until this moment. I’d discovered Shiel’s lies—and by extension, both his companion’s—so shortly after, that I hadn’t really had time to consider what other reasons I had for going so cold on Finch.

I’d gone cold enough to push him out of a window, for goodness’ sake.

Though…now that I considered it, I might have done that anyway.

But he was right, and there was no way to deny it without lying to myself, too, first.

“Finch…if you’re asking me to choose between you and Zev and…” I couldn’t even bring myself to mention the others. “It isn’t fair. I can’t even be thinking about that right now. I have so much else—”

“I’m not!” he cut me off, each breath coming out more excited than the last. “I would never ask you to choose. I just want to know I have…hope. Even if that hope means I have to share you with one fae or a million, I don’t care.”

“Except Icarus,” he clarified, his nose scrunching up. “I think that’s where I draw the line.”

“Ah, well then, you’re out of luck, Finch.”

What was meant as a joke turned his face into mask of horror as he quickly walked back what he said. “Line undrawn. Even Icarus!”

As only Finch could, he’d once again drawn a laugh out of me under the most impossible of circumstances.

“See, see just now…seeing you like this, when you laugh…”

Finch let go of the balcony and took my face up in his hands, tilting up my chin so I had no choice but to see the sincerity in his eyes.

I couldn’t remember ever being this close to Finch. This close, I could see the way that light in his eyes wasn’t imagined. It was as if it came from deep inside him, begging to get out at any chance. The tips of his lashes were pale, the same golden color as his hair, as if they’d been bleached from too much time in the sun. Freckles dusted the top of his nose where the sun had bronzed his skin. The most attractive feature of all, however, were the fine lines the crinkled up at the corners of his eyes, permanent reminders of the smile that always seemed ready to spread across his face.

To call him beautiful, as he’d asked, was an understatement.

His lips hovered so close to mine that I couldn’t help but share his breath, but it wasn’t only the sweetness of wine and berries that overwhelmed my senses. His scent was like clothes that had been left too long to bleach in the sun, it was the end of summer when the wheat had ripened, it was bread toasted until the edges had just begun to burn.

Finch’s thumbs caressed my cheeks with the softness of a butterfly’s wings.

“If I could just see you smile like that, every day, for the rest of my life, I would be the happiest fae alive.”

A nervous laugh bubbled out of me. “And you wonder why I’m worried? Finch,” I pulled back slightly, to see him better, “you’ve hardly known me a month and a half. How can you say things like that when you just met me?”

“Some things,” Finch said, his voice soft and velvety as his eyes dropped from mine to my lips, where they lingered just a little too long, “some things you just know, Aurra.”

I felt my breath hitch in my throat as something squeezed at that treacherous organ in the middle of my chest. I swore he was going to kiss me. I knew he was going to kiss me.

And I didn’t stop him. I wasn’t going to stop him.

I almost longed for the kiss, my lips parting, my breath coming out in a sigh…but then it didn’t come.

Instead, Finch pressed his lips to my ear and whispered a promise.

“I’ll prove to you that this is no passing feeling, that you’re not like the ones before.”

“Finch—” I started, but he pressed his lips to my cheek, for just a second, to silence me. It worked.

“I pledge to you that from this moment forward, I’ll not touch another female, human or fae, until you agree to have me. I am yours, Aurra. My Princess. Only you can unbind me from this promise.”

Something inside me seized up, and I swore for a moment, my heart stopped beating.

I gasped aloud, not at the words, but at the swell of power that washed over me as Finch and I finally broke apart.

I hadn’t agreed to his pledge, his promise, but somehow…I’d felt the moment that the glamour sealed it between us.

“Lucky you, Aurra. Tonight seems to be quite the night for you indeed. You just made your first deal.”

I stumbled back from Finch, still so close that I could sense the panic in him too the moment we both realized we’d not been as alone as we thought.

I gaped at Icarus where he stood in the shadows, his wings flickering agitatedly over his shoulders. Though his face was a mask of amusement, his posture—the way he stood, the way his claws hooked around his glass, the slight cocking of his head—showed his true feelings.

And he was about as far from amused as a fae could be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I’D FACED Icarus alone many times before, felt his power before, but it had never felt like this.

From the look on his face alone, I feared the Lord of the Wildness was about the do something all of us was very much going to regret.

“Icarus…” I started, though I had no idea what to say. How much had he seen? How much had he heard?

Enough, it seemed, that it wasn’t my body that his eyes raked over. He glared down at Finch like he was trying to decide which was the best way to begin his slow and painful dismemberment.

“You know,” Icarus continued, completely ignoring the pleading look in my eyes as he started to slowly stalk the golden haired fae still too faerie wine-drunk to stand still on his own two feet. “Fear really does do the strangest things. If I’d known telling Aurra about her glamour would send her straight into another’s arms, right in front of me in the ball I threw for her no less, I might have been more cautious about how—and what—I told her.”

He gritted his teeth. “Perhaps I should have been more like Shiel and refused to tell her anything at all.”

A confused look crossed Finch’s face. The wine was still thick enough in his blood that he didn’t seem to sense the same imminent danger than I did.

“Aurra’s glamour? What are you talking about?”

I saw him open his mouth to continue, but I stepped between the two of them, successfully stopping Finch from saying whatever damning thing he was about to say next, and blocking Icarus’ murderous path in the process.

Only then, at last, did Icarus look at me.

Nothing good was going to come from this conversation. Both these fae held secrets from the other that were far too close to being spilled.

“Finch, why don’t you go find Zev,” I said, my gaze still leveled with the Lord of the Wildness.

I heard Finch start to splutter out an argument but I repeated myself, again, refusing to look away from Icarus in case he tried to do something if I did.

“Now, Finch,” I snarled, when he made no move to follow my order.

At least that was enough to finally make his feet start shuffling towards the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn and hesitate before heading back into the ball, as if he was considering whether or not he should take Icarus on one-on-one. Thankfully, he wasn’t quite drunk enough for that.

The moment we were alone, I narrowed my eyes and set my jaw as I marched straight up to where Icarus remained, frozen and furious as the first moment he interrupted me and Finch.

“What are you doing?” I snapped, one finger waving in his face.

Icarus tried to force his posture to relax, but it was too late. “Oh, nothing,” he said, not at all sounding like he thought it was nothing, “I’m just surprised you’ve chosen sides already.”

“Chosen sides?” I glared up at him. “I’m not choosing sides. But if I did, it wouldn’t be any of your business. Not after that little stunt you tried to pull with me.”

He ignored my accusation, focusing on his own. “Then what exactly what was that you were doing just now, with…what’s his name? Sparrow? Blackbird?”

It was my turn to cock my head as I looked up at him, each one of my hands raising to plant firmly on my hips. “I thought you weren’t jealous.”

In a single movement, Icarus was upon me. He towered over me, a single hair’s-breadth between us as his dark horns glittered beneath that crown of his. It made him look serpentine, like a dragon with a great spiked crest.

The power and emotion that emanated from him now certainly felt like that of a fire-breathing beast.

“Of course, I’m jealous.”

His jaw set and his lip curled up in a snarl. “How could I not be jealous when I see you falling for not only a lesser court than mine, but a lesser fae. At least, maybe if you’d had the decency to run to Shiel for comfort, I might have felt less…disrespected.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and perhaps emboldened by the faerie whine, I snapped.

“Finch is twice the fae you could ever hope to be,” I snarled back, feeling my feet rise up onto my toes, as if a few inches could make the way he hovered over me any less impressive.

“Not, I can assure you, where it truly counts,” Icarus spat back, and all at once, there was no gap between us at all. His hands wrapped around my waist pulling me flush against him until I couldn’t ignore the way he throbbed against me. His head ducked low and his voice took on that deep, dangerous quality that made me have to fight to keep my head on straight. “I meant it that day in the forest, when I said our fates were bound, My Storm. Every moment we spend together only makes me more sure of that. A fae doesn’t feel that and simply let it go without fighting for it first.”

Somehow his fury made him even more beautiful.

Anger suited him. It brought out the angle of his cheekbones, that sharp line of his jaw, even his snarl made his full lips entice me closer. He was the Wildness through and through, deep, dark, dangerous—every part of it made to draw me in, and keep me here.

His lips curled slightly into something more of a smile. “It’s my turn to have a moment alone with you. That deal might not allow me to entice you to stay in my court, but it doesn’t stop me from taking you out of it.”

He didn’t give me a second to respond, not a single second to process before those great, leathery wings of his unfolded behind him. His arms tightened around me so suddenly that with a gasp, they stole the breath from my lungs.

“Aurra!” Shiel’s voice called out to me as he, Zev, and Finch erupted onto the balcony—a moment too late.

A great wind swirled around Icarus, filling his wings and launching us up, together, into the blackness of the sky.

More shouts followed, but I couldn’t hear them over the roar of wind in my ears.

The lights of the ballroom fell away as we tore through the air. Those great wings flapped with a furious wind of their own, carrying us higher and higher, faster and faster until I was sure we were about to crash into the tightly wound canopy overhead.

“Icarus!”

I shouted the fae lord’s name, but he didn’t answer. His head was thrown back, his smirk replaced by a look of raw, dark delight as that canopy shattered over our heads. We plunged into the night, the darkness suddenly broken by that endless expanse of stars—real stars.

It had been only a little over a week since I saw the stars, but still, something about them made my heartbeat still. A feeling of awe swept in where fear had been a moment earlier as our furious pace slowed and then altogether stopped, Icarus’ wings beating slowly, methodically as they worked with the wind he commanded to keep us afloat.

I was so accustomed to the darkness of his court that here, beneath the light of those far-off heavenly bodies, I could see everything.

Miles upon miles of wicked forest spread out around us on every side. Overhead, the moon had begun to rise above the horizon, it’s great silvery white glow outlining Icarus’ face as he once again looked down at me, cradled in his tight embrace.

My stomach suddenly dropped as his grip began to loosen, but he didn’t drop me. He nudged his feet beneath mine, releasing me only enough that I felt my soles pressing into the tops of them. He held me still, but softly now, using just enough pressure to keep me from falling back and plunging through the hole in the forest canopy now below us.

I wanted to be furious with Icarus, still, but it was hard to concentrate on anger with all the world beneath my feet.

“You know this little party trick of yours doesn’t make up for what you tried to do to me,” I managed, finally, now that his grip had relaxed enough for me draw the breath to speak. “For all you talk of wanting me to come willingly, you sure do have a way of forcing your hand.”

His face grey stony. “What are you accusing me of?”

“This…thing, you’re doing right now, it isn’t some kind of gift. You’ve trapped me, forced me into a corner I can’t escape from just so I have no choice but to hear you out.”

His face softened slightly. “I couldn’t let you simply go without you hearing me out,” he said. Icarus’ claws dragged along the back of my arms, the fabric thin enough for the gentle touch to send tingles across the places where he touched me.

“Tell me this, Aurra…” he said, voice careful and practices. “Would you have agreed to study with me if I told you the truth?”

I narrowed my eyes up at him again.

“I told you I planned to use you,” he continued. “I also promised to do nothing to force you to stay in my court while you studied with me. You remember the deal? The one that’s the only reason you’re still here, tonight, and that you haven’t already left?”

I pressed my lips together, but I didn’t deny what he’d already guessed.

“Are you telling me you weren’t going to claim I was a Wildness fae?”

Icarus looked deep into my eyes again and said, “I’d have let you draw the connection yourself, but I never would have forced it on you, whatever you might think. You would have figured out the truth eventually, but I’d hoped with time…”

I let out a laugh at the absurdity of it all. “You know that’s still a lie, right? You’re as bad as Shiel,” I said. “No, worse. At least he wasn’t trying to trick me into doing something that was just going to get me killed.”

“I would never have let the glamour do to you what I let it do to myself.”

There was a sincerity in his voice that I really, really wanted to believe he couldn’t fake. But I knew better.

He must have sensed my disbelief, because suddenly one of his hands was sliding up my shoulder to rest on the back of my neck. He gently wound his hand around it, using his fingers to support me, to keep me from falling back while his thumb nudged my chin up to look at him.

“Aurra, I just want to help you. I can show you how not to become as I am.”

He looked down at himself and grimaced. “You have the chance to avoid this…perversion…that has taken over me. My Storm, with my help, you could harness a glamour other fae could only dream of.”

He nodded towards the night sky above us, and then back down to the shifting trees below, their leaves shuddering in the cool night air.

“This is how to feels to be as powerful as we are,” Icarus said, drawing me back to him. “I know you’re afraid of your power—”

“I’m not afraid of my power,” I said, thinking it was a lie, but realizing as I said it that it wasn’t, not entirely. “I’m afraid of what you want me to do with that power,” I said. “Of what you want to do with my power.”

For a moment, the only sound was the beating of his great wings. He looked over me, into me in that way that only he could.

“Please, Aurra,” he said, something thick in his voice. “Don’t let my mistake stop you from reaching your full potential.”

There was a plea in his eyes that might have once been convincing.

But I knew something he didn’t, something that made it impossible for me to fall for his honeyed words. He was fae, through and through, a creature to which trickery came as natural as breathing.

“You know, you’re coming awfully close to breaking that deal you made with Shiel.”

“Am I, now?”

Icarus tilted back his head then, his face catching the light of the moon as he watched it settle into its place at the apex of the sky. When he looked back down to me, a wicked gleam was glinting in his eye.

“The hour of the deal will soon be up,” he said. “What’s to stop me now from trying to force you to stay, then?”

His wings began to beat again, and we began, once more, to rise.

“What would it take you to stay, Aurra?” he called out above the swelling sound of the wind in my ears. “Would you stay if I offered you everything you saw before you? Would you stay if I offered you my kingdom?”

The forest began to fall away beneath us, and as it did, something swelled inside me, something far stronger than simple fear. Icarus’ hands tightened on me slowly, and my mind began to race.

“Would you stay if I threatened your life?”

All of a sudden, his grip on my tightened again, one moment before his beating wings stopped and we dropped. I was too terrified to scream, too terrified to look. I buried my face in his chest, pressing into him until he once again opened up those wings of his and dragged us to a halt, still suspended far above the trees.

I shook uncontrollably in his arms now.

“Would you stay out of duty, if you knew all I’d already sacrificed to keep you here?”

His words struck me as strange, but I didn’t have any response. I was too focused on how close I was to plummeting to my death. Icarus wouldn’t kill me, here, if he thought I was going to refuse him, would he? Surely this was all a show. A jest.

But that didn’t stop my heart from beating faster, or my head from spinning so violently I couldn’t see straight, to say nothing of thinking straight.

All at once, I was all too aware of how close to death I was. Not just one wrong step or one wrong word, but at the very hands of the only thing currently keeping me alive.

He took off yet again, flying higher than ever.

“Stop, Icarus,” I begged, but his smile only broadened again, his wings beating harder.

The air had started to thin. The forest was so far below that I could barely make out the break in the canopy that Icarus had used to carry us up from the ball below.

“Stop!” I tried again, and again, nothing.

Panic welled up in me, and as I had so many times before at times like this, I reached into my pocket for golden ribbon I’d been given long ago. But I stopped myself, remembering instead all the times it had dulled me, made me vulnerable and compliant. I was not that girl anymore. So, instead, I felt that panic grow and grow. I felt it succumb me, overtake me, take hold of my being as it raced through my veins until my shoulders shuddered and my brain flooded with something new.

Something…powerful.

“Stop this, now, Icarus! Let me go!”

Surprise flickered across Icarus’ face as suddenly, in the same moment that a terrible anxious energy burst out of me, he did as I said.

He stopped, mid-flight.

And he let me go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THERE, suspended in the space between the forest and the stars, was where I found myself.

I was falling, tumbling untethered through a void of nothing but screaming wind, but I felt nothing but a burning euphoria. It flooded my body in the moment after my glamour erupted from it, seeping back into my veins like a drug made specifically, and only, for me.

Unfortunately—or rather, fortunately for my life’s sake—that feeling didn’t last.

Whatever glamour I’d momentarily broken free of slipped back in like a veil between me and my magic, and with it, the cold reality of what had just happened rushed over me in its place.

I was plunging towards the canopy below, the gnarled branches ready to tear me to ribbons any second. Even if I was lucky enough to somehow fall through the hole Icaurs had made, it would only be a short plunge after that before I fell to my death at the bottom of his cavernous court.

There was no time to make peace with this death, no time even to try and call forth the magic that had momentarily surged through me enough to break the spell binding it down. Far above me, I saw Icarus fighting with the magic that had compelled him to let me go, that held him still suspended in the air like a marionette with tangled strings.

Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the outer reaches of the forest drawing near. I refused to turn, refused to look death in the eye. Instead, I focused my face upward, on Icarus highlighted against the silver moon.

In the end, he’d gotten what he wanted. He’d finished what he set out to do.

He’d brought the glamour out in me.

But all a moment too late.

The moment before the branches snared my body, Icarus’ silhouette twisted to face me. I saw his hand reach out, his fingers curl, and something all around me began to shift.

The branches destined to be the death of me suddenly sprang apart, vines shooting out in their place. They caught my arms and legs and wrapped around my torso. It took me a second longer to understand what was happening, but by then, my body was already slowing.

It wasn’t enough to stop my fall entirely, but they’d shifted my trajectory.

When I plunged through the canopy, it wasn’t only to fall another thousand feet to my death. I fell, instead, into the maw of a great fanged beast.

I’d broken through the top of the cage at the top of the court and straight into Icarus’ bed. The downy mattress could only break my fall so much, despite the best efforts of the vines that had preceded it.

Every bit of air was expelled from my lungs the moment my back hit the mattress. It exploded in a haze of black feathers that filled my vision and choked me as I struggled to regain a single breath. I thought I blacked out for a moment, my consciousness struggling to determine whether or not I’d actually died, and in that moment, the magic that bound Icarus broke too.

He fell from the sky after me, but unlike me, he had wings.

Still, it was with a great thunderous crash that he landed on the floor beside me, broken branches raining down on us as he didn’t bother to command the trees to move aside for him in his haste.

His face was a bloody mess when he hovered over me, a deep cut carving his cheek where one of the branches had sliced him open. It looked painful, but it was nothing compared to the look on his face as he took in the sight of me.

“Don’t move, My Storm. I can fix this.”

He reached out, ready to heal me, but I caught his hand with my own. My head was finally beginning to clear, and though I felt drained, my body was no broken. The only pain I felt was in my lungs as I gulped in what felt like thee first breaths after drowning.

“Icarus…” I started, but he tore his hand from mine and started searching my body, a warmth spreading from him as he tried to heal me. “Icarus,” I repeated again, more firmly now that my lungs had properly filled with air. “Icarus, I’m fine.”

“You are not fine,” he snarled, his eyes wide and rolling in their sockets. “I saw you fall. I saw you die. I saw…I saw…”

His whole body was shaking where it hovered over mine. He’d climbed into the bed beside me, his hands brushing away the raven’s feathers as he searched my body for injury. But despite the fact that I had none, not even a scratch as bad as the one now dripping red blood down his cheek, he couldn’t seem to force himself to still.

He was on the verge of madness, his eyes unwilling to believe what they saw.

“I dropped you, My Storm,” he whispered, his voice as frantic as the hands now clamping down on my shoulders as if to be sure they were, in fact, mine. His eyes widened again as the horror of it all threatened to take deeper root inside of him. “I let you go.”

It took me a moment to register what he said, to understand what was happening. Icarus didn’t know.

I reached out and caught Icarus’ face between my hands and pulled his lips down to mine, smothering his overflowing fear with a kiss. But even that wasn’t enough to stop the way his body shook. He broke the kiss to pull away, his eyes searching my face as if he didn’t recognize me, still.

“What is wrong with me,” he whispered. “Why didn’t I save you sooner? Why didn’t I stop you?”

“It’s not your fault,” I whispered back, careful not to touch the wound on his face. It was already healing, the skin knitting back together to form an angry red scar. I brushed the hair back from his face instead, tucking the falling coils behind his ears, my fingers wandering to trace the line of his horns where they grew from his skull. “Icarus, it’s not your fault.”

His hands loosened their grip on my shoulders a bit, but only so they could roam the rest of me, as if he still couldn’t believe that I was here, with him, in his arms.

His face was so tortured, his eyes unable to believe what they saw, that I desperately wanted to put him out of his misery. All it would talk would be for me to tell him the truth, to tell him that I’d somehow made him drop me, but I couldn’t.

So, instead, I reached for him again. I pulled him into me, crushing his lips against mine a second time. This time I was the one to pull away, to press my forehead against his as my hands reached to tangle up in his hair.

“I’m fine, Icarus. I’m safe. I’m here.”

I kissed him again, the taste of salt mixing with iron on our tongues, and this time he finally stopped shaking. His hands stopped roving my body blindly, and instead pressed into the mattress on either side of my head as he sank further into the kiss, his mouth crushing mine with a growing ferocity.

One that I matched with a feral hunger of my own.

All the fear, the adrenaline, the rush of the glamour had left a void in their wake that I now reached to Icarus to fill—and he, in turn, reached for me. Each kiss deepened until a deep, low growl erupted from the back of the dark fae’s throat. He drew up one of his knees to nudge mine apart. One hand left it’s place buried in the ruined mattress to take hold of my hip, his fingers hitching up the skirt until I could wrap my leg around him.

My hands reached for his horns, taking hold of them as he pressed his pelvis into mine, grinding himself into me so I could feel his arousal through the thin silks that separated us. The feel of him made that ache deepen until it was almost unbearable, my body begging me for release as it grew slick with need.

I arched my back into him, pressing into him as our bodies writhed together, his hardness sliding between my thighs and up to press against my belly. I could barely contain a gasp of desire as Icarus pressed harder, nearly piercing through the drape of my skirts still separating us. My hands tightened around his horns, drawing out a guttural sound from the back of Icarus’ throat until he couldn’t contain himself a moment longer.

Thin as the barrier was between us, it was not thin enough, it seemed. That growl of frustration had Icarus suddenly pulling back from me. I had no choice but to let go of his horns as he sat up and roughly took hold of the skirts bunched around my thighs and shoved them up to my waist, tearing the fabric when it resisted him as easily as if it was nothing more than spider’s silk.

He took hold of my thighs and spread them apart, his eyes drinking me in with a look of insatiable hunger. When he looked back up at me, there was no longer any sign of the terror that had consumed him earlier.

“I warned you this day would come,” he purred. “I can scent the desire on you like perfume. If I could bathe in that scent, I would.”

His words made my cheeks redden. I instinctively tried to close my legs, but held them firm.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, My Storm,” he said, that honey voice of his making that wetness between my thighs thicken, betraying me. He took in a sharp breath as he scented that too, his pupils growing wider in the dark beneath the stars. “I’m the one who should be ashamed. I’ve been unable to forget how my fingers felt inside of you, Aurra, since that moment in the forest. I only touched you when you deserve to be tasted.”

Before I could comprehend what he meant, Icarus pulled my thighs apart and plunged between them. The heat of his tongue found mine and licked me down the middle, the sensation of it making my whole body shudder. My heart raced as his lips found the apex of my thighs and began to kiss and suck that ache so that it grew and grew, his tongue tracing the shape of my sex until I felt that if he didn’t give me release soon, I was going to die.

He devoured me like a starved man, unable to stop himself until my thighs clamped around either side of his head, my body demanding I give in to the pressure that he’d built to the point of exploding.

But this time, right before I fell over that edge, Icarus pulled back. He sat up, dug his hands into my hips and pulled me hard against him, positioning himself between my spread legs with another growl.

His silken trousers could do nothing to conceal the full length of him begging for his own release. He met my gaze and held it there, one hand reaching for the ties to free himself, the other slowly, and methodically licking my liquid from the fingers he’d used to wipe his mouth a moment earlier.

“When you taste this good, I can only imagine how you’re going to feel wrapped around my cock.”

I let out a small moan and a feral look overtook him.

His fingers began to fumble, but then he stopped and a sly look overtook him.

My heart, already beating at a pace that could rival a racehorse on the track, couldn’t take it.

I let out a groan of frustration and tried to reach for the laces myself, but Icarus stopped me.

“I need to hear you say you want this,” he said, eyes locked again with mine. “I need to hear you say it so I can ravage you without regret.”

I let out a small whimper, my back arching again, but that was not enough.

He leaned over me, his hand digging into my hair as he drew close enough for me to hear the ragged draw of his own breaths.

“Say it, My Storm.”

“I—”

I tilted back my head, the desire in me so intense that I had to let out a scream. “Fuck!”

When I looked back down at him, I grabbed his horns in my hands and pressed my face to his, a growl rumbling deep inside me, this time.

“Take me, Icarus. I need you, now.”

Before he could do as I begged and put my aching body out of its misery, we were interrupted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE SILENCE of the night was shattered by the clatter of steal as three fae burst through the concealed entrance and stumbled up inside, swords drawn.

Shiel.

Zev.

Finch.

Their footsteps stumbled to a halt in front of us, their own battle cries dying in their throats as they took in the sight of me hastily pulling down my skirts as I scrambled to get out from beneath Icarus.

Icarus, meanwhile, just sat back in slight amusement, making no move to hide the evidence of what we’d been about to do.

Embarrassment flooded through me as I watched recognition turn their faces from rage to confusion, then back, not so surprisingly, to that same rage.

“What the hell is going on here?” Shiel barked, though I thought it was perfectly obvious exactly what was going on.

I started to scramble out of Icarus’ bed, but his hand shot out and stopped me, his fingers curling around my arm in a way that made something sour inside my stomach. The intimacy of the moment before drained away in an instant as his claws dug deeper into me the harder I tried to pull myself free.

“I should be the one asking you the questions,” Icarus said, his voice all too cool. He looked lazily from one fae to the next. “It is my bedroom you’ve just broken into, after all.”

I caught Zev’s eye, then. His face had gone pale, his chest rising and falling furiously with each breath.

That was when I knew.

He bowed his head, his own face starting to redden with an embarrassment that might even rival my own. “I thought…” he started, then glanced at his companions for a second, “I thought you were in danger. I felt it.”

His hand lifted to press to the middle of his chest.

That damned tattoo.

Finch was the only one fighting anything close to amusement on his face.

Shiel, meanwhile, still looked ready to commit murder.

“Aurra,” he said, addressing me while his eyes remained firmly on Icarus, “It’s time to go. Now.”

Icarus’ claws dug into me deeper, so deep that it was all I could do to keep from crying out. I tried not to show the pain he was causing me, because I was sure there was no way to keep Shiel from lashing out with his sword if he saw.

“I thought…” I glanced at him first, and then at Icarus. “The deal…”

“The deal will be up in less than an hour,” Shiel said. “And the moment it is, Icarus has his guard ready to sweep in and capture us.”

His lips curled back in a snarl. “You were never going to let us go freely.”

Icarus still showed no sign that anything Shiel said so much as bothered him. He sat back a bit, looking over the three fae standing at the ready with all the concern of a cat looking at three mice that had just wandered willingly into his trap.

“Only an idiot wouldn’t have contingencies in place,” he said, coolly.

Shiel looked like he was trying so very desperately not to cut Icarus’ head off at any given moment. “Is that what you call it? In case seducing Aurra didn’t work, you were going to imprison her?”

Bile rose in the back of my throat.

“Oh, no,” Icarus sad, “the seduction had nothing to do with my plan. That, actually, was Aurra’s idea.”

Shiel’s eyes slid to mine, and I found I couldn’t meet them.

Icarus was telling the truth, after all.

I had pulled him in. I had kissed him.

It took Shiel only a second to recover before the tip of his sword was once again leveled with the dark fae’s head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The deal is as good as broken. We leave. Now.”

Icarus didn’t move, didn’t even register what Shiel said. “What do you even care, anyway, Lord of the Western Court? What is Aurra, a girl who was human just a few weeks ago, to you?”

I didn’t expect the answer that came bubbling up out of Shiel with a fury.

“She is everything to me,” he snarled back, sword gripped tighter than ever. “What she is to me is something that you’re not even capable of understanding.”

“Aurra.” He whirled to me, holding out his hand. “Come, now, before it’s too late.”

He waited, expecting me to leap to my feet and join him, and that was when he saw it—the hand holding me in place against my will. He stared a moment too long, long enough for Zev’s face to swivel towards the offending hand, and in that moment, all hell broke loose.

I’d seen Zev shift before, but here, in the confines of Icarus’ room, the bear that appeared in his stead was almost too massive to comprehend. His sword clattered to the ground where he’d stood a moment before, but he didn’t need it—not when the claws he now bore were as long as any blade.

Once more, I felt that panic rise up in me. I saw what was about to happen. This was it, the moment that blood was finally spilled. If these three fought, really fought, then I doubted we’d leave this place without life being lost. Rather than fight that fear, I let it rise, let it grow, let my imagination run wild with thoughts of blood and gore and dying fae until I felt it, once again, begin to turn into something more.

Zev lifted his claw, ready to strike Icarus. I waited until Icarus let go of me, his own hand rising as he prepared to fight him off, and then I struck, first.

“Icarus, STOP.”

The voice that issued the command didn’t sound like my own. It reverberated through the treetops, sending ravens scattering in the distance. Zev froze before he slashed the dark fae’s throat, his body shifting back to human form in surprise as Icarus did as I asked.

Not because he wanted to.

But because he had no choice.

Shiel turned to me, shock plastered across his face, as all three of them remained frozen in place. “Aurra…”

“There’s no time to explain,” I said, scrambling out of the bed and rushing towards the exit. Not one of them moved, their jaws hanging open as they watched me in awe. I stopped at the top of the stairs, and glanced back. “So, are we leaving, or are the three of you going to stick around and get killed for nothing?”

That, at least, seemed to free them to follow after me.

It wasn’t until we reached the bottom of the seemingly endlessly winding staircase that Shiel managed to catch up to me and stop me, one hand on either of my shoulders.

“Aurra!”

It was only then that it registered that he’d been trying to get my attention for some time. I forced myself to stop as Zev and Finch stumbled to a halt behind us in the dark.

My lungs burned from the exertion, but my feet danced anxiously beneath me, demanding we keep moving.

“We have to get ahead. I don’t know how long it will last this time.”

“This time?” Shiel asked, glancing back at Zev and Finch. “I guess that’s one question we don’t have to ask the Oracle.”

I froze, finally. “What do you mean?”

Shiel took a deep breath before planting a second hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes.

“That magic you just did, that glamour…” he trailed off a second, his eyes searching the darkness, as if trying to decide if it was safe to speak aloud. “That’s the king’s glamour, Aurra. That’s the power of the tongues.”

It took a moment for it to hit me, but when it did, it was nearly enough to knock me off my feet. If Shiel hadn’t been holding me tight, I’d have fallen.

As it was, I still felt every ounce of blood drain from my face.

“So…so that means…”

Behind Shiel, Zev and Finch took a slight step back, glanced at each other first, and then back to me. And then, together, they knelt.

Even Shiel bowed his head.

When he looked back up to meet my gaze, his eyes were sparkling.

“Seems like soon, we won’t be the only ones calling you Princess.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

AS SOON AS Zev and Finch stood again, the look on their faces was grave.

“We have to find a way to alert the Eastern Court,” Finch said, drawing our gaze back to him. Slight surprise flickered across his features at the blank looks that met him. “Because, you know, Icarus is probably going to be headed right for them as soon as Aurra’s spell wears off.”

Even in the dark, I thought I saw Shiel’s tanned skin pale.

He whirled back to face me. “How long until he’s able to come after us?”

“I—I don’t know,” I stuttered, trying to think back to that moment when he “I think he can still use his glamour, at least a little, now.”

Shiel swore. “Then we have to keep moving. Now. His soldiers are probably already after us.”

Zev was the one who reached out a hand next to still his lord before he started leading us out into the darkness.

“Who’s to say he’ll come after us at all?” he asked. “Wouldn’t that be the easier prize? Wouldn’t he just go straight to the Eastern Court now. He’s probably already drawn the connection.”

“Actually,” I said, cutting Shiel off before he could answer. “I think it might take him longer to realize what just actually happened then you think.”

I told them, as quickly as I could, what Icarus had told me. Shiel’s face darkened as I did, and I knew I’d made the right choice not to tell them. There was no way they would have left the lord alive without someone’s blood being spilled if I’d told them the truth earlier.

But, at least, they agreed that it might actually work in our favor.

There was still no time to lose.

It might still take Icarus a while to fully understand what it meant for me to control this glamour, this power of tongues, but Finch was right. It would only be a matter of time before Icarus began to at least suspect the connection. If we were lucky, which was something I wasn’t keen to count on, it might take him a while to start considering it wasn’t the new glamour that I’d called on, but the old.

I just hoped his obsession with the latter was enough to buy us some time.

At least enough for us to figure out our next step.

Though, first, we needed to figure out the one currently staring us in the face.

As if we needed any further incentive to flee the court of the Wildness, now Icarus had two reasons not to let me leave. Shiel’s hunt for the Oracle had uncovered Icarus’ plans to trap us in the Wildness, but that wasn’t what had taken him so long to return. That, it turned out, was because he’d also found a way out.

That was where he led us now.

We had no choice to go back for our carefully packed things, not even our horses. I felt guilty as we crept by the stables, knowing that the beasts would be left to Icarus’ mercy once we were gone. It was cruel to leave them behind, but we had no choice.

Where we were headed, they’d be unable to follow.

That way out of the court?

Straight through the Oracle’s lair.

We didn’t stop again until we reached the narrow tunnel Shiel had promised us we’d find. It was wedged between two trees not so far from the market stall where I’d nearly lost my life, and most certainly would have, if Zev hadn’t intervened.

Now as we stopped stared at the tunnel leading out, I wondered if it was my turn to intervene.

I turned towards Shiel and the others.

“This tunnel…there’s no way the three of you are going to fit in it.”

“No,” Shiel said, with a sly smile. “But foxes will.”

Finch let out a little yelp as he transformed immediately and darted ahead into the tunnel. Zev followed next, but before he followed, Shiel placed his hand on my shoulder again.

“If we get separated, you should go to the Oracle on your own. Do you understand me?”

His words made something chill deep within me.

“If we get separated?”

His tongue darted out to swipe nervously across his lips. “There’s a good chance that Icarus planned for this…contingency…too. At least, if we get separated, you can always ask the Oracle how to get out alive.”

That chill gripped me even tighter. “But you, what about you? And Finch? And Zev?”

A slight smile creased his face. “We’ll be fine, Aurra. Just, know this…” he paused again. “There is a price to be paid if you see the Oracle.”

“A price?”

“A bond,” he said, nodding. “In order for her to answer your question, she will sever a bond between you and another. Once severed, it cannot be formed again.”

I felt something think at the back of my throat that made it difficult for me to swallow. The price for the oracle is the sacrifice of a bond.

I knew, without having to ask Shiel for more details, exactly what he meant. I knew, too, just how much I had to lose.

“I just, I wanted to tell you before…” Shiel trailed off, his eyes suddenly not meeting mine. My thoughts went straight back to what he’d said to Icarus before we left, how he’s responded when the dark fae demanded to know what reason he had for coming to my aid.

It was my turn to put a hand on Shiel to try and reassure him.

My touch seemed to solidify something in him. He straightened, taking hold of me in return. He looked deep into my eyes when he made his last request before he shifted too.

“If it comes down to it, Aurra, think only of yourself. This kingdom will survive if I die. The same cannot be said for you.”

SO MUCH HAD HAPPENED in the last week, the last day, the last hour, that somehow crawling for what felt like miles through dark, dirty tunnels with nothing but the distant yelp of foxes to lead me onward didn’t seem too out of the ordinary.

It did, at least, buy me a little time to think.

Shiel’s warning about the Oracle had struck me harder than it had a right to. It was more than the fear I saw in his eyes, the worry that it would be our bond that got sacrificed, a bond that I’d thought up until his proclamation before Icarus wouldn’t have had any sort of hold on him.

But it had made me realize that this same fear must have been the reason that Icarus had refused to take me to her.

Because Shiel wasn’t the only one with a bond at stake…and the bond I shared with the dark fae that had now betrayed me more times than I could count, was far stronger, as much as I hated to admit it.

I’d let him get close to me, willingly, and now here I was, crawling for my life through underground tunnels that were more likely to lead to my death or capture than anything else.

Just when I was starting to worry that I’d be stuck in those tunnels forever, I heard the distant yelps die off. I stopped for a moment, forcing my breaths not to quicken in the tight space. It was already hard enough not to let the creeping claustrophobia get ahold of me as it was.

Behind me, I felt the gentle nudge of Shiel’s fox snout as he sniffed around my ankles.

I felt my cheeks redden as I considered what else he might scent, and hoped against all odds that the arousal Icarus had so proudly announced he could smell had faded before we entered the stifling tunnels.

The silence stretched on until I began to worry, that sensation of everything starting to close in staring to tighten, when instead of soft yelps, I heard a voice.

“We’ve found the exit!”

I’d never been so happy to hear the sound of Finch’s voice before.

He and Zev waited at the far end to pull me up into the forest after them. A moment later, Shiel came barreling up, transforming the moment he exited the tunnel so he could gulp in a breath of fresh air himself.

Only to discover what we had, already.

Smoke.

Somewhere, not far off, Icarus’ precious Wildness was on fire.

All three fae exchanged glances, and I saw the way their hands reached for the swords they’d had to leave behind. The glamour that transformed them into animals may have allowed them to keep their clothes, but unfortunately the same could not be said about their weapons.

I turned in a circle, my neck craning up at the trees of the deep Wildness. They were tiny in comparison to the trees of Icarus’ court.

“Wasn’t this supposed to be the way to the Oracle?”

Shiel followed the line of my shifting gaze. “She was supposed to be near here. Maybe the path is hidden by the smoke?”

A gentle, grey haze hung in the air, obscuring the far reaches of the forest. Up above, the sun had only just begun to turn the sky a slightly lighter shade of grey. The hours confining us to Icarus’ court had just passed, and not a moment too soon. Shiel didn’t look like he was about to get struck down for helping me leave the court, but I supposed only time would tell.

I didn’t know much about the consequences of breaking a deal yet, and I hoped I’d never have to.

Shiel was turning in a slow circle, his eyes on something I hadn’t yet seen.

“The trees,” he whispered, his voice low and feet moving carefully, as if he was trying to make as little noise as possible. “It’s like they haven’t noticed us yet.”

I finally saw what he meant.

When we’d first arrived at the edge of Icarus’ court, the first thing I’d noticed was the trees. They bark was twisted into those eyeless faces wherever we looked, twisting and turning wherever we went as if they watched us back. But here, beneath the quickly thickening smoke, they were still.

The whole forest was.

“You know,” Finch said, backing up as his eyes scanned the trees for any sign of movement. “I never liked how those trees looked at us before, but somehow I like this even less.”

“I agree,” Zev said, once again grimacing when he reached for the sword that wasn’t there

“Whatever the reason, we’re going to use it to our advantage,” Shiel said. He turned slightly, checked something overhead, and then settled on a space between two particularly large trees. “We need to get out of the Wildness before Icarus comes after us, and if we aren’t having to fight the trees off too, all the better.”

No sooner had he spoken, however, then we heard it.

A raven.

Its lonely caw echoed out, our heads swiveling to search it out amongst the treetops. Finch spotted it first, his hand reaching to grab a stone, but before he could throw it, the raven had taken flight. It flew up above the sill trees and let out another, solitary cry, and suddenly, the forest was coming alive.

Not with branches and vines, but with crows.

Hundreds of them, taking flight and crying out as they flew towards the one gathered over us.

They were like a giant, living beacon, drawing Icarus and his soldiers directly to us.

There was no time for careful tracking. No time for seeking out the Oracle nearby. There was only time for one thing.

It was Shiel who called out the order.

“Run!”

No sooner had our feet begun to hit the ground then we heard them, too.

Icarus must have spread his guard out throughout all the surrounding forest, because we’d barely made it out of sight of the tunnel before we began to see distant flashes of movement through the smoke.

Shiel let out another swear and with nothing more than a glance at his men, Zev and Finch once again shifted into foxes and took off—in opposite directions. My footsteps stumbled a bit as I watched them disappear, only for Shiel to take my hand and pull me onward.

“We have to get away from here, confuse the guards before they have the chance to corner us.”

“But Zev and Finch…”

“They’ll turn into ravens before they get caught.”

The idea was actually kind of…genius. It was enough at least to help me stop worrying about them and focus on trying not to get myself caught. It was everything we could do to run without tripping over branches and logs that weren’t even trying to catch us too this time. I had no idea where we were going, where Shiel was trying to take us, only that I had to keep on going.

We were just starting to make progress, the sounds of guards growing more distant, the flickers of far-off movement happening less and less, when suddenly the smoke started to clear.

And just like that, all of a sudden, I was nearly knocked to the ground with an overwhelming feeling of dread.

My feet stumbled beneath me as my head started to spin.

Shiel tightened his hold on me and tried to keep dragging me forward, but with every step, that dread grew worse and worse until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

It had settled into me like a dead weight, twisting my stomach until I thought I’d puke.

“Stop!” I said, pulling against Shiel’s hand as I tried to slow.

He just looked back at me like I was crazy and kept trying to pull me forward. But the dizziness, that crushing weight, it only got worse. I felt it taking hold of my soul and dragging it down until all I felt was hopelessness.

That was when I remembered it.

I’d been here before, felt this before, but that time was different. That time, I’d been unable to answer the call.

I twisted my head over my shoulder, and through the gloom, I saw it—the far off golden glow of fire.

This time, I wrenched my hand from Shiel’s without asking him to stop, first. By the time his feet were skittering to a halt, his body turning to see what had forced me to a halt, I was already headed straight back towards that glow.

“Aurra, what are you doing? You’re headed the wrong way.”

Every step towards that fire, the weight of dread that had threatened to drown me grew a little lighter.

Shiel was at my side again, his hand reaching for mine, grabbing at me, trying to pull me back in the right direction. I shook him off and quickened my pace.

The sounds of far-off soliders was growing again, but I forced myself to ignore them. This might not be the right way, but it was the way I had to go.

I wouldn’t let myself fall into that blackness that had consumed me in the crystal.

Shiel tried once more to grab me, but I’d finally had enough.

“Shiel,” I said, stopping. As soon as I stopped moving, the dread came abck full force, trying to double me over with the pain. “I have to go this way.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, his hands refusing to let go of me still. “Are you under some kind of spell?” His eyes suddenly widened. “Is this Icarus? The wildness?”

Another pang of hopelessness threatened to knock me down. It was all I could do to keep from vomiting again.

I looked Shiel deep in the eyes then.

“Rember what you told me, before we entered the tunnels?”

It took him a second, but then he nodded.

“Split up. You draw the guards away.” I turned back towards that glow. “I have to go this way.”

I turned back one last time, my free hand reaching up to press against his cheek. I fought back that nausea as I looked him deep in the eyes.

“Do you trust me?”

He searched my face for a moment, but then he nodded. “How will I know where to find you?”

“You won’t,” I said. “I’ll find you.”

That was the end of it. Shiel shifted before my eyes, taking on his fox form. He hesitated only for a moment, his golden eyes looking up at me before he let out a yelp and took off, his footsteps heavy as he led the guards—at least we hoped—away from me.

And way from the fire that I now plunged directly towards.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I ALREADY KNEW what I would find at the end of this journey into the smoke.

I’d once blamed Icarus for being the force that drew me into the Wildness. But long before he knew I existed, I’d been feeling its call. I felt its pull as surely now as I had all of my life, a feeling I’d ignored until I quite literally had been unable to.

It was only this that drew me into the smoke, even once it grew thick enough to choke me. I pushed forward between the flames that rose to greet me, their golden tendrils licking at the trees they burned but did not consume.

Ash smudged my skin and burned my eyes, but still I continued. I couldn’t stop. I was drawn forward as if by a magnet, that invisible force that had been calling to me all my life now finally pulling me into its grasp.

If there was a face of fate, it was the face that rose to greet me the moment the smoke cleared.

I didn’t have to ask if the creature that emerged before me was the Oracle.

I already knew.

Just as she knew me.

That didn’t stop my mouth from going dry at the sight of her.

The last gust of smoke dissipated as an invisible wind pushed the pillars of fire away from us so that I could, at long last, lay eyes on the force that had drawn me here.

“Aurra…” her voice purred, her lips broadening in a hungry, satisfied smile. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”

She was not fae, but she was not a demon either. She had the appearance of a woman in the way that a tree or a rock might look like a woman, if the light hit it just right. Her breaths were shallow and her voice smoke-scorched. She sat upon what once might have been a throne, but had long since turned to ash.

I tore my eyes from her, taking in the piles of burning wood and broken glass all around us.

“What happened?”

Her eyes glowed when I met them, a mistake I wouldn’t make again. For that one brief moment when I looked into her eyes, I saw too much. I saw not only into myself, but into everything. I was lost for an eternity, all that I learned forgotten the moment I looked away—but the emptiness of knowing and then not knowing remained.

It was all I could do not to gasp aloud at the pain of it.

“Not everyone who visits me likes what I have to say,” she answered. “Even fewer still who would be worried about the Oracle and her wellbeing.”

I forced myself to look at her again, though I was careful to avoid her eyes. There was no time to mourn the loss I felt.

“It must be a lonely job, then.”

She laughed, a terrible sound I wished I was able to forget. But unlike what I saw in her eyes, it lingered, imprinted on my brain forever.

“Surely, you didn’t come here to waste your one question to find out what happened to me.”

Fear futtered in my chest, a feeling the Oracle devoured in an instant. I’d barely had time to feel it, for it to flood into me before she stole it with a delighted sigh.

“You,” she said, after a moment of feasting, “have been avoiding me a very long time. I was surprised you answered this time.”

“It wasn’t exactly like I had a choice.”

Something about her posture shifted when I answered. The look on her face twisted into an emotion I couldn’t read.

“Oh, I do so look forward to this one,” she said. “Most people who come to me are so boring. Will I marry him? Will she love me back? How can I make my fortune?” She sat forward, eyes boring into me, daring me to glimpse into them again. “But you, you came here to ask something much more fun, didn’t you?”

Fun? Fun wasn’t quite what I would call it.

I hadn’t had much time to consider what I would ask the Oracle when I met her, if I met her, but that was no one’s fault but my own. I’d had plenty of time of course, but I’d been so consumed with the two questions that I’d been told to ask, that I didn’t think about what I actually wanted to ask.

For myself.

The first question, the matter of my birthright, had already been answered.

As much as I was still struggling to believe it for myself, I was the lost princess—though lost might not be the right answer for what I was. Was anyone really lost if they were willingly secreted away?

The other question was the one Icarus had posed. He’d suggested I ask how to lift the veil over my glamour, but was that what I wanted?

I’d already been able to use my glamour twice now without the spell over me being broken. From what Shiel had told me about my power, and from what I’d witnessed of Icarus using his, did I really want all of my power? Or was the little bit I already had enough?

But what then, did I really want to know?

“The answer is obvious, my dear. You only have to listen.”

She was right. I knew what I wanted to ask, I’d known all along, it just seemed…trivial, compared to all the rest.

Before I could ask my question, however, the Oracle leaned forward, her lips smacking together as if hungrily awaiting my next round of emotions she could devour.

“You know the price, correct?”

I nodded. “A bond.”

“A bond forever severed,” she said, unable to hide her excitement.

I took a deep breath to steady my voice before I finally asked the question that haunted me the most.

“Why did my mother abandon me?”

Surprise flitted across the Oracle’s face, and then anger.

“That’s your question?” The incredulity in her voice was so thick, it practically seared me with her scathing. “You, of all fae, and that…that is the question you ask?”

She clicked her tongue at me, her nose wrinkling up as if she’d expected a decadent cake and instead been given a crouton. “Heir to the realm, master of tongues, and this is what you give me to work with.”

She sat back for a second, her eyes closing for a moment as she sank back, searching for the answer to my question. It was easily found, her eyes snapping back open with a delight that made my heart sink.

Because I knew, already, what that meant.

“Oh, Aurra…” she crooned. “You shouldn’t have asked me that.”

She sat forward suddenly, her lips twisting into a wicked, wicked smile. “You want to know why your mother abandoned you?”

“Your mother abandoned you because she hated you, Aurra. From before you were born, from the moment you were conceived, she loathed you and everything about you. She sold you to those humans knowing they would make your life miserable, she gave you that enchanted blanket, knowing it would make you unable to fight back. She placed you just far enough away to make sure you never darkened her doorway, but just close enough that she could see, herself, that you suffered.”

I wanted to call her a liar, but I felt the truth of what she said in my soul.

I swallowed, hard, and nodded once at the Oracle.

“Thank you.”

She tilted her head as she looked at me, something close to pity on her face. “You took that much better than the last fae who received an answer he didn’t like.”

Her gaze flitted over to the fire that seemed to be ever-burning. A slight smile returned to her.

“He liked it even less when he heard the price. So many demons lost. And for what?”

My heart quickened. Demons? That could only mean one thing.

Icarus. Icarus had come here. He was the fae that had set his own forest ablaze. What could have consumed him so, that he would do this to his own forest?

More so, that he was willing to risk the bond between us himself? That same bond he’d tried to keep me from severing?

And price…if the oracle spoke the truth…he’d paid a mighty one indeed.

“I always speak the truth,” the Oracle answered m. “Which brings me to the matter of your price.”

I held my breath, waiting for the blow. Icarus might lose our bond, after all.

How I felt about that?

I didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter. Whatever happened next, it had very little to do with what I wanted.

Only, much to my surprise, after a long moment of deliberation, the Oracle let out a disappointed sigh. “Your price has already been paid.”

I felt something break slightly inside me, though I didn’t know which bond she’d taken yet. I didn’t dare to look up from the patch of ground I’d firmly set my gaze on.

“Am I allowed to ask which bond you broke?”

“Me?” I finally glanced up slightly as she leaned forward. “You broke that bond, Aurra. Or do you not remember?”

I broke that bond.

I looked up at her then, fully, and our eyes met again.

Only, this time, something happened. This time, something changed.

All around us, the fire roared to life,

The Oracle sat frozen, staring forward, her mouth agape and unmoving as words spilled out of her in a strange, otherworldly voice.

A DEAL once made is now completed,

All the royal thrones unseated.

What was stolen soon forgotten,

At the very core is rotten.

Avarath has turned its eye,

Heed the cost or you will die.

All us now our own Creators,

In this court of thieves and traitors.

THE MOMENT THE WORDS DIED, they were replaced with a scream—not from me, but from the Oracle. The sound scraped up her throat until it ended in a strangled croak as she started crawling away from me, still, somehow unable to look away from me.

“What was that?” I asked, my whole body resonating with the words now playing over and over inside my head. The question only seemed to terrify the Oracle more.

“Get out of here!” she shouted, her hands clawing at the ash and wood behind her. “Stop looking at me!”

I knew, instinctively, that I couldn’t do that. Shouldn’t do that.

I advanced on her instead.

“Then tell me what that was.”

“I—I don’t know!” she shouted, writing beneath my glare. It was as if the longer I looked at her, the more she shriveled beneath my gaze. “I’ll do anything, just get out of here and never come back.”

All around me, the fire was getting closer. It crept along the ground now, growing ever closer to me as I grew ever closer to the Oracle—or what was left of her. I wanted answers, of course, but there was something I wanted more.

“Take me to Shiel. To the others. Get me out of Icarus’ forest, and I promise you, I’ll never come back.”

Relief flashed in her eyes.

“That,” she gasped. “I can do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE ORACLE’S words still resonated in my head the moment I stepped out of the smoke and shadows and into the bright light of day. She might not have been a demon, but her magic carried me through the Wildness the same way.

I had no time to dwell on what she’d told me, not as I shielded my eyes from the sunlight they were no longer accustomed to and looked for the fae she’d promised to take me to.

Only to realize, a moment too late, that I wasn’t the first one to reach them.

The Oracle had taken me to Shiel, Zev, and Finch…but she’d also taken me straight to the guard that had already captured them. Men in gleaming armor surrounded the three fae, their pikes pointing inward despite their hands raised in surrender.

My encounter with the Oracle had left me emboldened, so rather than slipping back into the forest to hide, as Shiel might have asked me to, I strode out of it, shoulders pulled back and head held high. It was I who Icarus was after, anyway. Shiel and the others had saved me so many times before, it was my turn to return the favor.

Only, as I approached, I quickly began to realize my mistake. Before I’d even gotten to the circle of guards, their pikes were lowering and their stance shifting. There was a new crest on their armor, something I hadn’t seen anywhere in the Wildness. They were fae, that much was obvious from their height alone, but they weren’t Icarus’ fae.

My heart skipped a beat at the sight of them, only for it to fully stop a moment later.

I’d gotten close enough to make out Finch’s face in the middle of the circle, I was able to see the way his pale face lit up at the sight of me.

“Aurra!” he called, drawing every eye in my direction.

Behind him, Zev breathed out a great sigh of relief.

Shiel, however, took one look at me and dropped to the ground.

It took three soldiers to lift Shiel’s limp form onto the back of a cart. By then, I was at Shiel’s side as it rumbled on towards our next destination, my hand clasping his as I took in all Finch had told me.

They’d split up in the forest, as planned, but only Finch and Zev managed to turn into ravens and escape in time. Shiel, apparently, had decided to double back to check on me instead—and he’d been caught. He managed to get away, but only barely, the deep wound spurting blood from his side the only token of his bravery.

The soldiers, it turned out, were on patrol by the Southern Court. We’d emerged on the edge of their border, and though they claimed to be investigating suspicious activity in the area…I high doubted it was a chance encounter that brought us together. With Shiel’s injuries, we had no choice to accept the charity they offered.

It seemed, at the moment, that we’d make it to the Southern Court for Midsommar after all.

We were out of Icarus’ clutches at last, but I doubted it would be forever. It was only a matter of time before the dark fae and I had our reckoning.

Zev and Finch were happy to walk alongside the carriage, their faces unable to hide the relief they felt at having so narrowly escaped the Wildness. We’d gotten what we wanted out of that wicked place and escaped intact, or, at least, mostly intact. Shiel’s injuries weren’t the only thing weighing on my mind as the forests slipped behind us.

It wasn’t so much the last words of the Oracle that haunted me, not what she revealed about my mother, not even the words that echoed out of her like a curse, terrifying even her. It was what she said about the price I’d already paid, the bond that had already been severed. Something about it sat unwell with me. I’d seen the price that Icarus paid for whatever he’d asked, yet if I’d broken a bond like that, surely I’d have felt it when it happened?

It wasn’t until I caught the first glimmer of the Southern Court’s far off towers that something struck me like a knife in the gut.

I knew, all at once, exactly which bond I’d severed.

And in that moment, as the jolting carriage carried me ever closer to the treachery of yet another court, my heart irreparably broke.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Welcome back to A Court of Thieves and Traitors.

Thank you for continuing to read our newest series launching November 2022-March 2023. We hope you’ve loved the first two parts of Aurra’s story. Book Three, The Crown The Fae Forgot is available for preorder now on Amazon.

For more books set in the same world as A Court of Thieves and Traitors, check out A Veil of Truth and Trickery, Book One of Analeigh’s bestselling series, The Veiled Realm, also available on Amazon!

If you enjoyed The Heir The Fae Forgot please consider leaving a review!

With Love,

Analeigh (Eden) & Sabrina

ALSO BY ANALEIGH FORD

The Veiled Realm

A Veil of Truth and Trickery

A Veil of Stardust and Savagery

A Veil of Moonlight and Madness

A Veil of Dusk and Deceit

A Court of Thieves and Traitors

The Court The Fae Forgot

The Heir the Fae Forgot

The Crown The Fae Forgot

The Queen the Fae Forgot

Academy of the Dark Arts

Dark Witch

Asylum Bound

A House So Dark

A House So Mad

A House So Cruel

The Forgotten Affinities

Absorb

Adapt

Abandon

ALSO BY ANALEIGH FORD WRITING AS EDEN BECK

Feral Mates

Alpha Rejected

Alpha Rising

Alpha Returned

The Forgotten Elites

Her Shame

Her Spite

Her Wrath

Wicked Brotherhood

Bitter

Hateful

Wretched

Wolfish

Wolf Bonded

Wolf Broken

Wolf Bargain

Hawthorne Holy Trinity

Dirty Liars

Dirty Fraud

Dirty Revenge

ALSO BY SABRINA THATCHER

A Coven of Fangs

Vampire Captivated

Vampire Compelled

Vampire Coveted

Feral Mates

Alpha Rejected

Alpha Rising

Alpha Returned

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

A Note From The Author

Also by Analeigh Ford

Also By Analeigh Ford Writing As Eden Beck

Also by Sabrina Thatcher