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“No, no. I’m so sorry.” My hands slipped against the marble as I pulled myself out of the bathtub and went straight to the clothes that were on the floor.

A set of silk pants and matching shirt that had been red when she brought them in were now as black as her hair. I donned them regardless, letting them soak up the water droplets on my body and stick to my freezing skin.

“Please, please don’t tell anyone,” I begged, completely ignoring my inconsiderate phrasing. She couldn’t vocalise it to anyone, but she could nod, and she could probably write things down. “I swear it won’t ever—” I broke off, glancing over my shoulder and finding Delia rising to her feet. She reached one hand out to stop me as I raced for the archway into the bedroom, towards the door to the hall. “I’m so sorry,” I told her again.

And then I ran for my mortal life.

There was no one in the hallways to stop me.

The House was perpetually empty, and with its enchantment effectively giving me the cold shoulder, I was left to stumble down dark and twisted stairways and corridors, searching for a door to the outside. Glass cabinets filled with ancient relics and suits of armour turned my own fear-stricken reflection on me as I sprinted past them, avoiding eye contact and any recognition of that whispering hum as it followed me down the hall, throwing questions at me like spears in my back.

Will you let me in, let me in, let me in now?

Every door in the House was closed, and I did not dare try to open them for fear of what might be hidden on the other side. Torture chambers filled with iron-rimmed buckets, women with their mouths sewn shut, or weapons like the blades Wren carried on his belt. Or something worse.

I knew there was something worse because Wren was planning it. He told me he wished things were different, andthen he sent me a message—to keep my mouth closed, to stop asking questions.

Why else would he have brought me back to Faerie with him?

It wasn’t for the High King, who had shown very little interest in me after his initial shock and the reluctant revelation about a prophecy. No—I was a decoy of some sort, an excuse to have Malum track us through an unnecessarily long trip back from the border, or something else sinister.

I had to be. I was a blight, not a bride. And Wren was in the dungeon with Lucais in my dreams, but he was not a prisoner.

I burst out through the first exit I could find—a glass door into the garden—and its frame rattled as it swung closed behind me.

Strong perfume filled my nose, the delicate scent of wisteria mixed with roses and thyme, as I cut through the lines of flowerbeds spanning a mile away from the House. The soil was damp, the ground muddy beneath my bare feet, and some of the large, vibrant petals looked weatherbeaten and ice blue with frost as they drank in the warmth from the light sky and recovered from the blizzard.

I almost told them not to bother, almost warned them that the real storm was still to come, but the plants could fend for themselves. Even if they did have faces outlined by seeds in their cores, and I could’ve sworn they turned to blink after me sleepily as I fled.

Flowers with faces and monsters with teeth for eyes and a girl with her mouth sewn shut, whose hair had gone from white to black in the blink of an eye.

The injury I’d felt earlier was gone, like the blast of night had been a bullet fired from a gun, and I was left to steady myselfagainst the reverberations and pray to the gods that I was not reloaded.

Racing for the distant line of trees, obscuring the dirt road towards the little town called Sthiara, I went over my knowledge in my head.

Magic was temperamental. I’d read about half-faeries and changelings before, and it was a common conception that emotions fuelled their powers. If the High King’s emotions could summon a storm, then it must be true—and it had happened to me when I’d let myself feel my own. It started to rise up again, provoked by the memory of how I’d felt in the bath. The idea that Wren was a traitor to everyone and everything that ever mattered—

No.

I shoved it down. Beat it back. Boxed it up.

Never again.

I would not accept it, would not consent to it, would not acknowledge it.

Wren was wrong.

I was not power. I had no choice, I had no control, and I was mortal.

The line of trees parted as if to embrace me, and I dove into the shadows they cast on the ground, almost falling to my knees as I skidded to a stop and pressed myself against a rough trunk to catch my breath.

Magic halted with me.

Is it time, is it time, is it time yet?

“Never,” I breathed, sweat dripping from my brow. My chest burned; my throat was on fire. I swore at the presence that had stalked me into the woodland and kicked at the stones and fallen leaves on its floor. “You’re about ten fucking years too late.”

It recoiled, letting fresh and clean air reclaim space around me, but then it growled. A deep, wet sound that came from a copse of trees a few feet ahead.