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“You can feel it, can’t you?” Wren whispered. “Right here in this room, filling the air, growing with each beat of yourheart.” Hands sliding into his pockets, he took a step towards me. And then another. My blood thumped through my veins. “How did you feel when you killed that Banshee, Aura? Do you remember?”

Shaking my head, I watched his reflection in the glass cabinet as he approached, each step slow and predatory. “No.”

“You don’t remember the high?” he purred. “The way it felt to have thatrelease? The build up of magic as it refilled in your veins, pooling in your body ready to spill out all over again?”

I gritted my teeth together. “No.”

Shock. I remembered being shocked—and angry at him for having left me in the first place, only to come sauntering back on his magical horse at the very last possible moment. I remembered being tired, sore, and hungry after trekking through the Court of Light, and after the unleashing of power that had been thrumming beneath my skin…

“No.”

“No?” Wren came to a stop behind me, lifting a hand to brush my hair over my shoulder, the same way he had when we were riding Elera together. His knuckles grazed my cheek, and I stiffened, reinforcing my walls as the smell of paper and ink swirled around me like perfume.

Home.

Why does Wren smell like home? Like Belgrave, like Dante’s Bookstore?

It had to be a trick.

“I remember,” he breathed. And—High Mother spare me—the caress of his breath against my skin sent a crack splintering through my foundations. “You were so riled up. It wasn’t merely my hands around your waist,” he murmured, sliding the palms of his hands against my hips.Lower. He nipped my ear, and hisvoice was a sinfully sensual purr. “It was the comedown from thatrelease—”

“Stop it!” I slapped his hands away and stumbled forward, stopping only when I almost knocked into the cabinet of magical relics. A flood of dark and bitter magic leapt for me as if it was coming straight out of the Blood Lock. I sidestepped away from it.

“We can do this the hard way,” he threatened, blazing golden eyes tracking the movements of my hands as they curled into fists at my side. “I can send you out of here with a sheath of throwing knives and wish you luck, but we’ll end up in that field again. I’ll save your life, and you’ll forget to thank me.”

My upper lip curled. “Ididthank you.”

Wren winked, one corner of his mouth pulling up into a dangerous half-smile. “Not properly.”

“You wish I was dead, anyway,” I hissed. “So, what’s the point of all this?” I gestured to the room, to the space between us.

Wren held my stare unflinchingly. “I’m bound to the High King.”

“So am I.”

“I know.” He sighed sharply and shook his head. “It would be easier for everyone if you weren’t human. He won’t admit it to you, butI will—”

“Then we’re going to do this the hard way,” I snapped.

And then I turned on my heels and marched towards the doorway.

Fuck Wren.

Fuck the whole thing, and fuck the whole place.

I didn’t go up there to behumiliated—

“You can shield yourself,” he called after me as one of my feet hovered over the threshold. “Others, too. I can teach you how.”

I hesitated but didn’t turn around.

“There are wards in place around the House. Around Sthiara now, too.” Wren’s voice was soft, a salesman trying to make his daily commission. “Some are large enough to protect entire cities, like Caeludor. They’re hard to break. Even harder when people don’t know they’re being used. You could put one around yourself. Around anyone you like.”

A shield. Ashield.

I felt the words of damnation coming out of my mouth like a steam train with failing brakes instead of the questions that some dark and twisted part of me wanted to ask instead. “It’s too late for that. Besides, I’m only half a faerie, and until last week, I didn’t even know that I was a faerie at all. It’stoolate.”

Wren fell silent as I left the room and began to descend the stone steps. I didn’t think he was going to say anything, but then he spoke, sounding closer than he should have. As though he followed me to the doorway.