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Elric stopped, his eyes darting between Ata and Landers, unsure of whose directions to follow.

“Did you forget which one of us is your King?” Landers snapped at Elric’s hesitation.

“No your Grace—” Elric’s back straightened at the bite in Landers’s words. “It’s just . . . she’s so . . .”

“Please,” Landers sighed as he rubbed his temples, his middle fingers pressing hard into his skin, “do not tell me you are afraid of her, Elric.”

“Are you not?” Elric shot back.

Landers’s eyes darted to him, narrowing with annoyance. I tried to hide the smile that slid over my lips at the exchange. It was so very Ata, to have a war general frightened of her.

“You should be scared,my King, of what I will do to you if you bring that man anywhere near me,” Ata said, her voice a low growl as she took a step closer to the two of them. “You made a promise you would not involve him, and youwillkeep it.”

“That was when these dreams only involved you. The terms in which I made that promise have now changed. I will not take the risk of endangering Hyacinth’s life because you are scared,” Landers snarled back at her.

Only Ata seemed to be able to rile him like this.

“Is that so? You are starting to sound more and more like the man you have chained in your dungeons,” Ata spat in response, her tone venomous.

“Ata!” I hissed, my head snapping to her as Landers took a step forward. I shot my hand into the air and he halted. “Both of you, stop it right now.”

Ata smirked, throwing up her middle finger at Landers as he sucked on his teeth, trying to calm the anger those words boiled in him.

She had meant for those words to hurt and she had hit her mark, like an arrow in a bullseye.

“That was completely uncalled for, Ata.Nevercompare him to Taft again, do you hear me?” I said, locking my gaze onto hers. She let out a deep sigh before nodding. I turned my eyes to Landers. “And you—you are a four-hundred-year-old fae King. Stop letting her get you so worked up.” Landers lifted a corner of his mouth at my words as he sat down on the arm of his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

I slumped back against the headboard and groaned. It was too early for this. I needed at least two cups of coffee before the theatrics of the day started.

“Is thereanypossibility of revisiting this conversation over breakfast, without you two murdering each other in the meantime?” I asked, glimpsing the small smile that flashed across Elric’s face at my tone before I looked back to Ata.

She let out a deep, dramatic sigh. “IsupposeI can wait until lunch to kill him,” she drawled, turning to the doorway.

She slapped Elric’s chest with the back of her hand as she passed him, and I gave him a grateful nod.

“Goodbye, Changeling,” Landers sang over his shoulder, a smirk plastered onto his face.

“Goodbye, Lord of Death,” Ata shot back as she closed the doors behind her. I rolled my eyes, trying to mask the surge that ran through my veins at the sound of that name.

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask Landers what those names meant—if there was truth to the story Dukovich had told me about him in The Silliands. I wasn’t scared of the truth, I was not naïve to the fact that Landers had killed, had done things that he was ashamed of during the war. I could see it in him, in the darkness that he kept beneath the surface, in all the times he had called himself a monster. I hadn’t asked because I didn’t want him to push me away, so I stayed quiet.

“The two of you will kill me,” I said, shaking my head. “It won’t be magic, it won’t be war, it’ll be the two of you that drive me to utter madness.”

A soft chuckle caressed Landers’s throat, rolling off his lips as he pushed from the chair and walked toward me. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he stopped at the edge of the bed, pulling him closer to my chest and let out a long breath.

“I’m sorry she said that to you, she shouldn’t have. I will talk to her,” I said softly into his tunic.

Landers’s fingers dipped under my chin, pulling it up until our eyes met. “There is truth in her words. I should not have made a decision in the moment like that. We will talk, and the three of us will decide how to handle this together,” he said, taking a step back from me as my arms fell to my side. He slid a hand down his face.

“Landers, you arenothinglike Taft.” I stood and stepped toward him. “Wanting me to be safe doesn’t make you like him. You don’t control me.” I reached up, my palm connecting with his cheek as he leaned into my touch. “You don’t hurt me,” I whispered.

Landers looked at me for a long moment before letting out a sharp breath and pulling me into his chest.

These last few months had been hard on all of us. It’s felt like we are scrambling, frantically trying to catch a crystal vase before it falls to the floor and shatters.

Wren had taken over intelligence for Locdragoon so Landers and Andrues had more time to focus on securing the wards around Ithia, and help manage the damage our party had brought to their doorstep.

Wren had buried himself in the work.