Page 156

But there were two places the witches remained—if the legends were to be believed. Held captive, really, should the fae ever decide they were truly needed.

One was said to be confined deep within the mountains of the Spine, in a cave that no fae living had ever seen or visited.

The other was in the Tower of Myda.

I could see it from my balcony.

“I got this idea while reading that book you gave me,” I said, cocking an eyebrow and summoning the sly grin Parys wore so well. He didn’t return it, his face draining of color.

“Three questions,” Parys finally said. “A witch could answer three questions, if you have her at your mercy.”

Lyrena choked on her disbelief. “The particulars do not matter. We cannot actually be considering this.”

I looked to Arran. He was silent.

An omen—but of what, I was not sure.

I bit my lower lip, staring into the fathomless depths of his black eyes. I tried to speak to his beast, to appeal to the feral part of him that had called to me long before the male.

Please. If you support this, they will go along with it. They will think it a worthy idea, rather than the plea of a desperate young queen.

Arran’s brows softened, just slightly. The broken shell of my heart fused a bit more.

“We will have to get the questions just right,” he said.

I could feel the eyes of our companions upon us. But I could not sever the connection, not until I let him see the answer in my own eyes.Thank you.

Arran blinked again, then turned to the others.

“Short of killing our way through the elemental court one by one until we find the traitors, this is the only way.”

Parys swore under his breath. “The witch will be well defended. I’ll give up on the rifts, for now, and see what I can find about what we might face in there.”

We. My heart thudded. A painful, unfamiliar motion in my chest.

Cyara spoke for the first time, drumming her fingers on the windowsill. “We must craft the questions very carefully. Practice them on one another, so that we might see if there are any loopholes. If the wording is wrong, the witch might answer the question but still leave you without the information you truly seek.”

I blinked up at her in surprise. So did everyone else.

Cyara merely shrugged, her wings—those beautiful, delicate,healedwings—fluttering softly. “My father was a librarian. I like to read.”

Lyrena laughed softly. Gwen and Arran exchanged a look I couldn’t read, but when they turned to face me, there was no argument in their eyes. Only steady acceptance.

I let out a long, measured exhale at the group assembled around me.

My friends.

“Let’s begin.”

70

ARRAN

The second terrestrial delegation arrived. The third, I realized as I watched from an unoccupied veranda, marking the faces of those who stalked across the tenuous line of safety through the Gremog’s territory.

The first had come to negotiate the details of Arthur and Guinevere’s Offering. The second was my own. Now the third, nearly the size of the one that had traveled with me, all come to celebrate the Joining and angle for positions in our soon-to-be-formed court.

If Veyka had been thinking about the Joining, beyond what it meant for finding Arthur’s killer, she hadn’t let on. I wasn’t privy to her wicked smiles anymore.