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You and I had an understanding, he’d said to the Thief.

“Desmond, Desmond, Desmond,everthe secret keeper,” the Thief says. “Did he not tell you just what lengths he went to, to try to save you?”

I continue gazing at my mate’s sleeping form. The flickering light makes the shadows dance along his skin. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it looks as though the darkness is grieving for him.

Des, what did you do?

It shakes me to the core to think that whatever Des plotted and planned, it landed him here, in this state. I’ve never known someone to get the upper hand on the Bargainer.

Not like this.

The Thief steps away from me, circling around the altar. It makes me jumpy, seeing him focus on Des when my soulmate is so exposed.

“I had heard so many things about the King of the Night’s infamous bargains. How shrewd he was, how calculating and unforgiving. Love seems to be his downfall.

“See, he came to me not too long ago—did he tell you this? He came to me and he made a deal: so long as I never killed him or his precious mate, he’d willingly become my prisoner.”

The room seems to tilt a little, and I have to place a bracing hand on the altar. My eyes move back to Des.

This is not life. This is some mockery of it.

But Des must’ve been aware of this going in. He saw the sleeping soldiers, he knew that the Thief could keep a man alive without them ever truly living.

So why would he make such a deal?

The Thief stares down at the Night King. “What your mate missed is this: the truest pain comes with life, not death.”

Des wouldnevermiss something like that.

The question is: what amImissing?

“You know,” the Thief continues, “he’s still in there. His mind, everything. Perhaps I will wake him up …” I can see the gears in the Thief’s head turning.

I manage a delicate swallow. I want to see Des’s eyes open, more than anything in the world I do, but I don’t want the Thief to compel them open—and I don’t want Des seeing whatever it is the Thief intends.

The Thief breaks our stare-down first. “Perhaps we’ll revisit that exciting thought later.”

He takes my hand again.

“I’m not leaving him,” I insist. I can’t. The thought of walking away from Des now that I’ve finally found him is unbearable.

“You are,” the Thief insists, a bit of his good humor seeping away.

I bare my teeth at him. “Make me.”

I’m still glowing, still feral with my power.

He laughs, the sound skittering up my arms. The Thief’s grip tightens on mine, chaining me to him. “Do you realize I could immobilize you just as I have your mate? I have done it to a thousand different fairies. Now that you’ve tasted lilac wine, you are no different from any of them.”

He’s right. He could incapacitate me so easily. His threat hangs over my head like a blade.

I search his face. “Is that what you’re going to do? Are you going to force dark magic on me just as you have every other fairy?”

He doesn’t need to speak for me to pull the answer from him.

“You’renot.” Oh God, he’s going to do everythingbutthat. For some perverse reason, the Thief wants to watch me tailspin.

His hand slides to my wrist, where golden scales dust my skin. He squeezes my flesh to the point of pain.