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I let out a breath. “Come on, Des, let’s go. The Thief is obviously too pussy to—”

The entire dungeon begins speaking as one:

Is life but to wake?

And death but to sleep?

I’d tell you, but then,

This secret I’ll keep.

I’m not real now,

Nor was I last night,

Or perhaps I’m wrong,

Who’s to say what’s right?

My blood runs cold.

In front of me, the soldier who first spoke to me now smiles. He tilts his head.

Are you having fun yet?

This is our little game,

You will lose soon enough,

Then you’ll be mine to tame.

My conversation with the Thief might have been a dream, but apparently it was real enough. That’s what this is, a reminder that a dream is never just a dream.

My skin begins to glow very softly; it’s so at odds with my heart, which is racing, racing …

I work my jaw.

No one scares us.

I step up to the cell and grab the iron bars, ignoring the pain as my skin begins to sizzle.

“I’ve got a rhyme for you, fucker,” I say, my voice filling with glamour. “Stop hiding behind your puppets, you stupid piece of trash. Oh, and take your lame riddles and shove them up your a—”

“Callie,” Des says, prying my hands off the bars. The room’s nearly pitch black. That’s the first I sense of the Bargainer’s dark mood.

“Aren’t I a poet?” I taunt the soldier as Des drags me away. My hands are smoking, but I can barely feel them over my rising fury.

Des pulls me away, and that’s about when I realize that my wings have come out, the tips of them now dragging along the cool floor as the Bargainer carts me back the way we came.

“Not a poet,” says one of the soldiers we pass by, “a marked woman.”

He’s barely gotten the words out when suddenly, the darkness closes in on him. In the next moment, Des vanishes from my side. I hear the sound of steel slicing flesh and a choked cry, then nothing more.

By the time the shadows dissipate, Des is back at my side, his hand on my back.

I stare at the spot where the fairy stood a moment before. Now he lays in a puddle of his own blood, his eyes glassy.

Ohshit.