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She crossed her arms. “You want me? Then I want answers, and I want Elias free. Otherwise, I might be tempted to trip and fall onto a blade before the queen hands me over. Then I’ll be of no use to you.”

Maybe the sorcerer needed her to make more syphens. Perhaps he wanted to kill off the last of the shadow fae still walking within the lands of the living. Or it could be something else entirely. But she made a bet it was the former, hoping she could use her life as leverage.

Jessamine came to stand beside Arabella. Her footsteps had been so quiet that Arabella had completely missed them.

Arabella’s heart twisted at everything that had been taken from her friend in a single moment. She’d been unable to protect her.

In the room behind them, there were a series of footsteps. A glance over her shoulder revealed the fae guards had moved from their posts beneath the archways, hands on the hilts of swords. But none drew closer. For some reason, the queen was letting them have it out in her throne room and didn’t lock Arabella away immediately.

For now, it was enough that the Twilight Court guards were staying away from her while she faced down the male who held her mate captive.

Magnus took a lazy step back until he stood beside Elias. He ran the back of a finger down the side of Elias’ face. The gesture was intimate, like one of lovers. “My prodigal son has always been unique. His power is unlike his brothers.”

She frowned.

Elias’ ability to feed off mortals and weaponize essence… That was what Magnus was after? Then she understood the implication. If all his erox could use essence as a weapon, they could take over the mortal realm, going from village to village and turning the men into erox. No one could stop them.

“What do you want with Arabella?” Jessamine demanded.

Magnus turned from Elias, who never moved, never objected to the sorcerer’s touch. “I can only control so many erox at once with a syphen. I can make them do my bidding, true, but to give them each their own task and ensure they make each step in the way I want… Well, that requires a lot of concentration. More than I’m willing to devote.” He took a step forward so that he whispered in Arabella’s ear—so low that she almost missed it. “But if my erox each had syphens, they could control armies, and I could control them. I’d have legions at my fingertips.”

“What could you possibly want armies for?” she demanded.

Slowly, the sorcerer leaned back so he could study her eyes. “Let’s just say I have some unfinished business with The Ten.”

The Ten were said to be the original sorcerers in the mortal realm. They’d been the founders of the great human cities and created so many of the technologies used there. But they’d been alive thousands of years ago. Surely, they were long dead.

Arabella frowned, shaking her head.

None of this mattered. Not right now when her mate was before her and needed her to rescue him.

Enough holding back. Enoughtalking.

Jessamine was safe, and if Arabella could attack before Magnus was ready, maybe she could get Elias’ syphen from him.

She lashed out with her shadows. They arced in the air toward the blade.

As the thorned vines neared the sorcerer, they crashed into a wall of power. The shadows became less corporeal, meltinginto mere dark smudges as they pressed against the shield the sorcerer had formed around himself and Elias.

Her heart dropped.

Even after everything she’d gone through, the sorcerer was still so much more powerful than her.

Magnus pressed the syphen to Elias’ throat. “Try that again, and I’ll slice your mate open.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ELIAS

Elias didn’t have control over his actions or his body as he stood in the queen’s throne room, Magnus’ syphen pressed to his throat.

He was utterly at the mercy of the sorcerer’s whims, and his mate would be the one to suffer the consequences.

Arabella stood before him, but he wasn’t permitted to look at her.

Prior to leaving the camp and journeying to the gateway, Magnus had used the syphen to forbid Elias from interacting with Arabella in any capacity. Magnus had prepared just in case they’d encounter Arabella and her friends.

Somehow, they’d crossed paths in the Twilight Court.