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At first, the shadow fae prince focused on her wielding shadows and controlling them in ways she could use in combat. She took to it quickly and summoned the shadows with more swiftness than ever before—blasting them at the prince, which he blocked with his own torrent of black.

Then he moved to teaching her how to hide herself in the shadows.

She quickly learned that was an ability she had zero natural ability in.

“Don’t just cloak yourself in shadows,” the prince said as she tried and failed for the dozenth time. “Become one with the shadows.”

“I’m trying,” she hissed as sweat dripped off the chains in her hair.

She stood in the center of the cavern floor. The sides of the room were a layered stone that sloped up toward the sole exit tunnel several hundred feet back. In a way, the space felt like abowl in how it sloped down from the sides of the room to the flat area at the base where they did most of their training.

Willing the shadows to lengthen to her height, she tried to move into them. But it felt like she’d merely stepped into a dark mist.

“I can still see you,” Colton said from where he lounged against a nearby wall, a bored expression visible above the black mask that covered most of his face.

For weeks, it had been Arden, Colton, her, and Jessamine in this cavern. To accommodate Jessamine’s sight, lanterns were lit across the entire space and mounted onto walls.

Arabella opened her mouth to snap a reply, but Jessamine spoke first. “Then you do it.”

One moment, Colton sat near the pool, hundreds of feet away from Jessamine. She sat near the exit tunnel, running a whetstone over one of her blades, which the shadow fae had returned to them. Then he winked out of existence and stood before her.

Blinking, Arabella gaped. “You can step between shadows. Like the erox.”

Colton scoffed, turning from Jessamine, who’d risen to her feet and looked like she was a breath away from starting a fight.

“Where do you think they got it from?” Colton said.

Arabella frowned. Demons could take fae magic? Then realization dawned.

“The syphen,” she said. “When the shadow fae created the blades, they must have imbued them with their magic—and it somehow allowed the erox to possess that ability.”

“Indeed,” Arden said, sounding pleased.

She’d told the prince about Magnus’ involvement in the creation of erox when he asked more information about this type of demon. Though she hadn’t yet revealed the sorcerer was the one who held Elias captive.

With a wave of his hand, Arden said, “After you master cloaking yourself, we’ll practice moving between shadows. You cannot travel between shadows until you can meld your body with them.”

She nodded. “What other abilities do shadow fae have?”

Holding a hand up, Arden ticked one finger at a time as he spoke. “Wielding shadows. Shadow binding, where you can pin an opponent in place using their shadows. Cloaking yourself, though this is less useful in broad daylight. Shadow jumping. Seeing in the darkness. Shadow illusions.”

“Broad daylight,” she said, her mind latching on to those words. “Is that a shadow fae’s weakness—sunlight?”

“Obviously.” Colton rolled his eyes, which Arabella could see even from where he stood across the cavern beside Jessamine. Then he stepped between the shadows to return to his seat beside the pool.

Arden leveled a flat look on the warrior, and Colton fell into silence.

“What’s the difference between shadow jumping and portalling?” she asked.

“Distance, mostly,” Arden said. “For both, you can move yourself and anything you touch from one location to another. But shadow jumping is only possible when there are shadows that are deep enough and when the distance is no more than several hundred feet apart. But portalling can take place over leagues or hundreds of miles. It’s why the goblins were such valuable allies.”

It was an effort to keep her face neutral, but Arabella nodded.

For a moment, there was only the sound of Jessamine’s whetstone running over her blade.

“How can fae be killed?” Arabella asked.

Arden raised a brow. “Most can be killed just like a mortal—by injury or old age.”