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Ithan barely moved from his stool the entire time Hypaxia stood over the corpse and chanted. Jesiba left, came back with her laptop, and worked for some of the time. She even offered Ithan some food, which he refused.

He had no appetite. If this didn’t work …

Hypaxia’s now-hoarse chanting stopped suddenly. “I—”

Ithan hadn’t been able to watch as she’d sewed Sigrid’s head back on. Only when she’d covered the body again had he returned his gaze to the spectacle.

Hypaxia staggered back from the examination table. From the shape under the sheet. Ithan was instantly up, catching her smoothly.

“What have you done?” Jesiba demanded, laptop shutting with a click.

Ithan set Hypaxia on her feet, and the former witch-queen looked between them, helpless and—terrified. Out of the corner of his eye, something white shifted.

Ithan turned as the body on the table sat up. As the sheet rippled away, revealing Sigrid’s grayish face, her eyes closed. The thick, unforgiving stitches in an uneven line along her neck. She still wore her clothes, stiff with old blood.

Stitches popping, Sigrid slowly turned her head.

But her chest … it didn’t rise and fall. She wasn’t breathing.

The lost Fendyr heir opened her eyes. They burned an acid green.

“Reaper,” Jesiba breathed.

49

“I’m telling you, Ketos, she is the worst,” Flynn growled at Tharion in the shadows of the pillars flanking one side of the throne room. Normal shadows, thankfully. Not the awful ones the Fae King commanded. “This is a terrible idea. It will ruin your life.”

“My life is already ruined,” Tharion said, voice as hollow as he felt. “If we live through this, we can get a divorce.”

“The Fae don’t divorce.” Flynn gripped his arm hard. “It’s literally marriage until death.”

“Well, I’m not Fae—”

“She is. If you divorce her, she won’t have any chance of ever marrying again. She’ll be sullied goods. After the first marriage, the only ways out are death or widowhood. A widow can remarry, but a divorcée … it’s not even a thing. She’d be persona non grata.”

On the opposite side of the room, Declan and Ruhn were talking to Sathia in hushed tones. Likely having the same conversation.

Morven glowered away on his throne, shadows like a hissing nest of asps around him, the monstrous twins now flanking him on either side. Tharion had detected the oily shadows creeping toward his mind the moment the twins had arrived. He’d instinctively thrown up a roaring river of water, creating a mental moat around himself. He had no idea what he was doing, but it had worked. The shadows had drowned.

It only made this decision easier. To have anyone forced to endure the Murder Twins’ presence, to marry someone who could pry into minds—

Tharion now said to Flynn, “Your sister would be a pariah amongst the Fae only. Normal people won’t have a problem with divorce.”

Flynn didn’t back down one inch, his teeth flashing. “She is the daughter of Lord Hawthorne. She’s always going to want to marry within the Fae.”

“She accepted my offer.” With the quietest and blandest yes he’d ever heard, but still. A clear acceptance.

Flynn snapped, “Because she’s desperate and scared—you think that’s a good state of mind to make an informed decision?”

Tharion held the male’s stare. “I don’t see anyone else stepping forward to help her.”

Flynn growled. “Look, she’s spoiled and petty and mean as a snake, but she’s my little sister.”

“So find some alternative that doesn’t involve her death to get her out of this.”

Flynn glared, and Tharion glared right back.

Across the way, Sathia shoved past Dec and Ruhn and stormed toward them. She was short—but stood with a presence that commanded the room. Her dark eyes were pure fire as they met Tharion’s. “Are we doing this?”