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My jaw unhinges the instant that odious word tumbles from his mouth. “What?” I demand. “What do you mean, they’re mates?”

I stare at him, awaiting the punchline. When it doesn’t come, a pang of betrayal cleaves through me.

No way. There’s no feasible way. Lark is impulsive and has a penchant for male company, but my sisters and I had sworn never to turn our backs on one another. She wouldn’t consort with the ruler of the sky.

“She would never do that to me and Cove,” I insist.

Puck arches his brow. “Would she say that about you?”

I fall silent. He’s right. Of all of us, Lark and Cove would brand me the least likely to do what I’ve done with Puck. Lark doesn’t know that story yet, just like I don’t know hers. If I jump to conclusions, what does that say about the bond between me and my sisters? What does that say about our trust in each other?

I can’t let this news destroy that. If I know my sister at all, I should know nothing will ever come between us. We won’t let it.

In any event, the union between the Lark and Cerulean had spread. Puck tells me about The Wild Peak—the one that had soared past the other promontories. He tells me how being Cerulean’s mate has rendered Lark immune to the Faeries’ retribution. It has given her a power she hadn’t had before.

Moreover, Lark and Cerulean’s bond has granted them an extended life together, the midpoint between a short lifespan and immortality. As such, they’ve dedicated themselves to campaigning for a truce between humans and Faeries. Since the game’s end, they have vowed to find an alternative to sacrificing mortals, one that will nevertheless ensure the Folk’s survival.

So far, they’ve been hard-pressed to rally support outside of a handful of Solitaries, but that hasn’t stopped them. They’ve become quite the renegade pair.

Pride wells inside me. Now that’s the Lark I know.

Yesterday, Puck had cornered Lark near The Faerie Triad. At that point, it had been three weeks, and Puck still didn’t know where I was. He’d taken a chance, approaching Lark in case she had information on my whereabouts.

However, with his kin in the vicinity and potentially eavesdropping, Puck couldn’t outright tell Lark the truth—that I was missing. As much as he’d wanted to, the satyr had to be tactful, to see if Lark showed the remotest sign of knowing where I was.

This hadn’t been easy, since my sister openly hated him on sight. He’d decided to play off that, riling her up in order to loosen her tongue. Puck riddled his words, made her think I was still his enemy, a performance that would satiate any onlookers hiding in the shadows. Because by then, Puck had understood his kin were leery. By then, he’d suspected my disappearance likely had something to do with them.

But first, he’d needed to rule out Lark as a possibility. Unbeknownst to my sister, her profanities and threats to slay Puck if he hurt me proved Lark didn’t know where I was.

So Puck had kept searching. Shortly after, he’d found me in this spot.

The link between Lark and Cerulean has insulted the mountain Solitaries. As for the inhabitants here, news of the bond alarmed the woodland Folk, heightening their budding skepticism about Puck and me. Hence, their actions tonight.

“You want my guess?” Puck asks. “Naturally, you do. My guess is your sister and my brother have been conspiring as we speak, searching for an outlet that will enable them to come here and save you, all without jeopardizing the rules of this hunt and, thus—”

“Endangering me further,” I fill in.

“My heart-to-heart with your sister must have inflamed the love birds. But being of the mountain, they don’t know the actual game or what its rules are, which means they have no clue what they’re dealing with yet, much less what my motives are. I’m known to be a tad unpredictable.”

“Where did anyone get that idea?” I quip, fatigued. “Puck?”

“Luv?”

“I like that you’re unpredictable.” I might not get the chance to tell my sisters one more time how I feel about them. But I can tell him. “I like you a lot,” I whisper, tracking my fingers across his jaw.

He leans into the touch. “I like you, too,” he admits. “No Fae touches like this.”

I remember the last time we’d exchanged this sentiment, and a tiny grin steals across my face. “But I do.”

“That, you do. Always, you’ve exceeded my expectations. I couldn’t have stayed away from you if I tried. And I did, trust me. But when I was a lad, I beheld the most captivating of sights—you with sticks and leaves in your hair, with round cheeks and rounder ears, with wide-set eyes and a smoky voice the likes of which I’d never heard before. If I hadn’t already been snared on the ground, seeing you would have done me in, knocked me on my perky ass.” Puck holds my gaze. “Every time you spoke, you took my fucking breath away.”

“No satyr talks like this,” I muster.

“But I do.” His lips find the space between my brows. “Just don’t tell anyone, or you’ll ruin my reputation.”

When I stammer out a laugh, he points at me. “That, right there. The weight of your hand in mine, or your lips on mine? Those are my favorite feelings. The sight of you happy or about to come around me? Those are my favorite sights. But hearing you laugh? That’s my favorite sound. When we were striplings, I made it my life’s mission to get a chuckle out of you—a challenge, if there ever was one. Every time I succeeded, it intoxicated me. I adored your laugh as much as I relished your scowl. Greedy Fae that I was, I wanted both of them. You were so familiar and strange, like I really saw you but hadn’t yet seen everything.”

“That makes no sense,” I breathe against his chin. “Puck?”