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“Eat this.” She tapped the tray with her long, elegant finger. “Someone will come and force it down your throat if you don’t do it yourself.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving me alone to stew in my thoughts. Or so I thought. The maidservant hesitantly hovered in the doorframe, watching me with owlish eyes. I frowned as she just stood there, hands clenching and unclenching around her pale gray shift.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m to make sure you eat,” she whispered. “If the food isn’t gone within the hour, I have to inform the king.”

I sat hard on the chair. “Morgan was serious about that?”

“Oh, yes. You’re the king’s bride-to-be. The bearer of his next generation of children. You must eat the correct amount of food to remain healthy.”

“And if I don’t?”

“He will send someone to make sure you do.”

“That’s…” I stopped myself, remembering Morgan’s warning. While I didn’t trust her, I did believe she’d been truthful, at least about that. It lined up with everything else I knew about the king. Fae females had been unable to bear children since the Battle of the Great Rift. The king needed a human to produce heirs, but it was difficult for us, even with the king’s blessing of immortality. We struggled carrying a fae pregnancy, often requiring years to recover from it. The limit seemed to be three. After that, humans became sterile, too.

It was the one and only reason for the fae king’s ritualistic Festival of Light. He wanted more children. So, by his twisted logic, I could see how he might be so obsessed with making sure I ate.

“That’s fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I don’t need any help. I can manage it myself.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s for the best. I wasn’t around for the previousOidhesacrifice, but I’ve heard tales. The girl who…well, the one you’re replacing. She didn’t eat the first day. Not willingly, at least. They say her screams echoed through the castle for hours.”

A shiver raced down my spine. These people were monsters.

“I suppose she’s glad she’ll soon be freed from her duties, even if that means she has to go live in the Tower of Crones for eternity.”

A strange expression flashed across the maidservant’s face. “Oh yes. Certainly.”

And then she coughed.

My eyes narrowed. There was more that she wasn’t saying, but I could tell by the look on her face that she’d crossed some sort of imaginary line. There was nothing more I could get out of her. For now.

I sighed as I picked up the fork. “Can I at least have your name?”

“Maidservant.”

Hand tightening around the fork, I forced the boiled potato into my mouth. It took all my effort to chew. When I was finished, I paused a moment before taking my next bite. “Surely you have a name other than that.”

“If I did, I would not be able to tell you. It would be a secret, only spoken aloud when no fae is around to hear. Not that I would ever take another name,” she said quickly. “It’s just…some might. And if they did, you could never know it.”

I chewed on a chunk of meat, half-wondering if it came from one of the animals that had been nailed to the wall. There was a strange spice to it, as if it had been dunked in a pot of overpowering herbs. A far cry from my mother’s cooking.

I tried not to think about her or the rest of my family. Poor Nellie was probably sobbing into her pillow while Val paced the room, her scowl a permanent fixture on her face. They’d talk about breaking me out of here, but the words would be hollow. The only way out of here was by death. Mine or the king’s.

I knew which one I preferred.

As I continued to eat, a strange sensation fluttered through me. My eyelids grew heavy. An incessant buzz filled my brain. The sunlight reached me through a haze. Everything felt far away, as distant as the stars I’d never seen.

I dropped my fork, and it clattered onto the plate. Dumbfounded, I stared down at the food I’d been forced to eat. The fork split into two, and then doubled itself to make four. Tongue heavy in my mouth, I understood at once what was happening.

The fae had poisoned me.

* * *

Heat caressed my cheek. A bell clanged, breaking through the heavy darkness. I sucked in a breath and shot up, eyes flying wide. I glanced around, trying to make sense of where I was, a certain dread punching down on my shoulders like two lead weights.

Light streamed in through a window beside my bed, which jolted my memory.