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A meagre promise, but Creon nodded without hesitation, agreeing to a deal so unbalanced it would have reeked of desperation from any other fae.

Helenka wetted her lips, the lack of resistance only strengthening the suspicion in her eyes. Once again, it didn’t take any divine powers to understand. It had been mere months ago that I’d found myself in her position, forced to trust a heartless fae murderer despite every instinct screaming at me to run and save myself. As far as she knew, Creon had to be playing a game – because he and his kindalwayswere. But I didn’t appear to be the witless little fae whore the Mother’s envoys had told her about either, and it was Creon who had just saved her people and her trees … so what did she have left to trust, now?

Bargain magic. That, at least, offered a hope of certainty.

I knew she’d made her decision the moment her hand came up – just a few inches, but a clear enough motion towards Creon’s quiet silhouette. The look of disbelief lingered in her eyes as she said, ‘How many questions do I get?’

Creon shrugged, holding up five fingers.

‘Make it ten.’ There was a reckless glint of greed in her eyes, like a child prodding a chained animal in some suicidal attempt to figure out when it would bite. But Creon merely quirked up an amused eyebrow and added three fingers of his other hand.

Eight. Giving in to her demands without any objection would be too suspicious, likely.

‘Eight will do.’ She took the smallest step forward, and then another one, until she reached him in the surf, her bare feet searching for stability in the wet sand. The claw-like hand she reached out to him looked small against his scarred fingers. ‘Answer my eight questions truthfully and with no attempts to deceive me in either writing or gesturing, and I willconsiderallowing you access to this island. And if I decide not to, you will leave without further objection or damage done to any of the souls under my protection.’

He merely nodded.

Blinding light erupted from between their fingers. When the bargain magic settled an eternity later, a bright blue mark had appeared on the insides of their wrists, contrasting sharply with the violent red of the mark Creon shared with me.

‘Good.’ Helenka sounded on the brink of fainting. ‘My first question. Do you want to rule the empire yourself?’

Creon shook his head as he knelt gracefully before her, a black, bloodied shape against the pastel colours of her island. Drawn with quick strokes in the wet sand, letters appeared under his finger –Would rather die.

Helenka’s eyes widened, but her voice didn’t give way. ‘Are you loyal to the Mother?’

Not since Last Battle.

‘Then why did you come here and kill Zoya?’

Creon sighed, wiping his writing with two quick sweeps of his hand. And there the words appeared, as if this wasn’t a secret he’d held onto so stubbornly amidst even the closest of our allies, as if these weren’t powers he’d have cut from his own flesh had he been able to …

No one else in my place would have taken her pain.

We stared at that sentence together, Helenka and I, speechless for entirely different reasons.

‘Her … her pain.’ The nymph queen looked up at me, a flicker of helplessness in her eyes – as if she was considering, for just one moment, begging me to intervene and reveal that all of this was just the fae joke of the decade. ‘Do you mean … with your demon powers?’

Creon nodded, no trace of aversion on his hard face. We were at four questions, now. Was he keeping count like I was? Was Helenka even keeping count? I wasn’t sure if she’d realised that last sentence had been a question, too.

‘Do you mean …’ Her hands had balled into fists, but they shook. ‘Does that mean she didn’t feel any of your torture and that you … thatyoufelt the pain instead?’

Again, Creon nodded. It wasn’t a nod that betrayed anything of the grey-faced mess he’d been that night at the pavilion, or the similar mess he must have been after slowly cutting himself to pieces through the poor nymph he’d been sent to kill, but Helenka let out a small wail regardless.

‘Is that something you’ve done before?’ she whispered. ‘With other victims?’

Everyone.The word gleamed bitter and meaningful in the sand.Since Last Battle.

For five, ten heartbeats, Helenka gaped at those letters. She didn’t move, didn’t even seem to be breathing – but behind her, the trees and vines rustled in the breeze like restless children, betraying the spinning of her thoughts.Everyone. She wasn’t stupid, the queen of Tolya; she, too, knew exactly how many lives had ended at his hands, in how many torturous ways.

She may hate him like death itself, but even so, she could recognise a sacrifice when she saw one.

‘How many … No, wait.’ She jerked up her head, red-golden curls scattering around her horns and face as she met my gaze. ‘How many questions do I have left?’

Asked of me, not him, so it wouldn’t count as a question in itself. Clever. ‘Six so far.’

‘Two left,’ she muttered, rubbing a claw over her delicate face. ‘Goddess help me. My seventh question, then. The fae ambassador who cut down our trees, twenty years ago, who died the same day as Zoya – did you kill her, too?’

Creon nodded, then added in the sand,All I could do to protect you.