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I glared at him too, then quickly looked away, because if I held that smouldering gaze for a moment longer, the lights in his eyes would make me blush more than I could attribute to the heat of the flames. Something about this new development was improving his mood far more easily than I’d ever dared to dream.

It took an effort to still sound appropriately exasperated. ‘Shall we get started with that bloody alphabet, or do the two of you want to wallow in your grammatical prowess a little longer?’

Lyn snorted a laugh. ‘Show me the alphabet, then.’

So we did, our demonstration disrupted only by Edored, who appeared to have decided that this was the perfect moment to sharpen a sword he hadn't used all day. Tared sat motionless by the window while the sky grew pale, then dark, and we worked our way through the twenty-four alphabet signs. He never interrupted, never so much as spoke a word … but I could feel his eyes on the back of my head at every turn, and I knew his thoughts largely followed the shrill shrieks of Edored’s whetstone over the alf steel blade.

‘But I feel like there should be more of asystemto this,’ Lyn complained for the fifth time, swiping a host of red curls aside in between her attempts to follow Creon’s finger motions. ‘Why would this be av? It doesn’t even look like one!’

Ask Em, Creon spelled, looking entirely too delighted to shove the blame on my shoulders. In the flickering firelight, the hint of a smile on his lips was both menacing and comforting, a challenge and a warning.

‘It’s not my fault I had to force you to learn this stuff,’ I said, unable to suppress a laugh as I pointed my lentil-covered wooden spoon at him in mock outrage. ‘If you wanted a system, perhaps you should have contributed rather than—'

Beyla and Naxi materialised from thin air mere inches away from me.

I should not have been shocked so easily. Not after months in an alf household, not when I’d known they would return around dusk. But I jolted at their mid-sentence appearance anyway, staggering a reflexive step and a half away from them before I even realised who they were and where they’d come from.

My foot caught behind the stone ridge covering the floor around the hearth.

The world toppled around me.

I reacted in another ill-advised burst of instinct, my thoughts no more than short punches of panic in those immeasurable moments.Fire. Fall. Danger. My wooden spoon clattered to the floor. My hand shot forward. My fingers grabbed the first surface they could find to keep me from tumbling straight into Lyn’s flames –

The copper cauldron hanging over them.

For one frozen, everlasting fraction of time, nothing existed but me and the fire as we stared at each other in a tangle of limbs and blazing heat.

Then the pain hit.

Red-hot agony flared through every nerve of my palm, reducing the world to crying voices and heat and the smothering stench of burning wood. Wings slapped behind me. Hands – familiar hands – locked around my upper arms, dragging me back, dragging me to my feet. My back slammed against a wooden wall, and I barely felt it – only felt the fire searing through my hand, a raw ache so intense I nearly threw up.

Someone was shouting my name.

Someone was shouting for water.

And just like that, the pain … dulled.

It didn’t vanish, not exactly. But the mind-numbing torment that left me incapable of stringing two thoughts together softened to a nagging throb in less than the time it took to gulp in a breath, and at once I became aware of my surroundings again. Edored was cursing. Naxi was crying apologies over and over.

A hand grabbed my wrist, and strong fingers bared my throbbing palm to the cool air. Through the mist of my tears, a sea of blue lit up the room.

Blissful relief washed over me.

I slouched against the wall as the pain waned, dragging in a half-sobbing breath. The fingers holding my hand didn’t let go. When I blinked and blinked again, I found Creon’s sharp face mere inches from mine – hair a tousled mess, lip curled up in a silent sneer, wings blocking the view of the rest of the room. His face was several shades too pale even in the firelight, a soft sheen of sweat glimmering at his temples.

That … that wasn’t just fear, was it?

My thoughts ran seconds behind my observations. Those gritted teeth, that wild gleam in his eyes … Not a look of concern but rather of …

Pain?

My gaze wandered to my undamaged palm, the once-burned skin fragile and soft in the grip of his ink-scarred fingers. Only then did the realisation come through – that the worst of the pain had waned long before he healed me.

Demon magic.

My breath caught.

He seemed closer when I looked up to meet his gaze, even though he hadn't moved an inch. His scent rolled over me, that summer-sweet fragrance of honey and hazelnuts. Suddenly, his eyes were entirely his own – not the Silent Death’s pools of cruel menace, not the uncaring fae prince’s arrogant indifference, but simply the eyes of my lover looking straight through me, looking for hurt to soothe, for sacrifices to make.