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“Not today. But . . . yesterday. I didn’t want to say since I thought it might’ve been my mesmer playin’ tricks with me.”

I wheeled on him. “Tell me what you saw.”

Sander’s chin quivered. “Why do you look so afraid, Maj?”

Dammit. Kase and I grew in a world that held little kindness. I praised the gods our children did not know the same world. But the downside of it all was they did not know how to react to dangers and tended to panic if a look of fright crossed our faces.

I smoothed his hair and forced a smile. “You’ve done nothing wrong, but tell me what you saw.”

“A monster in the shadows,” he whispered. “Not as frightening as the ones I’ve made in dreams, but the shadow man came with the sea creature. I think it was a girl, but sorta like a fish with needles as teeth.”

“What . . . what did they do?”

“Laughed at me.” Sander licked his lips and clung to the book until his knuckles turned white. “Said I was a dead earth fae. Told it I’m not a fae. Said I was an Alver, and it only laughed harder.”

Three hells. There were many creatures in our wood. Cats with jagged teeth. Wolvyn with black claws. Snakes with four eyes. All dangerous, but there were no sea creatures that spoke. Not that I knew.

“May I see?” I held out my palm. Sander didn’t hesitate, and pressed his forehead against my skin.

Smoke and shadows came at once. With the ring on my finger, pulling memories was swift. Once, it took a great deal of my mesmer, now it was as though a story played out in my mind. A dream of sorts.

Ribbons of misty shadows coiled around my son as he searched for his brother near the lakes Valen had helped shape behind the Black Palace. Sander cursed in the memory, words that would make Kase seek out Ash and Raum for teaching the boys that sort of language.

Another time, I might laugh, but I was bleeding panicked.

Sander paused in the memory and kneeled beside the lake. True enough, beneath the surface, bulbous eyes stared back at him.

“What are you?” Sander asked. His eyes darkened with his mesmer.

“Prepared to die, earth fae?” her voice was wet and soft.

“I’m not a fae. I’m an Alver. Get gone, or I’ll give you all the nightmares you don’t want.”

She laughed, a strangled kind of sound, and rose from the water, revealing a jagged grin with those sharp, pointed teeth, and fins where her legs ought to have been. “Perhaps you’d like to swim with me. Or perhaps . . . with him?”

In the memory, the strange sea fae pointed over Sander’s shoulder. My blood turned to ice as I watched my son spin around and face a dark, looming shadow.

“Daj?” Sander whispered.

From the darkness appeared a face, pale as stone, a sneer cruel as a rabid wolf. The creature said nothing, and in the next moments, the clearing was doused in a dark shadow.

By the gods—Davorin.

He’d stepped onto our land. How had he avoided Niklas’s wards? I wanted to scream for Sander to run, but he was in my arms, he was here. Clearly, he’d managed to flee.

“Maj, you’re squishing me.” Sander’s distant voice carved through the memory. I ignored him and clung to my boy as I observed, helplessly watching the sleek, horridly appealing features of our enemy peer at my son.

“Hello,” Davorin said, voice like a chill in the frosts. “Would you like to use your power on me, body worker?”

“Alver,” Sander shouted. His eyes turned black as pitch.

Davorin chuckled. “What a delightful boy you are. Like your father. Like your mother. Have you been told tales of them? Have you been told fate chose them?” His voice took on a bitter tone, sharp as new steel.

Sander ignored the bastard and reached for a stone hidden in the reeds. “Get gone or you’ll find out yourself. My daj has better shadows than you, and my maj’ll rip your brains to bits.”

I held my breath. To taunt such a man should surely bring his rage. Instead, the memory of the ghostly spectral, like a mist of Davorin, laughed. As though my son were an utter delight.

“I’m sure you think so. Tell them I look forward to meeting again, won’t you boy?” Davorin slid back toward the dark billows of his glamour. “Tell them to watch their shores. They might get a bit dodgy.”