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My power stirs as I stare at Malaki’s blade. This is why my mother taught me to keep my secrets to my damn self.

But rather than attacking me, Malaki presses his other hand against the dagger and slices the blade across his cupped palm. Immediately the scent of blood fills the air. The wilds of Memnos seem to still.

Fisting his bleeding hand, Malaki lets the crimson liquid drip onto the ground. He stares at me intensely. “I swear to the Undying Gods that so long as you ask it, your secret will not leave my lips.”

The air shimmers with magic, and then it implodes, sucking itself into Malaki’s exposed wound and binding him to his oath.

It takes several seconds for me to find my voice.

“Why would you do that?” I finally ask, shocked.

He pulls a kerchief from his pocket and presses it to the wound. “Besides being your friend?” he says, as though that should be enough. He eyes me. “Have you ever considered the fact that you might not be the only person who wants the Night King dead?” Malaki shoves the kerchief into his pants’ pocket. “The tyrant king hasn’t just screwed over your life.”

I search Malaki’s face, wondering what my father did to earn my friend’s ire.

“Eurion—or whatever your name really is—I’m not going to hand you over to the king,” he says. “I want you to fulfill that woman’s words and kill the Night King—and I want to help.”

Chapter 5

Make War, Not Love

239 years ago

“This is yourstupidest idea yet,” Malaki says as we land in Somnia.

I fold up my camouflaged wings and look around at the Night Kingdom’s capitol.

Malaki grimaces as a Night soldier passes us. “We shake these guys down, we don’t join them.”

It’s true. Over the years, the royal guard has become target practice for the Angels of Small Death. If we’re not doing away with them altogether, then we’re either buying information out of turncoats orpersuadingit out of loyalists.

“I’m not planning on keeping the king’s peace.” I say the last word like the farce it is.

Right now the king isn’t looking for soldiers willing to burn down villages that harbor traitors. He wants fairies willing to give their lives so that Night can claim a bit more territory.

“What about your face?” Malaki asks.

He means the striking resemblance I bear to the king.

“You never noticed my likeness until you knew who I was,” I say, glancing up the street. Fairies bustle along, and they all have a look to them, like they’re someone important.

“Yeah, but I’m an unobservant fuck,” Malaki says. “These people aren’t.”

True, there are people here who have seen the king most days of their lives, but the thing is, no one expects me to exist. The common belief is that Galleghar Nyx is the last of his bloodline. And though my father might know of my existence, he has not made that public knowledge.

“What about our tattoos?” Malaki says.

I look heavenward. “Now you’re worried about our ink?” Technically, the Angels of Small Death have screwed the king over a time or two, but a sleeve of tattoos is hardly evidence of that.

Malaki makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Honest fae don’t sully their skin with tattoos.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You’ve met an honest fae?”

He chuckles. “Aye, you got me there.”

We walk up the hill, towards the center of the island.

Towering above the shops is the palace. I frown as I stare up at it, my magic beginning to thrum. Galleghar could be in there right now, prime for killing. Every day I let him live, more fairies die. Some die on the battlefield, fighting a senseless war. Others die because he’s taxed the life out of them. And then there are those, like my mother—like me—whose continued existence is an affront to him.