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Arianna studied the sea of faces again. She squinted between those nearest to her and those on the outskirts. She inclined her ears to listen, but couldn’t hear the loud laugh that told her Ellie was near. Her sister wasn’t one to miss dinner. Especially when the food tasted this good.

She stood and Rion stopped eating. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen Ellie anywhere?”

His gaze scanned the area, then Rion was on his feet too, bowl forgotten. Her mate searched through the crowd, then furrowed his brow. Arianna tried not to panic as she walked the grounds, stopping at each fire to ask if anyone had seen her sister. They received the same answer every time.

Arianna spun on her heel, her heart hammering in her chest. The villagers were searching now, scanning the outskirts, the empty houses, the fields. A small group even ran back toward the city ruins, curious if she had indeed snuck off with Kirian. Talon took to the sky.

An hour passed and Arianna searched the faces over and over again. No one had seen her, and they couldn’t scent her either.

Arianna’s mind whirled and she looked at no one in particular as her voice cracked with a new kind of fear. “Where is my sister?”

Chapter Ninety-nine

Ellie

Her head pounded and Ellie barely had the energy to lift it. Her blurry gaze took in a large fireplace with a gaping mouth the size of the entire wall. Embers burned within, casting an eerie glow on the stone lining the large structure. A pair of empty vintage chairs sat before the hearth with a table between them.

Her breath clouded and she shivered, moving to cover her bare arms with her hands. Chains rattled at her sides.

Chains.

Iron.

Ellie snapped awake and scanned her body. She was shackled at the wrists and ankles. The chains stretched between her limbs and away from her body where the other ends were clipped to bolts in the floor.

Props to her assailant for not underestimating her.

Ellie scanned the room. The last person she remembered with her was Kirian, but she didn’t scent him now. She scented someone else. Someone ancient who smelled like old parchment and the winds that blew across the sea.

The hair along her arms rose and a small voice in the back of her mind begged Ellie to proceed with caution.

Ellie’s gaze studied the room again. It didn’t look like a dungeon. Dark like one. Cold like one. But the hearth and bookshelves and trinkets whispered of an old scholar’s study. The tapestries didn’t help. So many tapestries lined the walls. She couldn’t see the pictures from where she knelt on the carpeted floor. They weren’t really important, anyway.

“I’m told you’re quite the troublemaker for someone so young.”

Her head whipped toward the voice in the corner. He’d been so still hidden among the shadows that she hadn’t noticed him. Ellie tried to study his features, but they were lost to her in the darkness. He moved with an elegance she’d never seen, as if he walked on the air itself.

He was definitely from Pádraigín.

“Who are you?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then, “A male who once fell in love and paid the price for it.” Well, that certainly didn’t give her any answers.

“What do you want?”

“A great many things, though fate has a way of denying me at every turn.” Riddles. Why did older Fae always have to speak in riddles?

“Why am I here?” She tried again.

He took a long, deep breath and wandered toward the open fireplace. The male stared at it, then threw a log into the dying embers, scattering them like fireflies at his boots.

“Answering your question will only lead to more questions, so how about I tell you a story instead?”

Ellie wanted to bark at him. A story was the last thing she wanted to hear, but she also remembered her training with Talon. Any information while in the hands of an enemy was information she could use. It would give her time to search for an escape route, too.

She eyed her bound hands and the thick iron links that held them together, then grimaced. It would take a miracle to break them, but surely they’d move her to another location eventually. Or perhaps they’d allow her to relive herself in a proper toilet and she could try to escape then. Somehow Ellie doubted her current captor would fall for such a trick.