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I’d never seen such an expression on her face. Battle ready, yes. Unqualified anger? I didn’t know she had it in her.

“He lured me into this stupid House of Enchanted Nightmares. It was dark, even to my eyes. There is some sort of magic at play in there. Something stolen from Annwyn. He slipped away. By the time I found him again, he was being dragged away by two humans, squawking about his innocence.”

“Did he know the humans who took him?”

Lyrena sighed heavily. “I’d wager good aural he did.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Which he conveniently did not mention before leading us into the festival.”

“We knew it was a possibility.” Arran’s voice was even. No time wasted perseverating on Percival’s motivations. That was a discussion for later. After we’d gotten him, and ourselves by extension, out of this mess.

I was still getting used to it, the battle commander. He’d gotten better at hiding his emotions, mainly his anger and frustration, since his arrival in Baylaur all those months ago.

I was coming to understand why he’d conquered what most elementals needed a lifetime to master—he already had it. The cool, calculating place he descended into when he was assessing the field, the opponents, forming his plan… it was much the same.

Lyrena darted between two booths, leading us back into the throng.

It was less dense with humans here. The Crossing naturally widened a bit, creating a wider avenue with a bulging, rounded edge on one side.

The humans had set up a larger structure there. What appeared to be several booths stitched together haphazardly.

But the image on the front was intact.

Fae.

But not like any fae I’d ever seen before. This was… grotesque. The long, graceful lines of my kind were elongated, out of proportion. Fangs like those Arran and Osheen sported, but longer, deadlier. As if the painter had transposed the jaws of the skoupuma on a fae face. There were two of them, a male and female. They were fucking… sort of. It almost looked like the male was strangling the female.

But not the erotic sort of strangling I could imagine, with Arran’s hand around my throat as I gasped for breath and climax in unison. This was meant to be brutal.

This was how the humans truly saw us.

“He’s in there,” Lyrena said unnecessarily.

“Then I suppose he’s on his own.” I tore my eyes away from the tableau, a dagger already in hand. I’d stab the next human I saw just to ease the burning edge of my temper.

“We need him to find Avalon,” Arran said, drawing his battle axe.

I glared at it. “We can find Avalon on our own. We have a general direction.”

“The closer we get, the less helpful a general direction is. Veyka, we need him.”

Rage. Rage for Arthur, for me, for the fact that I was even in this cursed human realm. “I thought I’d be the one keeping you from killing—”

Lyrena stepped forcibly between us. She didn’t dare shove us apart, though her hands lifted on either side. She’d almost made a mistake.

She forced a smile to her face. It was painful to watch.

“We don’t have time for your pseudo-erotic sparring,” she said. “He could already be dead.”

Arran and I glared at each other for the space of several seconds. Not quite hate and loathing… the anger was deeper than that once you’d seen the softest parts of each other.

“Fuck this.”

I couldn’t kill Percival. But I could kill every single human who stood between me and him.

I pushed past both of them, drawing my other dagger. I slashed through the tent flaps, disfiguring the painting.

Slash. Slash. Slash.Let them try to stitch that back together. If any of them were still alive.