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I was already tired of the games. “Do you know any other words?”

“Yes.”

It felt like a joke. But there was no humor in her pale blue eyes. Blue eyes that reminded me…

No. That wasn’t possible.

I squared my shoulders, standing tall with Arran at my side. “We are the High Queen and King of Annwyn. We wish to visit Avalon.”

She stared right back at us, unmoved.

It felt… strange. Like speaking to a painting, or one of the gods the humans worshiped. She was fae, that much was obvious. A priestess. I’d dealt with Merlin and her ilk. But she was more—other.

And she didn’t seem to care one bit that she spoke to the rulers of the fae realm.

“That is not possible,” she said simply. Her gaze flickered, just for a moment, toward the lake’s edge. “A fact which Percival St. Pierre is quite aware of.”

Arran’s beast took over, growling loud enough for everyone to hear. “You said you were raised on Avalon.”

Percival’s red-ochre skin had gone pale. “I was, but—”

“Once an acolyte leaves us, there is no return. Percival made his choice,” the priestess said. She didn’t have to raise her voice, not a single octave. We all heard the implication—but Percival’s face turned wretched.

“I did not have a choice,” he said viciously.

But the priestess was undaunted. “Only acolytes may visit the sacred isle.”

Arran was losing his composure. I could feel the beast beneath his skin, howling and straining at the restraints he kept upon it.

“Yet you come and go,” he snarled. “What does that make you?”

I knew the answer. “The Lady of the Lake.”

Not just a priestess.Thepriestess.

Our companions had fallen back. They made a semi-circle around us, without realizing it, hemming us in so that Arran and I stood at the center, the priestess a few feet across from us on the lake’s edge.

For once, I was the one in control. Arran was about to leap out of his skin. I could feel it—his need to shift, to inspire fear, to get what he wanted. What he wanted—answers, for me. But the priestess was not scared of my mate.

Maybe it was a mistake. But I took a step forward.

“We need your help. We seek a priestess who is known to dwell on the sacred isle.”

Her blue eyes fixed on mine. “We cannot help you. Avalon is neutral.”

Arran’s growl roared through me. We’d come so far. Survived so much… only to meet with disappointment. It was more than he could handle. For love of me, Arran Earthborn would rip part the world. Starting with the sacred isle and the Lady of the Lake.

I should have been as enraged as he.

But something about this place… it called to me. Focused me.

Like all the other debris was cleared away. Emotions were distant. Thoughts clearer than they’d ever been before.

The word spilled out of me, without planning or artifice.

“The succubus has returned to the human realm and to Annwyn,” I said. “We must speak with the human priestess who made the Void and Ethereal Prophecies.”

“Avalon is neutral,” she repeated.