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“A lost spirit? Is that what that thing was?” I asked with a swallow. “With the teeth?”

“Yes. Every moment they spend lost in the River Styx without passing into the Void strips away more and more of what makes them human or Fae. They become hollow entities with no persona, desperate to devour the flesh that could make them whole again,” he explained.

“And what does that have to do with my father? The Fates chose him to become part of the ferryman?”

“He must have already had that connection to the Fates prior to your childhood, otherwise he would not have known that phrase,” Caldris said, his gaze falling to the flowing water spreading across the stone floor. It was just a trickle, a tiny stream at the center of the hall between us, but it was clear this was the part of a great and terrible court that lay forgotten and dismissed.

All who entered here were lost, much like those lost to Styx.

A snake slithered up the stream, navigating around the discarded torture instruments and stains from centuries of blood. He paused at the bars to my cell, rising onto his tail to look at me as he cocked his head to the side. Bending down, I squatted in front of him and held out a hand.

His delicate tongue snaked out, brushing against the skin of my fingers before he allowed himself to slither between the bars and curl up in my palm. I rose to stand, brushing the fingers of my free hand over the back of his head as his yellow eyes stared at me.

“It just had to be fucking snakes,” Caldris said, his face twisted in disgust.

Pursing my lips, I furrowed my brow at him but kept my eye trained on the helpless snake in front of me. “They’re just misunderstood, aren’t you?” I asked, smiling as he leaned into the pressure from my finger scratching the back of his… neck?

Did snakes have necks?

What was my life?I shook my head, watching as he slithered his way up over the back of my hand and up my arm. He continued over my shoulder, curling around my neck andtickling my skin as he made his way to the top of my head, using my braid to put himself there. He curled up in a circle on top of it, seeming quite cozy as Caldris stared at me.

“Problem?” I asked.

“That’s hardly sanitary. You never know what he’s crawled through,” Caldris said.

“Snakes don’t crawl,” I returned, pretending that I hadn’t just wondered if they had necks. “Besides, I never know where you’ve been, and somehow I still like you.”

“Ouch,” Caldris said with a laugh that defied the circumstances surrounding us. “I haven’tbeenanywhere in centuries.”

I hummed, resisting the urge to pet the snake atop my head. I needed something to do with my hands, a way to keep busy, to distract me from the emptiness of my cell. I needed a fucking book to read, but I doubted Mab was going to give me access to her library. Caldris’s face softened as I glanced around the cell before my gaze fell upon him again.

“I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”

“And what about you?” I asked, trying to tell him through the bond that I would never leave him behind. The only way to get me out was to gethimout, and the snake wrapped around his heart would make that nearly impossible.

“We’ll worry about that when you’re safe,” he said, hanging his head.

“No.”

“Excuse me?” he asked.

I glared at him in response. The God of the Dead wasn’t used to being told no—not when the only person who dared to defy him was the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.

“You dragged me here against my will. I willnotbe sent away like an incompetent child. I am the only one of the twoof us who can act outside of Mab’s will. You need me, and we both know it,” I explained, stepping up to the iron bars that held me captive. The snake upon my head felt like a crown, like a twisted joke. Mab was the queen known for her power over snakes, and here one rested with me even still.

“She willuseyou in ways you cannot imagine. You cut her,min asteren.I could not tell you the last time someone was able to do that. You should have allowed her to scar me as she has countless times and stayed hidden. Now sheseesyou. What do you think she would do to possess a weapon like you?” he asked, making my lips twist into a grimace.

“I’m not a weapon,” I argued.

“You are. We cannot even begin to understand what you’re capable of yet, but you healed from iron. You used Mab’s own shadows against her. You will strengthen her reign. If for no other reason than that, we have to get you away from her.”

“I’m not going to leave you behind,” I stated firmly, staring at my mate across the hall between our cells.

There was nothing but a determined stare on his face as his gaze held mine, his jaw clenched, immovable as solid ice. But enough force could break it, could shatter the ice around him like the Veil upon the grass of the gardens at Mistfell.

I wouldn’t bow, wouldn’t break. Not when the alternative meant that the past weeks I’d spent coming to terms with the mate who’d claimed me would be for nothing. Not when the bond we’d created and the love we now shared would haunt me.

I wouldn’t allow Mab to be what drove us apart when I’d tried and failed to do so on my own.