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“How do you know?” I asked, and again, I surprised myself with my own voice.

I sounded detached. Truly cold, like Lyall accused me of being just a couple of days ago.

“Know what? ”

“That he was the last one. How do you know there aren’t more?”

“The seer saw all four men behind those masks,” Lyall said.

I paused together with my heart. “Men?”

“Yes, men. And I have now killed the fourth.”

I looked at the open cell door, at the golden mask on the floor.

Was his seer lying to him, I wondered, or did she simply not know?

Because that knife was given to me by a woman, not a man.

“How did you find it, though?” I asked. It didn’t really matter, but I was still curious. “I left that knife under my pillow. How did you find it?”

Our eyes locked. It was Lyall’s turn to pause.

The air was so, so heavy between us.

“I had soldiers search every corner because I still had no idea where you were. They found it right away.” His hand slipped in the pocket of his pants. He didn’t even blink as he waited for a reaction.

I gave him none.

“I’d like to go take a bath now, if you don’t mind. This place isn’t exactly clean.” And he would have no way of knowing how little I cared about cleanliness right now.

With a deep nod, Lyall said, “Please allow me to escort you. We’ve both had a long day—and night. A bath is definitely the right call.”

I let him escort me together with the three guards who always stuck behind me, whom I had no doubt had run after me when I ran to find Rune. Had one of them hit me? Because they definitely knew who I was, and they knew that the prince was alive. They knew .

Yet they’d allowed someone to drag me all the way to this cell that seemed to be on the ground floor of the palace somewhere.

My mind buzzed with questions as Lyall continued to talk, to tell me all about the panic the people caused, how his mother ordered him to get inside and stay hidden before he could even see the end of it, expecting me to believe that he had really listened to his mother’s order when I knew well how he spoke to her.

How little he’d regarded her in the couple of times I’d seen them together.

It was these small things— slips, if you will, that wouldn’t let me trust anything Lyall said, despite knowing who he was.

That little boy who saved my life.

That little prince who saved Rune’s.

I looked at his profile as we walked up the stairs—such a beautiful man I was tempted to believe he wasn’t real if I’d only witnessed him and not the rest of the fae. All of them were built to perfection, but what really went on in their heads?

What went on in Lyall’s head right now? Did he mean to lie to me? Did he even know he was lying?

Too many possibilities.

“I’m going to have to ask you this before I let you go, Nilah—to please, please never run off from me like that again,” he said when we made it to the sixth floor, and the closed doors to the bedroom I slept in were right across from us now.

Fuck, I couldn’t wait to be alone, to take this dress off me, to clean my skin.

To clean all the pain and the desperation I’d felt today off me, scrub it until it disappeared completely .

“Well, I’m sure you don’t have any more giants to be swallowed by lava around here anymore, do you?”

He smiled and his eyes sparkled, and he looked so much younger and healthier like that. “No—no more giants, and I don’t plan to allow them to play in the Crown’s Gauntlet again, I assure you.”

“ Kill ,” I said. “Allow them to kill in the Crown’s Gauntlet.”

He didn’t like that, Lyall. Not even a little bit. The spark in his eyes changed, though his smile remained. “Well, Borg is dead now, and he took my best friend down with him. So, I guess you’re right.”

He didn’t, he didn’t—Rune is alive! I thought, for my own benefit, but the words remained inside me.

Then we made it to the doors and the guards had already stationed themselves by the walls, looking ahead like nothing at all had even happened.

“Look, Nilah. I know you cared about Rune. I know you’re heartbroken.”

“I did, but I’m not,” I said, and it was a fucking miracle that I was able to hold myself together still. That I hadn’t slipped, I hadn’t cursed, I hadn’t screamed at him a single time.

No, I was under control better than I ever had been before, and I was so damn thankful for it.

Blond brows rose to the middle of his forehead. “You’re not?”

“I’m just tired, Lyall. And I have a lot of thinking to do. It’s safe to say the Seelie Court is no place for a girl like me.”

“On the contrary. I think you were made for it, Nilah. I honestly count myself lucky to have ever come across you in the first place.”

Something about his words.

“I’m going to go now, and I’m going to clean up and rest. And when I wake up, I’m going to call for you, Lyall. We’re going to sit down and talk.”

This surprised him, but he recovered less than a second later. Nodded deeply, his hand to his chest.

“Call for me whenever you’re ready, and I will come.”

“Good.” I stepped closer to the door, pushed down the handle. “Good luck planning your coming back to life, then.”

I slipped inside the room, but I almost heard him smile in the air as his lips stretched.

“Thank you, beautiful Nilah,” I thought he whispered when I closed the door.

And finally, I was alone.