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She had never been well liked in the Midnight Court because of her sharp tongue and her temperament, but being the cousin of the queen, and her advisor, she’d had a place in the palace since the day the king wed.

She stayed for the queen, and the entire court had attempted to get rid of her through all kinds of spells and poisons and curses, and my mother had saved her life three times.

They’d become friends even before I was born.

She said the day my mother died was the day she lost a sister. She’d also been losing the queen to the other advisors and the other people in the court for years, and so it was easy to fake her death and walk away when the king banished me. She said she had nothing more left in that place to serve.

She’d searched for me. She’d found me. She’d offered me a semblance of a home in the times I needed it most, when court intrigues had gotten the best of me, had forced my hand, had made me hurt people and spill their blood.

And now I was about to ask her—that same woman—to die for me, too.

On the way to our meeting point, I told myself that it would be different this time.

The reason why I was doing this was secured in my fists.

Dragon bones, a source of magic so strong, so ancient, it could break any curse and any spell.

And since the seal on me was, technically, a magic spell, it would break it, too. It wouldn’t hurt Raja.

She was strong. She could handle it.

She would be okay.

I said this to myself possibly a thousand times in the hours it took me to get to Mysthaven. My magic guided me when I lost my way because it was so well connected with her. Just as well as it had connected to Nilah.

A mortal from Nerith who had magic. Who hadn’t died or shifted at the scratch of an alpha werewolf. Who buzzed with raw energy more powerful than my own.

Who looked like the portrait of a queen who’d supposedly died at my hand decades ago.

A portrait that was removed from the Gallery of the Cursed in the palace—and recently. I’d found the frame, and the plaque underneath, just like Nilah said. But the half of the canvas she’d seen wasn’t there.

Which made me all the more suspicious. Which made me do whatever it took to make sure I went back to her as fast as I possibly could.

Delias’s horse was a good one, strong and fast, but I couldn’t hold on as well as I needed to, so I didn’t make him run often.

The sun brightened up the sky while I passed out seated there on the saddle for seconds, sometimes minutes at a time.

I’d lost a lot of blood, and I had wounds all over me, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed quickly.

Eventually, the tug of my magic became so strong that it demanded my full attention.

I was in a forest, and I wasn’t sure where in Mysthaven—most of these lands were endless forests—and Raja was here, too.

She was close, and she was calling, whispering my name.

Even if my ears didn’t hear it, my magic did.

I urged the horse to move faster, held on with the last bit of strength I had left, and we kept going like that for a while. The horse was tired, too. Hungry and possibly thirsty, but it wouldn’t be long now.

Then he stopped.

Abruptly, he stopped running and nearly threw me off his back because I was too weak to hold on properly. He stopped and neighed and took a few steps back, moving his head to the sides—a clear sign of distress. Every muscle on his body was locked tightly, too—because of the magic.

Seelie stallions didn’t do well with shadows, and ahead, possibly half a mile in the distance, they were so thick they looked like a cut piece from the fabric of night.

Close. I was so close.

I tasted iron every time I swallowed, but none of it compared to the bitterness burning through my chest. The thought of Nilah still in that nest of vipers made me want to grow a pair of wings.

I was here, bleeding into my clothes and onto the saddle like some helpless fool instead of tearing down those marble walls to get to her.

Soon , I promised myself. I would be back to her soon.

With that thought in mind, I jumped off the saddle, tried to land on my feet, failed and hit the ground on my side instead.

The horse neighed. I gritted my teeth and pushed myself to stand. The horse wouldn’t take me closer than this. I had to walk.

I would walk.

“Go now. Get back home as fast as you can,” I told him, and he understood. He knew well where he was, too, and I had no doubt that he’d be faster on his way back. Only a few hours, and he would be just fine, back in Delias’s care.

As I watched him pick up the pace, moving back where we came from, my fingers curled tighter around the bone chain, and I almost heard it humming with raw power.

Just a little farther. I’d find Raja, rip this curse off my skin, and then—the stars help anyone who stood between Nilah and me.

She didn’t belong in that court. Not in Verenthia at all. I was going to give her freedom back to her even if it meant burning down kingdoms to do it.

The ground seemed to swing to the sides with every few steps I took, and I knew it was all in my head, but it looked so real.

I swung to the sides with it, too, holding onto tree trunks, getting closer to the darkness in the middle of the woods.

Raja’s magic hung in the air around it, humming a familiar tune in my ears.

It was a very well-made illusion that even sorcerers wouldn’t be able to pick apart—provided they didn’t come too close to feel the magic.

Raja knew what she was doing, though. I trusted her more than anyone in my life, and not because she had been my mother’s friend all those years ago.

The stars know that time changes people.

It was because of the way she behaved and spoke and acted after she found me again.

She’d built the trust I had for her brick by brick, and that’s why I didn’t hesitate to slip into the darkness, even if I was too far gone to see anything.

I slipped in and I saw the other side, the half-ruined house made out of stone blocks and broken, burned wood.

The door was missing, the windows broken, and half the roof had long ago caved in.

But fire burned somewhere inside, and then someone moved, came to the hole in the wall where the door used to be, that now looked like the screaming mouth of a terrified creature.

Raja stepped outside with pieces of wood in her hands, which slipped from her fingers when my leg gave and I fell to one knee, unable to hold myself upright anymore.

But I’d made it, and that was all that mattered.

Half the work was already done.