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forty-eight

The hall had gone deathly still.

Lyall stepped forward to the very edge of the polished platform, grabbing a glass half filled with wine from the table as he did.

There was no coronet or crown on his head, but he stood there like he already believed himself king.

I didn’t know him well enough, but from the few times we’d hung out, he behaved like he thought himself king, too.

He spoke just as the gasping and the slow whispers among the guests began.

“My friends,” Lyall said, his voice smooth, strong. “My people. For too long, you have been made to grieve. To wonder. To doubt. ”

I could have sworn that the smile that stretched his lips turned down the temperature in the room instantly. I squeezed Rune’s hand with all my strength, but I couldn’t look away from Lyall for a single second.

“And I imagine most of you are in shock tonight, which is understandable. But I stand before you now, not a ghost, not a memory.” He spread his arms to the sides and raised his chin .

“I am alive. I am victorious. And I am done hiding.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd—shock, awe, fear.

I looked around then, just for a second, and it was genuine, which surprised me.

I’d gotten so used to seeing Lyall that I hadn’t once thought about the people who believed him to be dead.

Like I had when I first saw his body on his bedroom floor.

Lyall continued the next moment.

“I have survived betrayal,” he said, pacing slowly on the edge of the platform, his every step measured. “I have bled for this court. Fought for its future. While others plotted in the shadows, I endured.” He raised his glass higher. “And I did not endure in vain.”

The people no longer whispered nor gasped. The initial shock had already passed, and now they were all silent. Begging to hear more. To understand, I thought.

“Tonight, I stand before you with my own face to share with you what should have been announced long ago: your beloved queen—and my beloved mother and teacher and guide—will soon step down from the throne.” He turned just slightly toward the queen, who hadn’t moved a single inch.

She looked at her son then, and she seemed…

relieved when she gave him a curt nod—her blessing.

“May the process of my son’s coronation begin.”

There was power in her words. It spread in the air, so intense I couldn’t even breathe for a minute. My nails had made a bloody mess out of Rune’s hands by now, but he didn’t stop me. He didn’t complain. His eyes remained on Lyall, too.

“The future of the Seelie Court will be forged with new blood. My blood.” Lyall paused a moment for his words to sink in before he stepped forward again, his glass raised.

“I offer you a court of strength. Of clarity. Of vengeance .” He smiled again, sharper now.

“Because I have not only returned—I have removed those who stood against us.”

Whispers among the guests.

“Yes—the traitors are dead. The bonds that weakened me are severed.” His gaze flicked toward me for just a second. “And those who remain will learn that loyalty is not optional. It is absolute .”

It was a fucking threat if I’d ever heard one.

Suddenly my eyes moved to the woman standing at the other end of the platform, that bowl still between her hands. I must have felt her watching me because our eyes locked and my breath caught.

Those eyes…

“To the crown,” Lyall said. “To a future no one can take from us again!”

The room erupted into applause—forced at first.

Everyone clapped, but few of the smiles were genuine.

That of Hessa as she slowly lowered the bowl to applaud wasn’t, either. No, she looked damn well terrified.

And suddenly I was thrown back to a different time, a different room, one dark, where the faces of those considered cursed surrounded me.

I turned to Rune, drawing in a sharp, loud breath as if I hadn’t tasted air in forever.

“Wildcat, what is it?” Rune asked when he saw my face.

“It’s…it’s her ,” I choked, my entire body shaking from head to toes.

“What?”

“Hessa,” I whispered. “She’s the masked woman who gave me the knife in the Gallery of Time.”

His eyes darkened right before mine. His entire expression changed as my words registered .

When he looked up behind me and at the people on the platform again, Rune was a completely different man.

He didn’t ask me if I was sure, though I asked myself. The trust he put in me freaked me out a little bit, not going to lie.

The applauding had stopped, and I’d drunk two glasses of water Rune had poured for me, and ate a few strawberries, too. So much sweeter and juicier than any I’d tried back home, though I was still shaking a bit and I still hadn’t gotten myself together all the way.

“How much longer?” I asked, and I did feel like a kid sitting in the back, asking are we there yet? once a minute, but I couldn’t help myself. I was a mess of nerves.

“Just until we speak to him,” Rune said, his eyes following Lyall first, but Hessa as well. She was there with him right now, on the platform, and they were deep in a conversation.

My God, she looked up at him like she was in love with him. Like she existed for him, breathed for Lyall. The smile on her lips as she spoke, the admiration in her eyes—so genuine.

“I swear it was her,” I said, and it sounded right to me.

My instincts approved, but it was so difficult to trust my own eyes.

Fucking hell, this place and these people—it was far too much.

Fae were nothing at all like I could have ever imagined.

Because if that woman could conspire against the man she looked at like he was her entire world, then I didn’t know what the hell to even believe.

“Hush, Wildcat,” Rune whispered, and I felt his cool magic against my bare ankles as he let it out under the tablecloth, possibly to keep us shielded. “Not here. We’ll talk later.”

And he was right.

We sat alone at a round table, but there were others close, too close. And though most were watching Lyall, some had their eyes on us, too. Whispering. Waiting.

The queen had left, though. She and the seer both had retreated when I had still been hyperventilating over Hessa.

Now I thought maybe I should have gone to speak to the seer while she was there.

Now I thought maybe I should have gone back to see her after that first time when Lyall basically tricked me into speaking with her.

Rune didn’t even know about it. I hadn’t had the time to tell him, and now we were stuck sitting here in this hall surrounded by fae and gold and glitter, and so much power it shimmered in the air like dust under sunlight.

Regret made its way through my veins, rushing with my blood—my blood that was still in liquid form, though I was certain it should have frozen over by now.

Fuck, it was so cold under my skin, even if nobody could tell. Rune had his hand on mine, and he hadn’t once commented that my skin felt cold to him because it was all on the inside. The layer of frost that I could feel covering my heart was invisible to the rest of the world.

I should have spoken to the seer…

“Look at me,” Rune said. It was easy to see that I wasn’t comfortable by how I was fidgeting in my seat, turning to look at Lyall and at Hessa and at the guests who stared at us every few seconds.

So many people. So little air.

So much danger .

“I should have spoken to her again,” I whispered, so low my lips barely moved.

“Who?” he mouthed.

“The seer.” This, too, surprised him, but he didn’t dare react. “Something’s wrong with me, Rune. In here. Something’s wrong.” I touched my stomach with my free hand because he held the other the whole time.

“Do you want to leave right now?” Rune said.

Yes! I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but… “He’s going to get pissed off.”

“He’ll live,” Rune whispered. “Just say the word and we’ll go.”

I knew he meant it. I knew that if it came to it, he’d argue with Lyall right here and now to get me out of here, and then…what if Lyall called for the guards?

Too many risks—but I never got the chance to even speak before a cold hand closed over my shoulder, and a woman stopped at the side of our table.

“There you are,” Hessa said, her smile painfully big, her eyes bloodshot, and her skin ice-cold the way mine wasn’t. “I hope you’re enjoying your evening as much as I always enjoyed kicking your ass in training, bastard.”

Had I not heard her speaking before, I wouldn’t have noticed anything at all, but her voice was strained now. She sounded different—and Rune could tell, too.

“Hessa, I need to—” I started, and I was going to ask her to come with me to the restroom or something, somewhere private where we could talk, but…

Suddenly, she let go of my shoulder and leaned in toward Rune’s other side, and whispered something in his ear lightning fast, that fake smile still on her face.

Then she turned to me again, like the second hadn’t even happened .

“Oh, and you, too, Lady Dune! With that face of yours, I’d be having a blast, too,” she continued, and when she touched my shoulder this time, she dug her fingers into my skin just slightly. “A word of advice, though?”

Her smile never left her face when she leaned closer to my side now, those wide eyes locked on mine, and…

“Run, ” she whispered.

Run.

Everything came to a halt suddenly. Even my heart didn’t beat, and my lungs didn’t expand. I didn’t move at all as I looked at her, saw the horror reflecting in the specks of gold in her eyes, saw the regret flashing as certainly as I’d seen the sun and the moon in the sky earlier.

Then Hessa straightened her shoulders. Laughed. Blew us a kiss. “Enjoy your night, lovelies!”

And she danced away to the next table, leaving me breathless.

Rune looked at me. “What did she say to you?” he asked under his breath, barely moving his lips, and I realized he hadn’t heard, just like I hadn’t heard what she said to him .

The sudden fear crushed my shoulders. “Rune, we?—”