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Merry folded her arms over her narrow chest, but her lower lip trembled. “Don’t you treat me like a baby, too. You’re the only one I can ask. My mom and dad just tell me not to worry, they’re handling it. Even Uncle Jace won’t tell me anything.”

“Oh, querida .” Rosana’s heart contracted. “You know it’s for your own safety.”

Merry had been born during the Darktime to an earth fada mother and Prince Langdon’s half-human son.

She’d spent her early life on the run from both the earth fada and the night fae.

After her parents had died, she’d been adopted by Dion’s second, Rui do Mar, and his mate Valeria—until Adric and her uncle Jace had discovered where she was and tried to kidnap her back.

That had been sorted out, with the earth fada agreeing to let her remain with Rui and Valeria while Jace received visitation rights.

But now she had to hide again, this time from her own grandfather. It didn’t make sense. Langdon had never formally acknowledged his mixed-blood granddaughter. No one had expected him to suddenly start asking about her.

“Well, I don’t like it,” Merry said. “All Mama will tell me is that it’s better if the night fae believe I’m dead.” She dropped her head, stared at her feet. “Why do they hate me so much?”

“They don’t hate you, sweetheart.” Rosana reached for her. Merry needed to be held. If she had a vision, so be it, although she was careful to touch only Merry’s clothing.

Merry burrowed into her. “Yes, they do,” she returned in a sad little voice. “Because I’m a mixed-blood. I don’t really belong here. Or with the earth fada, either. And the night fae just want to kill me.”

“Hey. You do belong here. Dion adopted you into the clan. Did someone say different?” Rosana pulled back, scowling. “Because if they did, I’ll—"

“No.” She hitched a shoulder. “Not really. But I’m a jaguar. I like to swim, but I can’t spend hours in the water like the rest of you. I can’t even enter through the water entrances—they’re too deep for me.”

“So? Neither can Jenny, and that doesn’t mean she’s not clan. And you have friends. What about Trina and Marco?”

“That’s what Mama Ria says.”

“And she’s right.”

“But Anabella says I’m just a freak. Not fae, not fada. Even my own clan doesn’t want me.” Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper.

Rosana’s jaw worked. She was going to have a long talk with Anabella.

“That’s not true,” she told Merry. “Lord Adric did want you. He’d take you back into his clan in a heartbeat. And your uncle Jace wants you, doesn’t he?”

A small nod. “But that’s just them. There are others who think my mom should never have mated with a half-blood.”

“You heard earth fada saying that? From Adric’s clan?”

Another tiny, miserable nod. “Last year at the Midsummer Ball. They said”—she swallowed—“that I stink like a night fae.”

Rosana’s chest knotted with fury. “Well, fuck them. You have the scent of an earth fada, and maybe a little river fada, because you spend so much time with us. And you know what? It’s their loss, because you’re special.

Any clan would love to have you as a member.

Dion was saying just the other day how smart you are. ”

“Seriously?” Merry’s hazel eyes were hopeful.

“Truth.” Rosana touched her heart. “Cleia thinks so, too. And you’re not only smart, you’ll probably have a really cool Gift because you have so much fae in you.” That fae blood had already made Merry one of the most beautiful teenagers in the clan.

“Yeah? You really think so?”

“I do. I really do.” She ran a palm over the teen’s electric black hair and was rewarded by a bashful smile.

“Thanks, Rosana.”

“Anytime. You can ask me anything, all right? Because you’re clan. And because I love you, just the way you are. Understand?”

She grasped Merry’s hands—and stiffened at the vision that flashed across her retinas. A man’s black eyes, and nothing else.

“Rosana? You okay?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, all she saw was the younger girl’s anxious face. “Yeah. It’s…been a long day, that’s all.”

They continued walking. They were almost to Rosana’s quarters when Merry asked, “Do you think my grandfather—the prince—could’ve found out I’m still alive?”

“I don’t know. But Dion and your papai will keep you safe, no matter what—and Cleia wouldn’t let him take you against your will.”

Merry nodded, her expression troubled.

Rosana’s skin prickled. “Why?”

“Because.” Merry ran a hand over her nape. “Sometimes I could swear he’s watching me.”

Rosana waited until she heard Isa’s soft snores before easing her bedroom door shut.

To ensure she wasn’t interrupted, she propped a chair under the door handle before retrieving a small teak chest from beneath the bed.

A bottlenose dolphin was carved on the lid.

She traced its curving back, sadness pinching her heart.

The teak chest dated to when her parents had first come to America, a gift from her Irish granddad to his daughter Ula. The bottlenose carving was a reminder of her mom’s sea fada roots. Dion had gifted the chest to Rosana on her sixteenth birthday, saying their mom would want her to have it.

Opening the lid, she took out a cobalt scrying bowl. As part of her training, she’d experimented with different modes of scrying—a mirror, polished lava, smoke, tarot cards, even a crystal ball—but not surprisingly, the best focus for her was a bowl of water.

Now she unwrapped the chamois cloth protecting the deep blue glass and set the bowl on a small table next to a pitcher of water.

She’d walked Merry to her own quarters, had waited while the teen told Rui and Valeria about Prince Langdon.

But there wasn’t much her parents could do beyond the close watch they were already keeping on their daughter.

To protect Merry, Langdon had spelled her quartz so that no night fae could touch her without dying.

Unfortunately, the prince had excluded himself from the spell.

But Rosana was a Seer. Maybe she could See something that might help Merry. And what about those black eyes she’d glimpsed?

She poured the water into the shallow blue bowl, and then sat cross-legged on a sheepskin rug, the bowl in her hands. She took several slow breaths, calming and centering herself, and then let her gaze go soft.

At first, all she saw was the water. Then her vision shifted somehow so that she saw her reflection instead. She kept breathing, slowly, evenly.

She pictured Merry, adding details as she’d been trained. The teenager’s sharp, lively face. Her serious hazel eyes and her rare but contagious giggle. The wiry, exuberant curls. Her lanky body and love of bright colors.

Rosana’s mouth curved. Merry was adorable, the little sister she’d always wanted.

Minutes passed with nothing happening. Her mind wandered.

She dragged it back, focusing on Merry with a grim determination. But although she conjured up a photo-perfect picture of her friend that would’ve pleased even Colm, that’s all it was—a picture conjured up by Rosana. Not a vision.

She expelled a breath and straightened up. Maybe scrying just wasn’t her thing. Not every Seer could scry, right?

“Discipline, Rosana, it’s all about discipline—and belief in yourself. If you think you can’t, then you can’t. Belief is as important as skill.”

Her head snapped back. She cast a guilty look around. She could’ve sworn Colm had ’ported into her room to remind her of Rule 3. But it was empty except for her and the scrying bowl.

She set her back teeth and glared into the water. “I’m trying,” she growled as if the sardonic Irish sun fae was actually present, shaking his mane of blond hair reprovingly.

She’d disturbed the surface. She waited for the ripples to smooth out and then focused again.

The water in the bowl grew dark and still as a deep-jungle pool, and then she saw Adric. On his motorcycle in a shadowy forest, his tires making a single track in the fresh snow.

Her eyes widened. She’d never had such a clear vision when scrying. She squeezed her eyes shut, re-opened them. Adric was still there, driving through the snow.

Her breath hitched. Snow was predicted for later that night.

Suddenly the water shivered as if touched by a finger, and she saw Adric-the-cougar slinking through the snow-covered forest. He reached the edge of the trees, stared at the fog-shrouded grounds beyond.

At first, she thought he was looking at a graveyard.

But the tombstones were house-sized, with lush ivy vines snaking over fanciful gothic arches.

She’d never been to the New Moon Court, but she recognized it immediately.

And Adric was on his way to it.

Rosana’s heart stuttered. The water shivered again, and she became part of the scene, slinking with Adric through the forest. She felt the frozen earth beneath his paws, heard an owl’s mournful call, scented the musk of a deer herd huddled against the cold.

The rising sun glimmered a pale gold, and then was hidden by a fast-moving cloud.

Once again, the water in the bowl lurched and swooped. When it cleared this time, a tall fae was strolling around a pond on a path of white pebbles, his black head bare to the falling snow, a duster swirling around his long legs.

Her bowels iced. It was Prince Langdon, exactly as he’d appeared in her vision in December.

His head swung to where the cougar crouched, and then his gaze flicked to her. He turned.

The scene shrank in on itself until his face filled the scrying bowl. It was a poet’s face—narrow, dark-eyed, incredibly beautiful. Tiny diamonds outlined his pointed ears, glittered in his winged black brows.

She gulped. His eyes narrowed, looked straight into hers.

He can’t see you , she told herself frantically.

Then he smiled.