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T he journey north took Marjani a week. She remained in her cougar form, traveling mainly at night.

At first she followed the Ring Road, staying out of sight of the spotty traffic.

The terrain changed from flat plains to arctic highlands, the days slipping by almost unnoticed as they did when she was her cat.

An earth fada alpha was connected to his clan through their quartzes—a magical bond like a mate bond, but weaker.

An alpha like Adric could track a clan member through his or her quartz.

If Corban were still a member of the Baltimore clan, Adric could’ve used his quartz to find him, but Corban had smashed his quartz and found another, renouncing Adric as his alpha.

Marjani wasn’t alpha, but her quartz hummed a quiet song whenever she turned north, and fell silent if she tried a different direction. That was good enough for her. When the Ring Road veered west, she continued due north.

A steady drizzle alternated with periods of heavy rain. By the third night, she was chilled to the bone, her stomach hollow with hunger. When dawn came, she found a cave and slept huddled near a thermal pool for warmth.

When she awoke, she washed her face and paws in the steaming water. A meal of a few mice barely took the edge off, but she ignored the hunger pangs to set off again.

She only turned on her smartphone once. Adric had tried repeatedly to get in touch with her. She hesitated, and then tapped the off button. He could track her by her quartz, and he’d know if she were seriously injured, or dead.

So he wouldn’t worry. Much.

It still hurt, that last conversation. He’d only just stopped himself from saying she was weak—possibly feral. She’d thought Adric still believed in her, even if no one else did. To learn he didn’t had been a hard blow.

Maybe you are too weak to hold off the cougar.

She shook her head, dislodging the sly voice. But it returned, again and again.

Another night passed. Sometime after midnight, the cat came alert. A plump white sheep had escaped its fence. She swerved toward it, her mouth watering. Already tasting the sheep’s sweet flesh.

No.

Marjani-the-human fought a silent battle with the cat. It wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want to attract attention. She was hungry, yes, but not starving.

The cat pulled up short, snarling at being thwarted. The sheep let out a terrified bleat and galloped off as fast as its sturdy legs could carry it.

Marjani halted, lungs pumping hard and fast. Was this the night she went feral?

Because each time it was harder to say no.

The cougar was a badass with sharp claws and two-inch fangs. No one messed with Marjani when she was in that form.

Yes , the cat whispered. Let me win. I’m strong. Fierce. No one will ever hurt you again.

She clenched her jaw and resisted.

Because she was not an animal. She was a fada, with the blood of three species in her veins: human, cougar and fae. And she loved her woman form as much as her cougar, even if it was weaker.

Another few days passed. Her hunger had forced her to draw heavily on her quartz, depleting the energy in the tiny crystals. She needed food and rest, and the quartz needed time to replenish itself.

The rain had finally stopped when she came upon a river.

By then, she was shaky with hunger. She waded in up to her chest and drank deeply before scanning the water for something to eat—fish, shellfish, a water bird…

anything. At a flash of silver, she pounced and emerged victorious with a large fish.

She settled on the sandy bank and tore into it, devouring everything but the tail and fins.

Replete, she had another drink and then sat on the bank to groom herself. Above her, the clouds had finally cleared to reveal the Milky Way, a glittering band of light flung against the black sky. Her breath snagged. She sank onto her haunches, awed, the crystals in her quartz humming.

As the sun rose, she crept into a hiding place beneath two large boulders and fell into a deep, healing sleep.

When she opened her eyes again, the sun was on the opposite side of the sky—although this far north, sunset wouldn’t be for hours—and her quartz’s energy level was back to a hundred percent.

She was in a bleak highland dotted with steaming volcanic vents and large black boulders. Other than moss, the only green things were the scrubby trees and bushes dotting the riverbank. To the west, stony mountains rose like rugged giants from the ocean, white-capped and harsh.

She caught another fish for breakfast before setting out again, her belly full for the first time since Reykjavik.

An hour later, she stumbled upon a dirt track heading northeast in the same direction she was being led by her quartz.

She followed the track, hiding whenever a vehicle passed, but for most of the afternoon and evening she was alone in the deserted highland.

Dusk was approaching when her skin tingled. She was surrounded by magic. Powerful magic. She froze, heart slapping against her rib cage.

She’d reached the ice fae court. But where was it?

Dense steam rose from slashes in the ground, wafting over bedraggled clumps of grass and lush moss.

The stench of sulfur was everywhere, overlaid by the telltale odor of silver.

But the court itself had to be concealed by look-away spells, because she couldn’t see a trace of it.

And probably protected by wards, as well.

She hunkered down in a hollow between two boulders to wait. Sooner or later, a fae would enter or leave, allowing her to get a fix on a portal.

The sun had sunk behind the mountains before her patience was rewarded. A leather-clad fae rode up on a motorbike. Tall and sharp-faced, his cropped silver hair formed a striking contrast to his ebony skin. He halted and muttered a few words in an ancient fae language before flicking his fingers.

A portal opened, a shimmering circle cut out of the very air. He drove through and headed down the dirt track on the other side.

Marjani crept closer. The circle contracted, preparing to close behind him.

No. She leapt through the rapidly closing opening, landing on silent paws next to the track. The silver-haired fae was already thirty yards away, aiming for a black castle rising in the distance out of the otherworldly fog.

Her hackles rose. She didn’t like this. It had been way too easy to get in.

But behind her, the portal had closed, the opening erased as if it had never existed.

She was trapped on the ice fae side.

Chill fingers tripped up her spine. She instinctively bared her fangs. But there was nothing to fight, and panicking would only make things worse.

Taking a deep breath, she slipped off the track into the dense white mist and examined the black castle.

It appeared to have been carved out of a dead volcano, with a craggy spire at each of the four compass points.

A high, crenellated wall surrounded the center, its toothy protrusions like a bear trap waiting to snap shut on an unwary intruder.

Staying concealed in the fog next to the track, she started toward the castle. The ground was uneven, with bogs and boiling hot vents to avoid, so she had to step with care. The stench of sulfur stung her nostrils. By the time she reached the castle, the silver-haired fae had disappeared.

But a round steel door had been left temptingly ajar.

Fuck that. Slipping back into the fog, she slunk west around the rough black wall, picking her way through the tundra, ears pricked and eyes straining.

High-pitched voices came from behind and to the left.

She dropped to her belly, hidden by the eerie vapor.

The sour stink of unwashed bodies reached her first, then two brown-skinned beings dressed in fur hats and animal skins raced by.

They were about four feet high with large, pointy ears and sharp white teeth.

Goblins.

The female seemed to be scolding the male in an odd, chittering language.

This close to the castle, they’d work for the court. She waited, heart pounding, until she could no longer hear them, and then continued creeping along the wall.

She’d gone too far to turn back, even if she wanted to. She’d known when she’d left Baltimore that she might not ever see home again.

It was worth it. Corban had to die. Adric would never be safe while he was alive.

And she had her own reasons for wanting her cousin dead.

Corban was inside the ice fae castle. The weird tingle in her gut told her, the tingle that signaled her strategist’s Gift—half intuition, half data-crunching. Her quartz murmured agreement, sensing the closeness of another earth fada, maybe two.

She inched along the wall. A half hour passed. The chilly mist deepened until she couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead.

She stumbled into a bog and got mired in the cold black muck. It sucked at her paws, dragging her deeper until she sank up to her chest. She set her jaw and grimly fought her way back to stable ground.

She hung her head, chest heaving, her triumph at getting this far gone. She was moving in circles through the foggy night. King Sindre was an old, powerful fae with the Gift of chicanery. People said he could create illusions as real as a nightmare and use them to manipulate emotions.

If this were a trap, he might keep her creeping along the wall for days until she starved—or gave up.

She growled and set out again. She’d go through Hades itself to stick a knife in Corban’s black heart.

The goblins rushed by again, this time in a pack of six. She dove to the left and froze as they passed like an evil wind, chittering to themselves.

When she dared lift her head, she couldn’t see the wall—just thick fog in every direction. Dread lumped in her stomach. Digging her claws into the cold dirt, she swung her head back and forth, desperately trying to make out the black castle.