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F ane could practically see the gears whirring in Marjani’s intelligent brain.

Gods, she fascinated him from the top of her shaved head to the tips of her cute little toes. She was so serious, so determined. He wanted to tease her, see her unbend a bit. Make her smile. So far all he’d seen was that twitch of her lips in the pub when she’d tried not to be amused.

Someday, he vowed, he’d coax a true smile out of her…but today was not that day. He was genuinely worried about her. The woman had no idea what she’d walked into.

She recovered quickly. “What’s this wolf’s name?”

“No idea. There was an earth fada hanging around the court last year. Corban. But I don’t know if it’s the same guy—I never saw him as his animal. All I know is the wolf in the cage wears an earth fada’s quartz.”

She worried the bottle label with her thumbnail. “He’s black? What color are his eyes?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I only got a quick look at him. He’s in a tower that belongs to one of the king’s top advisors.”

Her fine brows drew together. “It must be him. Corban.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “He’s my cousin. But in a cage?” She shook her head. “We thought he was working with the ice fae.”

“He was,” Fane confirmed. “But things have changed. The only fada in the court are caged or under a geas .”

A geas was an obligation or prohibition, binding to the person who accepted it.

Breaking a geas was almost impossible, and if you did manage it, you’d lose what mattered to you most—wealth, your magic, even your life.

But observe a geas , and you gained power, or money, or whatever you most wanted… but especially power.

And power was everything in the ice fae court—especially since Lady Blaer had come of age.

“I see.” Marjani rubbed her forehead. He saw with a pang that she had bruised shadows under her eyes, and he could swear she’d lost weight in the week since he’d last seen her. “This…changes things.”

“Leave.” He leveled a hard look at her. “I’m telling you again—get the hell out of Iceland. You can’t save your friend.”

“Friend?” The corner of her mouth quirked. “You think I’m here to save that asshole?”

“Then why are you here?”

Her gaze slid from his.

“Tell me.” He set his bottle on the small table between them with a snap. “I stuck my bloody neck out for you. You owe me the truth.”

“Fine.” She leaned forward, cougar-blue mixing with the brown in her irises. “I’m here to slit his throat.”

“Ah.” He fingered his chin, his mind rearranging things.

Part of him was fiercely glad that the wolf wasn’t her lover—or worse, her mate.

The other part considered why she’d come so far to kill the other fada, risking her own life in the process—and he didn’t like what he came up with.

He had the bad feeling the black wolf had been one of the men who’d attacked her.

Rage curled through him. He ruthlessly suppressed it. Not your fight, Fane.

“Then you’ll leave,” he said. “The wolf will be dead soon, anyway. For a while he fought to get out, battering himself against the cage until he was bloody. But now he just sits on the floor, staring at nothing.”

“I don’t know.” Marjani watched as the fae lights changed from gold to green, the colors swirling lazily around each other before the gold faded away. “I guess if he’s almost dead, there’s no reason for me to stay. You’re sure?”

“Yeah. But you can’t leave now—the goblins’ blood is up tonight. No one but the most powerful fae will go outside until morning. You can stay here, and I’ll sneak you out at dusk tomorrow.”

Her catlike eyes narrowed. “Why are you helping me?”

He gave her a truth. “In the human world, I’m known as Fane Morningstar.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re Evie’s dad?”

“I am.”

“So you knew who I was all along?”

He nodded. “Lord Adric’s sister. I was at Evie and Jace’s mating ritual.”

“The hell you were. We would’ve seen you.”

He spread his hands. “I’m a wayfarer, remember? No one sees me if I don’t want them to. Only Evie and her mate knew I was there.”

“But we would’ve smelled you. That silver in your scent—it marks you as fae.”

“The king gave me a charm that disguises my scent for short periods of time.”

She scowled. “So you can come and go in Baltimore as often as you please without us knowing?”

He moved a shoulder. “Don’t worry. The king has better uses for me than to spy on the fada.”

Except he had been spying on Marjani since she’d landed in Iceland.

But that was different—Sindre’s envoys watched any fada or fae who entered his territory.

And as far as Sindre was concerned, the entire island of Iceland was his territory.

In fact, he claimed most of the land north of the Arctic Circle.

She stared back steadily. He had a feeling she knew damn well he wasn’t telling her everything.

“Now that you mention it,” she said, “I can see the resemblance to Evie. But you’re even prettier than she is.”

A chuckle rustled in his throat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It’s not.” But a smile tugged at her mouth.

Warmth blossomed in his chest as if she’d given him a gift. He gave himself a shake—because allowing himself to like this woman was a damn fool thing to do—and rose from the chair. “Would you like food? A bath? The hot water is piped in from a geothermal well.”

“Both.” She made a wry face. “I’ve been traveling as my cougar for a week, although I did wash in a stream a few times. But you already knew that, didn’t you? I thought someone was watching me.”

He gave a noncommittal shrug. He actually hadn’t followed her the whole time because after she’d found the dirt track, he’d known she’d end up at the court.

“Take a bath,” he suggested, “and I’ll get you something to eat from the great hall.”

“Thank you.”

The huge, hexagon-shaped hall was large enough to hold a thousand dancing fae, but tonight it held only a few hundred diners.

Fane had been a member of the court for sixty turns of the sun, but the ice fae still acted like he was one step up from a servant.

For once, he was happy to be ignored. He strolled toward the serving table against one wall, hands in his pockets, just a mixed-blood minding his own business.

“Fane.” A large man with a beard and mane of copper hair rose from a nearby table. He was dressed all in black, and unlike the other fae, he wore no jewelry except for a heavy gold bracelet.

Fane muttered a curse. There went his plan to slip in and out of the great hall unobserved.

A pureblood fae, Roald was one of Sindre’s top warriors—and Fane’s grandfather, although the older man preferred to ignore the connection. Heads turned as everyone looked from him to Roald and back again like a bloody tennis match.

Fane pasted a smile on his face. “Roald. Peace to you and yours.” He refused to address his own grandfather as “my lord,” although Sindre had elevated him to a lord of the court after Roald had won a particularly important battle.

“Peace,” his grandfather returned in his gruff voice. “Come. I wish to speak to you.” He strode out the door, not bothering to see if Fane followed.

What now? And why did Roald have to choose tonight of all nights to speak to him, when Fane had a fada hiding in his apartment?

But you didn’t ignore a summons from Roald-the-mighty-warrior-Morningstar.

Fane headed after him. Once he would have been thrilled by this public acknowledgment from his grandfather.

Roald Morningstar was renowned in the fae world—in the six centuries he’d been alive, the man had never lost a battle.

During Fane’s first year at court, he’d tried to get to know Roald, but the older man had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with his mixed-blood grandson. So Fane had said the hell with it. As far as Fane knew, Roald didn’t even know he had a great-granddaughter, Evie.

But recently, the burly redhead had unbent enough to nod to Fane in the hall. He’d even stopped a couple of times to ask how Fane was doing. Fane had been coolly polite, and that was how they’d left things.

Roald headed for his spacious apartment near the north tower. Fane had to extend his stride to keep up. His grandfather was one of the largest men at court, with long legs and shoulders as wide as a door. He made Fane feel puny, although compared to other ice fae, Fane was heavily muscled.

The door to Roald’s apartment swung open as they reached it, a throwaway bit of magic that only the most powerful fae indulged in.

Fane had never been past the living room, furnished with severe Scandinavian furniture in white oak.

The only touch of comfort was the blue velvet cushions, and Fane suspected those had been introduced by his human grandmother.

He glanced at her portrait, centered over a huge stone fireplace.

His grandfather had mated with a human from Norway, a stunning blonde with a wide smile whom Roald had clearly adored.

Saga had passed to the other side more than three centuries ago, but his grandfather had never taken another lover.

In the portrait, Saga wore an emerald silk dress, her throat and wrists adorned with a fortune in jewels.

An elf couple—two mate-bonded men who’d served Roald as long as Fane had known him—offered them drinks. When they both refused, the slim, black-haired elves bowed themselves out of the room.

Roald folded his arms across his impressive chest and frowned down his beaky nose at Fane. His eyes were a fierce gold—hawk’s eyes, a perfect match for his aquiline features.

Fane crossed his arms and stared right back. His grandfather had requested this meeting. Let him speak first.

Roald gave a short nod, as if confirming something. “It’s been too long since you were at court.”

“The king keeps me busy.”

The older man allowed himself a faint smile. “You’ve done well as his envoy.”

Fane had to force his face to remain expressionless. Was his grandfather proud of him? “Thank you.”