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“Don’t mind me. It’s just that my daughter is around your age. It’s been so long since I last saw her. She was a little girl when—” She pressed her lips into a line and shook her head.

“I’m so sorry. Is there something I could do—take her a message, maybe?”

Jewel clutched Marjani’s hand. “Could you?”

At a rap on the door, they sprang apart. A golden-skinned elf with big green eyes stuck her head inside. “The king requests your presence at dinner.”

“She’ll be right there,” Jewel replied, and the elf nodded and shut the door again.

“Here goes nothing,” Marjani muttered.

Jewel squeezed her shoulder. Suddenly, her blue eyes deepened to a navy that was almost black, and her face went dead white, so it looked like those scary midnight eyes peered through a mask.

“Jewel?” Marjani gulped. “You all right?”

The other woman seemed not to hear. “Make the wrong choice,” she replied in a toneless voice, “and you’ll never get home.”

Marjani’s nape prickled. Jewel was a Seer. Suddenly, the pieces snapped into place.

This must be Ula Gallagan, and the black-haired guard her mate, Nisio do Rio. Nisio and Ula were Dion’s parents, and Nisio had been alpha until the couple disappeared about fifteen turns of the sun ago.

“What is it?” she whispered. “What do you See?”

Jewel/Ula looked right through her. “The end of the game is the beginning,” she said in that low, eerie voice, “and the heart wins over strategy every time.”

Marjani’s hand went to her chest and the quartz she’d stowed in her bra. “I don’t understand.”

The other woman’s breath whooshed out, and her eyes returned to their normal blue.

“Please.” Marjani grabbed her. “Tell me what you See. What do I need to do?”

The river fada’s expression was troubled. “I didn’t See anything else. That came to me as a prophecy—words, nothing more. Every Sight is different. All you can do is think on it, and perhaps it will help. Then again, it might not make sense until it’s too late.”

“But…”

“I’m sorry, love.” Ula moved a shoulder in a small shrug. “You’re on your own. If I could help you, I would. When we first got here, I tried a couple of times. But the king always finds out. And it’s not me he punishes, but my mate.”

Marjani’s heart constricted. “I understand. And it’s okay.”

The river fada gripped Marjani’s arms. “You’re a warrior,” she said in a voice pitched for her ears alone.

“But that switchblade you have in your bra won’t do you any good here.

You’ll have to find another way to fight him I can tell you one thing—he’ll try to use your greatest weakness against you. ”

Marjani swallowed. “My greatest weakness?”

“A person. A thing. Even an idea. You may not even know what it is, but trust me, the king will find it.”

“But how can I fight that?”

“With us, he used the fact that we're mates. He hurts one to bend the other to his will. But he also promised us that if we accepted his geas , the clan would prosper, and he made it happen.”

Marjani nodded. Even though Rock Run’s territory was just thirty-five miles from Baltimore, the two clans had bad blood between them, so she didn’t know much about them.

All she knew was that less than two decades ago, the Rock Run River Fada had been in trouble, and then Dion had somehow turned things around—after his parents had disappeared.

“That’s the king’s weakness,” Ula added. “He’s never broken a promise. I think he can’t—his fae blood is too powerful.”

Marjani’s gut tingled. “So if I can get him to promise the right thing…” She trailed off. Because she had to get Sindre to promise—what? Hopelessness welled up in her.

You've got a plan, remember?

But her plan had been admittedly crude, a last-ditch attempt to save herself. If she could somehow use this information to craft a better strategy…

Another tap on the door.

“Be right there,” Ula called. She pressed her cheek to Marjani’s. “You know who I am?” she whispered.

“I think so. The Rock Run alpha’s mom.”

Ula dipped her chin in assent. “If you do escape, all I ask is that you inform my children that we’re alive and well.

That’s the hardest thing, knowing they believe we’re dead.

” Her throat worked. “And tell them not to come to Iceland again. They’re just putting themselves in danger for no reason.

We're serving out a geas . Even if we wanted to leave, we couldn’t. ”

She released Marjani. “You mustn’t keep the king waiting,” she said in a normal tone.

Marjani nodded and followed Ula into the hall where the elf awaited.

As they walked back down the spiral staircase, it occurred to her that Ula’s daughter must be Rosana do Rio.

The young woman Adric couldn’t seem to forget, even though he knew that as alpha, he had to mate with another earth fada.

He couldn’t mate with a river fada—especially the Rock Run alpha’s sister—without creating a huge rift in the clan.

Marjani had warned Adric to stay away from Rosana. “She’s not for you,” she said.

Now she mentally cringed. Goddess, she’d been a self-righteous ass. If she got home— when she got home—she owed Ric an apology.

Because she understood now how you could want someone all wrong for you. Logic didn’t enter into it. What had Ula said? The heart wins over strategy every time.

On the tower’s main floor, someone had swept the snow into white heaps against the walls. In the background, a high, otherworldly voice crooned a song in an ancient fae language, and magical fires that cast no heat had been lit in firepits scattered around the large, circular space.

In the center stood Sindre and Roald, deep in conversation. They made an imposing pair—the king with his long, almost feline body and coldly perfect face; and the fae warrior with his broad shoulders, wide chest and hawkish features.

The king had changed into a long-tailed, shimmering silver shirt and blue pants that fit like he’d been poured into them.

His white-gold hair hung loose around his shoulders and hanging from his neck was a fiery diamond as big as Marjani’s quartz.

Other diamonds glittered on his fingers, and a heavy, diamond-studded platinum bracelet encircled his wrist.

Roald had secured his mane of copper hair with a leather tie. He wore a black tunic embroidered with sinuous red and green dragons, and three emerald-and-gold hoops ran up the outside of each pointed ear.

Ula squeezed Marjani’s hand and dropped back. The perfect servant, when once she’d been an alpha’s mate.

And she was the lucky one. What the king had in mind for Marjani was worse.

She squared her shoulders and headed toward the two ice fae.