Page 42

Consciousness slams into me. My name, echoing through the dark. Frantic. Familiar.

“Kiaran?”

I lurch upright, straining for any whisper of sound beyond my ragged breaths. But there’s only silence. The soft, even breathing of Sorcha and Aithinne, lost to dreams beside the guttering embers of our fire. Neither stirs.

Did I imagine it? His voice sounded so real. So close—

“ Kameron ! ”

It might be a trick. Some glamour or illusion crafted to lure me out. To part me from the others, leave me vulnerable.

But when his call comes again, my pulse stutters. Trips. Because there’s an urgency there. A violence that hooks behind my ribs, and I can’t think through the white noise shrieking in my head. Can’t leash the wild imperative thrumming in my bones to go to him.

I shrug into my coat and stagger for the cave entrance. I’ll take just one step, and if I can’t see him, I’ll come straight back—

The world shatters.

Colours bleed and run, shapes distort into unrecognisable smears as reality fractures around me. Between one blink and the next, the cave is gone. Ripped away, along with my only chance of safety.

I’m standing in a ballroom.

Recognition slams into me, steals the breath from my lungs. The soaring ceilings, the chandeliers dripping with crystalline light. The parquet gleams beneath my slippered feet, the air thick and honeyed with the scent of melted beeswax. Satin skirts whisper and rustle. Polite laughter.

The Edinburgh Assembly Rooms.

And I’m in a dress. Pale blue silk, gauzy overlay of patterned lace. An illusion.

“May I have the pleasure?”

A white gloved hand extends into my narrowed field of vision, palm up. An offering. Or a trap. I flinch, my gaze travelling up the arm to the man it belongs to. To a face that’s handsome in the vague, forgettable way of most gentry. Pale eyes, paler hair. A bland smile.

Not real.

“Marchioness?” The gentleman cocks his head, flashing a grin that’s a shade too wide.

Too many teeth.

Something flickers behind his eyes—a primal flash, ancient and endlessly hungry. Peering out at me through a mask of affable charm.

Revulsion curdles in my gut.

I take a stumbling step back, nearly tripping over my skirts. I whirl, lunging for the exit—

His fingers close around my wrist. Bite down until my bones grind and ache. I stifle a gasp, cold sweat breaking out across my nape.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says pleasantly.

Wrong . This is all wrong. I need to get away from this thing wearing a man’s face.

“Hand. Off,” I say. “Or I’ll break your fingers.”

He laughs. A dry, rasping sound, like claws dragged over stone. I lift my foot. Slam my heel down on his instep.

He doesn’t so much as flinch.

Dread unfurls beneath my ribs, a sickness spreading with every frantic beat of my heart. His lips peel back from his teeth in a parody of a grin, stretching and stretching. The bones of his face shift, realigning into something terrible. Inhuman.

A scream lodges in my throat. Locks behind my teeth, trapped and fluttering—

Another gentleman seizes my free hand. Reeling me in until I collide with his chest. The same face. The same pale, forgettable features, a mask ill-fitting over ancient malice.

His hands find my waist. Pulling me flush against him, locking me in place. I thrash, fighting like a snarling animal. But he’s too strong.

My captor hums. Leans in until his lips graze the delicate shell of my ear, and every cell in my body shrieks wrong wrong wrong —

“It’s easier,” he breathes, “if you don’t struggle.”

The low, masculine timbre splinters, shot through with something cold.

A woman’s voice, as remote and pitiless as the abyss between stars.

“How I’ve missed you mortals. So expressive in your fleeting lives.

” She gathers me closer. Until I can feel the rasp of her breath on my cheek. “And so painfully stupid.”

Claws prick through my silk gown, a warning. She could spill my guts across this pretty parquet, paint the room redredred until it drips from the chandelier—

“Why are you here, Aileana Kameron?”

“You know why,” I grit out. “I want your Book.”

“Everyone wants my Book. They all come to me with their grubby little desires. Their paltry ambitions. Power. Immortality. Delusions of grandeur, every last one. Tell me, little Falcon, what’s your poison? What sin will you barter away your soul for, hm?”

I shake my head. Swallow down the bitter dregs of my desperation. “None of that. I want to save my realm.”

She laughs. “You arrogant creature, you already knew how to do that. It was written into my curse, plain as day.” Her grip tightens.

“One sacrifice, freely given. But Kadamach didn’t reach into Aithinne’s chest and tear out her heart, did he?

No, he let the curse run its course. Let your realm splinter and crack and die by inches while he clung to his pride.

And now you’ve served two monarchs and a key up to me.

An unexpected boon. But don’t fret, little girl. I’m still playing for now.”

Ice floods my veins. Because she’s right. I was the one who brought them here. Bound and weakened—practically laid them at her feet like sacrificial lambs.

Kiaran. Aithinne. Sorcha.

Two monarchs and a key.

My throat works around a swallow. Once. Twice. “What do you want from me?”

“Want? I want so very many things.” She sighs.

“I had a body once, you know. A form to call my own, to wield as I pleased.” Her voice goes low.

“I could touch the world. Sink my claws in and feel it writhe against my palms. But my sister stole that from me. Bound me into this wretched non-existence. Able to taste and tease, but never truly touch. Never break the pretty things that catch my eye.”

Her thumb smooths over my cheekbone. I clench my teeth against a flinch, the animal instinct screaming at me to run run run —

Her gaze focuses on me once more. “Will you help me, Aileana Kameron? Will you find my Book and return what I’m owed?”

And there it is. She wants me to do what Sorcha couldn’t: deliver it to her waiting hands. I’m the perfect confluence of desperation and power, ripe for the picking.

“Careful,” the Morrigan chides. “I can feel you calculating. Weighing your pitiful odds as if refusal is an option. Deny me, and I’ll shatter your bones and put you back together just to do it again.

And again.” A pause. “That fragile mortal shell is already crumbling around you. It would be a small thing to hasten the process.”

“If you could break me so easily,” I hiss through my teeth, “you would have done it already.”

She scoffs. “Almost had your lover slaughter you in my cosy little cave, didn’t I?”

“Ah, but you didn’t quite manage it in the end, did you?”

“Yes, Kadamach loved you more than I gave him credit. A human who broke the great Unseelie King. I can see why my wretched sister’s descendant passed her powers to you.

” Her head cants, predatory. “Such a pity about that fragile mortal body of yours, though. Tell me, how long do you think it will hold out?”

I jerk my chin away, fresh anger sparking through me. “If you can’t find the Book, what makes you think I can? I don’t have the first damn clue how to find what the Cailleach hid from you.”

The Morrigan’s lips curl in a sneer. “Because my dear sister cloaked it in magic. I can’t see the Book or sense it while the damn thing is moving.”

“The Book moves, does it? My, how inconvenient for you.”

The piercing blue of her irises does nothing to lessen their fathomless depths. Centuries of impotent rage smoulder there, nursed into a hungry conflagration.

“My broken little bird was like you, once. Stubborn. Headstrong. She sauntered into my prison, and oh, I knew her voice would sound sweeter by far, locked in a cage of my design.” The Morrigan sighs.

“I would have been content to keep her. To let her chirp such pretty arias, forever beholden to my whims. But she had less use to me than I thought she did. My sister bound the Book. My consort’s bloodline could open it, but not wield it.

” Her fingers tighten, nails sinking deep like talons.

“So I made Sorcha pay for that offence. And how she screamed. It was almost worth the disappointment.”

My thoughts snag on those words. I turn them over until their edges cut and draw blood. Sorcha couldn’t use the Book. No wonder she vowed to give it to me—as if it were some grand concession. Kiaran’s freedom bartered for a broken toy.

Because when you have everything to lose, you’ll believe any lie.

I keep my expression blank, but some telltale flicker must have escaped my control, because the Morrigan’s smile stretches slowly.

“She didn’t tell you.” A laugh. “Oh, my clever songbird. Always so secretive. It shattered my heart when I finally had to open her cage and let her fly away. She was my very favourite plaything. I can’t wait to pair you both—one to unlock the Book, the other to wield it—and return the body which is rightfully mine. ”

“And what are you offering me in exchange?”

“What would you like? Name it and watch me fetch it for you.”

Something inside me feels raw. What do I want?

Kiaran.

His name thrums through me—an ache lodged behind my ribs. But I can’t tell her that. Can’t give her any more weapons against me.

“My world,” I blurt, grasping the first fleeting thought. “Intact.”

“Almost, little Falcon, but not quite.” She lets out a breath, the sound indulgent.

“Mortals. So eager to believe yourselves the hero of the tale. And so blind to the simple truth,” she continues, voice dropping to an intimate murmur.

“You’ll do it because I have what you want most in this wretched world.

And you’ll carve out your soul to keep it safe.

You want the cursed king. Who’s bound to my songbird for eternity. ”

I say nothing. What is there to say? She’s right, and she knows it.

Instead, I let my gaze drift over her shoulder to the other couples swirling across the parquet.

The same bland faces, the same jewel-toned silks and glittering baubles.

A facsimile of life, as hollow as the thing wearing a stranger’s skin beside me.

Just a stage dressing for this twisted te?te-a?-te?te to remind me that the Morrigan can pluck shards of memory from my mind and twist them to her own ends.

Her fingers close around my jaw, jerking me back to face her.

“Pay attention,” she snaps. “I’m explaining the terms of your indenture.

” The sharp edge of a claw trails down my cheek.

Not deep enough to draw blood but hard enough to hurt.

To leave a mark. “I can make him yours. Give you everything you desire. His curse removed. His vow to my songbird gone. Immortality. Wouldn’t you like that?

To be with him forever? To have me lighten his insatiable hunger to what it was when you met?

He’s in so much pain, sweet girl. Don’t you want to ease it? ”

And god help me . . . I almost say yes. I’m ruthless. War has carved at my softness, left me crooked. What’s one more sin laid at the dark altar of my selfish want when it’ll lessen the famine tormenting my consort day by day?

But then I remember the vicious curl of Sorcha’s smile. The savage triumph in her eyes. You’re mine . A brand. A collar clamped tight around his throat.

I may be a monster, but I won’t steal his choices, his free will. Not even if it means losing him. And if he were standing in front of me right now, he’d be scolding me for even considering this deal.

“No.”

The word falls between us like a challenge. The Morrigan goes still, the air crackling with her barely leashed power.

“Think carefully before you tell me no,” she says softly.

“I did,” I say. “Still no.”

Her fingers spasm around my jaw, tightening until stars bloom across my vision. “I’ll destroy everything you love,” she hisses. “I’ll make you hate him. I’ll break you, just like my songbird. I’ll make you say yes.”

I reach for the dagger concealed in my skirts. Let my fingers curl around the hilt, the chill of the metal anchoring me. Reminding me who I am. What I’m fighting for.

“I’ll find your Book,” I tell her. Giving nothing away. “And I’ll use it to kill you.”

Then I ram the blade between her ribs.

The Morrigan staggers back with a snarl. Her stolen body crumples to the floor, shock and agony twisting the gentleman’s face.

Run. Don’t look back.

I pivot and make a break for the double doors on the far side of the ballroom. Shoulder lowered, ready to slam through the milling bodies, the grasping hands—

But the Morrigan is there. Wearing a new face, but the same feral smile. “You’re going to help me,” she singsongs, eyes black and fathomless. “Whether you like it or not.”

I don’t slow down. Don’t hesitate. I slash my blade across her throat, splattering my skin, my hair.

The ballroom blurs, jewel tones and gilding and a dizzying kaleidoscope of faces twisting into monstrous shapes. The violins shriek, the notes clawing at my ears until I can’t hear my thundering pulse, my ragged gasps for air.

Hands snatch at me from all sides. Clawed fingers wrenching me off balance. I’m falling, spinning. The world tilts and there are arms around my waist, hands pulling me into the whirling eddy of silk and shadows and gnashing teeth.

I thrash against the Morrigan’s grip, but it’s no use. She drags me deeper into the fray. Every time I claw my way free, she’s there to catch me. To reel me back in.

It’s a sea of grasping hands and shrieking laughter, high and wild and cracking at the edges.

There’s no up or down, no escape from the churning tide of bodies.

Just an endless waltz, spinning me round and round until I’m gasping.

Until black spots swarm across my vision and the air thickens in my lungs.

“I’ll leave you to think about it,” the Morrigan’s voice purrs in my ear as she holds me, fingers digging bruises into my hips. “Enjoy the dance, and call out when you’re ready.”

The music swells to a feverish crescendo. I’m caught up in another dizzying turn, nausea rising in the back of my throat. The hands on me are crushing, relentless.

Get out. Get to the exit.

I crane my neck, peering over the shoulder of the faceless thing partnering me. Seeking any glimmer of hope, any chance.

And there, past the seething mass of crimson-flecked skirts and blank-eyed smiles, I see a female fae.