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CHAPTER ONE

PRESENT DAY

The moonless night was ablaze with light.

The white archway to Elfame shone like a star against the backdrop of the abandoned clover field. Though made of starlight and magic, the portal appeared crafted from glass, or the purest ice, and lit from within. Its glow twinkled in the frost that clung to every blade of grass until the ground resembled crushed quartz instead of dormant turf.

And it sang to me.

Not five minutes ago, I’d been ordered to mount my horse and join the procession returning to the castle. Three minutes ago, I’d risked discovery by stumbling against the wagon and pledging to free the grizzly bear—my Arthur—from his prison. Then the portal’s song had called, either attracted to my wrath or wishing to soothe it away.

Now I found myself rebundled in the white fox-fur coat and rooted within an arm’s length of the gateway to the immortal lands. I gazed, entranced, upon the opalescent doorway, one hand on the horse’s reins and the other stuck in my foraging bag. Curled protectively around the scruff of a tabby cat.

“What is that music?” Sawyer dared to whisper.

While my gaze was riveted on the portal, I could imagine his amber eyes widening in wonder. “You can hear it too?”

The portal’s melody was impossibly soft, just enough to tease my senses and distract me from the rawness of my returned memories. Four specific ones still persisted despite the lulling song. They twisted about in my mind like a vortex of sluagh blackbirds, squawking madly and cutting me with their feathers.

The snarling hellhound guarding the grimoire cupboard.

A demon with crimson eyes spiriting my brother away to a prison in the Unseelie Court for my mistakes.

My brave cat losing himself to the power of a moonstone collar.

Arthur screaming as the Stag Man ripped the unclaimed mate bond from his soul.

Amidst this turmoil, the tune of the portal persevered, like bathwater gradually increasing in temperature until it melted away all the worries of the day. It was flute-like, reminding me of the pixies’ language, and somehow mixed with the voice of a murmuring stream. The rational part of me knew this had to be the aura of the immortal lands, but it was alive and calling to me.

Touching the portal had not only freed my memories, but the ones infused within its bindings. And as its song mellowed the ache in my heart, my rage for Arthur and my friends and what my family and I had brought to Redbud, it made room within me to accept them.

Women.

The most beautiful women I’d ever seen, dozens of them. They ranged in size and height and skin color, but they all had one thing in common.

They were witches.

Powerful women . . . and all seduced by the Stag Man to summon his portal home.

All sacrificed when they failed to anchor it.

The portal bombarded me with failure after failure, of each witch collapsing onto her knees in a semi-mummified husk. How they declared their love for the unfeeling fae king with their dying breath. How he siphoned away the dregs of their magic and the scraps of their life essences into the gemstones that ringed his—

“What are you doing? Get away from that portal!”

A hand clamped down onto my shoulder and ripped me back a step. The horse reared, jerking back on the reins and burning my fingers.

I yelped first from surprise, cursed second at the pain in my hand that my magic was already healing, then screamed at the sight of a bronze throat encircled by a multi-stranded necklace of rough-cut jewels.

“Meadow!” the Stag Man chastised.

I gulped down a breath, tore my gaze from all that stolen magic, those stolen lives , that glittered beautifully against his skin, and squeezed down in a burst of fear on the little body that huddled hidden in my foraging bag. Sawyer, to his credit, didn’t squeak.

“What were you doing?” the fae king demanded.

I risked a brief but defiant glare up at him. And brief was truly all I could manage. His glamour had no effect on me anymore, though I could see it working as the golden aura on his skin, and I saw the Stag Man for what he truly was, antlers and all .

“Beware the Stag Man who hunts in the forest deep.

His arrows never miss a maiden’s heart to keep.”

The villain of Grandmother’s old nursery rhyme had stolen more than my heart. He’d taken my memories, my truth , and I was going to take them back.

If I could keep it together.

You’re up, Misty Fields.

The innocent and semi-coy attitude Misty Fields had sometimes adopted to throw others off her trail manifested easily, and I replied, “Ever ask why a moth is attracted to a porch light? It’s like that.”

Before the Stag Man could reply, I turned away, sucked in a shuddering breath, and swung up into the saddle of my frightened horse. “And it’s cold out. Coming?”

Then I wheeled the horse around, jabbed it in the ribs, and rode off across the frozen ground at a crazed sprint. I wasn’t a good rider, and this horse was no fluid-gaited Arabian like Daphne, so I had to abandon the hand clamped onto Sawyer’s scruff for the saddle horn to keep my seat.

It was only when I was at the front of the procession that I eased the horse into a steady walk to begin the long and torturous journey back to the castle. Torturous, not because I was afraid of my horse twisting a leg, but because I had to play enthralled and na?ve when I had finally become what Violet had always intended me to be. Her heir.

Her vengeance.

I fought for calm once more, breathing in deep and relishing the clarity provided by the night air’s cold sting.

Upon its chill was the faint perfume of rotting apples and sweet hay, enticing me to swivel around in the saddle and look to the cider farm on the other side of the road. Towards home. And in the forest beyond, the summoning mirror and the gateway to my brother’s prison.

But first things first.

The portal to Elfame had to be unlocked, and while the key was in the Stag Man’s possession, only I could activate it.

And, according to him, he was the only one who could teach me how.

Movement dragged me from my thoughts—the Stag Man galloping on his own horse up the procession line to join me at its head. Behind him, the light of the portal shone as strongly as ever, even as it slipped out of sight from a curve in the road, and I doubted even the daytime sun would dim it. Two Brothers—magic hunters—standing sentry spoiled what otherwise would’ve been an ethereal scene, but I was glad for it.

I was done with illusion and glamour.

Yet the further we traveled into the heart of Redbud, the more my heart shriveled like a peach left out in the sun too long. The resulting pit sank into the hollow of my stomach as I witnessed the extent of the Stag Man’s magic. It permeated everything , right down to the saddle and bridle of the horse I rode. In reality, the brittle leather was cracking from neglect, but the glamour overlay made it gleam as if freshly polished.

The town square wasn’t lit by lanterns, but lightbulbs; its storefronts made of brick and not Tudoresque half-timbering and stucco; the cobblestone streets were actually pavement.

And the castle estate I’d known as home since I’d made that bargain with Ossian? It was nothing but the town courthouse, albeit the most elaborate building and campus in Redbud. And the waterfall ravine beside it? A wide stream with a quaint three-foot drop.

It was dizzying, witnessing the lie and the truth overlapping. For the sake of my sanity, I chose the lie. My double-vision cleared as I accepted the glamour without being swindled by it. Under lowered lashes, I watched as the Stag Man became Ossian once more, his antlers vanishing, his tipped ears rounding, his stag legs bending at the knee like a man’s.

The grizzly bear, within his iron cage and chained down to the bed of the wagon, miserably remained in his beastly state, as did the rest of the townsfolk. That magic, as it happened, wasn’t an illusion. They’d all been truly transformed by the Stag Man’s power.

Trapped.

Thistle thorns, I needed a break from this farce of a life.

I needed a moment to be weak and let my emotions rage. And when that was done, to plan .

No sooner were we across the drawbridge and within the courtyard did I shuck myself from the saddle. With my foraging bag pressed tightly against my stomach, I managed a purposeful walk inside the castle proper instead of a sprint.

“. . . want that bear rechained in the great hall,” the Stag Man was saying. “Alec, get— Meadow, where are you going?”

“I’m sorry,” I flung over my shoulder, not bothering to stop, “did you just expend all of your magic and strength to anchor a fae portal in the mortal realm?” Oh my Green Mother, I was so close to hysteria or breaking down into a maniacal episode I was downright snarky and almost giddy. “No? Where do you think I’m going? To bed!”

I swear his bare feet sounded like stomping cloven hooves as he tore after me. With that incredible fae speed of his, he intercepted my path and barred the archway to the east wing with a muscled arm. I flinched, remembering how not too long ago I’d been seduced into wanting those arms tight around me.

And, I hated to admit, I still did. That stolen fated mate bond still tied us together, still made me susceptible to his lust and seduction more than his rubies ever had.

There had to be a way I could numb myself to it .

“Haven’t you heard a single thing I said?” he asked. “I told you on the ride back here that we need to start right away—”

“Then give me your magic,” I interrupted. “Rejuvenate me.”

Ossian’s jewel-green eyes narrowed.

“Oh wait, you can’t, so I guess that means I have a date with my feather bed. Excuse me.”

I ducked under his arm, but I’d only taken one step before his hand seized my biceps and practically wrenched me around.

“Meadow, love , this sudden change in your attitude is . . . disconcerting.”

Was that his hand moving to the pouch on his belt that contained the Caer powder? While I doubted it could befuddle me ever again, I wasn’t ready to test that theory or ready to let that secret out of the bag.

“I’m just . . . spent, Ossian.” The sigh was real but the smile I gave him was forced. “It’s not every day I summon and anchor a fae portal only to discover it locked and get blasted back a dozen yards. I’m tired and I’m sorer than if I spent the entire day tilling a field. I need to rest. That’s all there is to it!”

I realized I was on the verge of blowing my Misty Fields cover again and added some sweetness to my next words. “We all don’t have your stamina, fae king. The morning is not far off. Surely you can spare your fiancée a few hours.” Oh my Green Mother, I wanted to gag.

His beautiful cold eyes searched my face, whatever I was offering enough to convince him to hook his thumb into his belt and leave the pouch alone. “Then kiss me good-night and be on your way.”

Misty Fields did not recoil as Meadow Hawthorne desperately wanted to, but rose dutifully on tiptoe. Ossian did not incline his head to receive the kiss, scrutinizing my face and cataloguing its nuances.

This was a test, not affection, and I had to sell it. As my stomach twisted in revulsion, I turned my thoughts to Arthur and kissed the Stag Man.

My mind blanked—probably to spare me from the disgust—but when my senses returned, I found my face captured in the Stag Man’s hands and his hot, ragged breath blasting against my lips. My heart was hammering, but so was his.

“Do you love me?” he rasped, his wild jewel-bright eyes boring into mine. His body trembled, the vibrations coursing down his arms and through his fingers into my skin and rattling against my skull. He could crush it like an egg if he didn’t believe my answer.

He’s afraid , I realized, and that realization brought a smile to my face. It widened as I came to my own understanding as I lifted a hand to smooth the copper curls away from his tense face and whisper the familiar words into the space between us, “You’ve stolen my heart.”

I’d never loved him, not even when I’d been under his spell. My heart had always known he was nothing but a thief and that its love belonged solely to another.

Ossian swallowed thickly and released me. “Go. I’ll see you at dawn.”

I kept my stride steady as I retreated down the empty east wing, for the Stag Man was watching me go. That smile I’d given him stayed right on my face.

And that’s a win for Misty Fields. Keep it up, girl. Right after you gargle with some boiling water.