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CHAPTER ONE

A va stepped through the portal after the Unseelie King Valroy and knew she had made a choice that would either save her life…or end it. The jury was still out on which one it was gonna be.

Bitty smashed into her back and quickly resumed clinging onto her for dear life.

When she became aware of her surroundings again, Ava stood in long, thick grass that was the strangest color of bluish green she’d ever seen and stared in awe at what she saw.

But it was the smell of the air, weirdly, that made her suddenly believe she was very much in a different place and no longer in the Web.

It wasn’t like the Web smelled bad, per se—it just smelled a bit like the time her mom brought her to the Brimfield Flea Market.

The flea market smelled like an enormous collection of everybody’s antiques and random stuff set out in outdoor spaces. The Web smelled similar—a mix of the outdoors, weird old things, and weird old places. And also some trees.

But this?

This place smelled like nature. Pure and untouched .

Her breath caught. They were standing in a clearing, bathed in moonlight from an orb hanging in the sky that was far too large to be normal, and tinted an odd shade of whitish blue. It cast the whole area in an ethereal glow. Definitely not the moon she was used to seeing.

The forest that surrounded them was made of every kind of tree she could imagine and several she couldn’t even identify. Oak, ash, maple, walnut, hickory—all growing together, and all towering high. Each of the trees had to be hundreds of years old, if not more.

Nor had she ever been in a place where she felt like the trees were staring at her. Like. Seriously fucking staring at her. Or whispering about her.

Darting in between the trees were little orbs of light, glimmering bits of movement that she could see out of the corner of her eye, but lost sight of the moment she tried to focus on them.

She couldn’t really pay them much attention, though.

Clinging to Book, holding it to her chest like it was, once again, a shield, she kept her focus locked on the man—the fae—standing some twenty feet away from her across the clearing.

She wondered if she should just go ahead and drop a train on him now? Or later?

Valroy was watching her with a smile on his face that defined the phrase the cat who ate the canary. His long, dark blue hair fell along his pale skin and Ava wondered if it was a requirement by law for all fae to be criminally beautiful.

His huge bat wings extending from behind him were the only thing that kept him grounded in reality.

They weren’t grotesque—maybe a little—but they didn’t match how damn pretty the rest of him was, with their clawed talons at their tips that acted like hands.

She could see now that the skin that stretched between the bones was slightly translucent.

He still had a section of the mirror—a shard— gripped in one of those talons .

“I am always so wonderfully surprised when a human makes an intelligent choice.” He folded his arms across his chest. He was built like a warrior.

Tall and broad, with defined muscles. Not like a guy who just lifted weights for bulk and show—but like a guy who used his musculature for something.

There was a leanness to him that reminded her of a wild animal.

Not unlike Serrik.

In fact, there was a lot about the two that felt similar suddenly. Not in personality—fuck, they couldn’t be farther apart in that regard, at least on the surface—but in just…she didn’t know. Vibes? She suspected Serrik had the same build, though he hid it underneath fancy, antiquated clothing.

“I’ll ignore the casual racism.” Ava shifted her grip on Book. If it decided to be useful, she wanted to give it the chance to open. “I figure it’s probably a thing with you fae.”

“And I shall ignore your…casual racism…in turn.” He paused as he repeated her words, as if repeating such a modern phrase pained him.

She figured that was going to happen a lot. Well, for as long as she survived, anyway. “My responding to your—” She paused. No, she wasn’t going to get into a fight with the Unseelie King her first two seconds standing in Tir n’Aill. That wasn’t a great way to survive. “Never mind.”

He grinned, chuckling quietly as he turned over the mirror shard between the talons of his claw like it was a coin that he was walking over his knuckles. “Did the exile even tell you the truth of what these lovely little pieces of broken glass do, Ava?”

“Yes and no.” She hesitated. “Which is kind of the trend when dealing with him and…” She trailed off before she made herself into a total hypocrite.

Valroy laughed louder, clearly predicting what she was about to say.

“Yes, indeed. In that, you are correct. My kind live on half-truths and veiled secrets, little Ava. We are immensely powerful, ancient creatures. Do you know what becomes of such creatures when you live for hundreds of years and can rework the world to your will?”

“No?” This guy really liked to hear himself talk, didn’t he?

“You become incredibly bored. And you have made yourself interesting. You have embroiled yourself into the middle of a very long, centuries-old stalemate, my dear.”

Ava took a moment to think as she watched him. “You said you knew something about what I was becoming. That you had first-hand experience with the matter. That’s why I’m here, not so I can be interesting to you. No offense.”

He held out his left arm, showing the crawling, spiraling tattoos. They were like Celtic knots, but pointed, jagged, and…wrong. They reminded her of the First Language she had seen in the Broken City.

And of the shapes she had seen in the reflections of her possible futures, inked onto her arm. Of the warped version of the spiderwebs that were already beginning to appear on her own skin.

“Do you see no resemblance, little one?” He smirked. It seemed to be his default expression. “I am as you shall become.”

“You were…you were turned into a vessel?”

“Not quite. I was created as I am, not made. I am not so crudely fashioned.” He shrugged.

Ava tried really hard not to take that as an insult. It seemed fairly obvious he had to struggle to fit his ego into a room with him. “Let me guess. The Morrigan’s your mother?”

That finally got the self-assured expression off his face for a second. He blinked. “What?”

“Oh, she has you quite figured out already, doesn’t she?” There was a laugh from behind her, warm and wonderful, like a summer breeze had broken through the winter cold. Turning, Ava watched as a woman stepped out from inside one of the trees.

The tree parted, and she emerged from the bark and wood like someone emerging from a pool of water. Roots and tendrils of branches curled around her, as if not wanting to let her go. Some of them lingered on the newcomer’s body in a way that Ava felt her cheeks go a little warm seeing.

The tree was definitely being familiar.

The woman was beautiful, with long, fiery red hair that reached down to her waist. She was entirely naked the moment she emerged from the tree, but as Ava watched, a gown of leaves and lace grew over her.

Her skin was tinged just slightly green at her wrists and ankles, and a bit darker at her temples and at the tips of her pointed ears.

There was a crown of gold atop her head that perfectly mirrored Valroy’s silver one.

Oh, boy.

Here we go.

Ava froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. “Am…I supposed to bow?”

The snort that left the woman was hardly dignified.

“No. Please, no.” She stepped into the clearing, walking up to Ava.

She was about Ava’s height, maybe just a little shorter.

But she felt taller. She studied Ava curiously, as if she could see something about her that Ava couldn’t.

“Oh, you are quite wonderful.” She hummed, reaching up and brushing a strand of Ava’s hair behind her ear.

“And you are quite right in your suspicions. Though I have never met your unwillingly reclusive benefactor, he and my husband are half-brothers.”

Great. Awesome. She didn’t know how that was going to come back to be a serious problem, but it was really going to be.

“The Morrigan clearly improved upon her designs.” Valroy sneered. “Hello, my beautiful wife.”

“Hello, my charming husband. I see you were successful in your endeavor.”

“When I am not meddled with, I am always successful.” Valroy’s taunt had no teeth to it.

“Yes, yes, as you are often keen to remind me.” It seemed like it was an old, but tender tease between the two.

The Seelie Queen laughed quietly as she kept studying Ava.

She looked down at the book she carried, and, as though a tome containing all of the spells ever to be written down was no big deal, instantly moved on to focus her attention on the tattoo on Ava’s arm.

It was still the lines that stretched from the center of a web. The fae queen gently ran her fingers along one of the gray-green lines. “My name is Abigail, young witch.”

Ava suppressed a shiver. “It’s lovely to meet you, I’m Ava.”

“And—” Abigail paused and leaned slightly sideways to peer around Ava. “Oh. Hello.”

Bitty squeaked and cowered harder, if that was possible, behind Ava. Her words came out in a solid rush without any pause. “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry—I know I shouldn’t be here!”

“Hush. What is done is done. If you are free from the Web, you are free from the Web.” Abigail glanced at Valroy before turning back to Ava. “Besides, Ava will require the confidence of a companion. I once came here in a situation quite dissimilar, yet not too dissimilar, to your own.”

“Really? How so?”

“A story for another time.” She smiled, though she never took her eyes off Ava’s tattoo. “When you are not so eager to learn about the creature who threatens the sanctity of your mind. Which is why you followed my husband, though you know it was foolish to do so.”

“That about sums it up, yeah.”