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Sav

I trailed the long empty hall, wrapping my arms around the leather tunic the house elf, Poppy, had brought me that morning. Even soft supple leather couldn’t warm the cold knot in my chest.

It was better this way. Better for Jack if he hated me, but I couldn’t shake the melancholy settling in my chest.

“Sav.” I glanced up, exhaling a long breath as Creig approached. “There’s another way to save them. We can find another way.”

I leaned against splintered wood, inhaling its pine scent and Creig stopped and tipped against the wall beside me. He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have to give him up if he means that much to you.”

I jerked out of his touch. “I don’t care about the human.”

He quirked a scarred brow at me, crossing his arms over his bulging chest. “Love, I’ve known you since you were a girl.

” His gaze darted past me, searching the hall before it returned to me.

“No matter how awful your family was. No matter how badly they used you.” He paused, meeting my eyes. “You never became like them.”

I huffed a breath, looking away.

Creig’s finger found my chin, tipping it toward him.

My gaze reluctantly met his.

“You’ve waited your whole life to find love.” My eyes narrowed, daring him to finish his sentence. He did. “Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t have it now.”

I tore my chin away. “You think this is about ISHFA?” I pushed off the wall, stalking away from him. Why did Creig always see through me so easily when no one else had. “He’s Dane Clyde’s spawn.”

Spitting the words made them real. And that made them unforgivable.

“So what?”

I spun back, facing Creig. “He’s human!” Though I wasn’t sure that was true, I’d keep Jack’s secret as long as I could and hope word of what happened in my sister’s prison didn’t reach the rest of our kind.

I knew Hazel and Kaspar wouldn’t betray him, even if it was only for me.

But the less folk who knew the truth, the safer Jack was.

“And?”

I wrapped my hands around my arms again, gaze dropping to the floor.

“And he’ll die before we ever get to know each other.

” One bit of truth to sell the lie. One fear I’d held close to my heart until this moment.

But if he wasn’t human… If he was something else—something more —what then? What excuse would I have left?

Creig straightened and wrapped his arms around me, caging me in a fierce hug. He dipped his head until it was beside my ear. In a soft voice, he breathed, “We don’t choose the time we get with the ones we love, only the time we don’t.”

I wriggled in his hold, but he squeezed me tighter.

A shudder rolled through me at the memory of all the times he’d done this when the days got too hard, and I’d been ready to give in to my family and go along with whatever cruel plan they’d devised.

He’d hugged me, refusing to let me go and reminded me I wasn’t like them.

A tear ran down my cheek, leaving a hot trail in its wake.

In this dark hallway, with only my own fears and Creig, I could admit the thing that held me back from giving into the feelings growing in my heart.

Fear of losing someone I cared for so deeply that even now I was breaking.

Watching my father crumble under the weight of his loss and seeing Bracken in the winter court, I was terrified of what a love like that would do to the last remaining shreds of my soul.

And if Jack was human, his short life would be a blink in mine, and at its end, I would be left holding the shattered pieces of my heart together with no one to comfort me. But what if he wasn’t human?

“Come on, Love. Meet me in the map room. I have a new strategy to propose.”

Creig released his hold, and a chill settled over me.

I longed to wallow in my own pain, taking back just a little time for myself, but I’d started on this path for a reason, and I needed to see it through to its end.

More than that, the time for hiding from my life was over.

Going back to Faerie, seeing just how dire things were for everyone, had been the wake-up I needed.

For three years, I hid from my life, my responsibilities. For three years, I ignored everything that was happening, burying my head in the sand, and allowing my kind to suffer.

It was time for me to stop hiding.

Creig pointed a finger at the pocket entrance to Central Park closest to Dane’s headquarters. “If we go out through here, we’ll be inside their perimeter. It’s a quick jog to the entrance they took you through. With any luck, we can sneak the prisoners out without Dane ever knowing.”

Foxglove bent, scanning the map of Central Park.

I glared at the side of his face. I still didn’t trust him, but Creig did, and I trusted Creig, so I kept my lips pressed firmly together, waiting for his insight.

“If even a few humans are guarding them, they sound the alarm. It's too risky.”

Creig laid a hand on the head of one of his axes. “You’re forgetting. I have half a dozen soldiers who never swore an oath. Nothing’s stopping them from slaughtering the humans before they have time to open their mouths."

A look passed between the two males, and my heart pounded in my chest. Six males with no magic binding them was better odds than I could have imagined. Six orcs against the might of Dane’s army might just make this a fair fight.

“Wait.”

Both males looked at me.

“Your soldiers are our greatest weapon.”

“What do you mean, Love?” Creig arched a brow.

I glanced at Foxglove. Creig trusts him . “If we go with my original plan—”

“Sav.”

“Wait,” I said. “Let me finish.” They nodded and I went on.

“We approach with an army, and we bring Jack.” His name stuck in my throat.

“We come under the guise of proposing a trade. Dane will assume our army can’t harm them.

They’ll come expecting us to be weak. They’ll try to take Jack and keep their prisoners. ”

My gaze darted between the two men. “While we pretend to negotiate, four soldiers free the prisoners. Two stay with us. When Dane makes his move, they remind his army we’re not helpless.”

I glanced between them. “The humans are only brave because they believe us weak. Let them think we could all harm them and they’ll run screaming.” I grinned madly, picturing carnage and death.

“There’s one problem with your plan,” Jack said, stepping into the room.

My heart skipped a beat and my palms grew clammy.

He met my gaze—eyes hard—before he looked past me, speaking to Creig and Foxglove.

“My dad won’t be satisfied with a trade for me when he sees the orcs you plan to send with me.

He’ll be prepared to take your soldiers, and he knows exactly how to do it when the enemy can’t fight back. ”

Pain lanced my chest. That dark look in his eyes had never been there before. And I had been the one to put it there.

Creig grunted, appraising Jack. “He can try and take my men.”

“He’s taken bigger creatures than you.” His tone was calm. Too calm. Like the part of him that used to ache for me was gone.

Foxglove scanned the maps again before casting his gaze on Creig. “He’s right. Dane’s men took Trym.”

“Trym,” Creig and I gasped at the same time. “But how?” I asked. “Trym is guardian to the autumn court and the oldest Troll alive.”

Foxglove shrugged. “Dane has powerful weapons and friends in high places. And more than that, Trym was too powerful to be allowed to guard the entrance without agreeing to the ISHFA laws.”

I shook my head. How had our kind ever allowed a guardian meant to protect us to be bound by such a law? With Autumn’s pocket entrance unguarded, anyone could wander in.

“What do you propose, Jack?” Creig asked, scratching his head with one of his daggers.

Jack leaned over the table covered in maps, scanning the one of Central Park.

“Dane has more than one hundred armed guards ready to attack and an arsenal of iron weapons. You need to draw as many away as possible before you move in.” His eyes met mine for the briefest moment.

“Stage an attack on one of his outposts far from Central Park to draw them away, using men who are bound by ISHFA laws. I’ll go alone to meet Dane.

” He ran a finger down the map. “If I ask him to meet me here.” He stabbed a spot on the map.

“Take your six and any others you can spare to free the prisoners. You’ll need all the help you can get to carry out the injured.

Last I counted, there are fourteen prisons holding creatures in them.

If you can spare the men, you should hit them all at the same time. I can tell you where they are.”

“We’ve already freed most of them,” Creig said, and my mouth fell open.

“You have?”

“Love. Did you really think I’d leave them? We’ve only waited to hit AFF headquarters because we didn’t have a plan that kept my men safe while doing it. I lost a soldier last week and I swore to my men I wouldn’t let that happen again.”

My chest swelled, wetness brimming along my lashes. He’d always planned to help us. He was helping us. He just needed Jack. But sending Jack back to his father now, knowing what he could be, irrational terror stole through me. “What happens after you distract Dane?” I asked.

Green eyes burned with some intense emotion I didn’t recognize as he searched my face. “Does it matter? Your people will be free, and no one will be harmed.”

But what about you?

It’s a good plan, Lad.” Creig slapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack winced, but a smile crept onto his face.

I couldn’t look away. The smile never reached his eyes.