Which means he's right about what I am. And that terrifies me more than freezing to death would.
But I won't give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Instead, I deploy every weapon in my arsenal, starting with the one that's never failed me before: money.
"I can offer you more than Father's debt," I say, forcing my voice steady despite my chattering teeth. "I have personal accounts, investments Mother left me. Jewelry worth more than ships?—"
"Already mine," Aratus says without looking up from the book he's reading. His breath doesn't mist in the frigid air. He might as well be sitting in a summer garden for all thecold affects him. "Every asset your family owns, including your personal holdings, are collateral against the debt."
"Then other compensation. My godfather is Lord Pemberton—he has connections with three different courts. I could arrange introductions, trade agreements?—"
"Lord Pemberton answers to me." His tone is pleasantly conversational, as if we're discussing the weather. "Has for the past five years. His shipping contracts require Frost Court approval."
I try a different angle. "The Ashworth family owes us considerable favors. Their daughter married into European nobility?—"
"The Ashworths defaulted on their own Fae loans last winter. Their daughter is currently serving as companion to a Vine Court prince." He turns a page. "Next offer?"
Each failed attempt hits me like a physical blow. Everything I thought I knew about our social circle, our connections, our power—all of it is illusion. The Fae have been pulling strings I didn't even know existed.
"What about the government?" I try desperately. "There are treaties, diplomatic protocols?—"
"Written by courts like mine." Finally, he looks at me, and his frozen-lake eyes are utterly without mercy. "Your government exists at our sufferance, Elise. Has for twenty years. Did you think the integration happened by accident?"
I wrap my cloak tighter around myself, though it does little good. The carriage is a moving ice box, and I can feel the cold settling into my bones. But I'm not dead yet, which means I still have options.
I just need to find the right leverage.
"Then what do you want?" I lean forward despite the cold, letting my cloak fall open enough to show the curve of my throat. It's a calculated risk—using every lesson I learned at finishingschool about managing men. "Surely we can come to some... arrangement."
I pitch my voice lower, let my lips part slightly, tilt my head in the way that's made stronger men than him forget their own names. I've been practicing this dance since I was sixteen. I know how to use my beauty as a weapon.
Aratus doesn't even blink.
He just sits there, utterly relaxed, watching me perform with those inhuman eyes. Like I'm a child playing dress-up and he's waiting for me to tire myself out.
"Are you finished?" he asks when I run out of seductive poses to try.
Heat rises in my cheeks—the first warmth I've felt in hours—and it has nothing to do with attraction. "You can't just ignore what I'm offering?—"
"What exactly are you offering, Elise?" He closes his book and leans forward slightly. "Your body? I already own that. Your loyalty? Meaningless when forced. Your affection?" His smile is sharp as winter wind. "Even if you could fake it convincingly, what makes you think I want the performance instead of the real thing?"
"Because men always want the performance," I snap, my composure finally cracking. "That's how this works. I smile and flutter and make you feel important, and you give me what I want. It's worked on every man I've ever met."
"I'm not a man," he reminds me pleasantly. "I'm Fae. We see through human deceptions the way you see through glass."
The casual dismissal stings worse than the cold. I bare my teeth at him—not a smile, but a threat. "I'll never be finished. I'll fight you every single day?—"
"Yes, yes. You've mentioned." He gestures at the window with one pale hand. "Look outside, Elise. We're already past the point of no return."
I don't want to look. Don't want to acknowledge how far we've come from everything I know. But curiosity wins. It always does.
The landscape outside is impossible.
We're climbing into mountains that shouldn't exist—peaks that scrape clouds, valleys filled with perpetual mist, forests where the trees are silver and gold instead of green. The snow falls upward in spiraling patterns, and the very air seems to shimmer with magic I can feel but don't understand.
This isn't my world anymore. Maybe it never was.
"Where are we?" I whisper.
"The borderlands between human territory and the true Fae realm." He follows my gaze out the window. "Your people see what we allow them to see. But this is what the world actually looks like when magic flows freely."
