“Who?”
Vicious delight paints her features. Just for a second. Just one. “Your Huntsman, of course.”
“What are you talking about?” I growl and my blessing surges, trying to push through her magic, but I do not even make a dent. Is this how helpless Grant felt when she took him?
“You really do not understand how dire the situation is over there, do you?”
“That does not matter to me.”
“Oh, of course it does not. Why should it? You are not one of us, despite the magic he handed over to you.”
“I am still a vampire.”
She huffs, turning away. “And that is precisely my problem.”
I frown—the words are softer, as though they are not for my ears at all. “What do you want with Grant?”
“I want someone to help me rule,” she says, turning back to me again. “No single fae can carry the crowns alone. Our queen has lasted longer than any have expected. But even now, herlight flickers, and soon she will be gone and that throne will be vacant.”
“There are those to step up,” I reply. There are princes. I have heard that from the other fae, even if I do not know why they are not doing so now.
“They cannot rule alone, either,” the fae replies, and she lets her glamour slip so her smile reveals pointed, dangerous teeth. “They chased their soulbonds to the mortal realm on some silly whim, and what has that achieved? Our realm is tearing itself apart and before our queen has truly left us!”
“You think you can rule?”
“We need someone. Unseelie. Powerful.” She glances around the room. “Someone who understands that this realm has evolved in the thousand years since the veil descended between us. If we ever want to return here and make it our own, we must be ready.”
“You underestimate them. Us.”
“Notyou. I got the measure of you as soon as he shouted your name,Vladimir.”
A snarl tears itself from my throat, and for one second, her magic falters and mine surges forward. It is not enough. The redcap grabs my arms, unmovable as any boulder, and the puca drops low, hissing through his teeth.
“It’s fine,” she says, magic rippling and restraining me again, though I can see the flicker of doubt in her eyes. “Neither of you has long left.”
“I do not understand what you are trying to achieve with him.”
“There are a great many things you do not understand.” She sits back on the bed. “WhatIdo not understand is what you were sent here to achieve. Clearly, neither of you was prepared to face me.”
I press my lips together, but all she does is smile, studying my face. The puca does the same, and the second probe of his magicis less painful than the first. His human glamour is short and skinny, face pinched and narrow.
“You wanted to find out about me,” she says after a long moment of silence. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
I growl. Whatever I felt of the bond between me and Grant before is gone, that same eerie silence in its place that descended when he went into that back room. Is he still alive? It is not yet light, though I can feel the sun rising. If she has blocked our bond, will I feel anything when he—
“Do not look so despairing. You will soon join him.”
The redcap tightens his grip on my arms. I could kill him and the puca too. I have faced worse before. But she has power that might just rival that of the Huntsman, and I will never be able to face him down and win.
“Let him go,” I say. “Please. Take me in his stead.”
She studies me again, and this time when she gets to her feet, it is with an air of finality. I bite back another growl when she grips my chin, the touch cold iron.
“If only that would work. Sadly, there is only one of you I want, and I already have him, so…” She lets go and sighs. “Do not look so upset. You will not have to survive long without him.”
I do not look away. I do not blink. She smiles again and clicks her tongue against her teeth.
“A name, that’s what you came for, I assume? Have this one. Eirian. For all the good it will do you.”
