Severn joined me on the balcony, sliding the door closed behind us. He pressed a concerned hand against my back. “Are you really all right? You looked like you saw a ghost.”
I leaned against the balcony railing, turning my back to the city. “What’s going to happen to Briar?”
“I banished her from the court as soon as I got your message through Zara. Bramble was heartbroken to see her sister thrown out but couldn’t do anything about it. It isn’t an easy life for a fae to be on their own. If Briar is lucky, another court will take her in.” A heavy look settled on his features.
“You think she’ll try to join Black Ember’s court?”
“Most likely.”
A dark feeling settled in my belly to think of Briar, with all she knew about Severn and the New Court, working openly with his enemy. “I want to know what you agreed to in the negotiations.”
He drew in a deep breath. For a moment, I thought he’d refuse to answer again and change the subject, but he leaned on the railing, looking down on his city. In a distant voice, he said, “I agreed to neutrality. If and when a new discussion of the decree happens, I won’t support revealing our identity to humans, and nor will I stand in Black Ember’s way from trying to convince the others.”
I recalled Jack Meruvis’s predictions for the chaos that would reign if that happened and wrapped my arms around my shoulders with a shudder. “Does Black Ember have much of a chance of making it happen?”
“No,” Severn said, but there was uncertainty in his voice. He added after a pause, “The decree isn’t set to be discussed again for another fifty years. But there’s a way he can move up that date if he gets enough parties to sign on. I’ll do what I can, without the bounds of what I agreed to, to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The wind blew my hair around my face. I used the hair tie around my wrist to pull my hair back into a messy high ponytail. I turned back to face the city.
Severn joined me, resting a hand on my back. The sun was rising over the tallest buildings. The shimmering magical mist around the city beautifully caught the light.
Home, I thought contentedly. But something still felt wrong. It didn’texactlyfeel like home for some reason…not anymore.
Severn’s hand on my back went rigid.
“Willow—what is this?” His voice took on an edge so hard that there was fear in it.
I tried to spin around, but he had grabbed my ponytail, making it hard to turn.
“What?” I said, growing worried.
His voice was low. “On the back of your neck. This mark.”
I pressed my fingers to the back of my neck, but there was no raised mark or scar as far as I could tell. When I finally turned, Severn’s eyes were so heavy with dark apprehension that terror began to fill me.
“Severn? What is it? What’s on my neck?”
He let go of my ponytail and stepped back as though I was on fire. The distance between us was awful, full of foreboding. His eyes grew wide.
Panic took hold of me. “What is it, Severn? Tell me!”
“Did you drink Black Ember’s wine?” he demanded in a deathly silent voice.
My lower jaw parted.Wine? I briefly thought back to the carts of room service, how careful I’d been to only drink soda or water. I shook my head quickly. “No, of course not.”
But he was looking at me like I had suddenly transformed into some monstrous being, a demon myself. Swallowing hard, I grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to meet my eyes. “You’re scaring me, Severn.”
I waited for him to tell me not to be scared. That everything was fine, as he’d told me last night and again this morning. But only silence stretched between us.
“What did you do, Willow?” he asked at last, devastation in his eyes.
ChapterThirty-Nine
There was a haunted look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. When I only gaped at Severn’s question, he continued in a quiet voice, almost more to himself than to me, “I didn’t see it last night.”
Growing more alarmed, my hand pressed against the back of my neck as though I could hide whatever mark had frightened him so much.
He grabbed my arms, shaking me. “You’re sure you didn’t drink fae wine?”
