"I mean," Arion said slowly, "that if Eliam hid something in her, then we need to understand what it is and why it’s been getting stronger. What exactly did you do that night?”
Eliam hesitated. "I don't remember clearly. Making the bargain with her mother, yes. But what happened before, why I was there..." Frustration bled through his controlled tone. "There are gaps."
"Malus said he was conducting a ritual," Briar explained. "Something meant to strip Eliam's power. That Eliam must have intervened when my mother was dying."
"A ritual?" Arion questioned, gaze flickering towards Eliam.
Eliam had gone very still. Briar looked up at him, seeing the calculation in his eyes, the pieces he was putting together that he wasn't sharing.
"What aren't you telling us?" she asked.
He met her gaze, and she saw the conflict there. The desire to protect her from knowledge that might hurt her, warring with the necessity of information.
"There are... stories," he said finally. "Old ones. About fae who split their power to protect it."
"Protect it from what?" Halian asked.
"From being stolen. Destroyed. Corrupted." Eliam's jaw tightened. "From family members who might try to take what isn't theirs."
Understanding rippled through the room.
"You think you knew," Arion said. "You think you knew Malus would come for your power."
"I think," Eliam said carefully, "that my brother has always been ambitious. And that hiding something valuable where he wouldn't think to look would be exactly the kind of thing I would do."
"Inside a human," Sian said softly. "Brilliant. Insane, but brilliant."
"Except now Malus knows," Thaine pointed out. "So the hiding place isn't hidden anymore."
"Which is why he's testing the borders," Halian said, understanding dawning.
"He talked about taking me apart," she said, her voice smaller than she intended. "About seeing how I work."
Eliam pulled her against him, his arms wrapping around her protectively. "That won't happen."
"Won't it?" Karse asked, his tone deceptively mild. "He got her to walk to the border in her sleep. What happens next time? Or the time after that?"
"I think the better question is, what did Malus want with your power, Eliam?" Thaine's voice cut through the tension.
Eliam's jaw tightened. "Power is power. Does he need another reason?"
Karse straightened in his chair for the first time since they'd entered. "Power for power's sake? No. The copper-haired one has plenty of his own."
"Unless he needs yours specifically," Thaine said, pushing off from the wall. "Forest Court magic for something only Forest Court magic can accomplish."
"There are things sealed in the Wildwood," Eliam said, choosing each word with extreme care. "Old things. Dangerous things."
"The Night Court," Sian breathed.
The air in the room seemed to shift and grow heavy.
Briar looked between them. The way they'd all gone still, the way even Karse's casual sprawl had tensed—whatever the Night Court was, it terrified them.
"What’s the Night Court?" she asked. “The books you made me study… they only spoke of five courts.”
"There used to be six," Arion said quietly. His light had dimmed, drawing inward. "The Night Court was destroyed centuries ago."
"Not destroyed," Eliam corrected. "Sealed."
