“And this is your house?” I asked him.
He looked to Keres, who answered for him.
“This is Frithhold, an outpost dedicated to the court’s protection. Thorne and I live here now, but it belongs to us all,” she said.
All? As in, the three of them? Or were there more?
I looked at Daegel. “You’re midnight fae.”
He nodded slowly. “I am.”
Did Rydian know that? He must since he’s the one who put me in their carriage.
I looked from him to the others. “You all serve the Midnight Court then?”
Keres’s gaze narrowed a fraction. “We serve our queen and her appointed general.”
“And will I be meeting her?” I asked. “Your queen?”
No one had ever seen the Midnight queen in person. Not anyone I’d ever met, anyway. Not even Tyrion, the male who had raised me and King of the Summer Court, had ever taken a meeting with her directly. Her name was Cadira. She’d inherited the throne several years before Heliconia had cursed the Summer Court. The former queen, Winyra, had been reclusive before she’d been killed, but Cadira was worse. They said she was nothing more than a shadow when she wanted to be; that was all I knew of her. All I’d ever cared to know, considering she’d left the rest of the realm to Heliconia’s destruction.
“She knows you’re here,” Keres said evenly. “If she wants to meet you, she’ll send for you.”
“And if I want to meet her?” I challenged.
The three of them exchanged a look, but no one offered an answer.
Amanti reached out and set her fingers lightly on my wrist. “Tell me what happened after I left.”
I tensed, thinking of all that had happened in her absence. And the listening ears here to witness me utter it now. At my pointed look toward Thorne and Daegel, Keres merely said, “You can say it while we’re standing here, or we can pretend to leave and listen from the other room. Your choice.”
I sighed, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop them from listening. I could refuse to talk, but if I was right, and this was a kidnapping, they might attempt to torture it out of me. Then again, Daegel, at least, likely knew all this already, thanks to Rydian. Either way, Amanti deserved to know about her Aine sisters.
I spoke slowly, the words scraping on the way out. I kept my attention on Amanti, doing my best to shut out the others as I told her almost all of it. The fraying wards, Lesha’s departure, Sonoma’s decline, her death. And then Callan’s arrival. My decision to marry him in exchange for his help breaking the curse.
“That brat has never cared about anyone else in his privileged life,” Keres muttered, earning a warning look from Amanti for her interruption.
“Go on,” the Aine said to me, patting my hand.
So, I told her the truth about Duron—how he was draining his own people to feed his land. And his ego. So no one would know that Autumn was weakening. Judging from their lack of surprise, they already knew that part too.
Finally, I told her about the party in Grey Oak that was supposed to be my wedding. The Withered agreeing to attack as a distraction for my escape. Koraz. Duron.
When I reached the part about my furyfire, the air in the room thinned to a thread. Keres didn’t stop her work, folding and stacking the clean bandages, but her movements slowed. Even Thorne seemed to lean in.
There was no point in lying about it, though. Rydian knew it all—everything I was capable of—and he’d already sold me out. Besides, the realm would know it too now that I’d used it to murder a king. Telling them this part would hopefully save me from their attempts to torture it out of me later. There were plenty of other secrets worth dying over; this wasn’t one of them.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said. “He would have chained me up and drained me dry. He would have?—”
“You were cornered,” Amanti said. “You chose the only path out that didn’t end in your death.”
“Or worse,” Keres murmured. “There’s always a worse.”
I swallowed past the ash in my throat, refusing to put my emotions on display for these people. “And that brings us to my kidnapping,” I said pointedly.
“Rescue,” Thorne and Daegel said in unison.
I said nothing, glaring pointedly.
