“Sisters. I’m Triisa, and my sisters are Pelid and Sowen.”
I wished she hadn’t told me their names. It would be easier to leave them to their endless fate if I could pretend they were no one. Now they had names, hopes, fears, and I knew very well what the latter must be. I couldn’t imagine cavorting in a painting while the king slept—or did other things—in the bed not far away.
Pixies were quite prolific. She probably had seventeen other sisters living happily in the woods. But to see three of them trapped here pinched my throat tight, making it hard to suck in a breath.
“I don’t have a sister,” I said. “Or a brother for that matter.”
“Siblings can mean so much. Tell him that.”
“Who?”
“At this point it doesn’t matter. You’ll know when it does.”
A tremor shot through me. “Tell me.”
“I won’t.”
Alright. “I’m sorry your sisters were trapped with you.”
“At least we have each other,” Triisa said. “Being with a sibling, even in a horrifying situation like this, is a gift one must never throw away. Remember this.”
“Sure.”
“Free us, and I’ll tell you why you truly came here,” she said, that lure back in her voice. What was it with magical creatures always trying to force others to do something against their will?
“I know why I came here.” Though I wouldn’t name it to her. “Don’t try to lull me again,” I said with a sigh.
She dipped her head forward, acknowledging my words.
“I already told you I can’t free you. He’ll know. You’re a little more obvious than fluffy blue creatures trapped in a small painting in a back hallway. I doubt anyone has noticedthey’regone.”
“The whisper of a bond with even the tiniest of creatures may one day summon the roar of a guardian beast,” she said. “Every ally holds a future fierce and grand.”
That was true. Look at how Madrood had saved me from Prenton. Protecting me or just reacting? I hadn’t decided. The beginning friendship I’d developed with the dragon had probably saved my life.
“Watch,” Triisa said. She rejoined her sisters, and they held hands, standing in a row. They danced in synchronicity over to the side of the picture, leaving their mirror images behind. “Free us, my pretty. With this spell, he’ll never know.”
After he snarled about me going to Ivenrail’s bedroom, Vexxion would chide me for freeing the pixies. The dragon on the door would’ve been obvious, though I doubted the king ever strolled that way. Three pixies cavorting within a painting facing his bed, the only writhing beings in his room? He was bound to question the mirror images.
“How long will your magical images hold?” I asked, feeling my resolve waver.
“For longer than his lifetime,” they said in harmony, their voices glimmering whispers, a melody of delicate chimes.
My sigh ground out of me. I should leave. The longer I remained here, the bigger the chance I’d be caught. But . . .
Fuck him.
Ivenrail didn’t have the right to pin Triisa, Pelid, and Sowen in this frame, let alone all the poor creatures cavorting within paintings inside the castle. If they were going to dance, it should be beneath the moonlight with their sisters, deep within the forest, not here for the king’s grim pleasure.
I started gathering power, but stopped, swallowing it back down. “What did you do?”
“Do?” they asked, the solitary word echoed like three silver bells trilling through the air.
“Why did he trap you here?”
“We refused to dance at his wedding to the Lydel high lady.”
“He was going to marry her? I thought he tried to force her into his bed, and she refused.”
