“How, Eury?”
I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my palms against them. How had I brought the rain? Even here, even now, I felt the memory of power in my body. But how had I gotten there? The dagger, the feeling. “I don’t know. I just did.”
“Four hundred years ago, Queen Carys did the same. She’s the reason it rains acid there every day. She’s the reason your home is called the Kingdom of Storms.”
My hands lowered. They came away wet with tears. I tried to focus on him. “She was a changeling.”
He nodded. “Like you. And Eury, there’s more.”
I let out a scoff of a laugh. “Gods, there always is.”
He took another step forward, and I took one backward. He stopped, palms out as though he offered no threat. But he did. “You aren’t Sylvanwild.”
“What?”
“You look nothing like us. Surely you’ve noticed. You’re blond, pale…”
The world felt vertiginous. I set my hand on the bed frame and considered what he’d said. It was true that they were all dark-haired with warm undertones. I hadn’t thought anything of it; I’d spent most of my time here thinking I was human.
This was too much. I had to duel Rhiannon, and now this.
“You’re petite, smaller-framed?—”
“Damn it, Dorian. Stop.”
“There’s a reason I’m telling you this.” His voicewas a clear thread into my brain. “This is a duel to the death, Eurydice. If you want to have a hope of survival, you’ll need your magic.”
I faced away from him, still holding the bed’s frame. My blood thundered. “Oh, I can’t just stab her and be done with it?”
“But your magic isn’t of Sylvanwild.”
“You told me I used my magic in the cave. You said?—”
“You did. You tapped into water.” He loosed a breath. “I don’t know how. You aren’t supposed to be able to do that.”
I clenched the wood with both hands now. “And what am I supposed to be able to do?”
“Sylvanwild is nature magic—feralis. The other courts, they’re different. Noctere is noxveil, Highmark is solaire, Aurelia is viridane…”
“And which of those four am I?” He didn’t answer. I half-turned to see him in my periphery. “Dorian?”
“You’re Seelie.” Seelie—that meant Highmark or Aurelia. “Beyond that… I don’t even know how you touched that waterfall, Eury.”
My thumbs pressed over the ornate etchings on the bed frame. “You really are more of a dumb blade than a historian.”
I knew without looking that he flinched. Good. I would be petty, spike him right where it hurt; maybe then he would feel a modicum of what I had felt when I’d stood in that throne room before Rhiannon while he’d stayed silent at her side.
“It’s true,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m painfully ignorant of a great many things.”
I hated his acquiescence. Hated it more than if he’d fought back. At least then I’d have good reason to continue my pettiness.
My breath sawed through my nose. “So I’m a changeling from another court. Why am I still here? Why did Highmark or Aurelia not come retrieve me?”
He hesitated. “It should be obvious, Eury. We’reUnseelie.” His eyes were sad and apologetic, and then I understood.
“My court doesn’t know where I am. That’s it, isn’t it? Steal a changeling from another court, maybe you’ll gain an edge.”
His nostrils widened as he breathed. His voice came out as a whisper. “I wasn’t sent to steal you.”
