Right—he was sent to kill me.
I stared at him, cold truth hitting my nose and eyes and making them sting. We stood before each other just like the night we’d met, when he’d pointed a sword at my heart.
I would not cry. I would not give him that.
My lips twisted. “I called you a blade, but you’re just a lowborn killer.”
Those words passed over him, paling his face, thinning his lips. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the feeling was gone. It had been replaced by hardness.
“Right now, Eurydice, I’m also your second.” Only his lips moved, like any other movement would destroy his focus. “And I’m telling you in the time we have: no weapon will be enough. You cannot defeat Rhiannon with sword or bow.”
“All I know are swords and bows.”
“You know magic. You’ve used it.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “I have no idea how I did that.”
“Irin’s breath, we don’t have the time…” His eyes darted right, toward the tapestry on the far wall—the one I had studied the day I’d arrived and in all the days since. The four courts. He stepped to it, finger pointing. “Here, you see this?”
I didn’t move any closer. “It’s a forest.”
“Threaded through with gold. Do you know what that gold is?”
I stared at the spot where he pointed. I had always thought the gold on the trees was the sunlight on the leaves. Every day here, my understanding of this world seemed to shrink even as it grew. I learned more, but the world expanded around me. New truths, new turns.
“No.”
He turned toward me, his hands together as though he claspedsome invisible valuable between them, right at the level of his heart. “It’s what becomes of us Sylvanwild fae when we die. We lace the trees like gilded spiderwebs. We become magic.Memento mori, Eury.”
I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how this translated into using magic.
I could only see Rhiannon’s face like a ghost before my eyes, every time I blinked.
This felt like the first lesson in years—decades—of learning to use fae magic. And Dorian was having to start at the beginning with me when we only had precious minutes to get to the end.
A knock came at the door. Three hard raps.
Dorian’s brow drew together. “It’s not yet time.” He stalked toward it. “What?” he snapped.
“Let me in,” a voice said on the other side.
I knew that voice.
“Leave us,” Dorian said, but I was already striding to the door.
I pushed past him and opened it.
There on the threshold stood Faun, her face hard, her mouth tight. “I need to speak to you.”
I didn’t hesitate;I stepped back to allow her in.
Faun strode into the room with a pouch in one hand, and I closed the door behind her. Her eyes shifted to Dorian as she moved past him. She was so small, and he so large beside her, and yet she seemed outsized when she met his eyes. She was a servant, yet she did not need to request he move aside. He simply did.
She crossed two steps to the center of the room, then turned toward me. When we met eyes, I felt the same feeling I felt every time I looked at Faun, and she looked at me.
We were alike. We shared an unspoken strife.
“You’ll need this.” She thrust the bag toward me.
