Her chin lowered. “Yes.”
I raised my free hand, floating it through the air. In the soft light, whorls of iridescence washed over it. In a certain light they might be golden strands. “But it does me no good.”
“When we were children—” Faun said.
“If you’re going to talk to me about spiderwebs laced over trees, Dorian’s already given me that speech.”
Her eyes glinted. “Think back on it, Eurydice.” It was the first time she had addressed me by my name. “You did something magical in that third trial, didn’t you? Something you weren’t meant to. What was it?”
I swallowed. The image of the cloud-darkened square flashedbefore me. The sight of the king’s throat opening to my blade under the acid rain. The sound of his skin hissing. The feel of that dagger under my grip. My free hand flexed. “Rain. I brought rain.”
“Acid rain,” Dorian said.
“She invoked Queen Carys’s curse?” Faun hissed.
My gaze darted between them. “Wasn’t that the only way?”
“No,” Faun said. “It wasn’t.”
The two of them stared at me a moment, their eyes narrowing as though they understood a truth I did not. Not just any truth—one aboutme.And in both their eyes I saw something else. Something I had never seen before. An emotion I couldn’t place.
I was about to speak when Faun said, almost in a whisper, “What Dorian said about the spiderwebs is true. What you see in the air is our fallen fae. Remember what it took. It’s what you’ll need.”
She started toward the door. When she set her hand on the latch, I stopped her with a hand on her razor-blade shoulder.
Faun glanced back at me.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
Faun’s eyes were once again hard, her lips pressed tight. A stream of thoughts seemed to pass over her face, twitching her jaw. Then, finally, “Because I’ve seen her kill. And I’d rather she not kill you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
At the endof the hour, Dorian and I left my quarters. We strode through the hallway toward the throne room, he beside me, face forward, close enough that our shoulders almost brushed. Almost, but not quite.
I wouldn’t allow it.
But he was my only ally, besides Faun. The only one who had shown up. And in this hour I would take what allies I could get.
The residue of the herb remained on my tongue, bitter and sharp. I felt no different, but I had only chewed it ten minutes ago. While I had, Dorian had inspected my bow and arrows and my short sword. He had touched the fletching on every arrow, lifting the shaft to eye level and balancing it on his palm.
He had urged me to lose every scrap of extra weight I wore—the cloak, the leathers. I needed to be light; this was a fight of endurance as much as skill. So I wore only a linen shirt and trousers, boots strapped tight, quill and short sword on a light belt, the bow slung over my chest.
My hands shook at my sides. I fisted them as we began to descend the stairs. I clenched them, unclenched, then clenched again.
I couldn’t deny an almost overwhelming truth:
I was walking toward my death.
A duel versus the Sylvanwild queen? She was hundreds of years old. I had seen her power in this very throne room, the wildness of her magic, the ruthlessness of her rule.
And I… I was just a changeling. A guard trained to run around the barracks’ yard until she retched or fell. A fae from another court, if Dorian was to be believed. And I didn’t even know which one.
Compared to these people, I was a girl who knew almost nothing.
Dorian and I came to the base of the stairs to a cleared-out throne room. The empty throne sat like a watching specter. “They’re all outside,” he said, as though he’d heard the question in my head. The double doors were open and a large swath of moonlight streamed in.
I started toward it, but Dorian stepped in my path. He didn’t dare touch me, but his eyes were wide, deep, haunted. I faced him, waiting. Wanting to slap him and curse him and bite him.
