“Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll step back and eat this food if you let me read that book I found in the library.”
Tension pounded the air. Lord Worm regarded Bree with a cruel glint in his eye, his stained shirt a match to the twisted face. But then he nodded. A breath of relief whooshed from Bree’s throat.
“I’ll bring you the book if you eat that food and don’t attempt to escape.” He held up a finger. “And if you don’t try to fight back in the morning.”
Bree frowned. That was an impossible ask. Of course she would try to fight back when the enemy army took her. She and Rafe would never donothingagainst a threat like that. They were both warriors.
Warriors.
The word bloomed inside of her like a living thing. She realized how easily she’d thought it, as if it truly was an embedded part of her. The girl who’d almost died on the Manhattan streets, who had lost her friend to the fae. Look at her now. Trained and battle-ready, determined, fierce, and strong.
Bree was a force to be reckoned with now. She always had been. It had just taken her a very long time to see it.
She wanted to fight. But she needed that book.
“Fine. It’s a deal,” she said through clenched teeth.
Lord Worm smiled, left the food trays with them, and vanished down the hall. He returned a moment later with the book and then slid it between the iron bars. “Enjoy your dinner and your reading. See you in the morning.”
Rafe hadn’t said a word, and he still didn’t, not until Lord Worm was gone. “I hope that was a lie.”
“Of course it was a lie.” Bree eagerly opened the book. “Do you really think I won’t fight the bastard as soon as we’re out of this cage?”
“Good girl,” Rafe murmured as he stared down at the book. “What have we got?”
Bree fell silent as she skimmed the pages. She pulled the information into her brain, sucking it all up. There that word was again. Anwynn. Bree turned the page.
Anwynn, the realm of the fae, was cleaved in two some centuries ago,the author wrote.It took a very long time for me to find this information, hidden as it is. The fae realm was inexplicably linked to the human realm, like two sheets of parchment, one on top of the other, though people from either realm could not reach the other.
Until the demons came. Those in the death realm discovered the existence of the others. They were vultures who feasted on the souls of small creatures. They wanted something bigger, more potent. They wanted humans.
They sought a way to reach the humans, but missed, breaking a hole through the fabric of the fae realms and changing them. It broke Anwynn apart into two—Otherworld and Underworld, and the demon power leached out of its own realm and into Underworld.
It made the fae stuck in Underworld dependent on humans, too.
I’ve long sought a way to undo this. Our realms need to be reunited once more to fully free us from the curse of the Tithe. I’m afraid that I have come up empty. I fear it is impossible.
Bree lifted her eyes from the page to meet Rafe’s stare. A muscle in his jaw ticked, reflecting the tension in her own body. She had wondered if it was something like this. She had hoped for it. The two fae realms had once been one.
It explained everything. What was more, it gave her a way to end the Tithe.
“I never knew anything about this,” Rafe murmured. “I never even guessed it. The bastard has been keeping this information hidden for centuries.”
“He probably didn’t care,” she whispered, pacing the small cell. “Why would anyone need to know? It’s not like they could do anything about it.”
“No.” Rafe shook his head. “There must be a way. There always is. It’s the rules of both our worlds. Balance is required. If there is a way to do something, there is a way to undo it.”
“Balance.” Realization flooded her veins. Another piece of evidence to support the words in front of her. When the realms had broken apart, it had cleaved the world in two. They had to stay balanced. Whenever it wasn’t…the storms, the earthquakes. It was all connected. When the balance was interrupted, the world shook. It would probably even destroy itself if left that way for too long.
“The fae and human realms were never to be open to each other,” Rafe said, following her lead. “We were separate until the demons forced a hole from their world into here and then all the way into the human realm.”
Bree nodded, her lips pressed together. “We have to put the realms back together again and destroy that hole.”
A pained look crossed his face. She knew why. Like Taveon, he loved this world. It was his home, the only one he’d ever known. If the realms collided, everything he knew would change forever. The ever-present darkness would vanish, bringing the sun back to life. The light and dark fae would have to share their lands, finding a way to coexist in harmony.
Everything would change, and it would be hard, and he would have to give up the realm he loved.
