Fear drew out my chair for me, and I sat. At least now my legs could not shake.
“I’ll be close,” he told me softly. We had already worked out a gesture if I needed him, even if just for advice or context; he would stay at the edge of my vision so we could communicate.
Then he moved to meet Maura, Ander, and Tesa. The four of them stood against the wall behind me, leaving me to negotiate with my brother.
Fear’s wings spread into their wide, glittering magnificence. He was ready to move if needed. But he gave me space.
After all, this was my meeting.
Tay and the Fae came in.
The Fae entered as if they were untouchable. Perhaps they were. Bismyth had been warned to bide their time. Open war was inevitable, but every day that went by allowed the clans to prepare and to gather allies.
If Tay had hoped for some private meeting, there was no disappointment on his face. He brightened the way he always had when he saw me. Tonight there was relief mixed with love. My face might have reflected the same, despite all my worries.
My brother, still alive and well. It had been my wish. He had feared the disease would take him now that the queen did not have her touch on him, but he looked better than ever. Handsome, strong, his brown hair thick and shining and longer than he’d ever worn it, down to his shoulders.
“Cara,” he said warmly.
“Are you well, Tay? You look well.” I wanted him to acknowledge that he wasn’t sick anymore. He had no reason to run back to the queen.
“I am well, thank you.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to hug me, but there was a table between us, and he settled for sitting at the other side. The Fae contingent spread out behind him. Six of them, anyway. I glanced hastily at Fear, and he gave me a nod. Of course he had already accounted for the missing Fae.
But I had Fear and Maura and Tesa and Ander at my back. I was wary of the Fae’s capabilities, but I was not afraid for myself. “I’m glad. What’s going on, Tay?”
“The queen sent me with an offer for you.”
Any offer she had for me was likely an invitation to die and send my dragon back to her dreaming. “And what is that?”
He placed his hand over his chest. “I am well again. Lidi’s magic can be restored. What was taken can always be put back. And we can all go home. All three of us. Back to Stonehaven, just as you have wished.”
The image of home—of the three of us walking with our mother back up the road toward the gate, the lights in the cottage windows and the garden blooming—rose with all the power home carries.
“I did wish that.” Once upon a time. Now things were more complicated. “And what is the cost of the queen’s generous offer?”
Tay ignored my sarcasm. But then, my brother had long practice ignoring my sarcasm. That did not necessarily mean my brother was enchanted.
Nor did it mean he was not. Sudden fear squirmed through my chest. What if this was the trap? What if the queen had set Tay and me face-to-face so that he could kill me?
No. I had cut the enchantment out of him. Whatever the queen had arranged before I married Fear, she could not compel him to harm me now. I had nothing to fear from him.
Not by her order or by her hand.
The words always comforted me. They had become something I all but whispered to myself. Yet alarm ghosted over my skin, raising goosebumps. I had missed something. I was sure of it.
When Tay began to speak, I had almost lost the thread of conversation.
“Of course there is a cost,” he admitted. “The queen fears the pain that this rebellion will cause her people. The shifters abandoning the mortals to fight their queen. The cost of all those mortal deaths to the monsters. The shifters themselves, dying needlessly, pitting them against her guards, the Nightwalkers…So much death, so much suffering.”
He sounded sincere. He sounded worried. “I know it is a sacrifice, Cara. But you can stop it all. You can give up your dragon and return to Stonehaven.”
“And how do I give up my dragon?” But I already knew. It was what Fear had offered to do for me.
If I didn’t care about the rebellion. Or if, like Lightbringer, I thought it was doomed, I could sever myself from Lightbringer and I could go home.
“Use the unmaking knife and cut away your dragon mark,” Tay said, and it was what I had expected, but there was still something bitterly shocking about hearing the words out loud. “I know it’s a lot to lose, but the pain will pass. We’ll go home. We’ll all be a family. And you’ll know that you stopped a war.”
