“I want you to go home.” She sat back with the ease of someone who has arrived at the part of the conversation she has been building toward. “Back to Stonehaven. Take your family and leave my son to his little wicked plots and plans.”
For a long time, that had been all that I wanted. Tay well, and both of us going home to Stonehaven.
She watched my face. “If you remain—if you continue to disrupt what I have spent decades building—you will not be the only one to eventually leave behind mortal fragility. Your brother is as eager as any at my gates to join my Fae court.”
My legs softened beneath me. I stared at her, the words not quite making sense.
“I cannot harm your brother,” she said before I could speak. “I know that. But I cangifthim. And you cannot stop me from giving gifts.” She tilted her head. “How can you deny him what he would choose for himself?”
Her eyes were ancient and golden and entirely without mercy.
“You chose him thinking you knew who he was and who you were to him.” Something moved in her expression, not sympathy, but its cold cousin. “And now you find the choosing was never yours. That must be a particular kind of pain.”
I did not answer. The world had gone dark around the edges, and all I saw was her beautiful face, and all I felt was the desire to plunge a dagger into her side. If only that would matter.
“Go home, Cara. Or stay, and lose your family.” She rose to her feet. “Unless I see clear evidence you are packing your bagsfor Stonehaven, you will soon find yourself alone in the world. Except for Fear.”
We both knew what she meant: packing my bags, severing the bond, murdering my husband. But she could not ask me to do such a thing.
She rose to her feet and opened a small chest on her desk.
Inside glittered a knife on a bed of silk. My heart stopped. The unmaking knife?
But that made no sense, and then I saw that it was different: a new, bejeweled dagger.
Intended to be plunged into my husband’s side.
“Tonight you will fight the Last Hunt in pairs and destroy the greatest monsters,” she said. “Tonight, to celebrate, I will raise three mortals, not just one.”
She moved toward the door, inhumanly graceful as always, as she left it behind. She had not given me the knife. The choice whether to steal it was mine. That must mean she was not violating the magic.
Then she stopped and looked back. “He hurt you, didn’t he? Poor little mortal girl. You were never going to outwit him.”
She left me standing alone, and I did not answer.
I’d woken choking on despair all those nights, feeling as if I were burning alive. I’d found solace in Fear’s arms, slept well with my head against his chest, and felt—though I had not wished to admit it to myself—as if he were my savior.
The thought tasted like bile on my tongue. Perhaps I had simply slept in his arms because the coin was in my room and I was in his bed. If he had decided that was protection, in its own way, what else might he do to me?
I needed to talk to Fear, or…no. Fear would lie to me if it helped his cause. I needed someone else. Ander maybe, or Anayla. Either of them would know about the bond between dragons.
When the door opened, I expected the Nightwalkers.
“Cara!” Lidi cried.
My little sister flew into my arms.
Twenty-Six
Cara
Iclung to Lidi, my mind spinning, as Tay and my mother came in behind. Tay was grinning. My mother’s face was etched with terror.
Too late, the queen’s words made sense.
I will raise three mortals tonight.
“Where did you come from?” I asked, the words choked.
