Page 55 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

He looked as though he wanted to answer but did not. Frustration and what might have been pride mingled equally in his expression.

She tilted her head, touching the key nestled between her breasts. “Do you know what this key unlocks?” she asked.

“No.”

“But would you cheat and tell me if you did?”

“Definitely,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“Would it be cheating?” she wondered aloud. “Is that even possible?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I reckon yes. There are Fae geasa everywhere.”

“Geasa?” The word sounded familiar. “Magical bindings?”

“Of a sort. Mostly on what can and cannot be said.”

The door swung open, smacking the outside of the house with a resounding clatter.

“I believe we have lingered too long and are being summoned,” Lachlan said drily.

“Apologies, Hedgewort!” Pippa called out as she hurried into the garden.

The thorn trees wore their gowns of ice, pale and gleaming. The tall grass and the foxgloves also sparkled with hoarfrost. An owl swooped low on ghostly, silent wings. Red ribbons looped from trunk to trunk. Lachlan offered his arm, and suddenly they might have been back in Hallow, at any assembly held by the University. A lecture, perhaps, or a banquet for a visiting scholar of repute. “Miss Cavendish.”

She slipped her arm through his, fingers resting lightly on his sleeve. “Professor Thorn.”

He made a soft sound very near a growl. It certainly felt like one, trembling through her core.

He led her between the icy trees to a grove of branches thick with blossoms. Petals drifted like rain, like falling stars. They clung to her hair and her shoes. Her moth flew between them, preening. There was another fountain in the center of the grove, but no table, no dinner, as Pippa had expected. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Lachlan led her to a stone wall, soft with moss. And tiny eyes, watching her. A snake with two heads slipped through the green. Bluebells shivered, singing a song in a language Pippa had never heard before.

Something screamed in the distance.

Pippa jumped, startled. Lachlan’s hold tightened. “Don’t forget where you are,” he said softly, grimly. “Fae beauty has a price.”

The uneven stone steps before them led into darkness.

Pippa paused.

“Do you trust me?” Lachlan asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “I trust Hedgewort.”

He smiled briefly, all dark and dangerous Fae beauty. “Clever girl.”

Clever, but not truthful. She did trust him. She just did not know if she should.

And now here they were.

At the mouth of hell.

“You read too many novels,” Lachlan said when she muttered about hell and devils and Librarians who ought to know better.

“There is no such thing as reading too much,” Pippa returned, indignation putting the starch back into her spine. “How dare you?”

“Then will you dare the mouth of hell with me? Or, as we call it, the grotto.”