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He seemed genuinely shocked.

“For whatever you want. Anything at all.”

He narrowed his eyes further on me and crossed his tremendous arms over the broad expanse of his chest.

We faced off in a battle of willpower crackling across the discarded dinnerware. He wanted me to back down from this, and I wanted him to cave. I needed him to cave. It was an opportunity to reclaim my identity but not the identity that Cleena had given me, my true identity. No one would know but me. No one would be able to tell who I had modeled myself from but me. Not even the man that would sculpt me into it.

“I will not make you swear an oath to me on your true name or make a deal with me for this, Sóna.” I opened my mouth to protest, and he held up a single gloved finger. “I do not know why you want this, but it means something to you. I will know why before I take this path. So, when you are ready to tell me that, I will remake your body.”

That fucking bastard.

Chapter 38

Ispent the night in the haven of The Raven’s room. He, however, did not share the luxurious bed with me, excusing himself shortly after tucking me into the massive bed and resisting the urge to crawl into it with me.

I slept peacefully. At least I did until I rolled over in the massive bed. My body yearned for another source of warmth, and finding none, it rebelled and shot me straight up out of sleep.

Night still clung heavy in the air, the window still open where we had dined. I stood at that window and watched the blackness roll over the land until the softest threads of dawn’s fingers teased the black into darkest purple, hardening my heart for the days to come.

I was Fae.

It was time I started embracing that to get what the human in me needed.

I dressed myself in the gown that he had left, snatching the beads I had found while he was out and crept out into the corridors. It took me less time than I had expected to find the entrance to the warrens. Had I truly never noticed the etching of the roots in the floorboards? Had I never noticed the way they branched and cast themselves in different directions, each having the slightest sheen of a gloss of some sort that correlated to the nine courts that I had found in the book?

It was so simple. Find the branch of the root system without color and follow it through the network of hallways, stairwells, mezzanines, and doorways to the stone stairwell leading into the depths of the palace where they housed their human daora. There were others, other roots that had no gloss or sheen, but I trusted the first one that I noticed. And as luck would have it, I arrived at the stone grotto that I had become so familiar with.

Most of the humans were still asleep. The great hearth that heated the warrens when it got coldest was still banked with coals, and a tiny body was hunched over it. The shock of her white hair, a beacon in the dark, curled my lips up into an indulgent smile.

Violet never slept. I watched her from the shadows as she stared into the rippling coals, wondering where her ancient mind went to in these quiet times. Was she thinking of her life as a human? Was she thinking of all the lives she had lived since she came here? Was she dreaming of freedom?

“Violet,” I whispered into the dark.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, preserve us.” She hissed and whipped around. Her darkened purple gaze cast me up and down before settling into the familiar scowl I had grown to love. “Green Man and I were sure that you’d died down in the dark. Been weighing on the pair of us that we didn’t guide you proper. But look at you, come to show us you’re no ghost in a brand-new dress.”

I clucked my tongue to dismiss her concern and took a seat on a stool next to her. “But I am a ghost, Violet.”

Her fist pulled back and cracked me square in the face, pain radiating from my nose as she shook her porcelain hand. “Always wanted to punch a ghost in the face. And now I have.”

“Violet!” I whisper-yelled at her, pressing my hand to my stinging nose. Violet was not as strong as a woman grown, but she could still pack a punch. “That hurt!”

“Wouldn’t hurt over much if you were, in fact, a ghost and not being dramatic.” She grinned at me. The devilish smirk comforted me more than the hot bath or comfortable bed did.

“Where’s Emerald and Green Man?”

Her small shoulders rolled in a simple shrug. “Green Man’s probably getting buggered or asleep. Emerald is asleep in her alcove. Like most virtuous souls would be at this hour.”

“You’re not asleep.”

“It’s poor manners to point out someone’s lack of virtue, Cricket.” Violet clucked her disapproval.

“Go get them and meet me in the latrines.”

“Oh yes, mistress. I’ll get right on that. A simple please could go a long way, you know, ghostie.”

I cast her an exasperated sigh but nodded. She was right. I was being rude and imperious, and I didn’t like that I felt that was an itch of my newly accepted Fae nature.

“Violet, can you please go collect them? I have some things to tell the three of you, and I think I can finally talk about it.”