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“Gifts will not change the course of this night, Daróg,” I snapped, snatching the edge of his dressing gown and tugging him toward me.

“Open it.”

“I said I don’t want your fucking gifts!”

“I assure you, you want this one.”

The chill and slice of his words stopped me cold, and I looked between him and the box. Dread pooled thick and heavy in my stomach as I took it. It felt nearly empty. But the creak of the hinge was a weighted chime nonetheless.

Within, a simple tattered, soiled gold-and-black ribbon was coiled neatly on a pillow of blue velvet. It was almost identical to the one I had tied into Cricket’s hair.

“I told you that you will marry my sister. It is only right that a sister for a sister is the proper exchange. This ribbon was taken from her head two days past. She is safe and being cared for on your ancestral lands. One of my agents has liberated her and set her up in the village outside the walls of Breacadh an Lae. When you marry my sister, for you will still marry her, she will remain here at court. You will return to the home of your court with my blessing and your honor returned to you and your household. You will rebuild it and make it a fine house again. And there you may tend to your sister and any relations that return. You will return here once a year at the festival of the Well and breed my sister until such time as she believes she has had enough children by you. Only then will you be relieved of your duty to her as her husband. You will do this. And I will hear no more bemoaning of your lot. I have yielded to your moods enough on this matter.”

The threat need not be voiced. Do this, agree to this, or he would kill my sister and any of the many surviving relations that I might have whom he has ferreted away somewhere as insurance.

“And between now and the wedding?”

“I will vex you no longer. You need not come to see me. You need not attend to me at all. Between now and the wedding, you are free to do as you please outside of the duties of ruling the realm with my sister. You may fuck or romance whomever you wish . . . in private. Do not bring humiliation to my sister.”

I snorted. Me, bring humiliation? He was the one fucking her, not me.

“And Cricket? What of her fate?”

“Truly Emrys? I offer you your court, your honor, and your family back, and you ask me of a fucking daoire?” He rolled his eyes and leaned back into his pillows. “There is nothing to argue about. She is my daoire. She is my property. Your obsession with her is unsettling. She’s just a fucking human.”

I was starting to doubt that every day. No human could be as fierce as my Cricket.

“I will have her, too.”

He watched me for a long time.

I could see the wheels turning in his head as he thought through the myriad of responses, of reposts he could execute to parry my very clear demand.

“I will consider it. I do not wish to be at odds with you any longer, Emrys. Our hearts were once one beat. I would have peace between us if I can no longer have your love to warm me at night. I will settle for that. Why are you so obsessed with this daoire? You never showed interest in humans before her.”

There were many things that I would or could say to that, but I would never be foolish enough to let him, of all Fae, know the exact reason why I was obsessed with her. It was more than obsession. It was so much more than that.

“There is something . . . fascinating about her.”

“Then, sate yourself on her. You have my leave until the wedding. But never forget, Emrys. She is mine. I will never release her. I will never give her to you. And if you displease me or try to take her with you to Breacadh an Lae, I will execute Spideog before you can even reach her. I need not give the order. I need only stop giving the order for her not to be killed. Remember that in these coming months. Now, leave me.”

And there it was. Once again, I was wedged firmly between a blade and an ax. I could liberate my Cricket and murder my sister. Or I could save my sister and doom Cricket and myself, to a brand of misery that would never end.

I needed to retreat. I needed to take what was on offer like a good boy and reconvene with Sorrow and the Bandrui to find our next move. Whether they liked it or no, they would help me free her. Or I would topple all of our well-laid plans.

Chapter 43

The Bandrui and I had spent long hours talking around everything that had happened. Neither of us letting the other speak too much truth into the air. When Silver appeared at the doorway, the sun was setting, and she gave me a tight hug, whispering her goodbye to me. She knew more than she was willing to admit, and I was happy for it. She had pressed the beads into my hand with a meaningful look.

I knew what she had meant by it, and I had nodded my agreement. I would do as she silently asked, if just for these last few days.

I would stop avoiding him . . . at least for these last few days. I could feel the timer ticking down as I wandered the corridors, following each new thread I found.

It was no true surprise when two arms banded around my waist and drew me into an empty room. I had been expecting it, though not knowing exactly when he would strike. It was only a matter of time before he found me now that Goose, who was shut out of the room with a slamming of the door, was no longer hiding me.

Desperation warred with joy and anger in the storm above his evergreen eyes. “You’ve been hiding from me.”

It was not a question. It was not a demand for explanation. It was a simple flat statement of fact.