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“Ooh! Yes! Like blood. No one can take your blood from you. It will always be yours.” She was nearly wriggling with her excitement over the conspiracy we crafted together. “Fire. We’ll need fire. Fae oaths are sealed on the air element, but unless you can vaporize our blood, that won’t work.”

I snorted a laugh and produced a small box of matches from the pocket I had taken to wearing on my belt. They had been artfully lifted from the store His Majesty kept in his chambers for his candles. In the warrens, you had two choices for acquiring fire, light it off the main hearth and hope that you could make it back to your alcove in time not to burn your hand and with the flame still alive or hope you were agile enough to light your candle directly off the open firepit. Having a tiny box of matches was like having gold.

Seeing the box of matches, she began clapping with child-like glee. “You are so prepared! Yes, okay, so we will cut our fingers when we say our part and then we will repeat the other person’s part and light the blood on fire. Oh!” She snatched my glass of water and dumped its contents in the grass, then dried it on her skirt and set it before us. “So, I will say what I will give you, you will say what you will give me and then we will say the whole thing together. Are you ready?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, some small voice whispered faintly about how this was a terrible idea, how I shouldn’t be making deals with anyone let alone a Fae woman I had just met. But I was desperate. I could only survive so many days watching the Ard Rí rape daora, courtiers, and anyone else who happened to have the misfortune of existing in his orbit. The Raven had presumably abandoned me, and even when he had been around, he could not protect me from most things, it seemed. All he could do was give me long looks with those devastatingly magnetic eyes and turn my insides to water, wishing he would touch me.

“Ready,” I said, locking that tiny voice of doubt away and risking it. Either I would get a way out, or she would have taken something from me that I didn’t even want.

“I, Oaken Rose, pledge that I will assist you and your trusted humans in escaping the palace.” She shoved the blade of her cheese knife into the tip of her willowy finger and let several drops of her blood fall into the mouth of the goblet before passing me the blade.

“I, Cricket, pledge to give you in payment that which I have but do not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which is mine that others value, but I do not. I will give this payment when you assist me and my trusted humans in escaping the palace.” I plunged the tip of the knife into the tip of my finger and let the blood drip into the throat of the cup.

The Oaken Rose took the matches and struck one as she looked to me to repeat it with her. “The Oaken Rose pledges to assist Cricket and her trusted humans in escaping the palace. Cricket pledges to pay this debt with that which she has but does not want. That which is heavier than the sun but cannot be measured. That which is hers right now and she does not value. She will pay this when The Oaken Rose assists her and her trusted humans in escaping the palace.”

I repeated what she said word for word, and she lit the blood on fire. I expected the match to sizzle out from the liquid, but instead, it fell, caught the edge of the mingled pool on fire, and a great plume of neon-blue-and-white flame shot from the cup. Small flecks of blood, her red and my milky gold, danced in the air between us before popping in miniature fireworks until there was nothing in the goblet and nothing left between us. I felt every single pop against my skin like zaps of electricity as the air around us snapped and sizzled with the magic that now bound us.

“That was . . .” I tried to finish the sentence, but a sensation gripped me. It was like a snake slithering under my skin, running up my arm from the tip of my finger into my chest. It tugged at something there. Something stuck and then dissipated before I could even remark on it.

“Magic!” she said, filling the gap in my statement. “I’ve always loved the dazzling show of oath binding. It’s rare to see between Fae, you know. But I’ve never seen what happens when you bind one with blood. It was amazing.”

Wonder and joy played across her angelic face while I struggled with the strange feeling that made my mind squirm with discomfort. Something wasn’t right. Is that what magic truly felt like?

I had only experienced magic a few times, and it had mostly been against or without my consent. Was it different when someone walked into magic with their eyes wide open and with their consent? If this was what the aftermath of reaching out and using magic felt like, I was very glad that I was not a creature made of this.

I gave Oaken Rose a placating smile, one that acknowledged her excitement but couldn’t even fake that I wasn’t enjoying myself.

“Are you okay, Cricket? Was that too hard on the human body?” Her concern suddenly felt too saccharine. Too put-on. Too forced.

“No, no, it’s fine. I just . . . I don’t think I like magic too much. And I think maybe it might be a good idea if I went back inside. I don’t know when the others will be back from the hunt. And I was supposed to be in the warrens.” Regret was pounding heavy strokes through my blood, and I suddenly wanted to be anywhere but near this Fae. Or any Fae for that matter.

“Would you like me to walk you to the warrens entrance? So that no one thinks you were . . . well, trying to do what you were trying to do?”

“No . . . no it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

I pushed from the ground and stumbled a small step before catching my balance. Exhaustion and worry plagued my steps as I carried myself back to the warrens and all the way to my cot where I lay down and stared into the darkness.

Goose,—the former kin’tha now revealed to be a failinis—I had renamed after another cat that was more than it seemed, was there. Despite our discussion about him staying close to me when I wasn’t in the warrens, he was still tractable and temperamental as always. If I could get him out of bed or away from the hearth, he would follow me. This morning was too early for him, and he had opened one yellow eye to me and made a sound I had come to realize was his sound for go away. Why it sounded like a freight train hitting the brakes was anyone’s guess.

“Wish you had been there with me today, Goose,” I whispered as he leapt up and made himself comfortable on my chest. He liked to rest his chin on mine in hopes I would scritch him. He always got what he wanted, and I was tucking my nail under his chin and scratching before I had even thought about it. “I met someone . . . I—”

I frowned.

I was trying to tell Goose about the deal I made with Oaken Rose, but nothing came out. I couldn’t even get my lips to curl around the word shapes and try to push air through. Fear lanced through me as I tried to rise to hide. Goose dug his claws in and glared at me. The only time I had felt something similar was with the tongue lock the King had put on me, but why would the King be in the warrens? And this was different. The King’s tongue lock prevented sound from leaving, this . . . I could not even mouth the words to what I wanted to say.

I lay there silently, listening for any footsteps in the dark to reveal someone approaching, but there was no one. It was just Goose and I in the warrens.

“Fucking Fae,” I hissed. It had to be connected to the oath I had taken with Oaken Rose. Some part of the magic she didn’t tell me about. Fucking bitch.

She had seemed so sincere, though. She had genuinely seemed like she wanted to help me. Like she gave a fucking shit about the horrible things that I had been forced to endure. I didn’t like that I was doubting myself or the choices I had made, but there was nothing to be done about it. I was locked in. And the oath had been simple. Something I didn’t give a shit about in exchange for freedom, something I did care about. I could tolerate it for a little longer.

Chapter 22

Days turned into weeks, and nothing changed. I would occasionally receive a small note from Oaken Rose with some little piece of information.

Still working on it . . . OR

Whatever happens, know it’s for the best . . . OR