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Ty looked at her with his not-very-scary stern face. “Just stay inside the park.”

Livvy rolled her eyes. “Talk about killing the vibe,” she said, and vanished between one blink and the next.

Ty looked at Kit. “Gardenias?”

“I was just joking,” Kit said. “Cheering her up.”

Ty put his cookie down. There were, adorably, some crumbs dusted on his cheek. “She doesn’t need cheering up,” he said, and reached for his headphones. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

He wrapped his arms around himself, sat back, and closed his eyes. Kit let his head rest against the window, the glass cool against his cheek. He could hear music coming from Ty’s headphones. He wished he knew the composer, but he was completely ignorant about classical music, and he’d never asked if Ty had a favorite one.

He wondered if Ty was really asleep. He had that sleep routine where he worked through his thoughts, but he clearly didn’t use it for naps. Could he sleep, with those bulky headphones on? Kit knew that people with autism could be extra sensitive to uncomfortable sensations, but maybe having the music drown out the train noise was worth it.

Ty certainly seemed asleep. He was curled into the corner of the seat, his head resting on one gray-sweatered arm, his dark hair a spill of ink against the lighter fabric. Kit remembered the first time he’d ever seen Ty. Ink-black hair. Eyes the color of the edge of a knife.

He’d felt a shock of recognition. As if he’d known Ty for a long time, known him in a past life or a dream. He recalled what he’d thought then: How beautiful.

Now he looked like someone Kit had always known, and yet someone he had never met before. Every time Kit looked at him he felt that same shock, as if he were seeing him for the first time. And every time Kit looked at Ty he remembered the cellar of his father’s house, the darkness, and the boy in the shadows with his knife against Kit’s throat.

Longing was not some soft thing, Kit thought, as the rhythm of the train lulled him into a half trance. Not like a movie, not gauzy curtains and slow, soft music. It was sharp, honed and deadly as the edge of a knife.

—

In the dream, Dru was in the throne room of the Seelie Court. Dangling rose-shaped glass lamps illuminated the room. On a dais above Dru rose the Throne of Seelie, and in it sat the Seelie Queen. She was smiling a skull’s smile, all teeth and hollow eye sockets. At her feet lay Ash, utterly still save for the faint movement of his breathing.

“I will make him forget,” the Queen said, though she was not looking at Dru—she seemed to be staring past her as if there were invisible guardians in the room, observers Dru could not see. “He must think it is all his own true desire, sprung from his own will and heart, not mine…”

The vision came apart in pieces and Dru woke up gasping. For a moment she thought she was having a panic attack—they usually came at night, when she was on the edge of sleep. Awful memories, their images sharp and clear, would unspool in her mind, like images from a horror movie that couldn’t be turned off, and she would wake up sure she was dying, that her heart would give out from hammering so hard.

But this was different. She’d been dead asleep, dreaming, and now she was being shaken and dragged to her feet. She heard someone bark an order and knew the voice immediately.

Janus.

The realization brought her awake fast, like having a cup of cold water dashed in her face. She blinked her eyes wide open and saw him standing a few feet away, smirking, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Dru had been yanked from her bed by two faerie guards, who flanked her. Both were dressed in black, with gold hawk pins at their throats. These must be Janus’s woodsmen.

The air was chilly, prickling the skin on her bare arms. All she was wearing was a plain white nightgown that reached her knees. At least she hadn’t decided to sleep in just her underwear. Small mercies.

The guards hustled her down the steps and over to Janus. Gold eyes looked down at her, circled by the darker gold of the hawk mask. Jace’s eyes, but cold and unfriendly in a way she’d never seen them.

“The Queen demands your presence in her rooms,” he said. “She wishes to speak with you.”

“And it couldn’t wait until morning?” Dru inquired lightly, but inside her heart was pounding. The redcaps told her I was out of my room at night. Or maybe someone saw me using the scrying bowl. Or, even worse, maybe the Queen can sense when it’s used. Maybe she even knows what I saw.

“The Queen does not wait.” Janus gestured for the two black-clad guards to follow him. They flanked Dru again, and between them, she marched out into the corridor.

She kept her eyes on the ground, not because she was frightened, but because she wanted to memorize the journey. She hadn’t done it with the training room and she’d regretted it. Now she tried to commit to memory every root pushing its way through the earth, every flash of torchlight, every vine curling into a peculiar pattern.

Eventually, they came to a stop, and Dru raised her head. They were standing before an enormous door made of gold and etched with a pattern of swans and stars. Dru wondered if the stars were a Morgenstern reference. After all, Sebastian had been the Queen’s lover.

After passing through the door, they entered a long corridor, where flames from torches glimmered in shades of rose and silver. They quickly reached an arched door carved from wood and set with chips of bone, like pale mosaic tiles. A redcap guard, bloodstained cap pulled halfway down his face, exchanged a look with Janus before turning to rap on the door.

“My lady,” he called, “the Huntsman has come, with the prisoner.”

The Queen answered, her voice a chime like a bell. “Let them in. But not the guards—they must remain outside.”

Inside, Dru found herself in an anteroom; on the far wall was a set of narrow doors carved with a design of stags. Dru assumed that through the doors was the Queen’s actual room, where she slept. Not that she could imagine the Queen doing anything ordinary like sleeping or washing her face or having a pimple. The Queen probably never had pimples, or if one dared to show up, she had it executed.

The anteroom itself shimmered with glamour. The air was heavy with perfume—sweet jasmine covering something acrid, like scorched wood. Everywhere were deep velvet sofas and chaise longues, in jeweled tones of ivy and crimson. Like blood on grass, Dru thought. Pale draperies billowed down from the high ceiling and will-o’-the-wisps darted between them, casting a shifting light that rippled across the walls and floor like the reflection of water.