Ari nodded because he seemed to expect it and raised her glass to her mouth, letting the liquid splash against her lips without passing her teeth.
“The king was insatiable. More rooms. More nights. More straw into gold. Always threatening to kill Samara in the morning if it wasn’t done. I couldn’t let my friend pay the price of her father’s foolishness, so I kept helping. Taking a loaf of bread, a patch of cloth, whatever she could spare as payment.”
“Why didn’t she just wish for the king to stop asking for gold?” Ari set her glass on the floor and looked for a safe place to set the pipe.
“That’s not how wishes work.” Teague sounded impatient. “I can’t modify someone else’s choices. I can only get them out of the way.”
“You can only kill them, you mean.” Ari shuddered.
“I can take a life, or I can spare a life, but a wish like that costs a tremendous price, as you are now aware.”
“It costs a soul.” Her voice caught on the words, and she swallowed hard.
He lifted his glass in salute. “As is proper. If you take a life, you should have to give yours up as well. I couldn’t do that to my friend. But my reputation was failing. Word had gone out that I was so busy helping a miller’s daughter, I was neglecting my duties at the Summer Court. It was obvious that Samara wasn’t paying my usual prices. My competitors were moving in on my territory. I had to do something. And so when the king announced that if Samara would turn one last enormous room full of straw into gold, he would marry her, I agreed to help but only in exchange for something worth the cost of the wish.”
He stared at the pipe in Ari’s hands. “She offered her firstborn child. Neither of us thought it would come to that. She hated the king. If he married her, she planned to drink a tea each month that would keep her from becoming pregnant.”
Ari’s heart sank. “He married her, didn’t he? And despite her precautions, she became pregnant.”
Teague’s smile twisted something inside Ari that felt like grief. “She did. And when the baby was born, our blood-signed contract brought me to her bedside. She was heartbroken at the idea of giving up her daughter. I didn’t want to make her go through with it, but we were both bound by the contract.”
Ari’s skin tingled, and the hair on the back of her neck rose. “She found a way to break the contract.”
The polished marble of Teague’s voice cracked, and rage bubbled out. “I told her how. I trusted that she would use it to spare her daughter and set us both free of the contract. Instead, she used the power I’d given her to banish me from Llorenyae forever.”
Ari pressed her spine into the back of the couch as Teague stalked toward her, but there was nowhere for her to go. Crouching in front of her, he blinked, and the rage that had filled his face was gone, banked behind the ice he wore like a second skin.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Ari said, her voice shaking as badly as the hand that still held the pipe he’d carved to remind him of the friend who’d betrayed him.
“I’m not,” he said softly, his eyes on hers. “It reminded me not to get involved in the affairs of humans unless they could pay my prices. And in case I ever feel myself softening because someone comes along who looks like she keeps her promises”—he smiled at Ari, cruel and cold, and her throat closed until it felt impossible to breathe—“I simply pull out the pipe I had carved from Samara’s bones after I had her taken from Llorenyae, brought to my new home in Súndraille, and killed in front of me, and I remember that humans are liars who can never be fully trusted.”
The pipe fell from her fingers, and he caught it before it hit the floor. They watched each other in fraught silence for a long moment, and then he said, “It’s late. You should get some sleep.” He offered his hand to help her from the couch.
She flinched as she took it, cringing at the way his pale, smooth skin reminded her of the ivory stem of his pipe.
And then she left him holding his creepy pipe and staring after her as she climbed the stairs on shaking legs and wished desperately that she could lock her bedroom door.
THIRTY-NINE
TEAGUE TOOK A long puff on his pipe and stared out the library window at the night sky. Things were coming along nicely. Sebastian had made excellent progress on the tasks set before him, and now Teague had a newly organized workforce with the most obedient, most ruthless employees at the top, and five warehouses full of goods marked for shipment to various kingdoms. He’d offered to toast Sebastian’s accomplishments, but the boy, upon seeing that the princess was already in her rooms for the night, had opted to go to bed.
Not that it mattered. One bout of drinking with a human was enough. He’d had a bit too much wine, shared a bit more with the princess than he’d wanted to, but the fear on her face when she’d left him made it all worthwhile.
Yet another object lesson to keep her obediently under his thumb until his plan was finished.
Teague took another puff on his pipe and considered the excellent progress he’d made at the trade summit. He’d moved freely among the most powerful echelons of society, granting wishes and signing contracts that all promised to benefit him greatly. He’d whispered suggestions in the right ears and planted the seeds for a harvest of wishes he could collect in the very near future.
And he’d done it all with the silent blessing of young Thaddeus, who was frankly looking the worse for wear these days. Not that it mattered. Teague had Súndraille well in hand. His reputation for vicious public retribution and unrivaled power that even the king wouldn’t challenge had spread far and wide. And now he had influential nobility in three other kingdoms who owed him debts that required them to allow him to do in their cities what he was already doing in Kosim Thalas.
Tomorrow, he’d approach a few from Loch Talam and Balavata—those he’d identified today as weak enough and greedy enough to make a wish for their heart’s deepest desire without looking too hard at the consequences. And on the final day of the summit, he’d—
A brisk knock at the villa’s door interrupted his thoughts.
He tamped out his pipe and moved quickly toward the door.
Very few people knew where he lived. Even fewer would dare disturb him without his permission. Either this was a matter of dire importance, or someone was about to die.
He threw open the villa’s front door and stared at the man who stood on his porch, his large hand firmly wrapped around the arm of a petite girl with black curly hair.
Raising a brow, he met the man’s hard, calculating brown eyes—so like his son Sebastian’s except that they never softened. Never hinted at anything beyond the wide streak of viciousness that was the hallmark of Jacob Vaughn’s life.
“Jacob, I’ve been expecting your arrival for some time now.” He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
“I wanted to come as soon as you sent word that Daan had been killed. But there was a situation with one of our brokers that had to be dealt with personally before I left Balavata. Some things you just can’t trust to an underling.” His voice was just as hard and calculating as his eyes.
“Indeed. And it seems you’ve brought me a present.” Teague turned from Jacob to smile slowly at the terrified expression on the girl’s face. “Cleo, isn’t it?”
“Stopped at home on my way here, and the runners saw me. They knew I was heading here, so they gave me the girl to deliver to you. Said you’d asked everyone to keep an eye on her activities. Apparently, she was seen in the market on a day she doesn’t usually go, and she only went to the bookshop. One of our men applied some pressure to Rahel and learned that the princess had ordered a copy of the Book of the Fae weeks ago. This girl was picking it up for her today.”
“And did you deliver it to her?” Teague asked Cleo, his voice deadly calm even while anger boiled within.
“No,” she said with conviction, but her voice shook.
Teague wrapped his hand around her throat, feeling the rapid-bird flutter of her pulse agains
t his skin. All births were recorded in the Leabhar na Fae. Its spelled pages automatically added births, deaths, marriages, and binding magical contracts to its pages as they happened. Only the Summer Queen and the Winter King were supposed to have copies—a safeguard to keep their subjects both loyal and safe—but there’d been talk of a third book. One that had been illegally made to magically update the births and deaths of the fae just like the original pair and had then been smuggled off Llorenyae.
The chances of the princess finding a way to use the book against him were slim, but that did nothing to stem his fury.
Leaning close, he bit off his words and spat them at Cleo. “Did you deliver it to her?”
She swallowed hard and shook her head, but it didn’t matter. She’d seen the book. She knew it was a tool to be used against him. She had to be disposed of.
And so did the princess.
His hands shook with rage as he threw Cleo to the ground. “Make her suffer,” he said to Jacob as he turned on his heel to go fetch the traitorous princess from her bed.
He’d warned her to do as she was told.
He’d break the princess, finish using her brother, take the throne, and then kill them both with such spectacular cruelty their demise would be the legend he built his kingship upon.
FORTY
ARI WOKE WITH a start, her ears straining to capture the whisper of sound that had torn her from her slumber. She was lying on her side facing her window. Clear, cold starlight drifted in past the sheer drapes and bathed the floor in silver.
She shivered and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. She was still jumpy from her conversation with Teague earlier. From the knowledge that he’d carved his pipe from the bone of the friend who’d betrayed him.
The one who’d learned how to get out of her contract.
The whisper came again, and Ari froze, her heart thundering painfully in her chest.
That wasn’t a whisper.
That was her wall breathing.
She rolled to face the doorway, certain she would find a twig reaching for her. Instead, Teague stood beside her bed, his golden eyes glaring, his lips peeled back in a terrible parody of a smile.
“What are you—”
He snatched her hair and yanked her out of bed.
“You’re hurting me!”
He leaned close. “I’m trying to.”
Her throat closed at the wild light of rage in his eyes. What had happened to put him in such a dangerous mood? Was he still drunk on fae wine? Had Thad decided he could no longer stand back and allow Teague to behave as he pleased without the interference of the city guard?
Her stomach pitched—a slow, sickening roll. Stars, he’d found the book or the bloodflower poison, and he was going to take her soul.
“What’s going on?” Her voice was tight with pain as he pulled mercilessly on her hair to guide her out of her bedroom. She stumbled at the top of the stairs, and he let go of her hair to grab her arm instead.
“I’m keeping my promises, Princess,” he said, pushing her to take the stairs faster. “That’s what I do.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, though she was terrified she did.
Why hadn’t he just said the final word to rip her soul out of her body? Maybe because he didn’t want the hassle of cleaning up her dead body afterward. Maybe because he wanted her to see the evidence of her crimes against him—the fact that she hadn’t stopped looking for a way to kill him even though he’d warned her of the consequences.
Or, stars, maybe he wanted to do it in front of Thad and Cleo. In front of Sebastian. Her entire body shook as they reached the hall and began moving toward the front door.
He wanted to kill her in front of those who would hurt the most over her death. An object lesson to keep them in line. Isn’t that what he’d promised?
“Go outside,” he snapped when she hesitated in the entryway.
She risked a quick glance at his face and then reached for the doorknob as the sharp crack of a whip stung the air. A girl’s voice cried out, and Ari’s breath left her body in a little sob.
She knew that voice.
Her palms, slick with fear sweat, slid off the knob when she tried to turn it. She scrubbed trembling fingers against her nightdress, grabbed the knob, and wrenched the door open.
A man who looked like an older version of Sebastian stood on the steps, a whip in his hand. Cleo lay shuddering on the porch, her dress torn to ribbons, blood streaming from the lashes on her back. Her eyes were closed.
“Cleo!” Ari lunged forward and dropped to her knees beside her friend. “You’re all right. You’re all right.” She wiped hair off Cleo’s face and cursed as her fingers came away bloody from a gash that had sliced through Cleo’s skin from her forehead to her jaw.
Teague laughed. “She’s hardly all right, Princess.” He crouched to look Ari in the face. “Didn’t I promise you that if I caught you interfering with me again, she’d pay the price?”
Bright, hot panic blossomed in her chest and spilled into her veins. “I didn’t interfere. You went to the trade summit. You signed contracts. You have—”
“I have a girl who fetched a copy of Leabhar na Fae for her good friend the princess.” Rage cracked the polished marble of his voice. “And a princess who thought she could hide her treachery from me. Did you really believe you could get your brother and yourself out of what you owe me? I am as close to invincible as any fae who has ever lived, and you are a liar who is going to get what you deserve.”
It was over. He knew about the book. Probably knew about the poison too. That’s why he’d killed Edwin, only he hadn’t been worried enough to track it down because he was too old for iron and bloodflower poison to kill him.
She couldn’t save her brother, her kingdom, or herself.
All that was left was to save Cleo.
“She was only involved because of me,” Ari said. Tears filled her eyes. “Please, you’ve hurt her enough. She doesn’t deserve your anger. I do.”
Teague gave the man a quick nod, and the whip whistled through the air and bit into Cleo’s exposed back. Cleo moaned and whispered, “Help me, Ari.”
Ari whirled to face the man and screamed, “Stop! You’re killing her.”
His lip curled into a sneer. “She deserves it.”
“No.” Ari turned back to Teague, her tone beseeching. “She doesn’t deserve this. Please. You’ve made your point. I’ll give you the book and the poison. You win. You don’t have to kill her.”
His eyes, full of unblinking malice, met hers. “Don’t I?”
She shook her head, her teeth chattering. “You win. I have nothing left to use against you. Please.”
He reached for Cleo, smoothing the bloody hair from her forehead, and then wrapped his hands around her neck and jerked her head sideways.
“No!” Ari wailed as Cleo’s bones splintered and broke with a terrible sound. She threw herself on top of Cleo, punching and kicking at Teague to get him away from her friend.
“Jacob! Take her.” Teague’s voice snapped, but Ari wasn’t listening.
“You’re all right. You’re all right.” She said the words over and over again, pressing her face against Cleo’s ear and willing her friend to hear her. To respond. “Please, Cleo. You’re all right.”
Strong arms grabbed her from behind as Jacob lifted her away from Cleo. Ari arched her back and reached for her friend, a wordless wail of agony ripping its way out of her as Jacob pulled her down the steps and into the yard.
“Throw her in the cage and keep her there.” Teague’s voice was once again cold and unreachable, his rage banked.
Ari elbowed Jacob in the stomach and wrenched to the side so she could slam her bare foot into his knee, but he was ready for her. Before she could even lift her foot, he’d locked his arm around her neck and was dragging her across the grass toward a small outbuilding she’d never looked twice at before.
Her lungs burned, begging for air. She clawed at his
arm, but he only tightened his hold. Tiny sparks danced at the edge of her vision, and her head spun. Vaguely she heard the sound of a door opening, and then he was dragging her across a stone floor.
“Don’t move,” he barked as he tossed her onto a thin mattress and looped a chain around her ankle before fastening it to a hook embedded in the wall behind her. Pocketing the key, he returned to the door, slammed it shut, and then slid the room’s single chair against the wall and sat down facing her.
Ari gulped in deep breaths of air, but it still felt like she was suffocating.
Cleo was gone.
Her best friend. Her sister in all the ways that counted.
Gone.
Somewhere inside the yawning pit of grief that was swallowing her, a spark of anger flickered, but she couldn’t reach it. Her thoughts spun away from her, leaving her with only the terrible understanding that Teague had taken Cleo from her, and there was nothing Ari could do to change it.
Turning her back on Jacob, she curled into a ball on the thin mattress and cried until she was empty.
FORTY-ONE
FOR THE FIRST time in weeks, Sebastian woke without the smell of cooking breakfast in the air. Strange that Ari wasn’t already downstairs, making pastries or bacon or whatever delicious thing she felt like eating this morning. Frowning, he swung out of bed, washed quickly, dressed, and headed to the kitchen. As he passed by the stairs that led to the princess’s room, he glanced up.
Her door was open.
His heart thudded heavily in his chest, and he quickened his pace as the sense of quiet that shrouded the house pressed against him.
Where was Ari?
He rounded the corner, entered the kitchen, and pulled up short. Teague sat at the table, a sheet of parchment in front of him, his pipe clenched between his teeth.