Ari was nowhere to be seen.
“Busy day ahead,” Teague said.
Sebastian’s scars tingled at the malice in Teague’s voice.
He glanced around the kitchen once more. No skillets on the stove. No mixing bowls with pastry dough clinging to their insides. No flour on the counter or the floor.
Ari hadn’t been here.
“Where is the princess?” he asked, his steady voice belying the sudden rush of panic that churned through him.
Teague puffed on his pipe and regarded Sebastian for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Today is the day we see where your loyalties lie.”
Fear was making it hard to breathe, but Sebastian slowly pulled out a chair opposite to Teague and sat down. He wasn’t sure what game they were playing, but it was his move.
“I thought I’d proven my loyalty to you already. I proved it before you even asked for it.” He reached for one of the apples Teague always kept in a bowl on the table and took a bite.
Teague regarded him in silence for another moment. “Did you prove your loyalty to me? Or did you prove that you’d do anything to stay by the princess’s side?”
Sebastian swallowed the mouthful of apple and shrugged. “Since you own the princess for the rest of her life, the distinction is hardly important. I do what you ask, and I get to live here with her. I can be loyal to you both without a conflict.”
Teague smiled. “I’m afraid that is no longer true.”
The residue of apple on his tongue turned bitter as panic tumbled through Sebastian. “What do you mean?”
His fists were clenched, but he couldn’t make himself uncurl them. Couldn’t make himself take a deep breath around the vise that was squeezing his chest.
Where was Ari?
“Jacob wanted to kill her, you know.” Teague folded up the parchment and leaned across the table. “Very bloodthirsty sort, your father. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think as his scars prickled and burned and the crashing sea of panic tore at him from the inside out.
It took every shred of self-control he possessed to keep his voice steady as he asked, “What does my father have to do with anything?”
Teague smiled. “Remarkable how alike you both are—so ruthless, so focused—and yet so different. You keep your temper, you think long-term, and you know how to organize and run a business without having to resort to using a whip to do it. That’s why I’ve been happy with my choice to make you my Kosim Thalas collector, even though I’d originally planned to offer it to your father.”
“He’s in Balavata—”
“Hardly.” Teague shoved the folded parchment into Sebastian’s hand and stood. “I recalled him the moment we found Daan’s body. It takes a while for word to travel between kingdoms, of course, but he’s here now.”
Sebastian looked wildly around the room as if his father was going to jump out of one of the cupboards, whip already lashing toward his son’s back. “Where?” His voice was a breathless shadow of its former self, but it was the best he could push past the suffocating noose of panic that was closing in on him. His scars burned, sharp jolts of phantom pain searing his skin until he could hardly stand to have his tunic touching them.
Teague brushed his coat smooth and stepped toward the door. “He’s out in the cage with the princess.”
Sebastian’s chest constricted. He shoved his chair away from the table and stood. His father—the monster who was so loyal to Teague that he’d beaten his oldest son to death on his boss’s orders—was locked in a room with Ari.
If he’d touched one hair on her head, Sebastian was going to kill him.
Crushing the folded parchment into his fist, Sebastian shouldered his way past Teague, and took off running for the front door.
The cage was a small box of a building set apart from the main villa. Sebastian sprinted for it while his lungs burned and his scars sent prickles of pain through him.
His father was here.
His father had Ari.
His father only had Ari because Teague had ordered her taken to the cage. Teague had turned against her, and when Teague turned against someone, they never survived.
Somehow Sebastian had to handle the situation without getting the princess killed.
Without getting them both killed.
He had no idea how he was going to do it.
The door to the cage was unlocked and opened soundlessly when he pushed it. He entered the room and rolled to the balls of his feet, fists ready, as he took in the scene.
The princess lay on a sorry excuse for a mattress at the back of the room. Her ankle was chained to a hook in the wall, and she absently rubbed the chain with her fingers while she stared at the ceiling.
His father sat on a chair close to the entrance, his head tipped back against the wall as he slept.
Behind Sebastian, Teague entered the cage and closed the door behind him.
Sebastian was surrounded by threats, and he didn’t know how to defeat them.
“Jacob!” Teague snapped.
The man’s eyes jerked open, and he lumbered to his feet before catching sight of Sebastian. A flash of anger lit his face, and he placed his hand on the whip he kept hooked to his belt. “What are you doing in here? This is Teague’s private villa. You don’t belong here—”
“He works for me now,” Teague said, stepping out from behind Sebastian so that Jacob could see him.
The air felt too thick to breathe, and the rage that Sebastian kept firmly locked away surged against its restraints. The princess still lay on the mattress staring at the ceiling. If she’d heard them, she gave no sign.
Jacob grunted. “I see you have him taking over the babysitting detail. You let me know if he isn’t up to the task. I’ll set him straight in a hurry.”
“Like you set his brother straight?” Teague tsked. “I think not. Sebastian has great potential. Besides, all you have to do to bring Sebastian in line is hurt the princess. Isn’t that right?” He smiled at Sebastian, and the rage clawed for freedom.
Keeping his voice as steady as he could, Sebastian said, “Why is she here?”
The hint of friendliness that had been on Teague’s face vanished. “Because we learned her friend Cleo visited a bookshop and retrieved a very special book for the princess.”
Sebastian’s heart sank.
“I warned her.” Anger warmed Teague’s voice. “I told her to stop looking into my business and my past, but she defied me, and her friend paid the price.”
“Cleo is dead?” Sebastian asked softly, as if by keeping his words from reaching Ari’s ears he could somehow keep the truth from hurting her.
“She is. And she suffered horribly before she died, courtesy of your father.” Teague beamed. “The two of you are quite a set. The blunt instrument”—he nodded toward Jacob—“and the precisely balanced sword.” He looked at Sebastian and tapped a finger on the parchment still clutched in Sebastian’s hands. “New debts came due today. Consider this your loyalty test. Collect them all by nightfall, and I’ll keep you on as my collector here.”
“You offered that job to me!” Jacob turned toward Teague, his fist wrapped around the handle of his whip.
“And yet young Sebastian proved himself so spectacularly suited to the position that I am loath to give him up.” Teague’s voice was hard.
“I don’t understand how this is a test,” Sebastian said to buy himself time. Time to figure out Teague’s angle. Time to come up with a way to shield Ari from his father. “I collect for you all the time. How is this any different?”
Teague smiled. “Today is different because today there’s a soul on the list.”
It was difficult to swallow past the sudden dryness in his throat. He couldn’t take someone’s soul. Only a monster would do that, and he wasn’t a monster.
“You never let anyone collect souls but you,” Jacob scoffed.
“Times change,” Teague said, his gaz
e locked on Sebastian. “Soul collecting isn’t something a blunt instrument can do. And given the rash of interest in me—ordering poisons, looking up ancient fae texts—I don’t think I’ll risk collecting the soul debt myself.”
He was afraid. Behind the marble voice there was a thread of fear.
That’s why he’d killed Cleo. That’s why Ari was chained to a wall.
But why was she still alive?
Sebastian held Teague’s stare. Teague had already made connections at the trade summit. He now had high-ranking nobility in his debt across the kingdoms. He could easily use one of them to draw in other, desirable debtors. And his campaign of violence and terror across the streets of Kosim Thalas made it certain no one would oppose him if he chose to ascend the throne.
He didn’t really need Thad anymore.
Which meant he didn’t need Ari anymore.
So why was she still alive?
And why add a soul to Sebastian’s collection list and call it a test of his loyalties?
He stared at Teague, keeping his father in his peripheral vision, and when the answer hit him, it came with a tiny spark of hope.
“This isn’t a test of my loyalties,” he said, bracing for a blow as his father cursed and stepped toward him. Teague lifted a hand in the air, and Jacob stopped.
“Isn’t it?” Teague asked.
Sebastian pocketed the parchment, working hard to keep both the panic and the hope off his face. “No. It’s a test to see if I’ll break my contract with you.”
He knew he was right even before Teague’s eyes narrowed into furious slits.
Sebastian took a step back, keeping both his father and Teague in his line of sight. “According to our contract, bound by your magic and my blood, if I don’t collect a debt you give to me, you can hurt the princess. The reverse then means that as long as I collect every debt, you can’t harm her.”
Teague’s smile could cut a man to pieces, but Sebastian had grown up on a steady diet of cruelty and abuse. He was held together by scars and a stubborn refusal to quit, and he was impossible to break.
“I’m going to speak to the princess for a moment, and then I’ll go collect every last debt.” He met Teague’s eyes. “I won’t fail.”
He moved to Ari’s side and half turned so he could see any sudden moves the others made. Crouched beside her, his heart clenched at the misery on her face. “Princess Arianna?”
She turned her head slowly. “Sebastian?” Her lips trembled.
He brushed his fingertips across her cheek, catching a tear as it fell. Leaning down so his mouth was beside her ear, he whispered, “Don’t lose heart. He can’t hurt you as long as I keep my contract.”
And, stars, he hoped that same principle extended to Teague ordering Sebastian’s father to hurt the princess in his place.
“He killed Cleo.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry.” He held her gaze for a long moment, letting her see his own grief. Letting her share the part of himself that made him feel naked and vulnerable to attack. Surprising himself with how easy it was to give her that piece of him. Teague cleared his throat, and Sebastian whispered, “I have to go to work now, but I’ll be back, and we’ll make a plan. You aren’t alone, Princess . . . Ari.”
She tried to smile again, but her heart wasn’t in it. He brushed her cheek lightly once more and then turned, the raw, vulnerable part of him once more hidden behind the shield he’d built as his one defense against his father and the streets outside their front door.
“You’ll need one or two bits of instruction before you can take the soul,” Teague said, his eyes bright chips of malice. “You have until nightfall. If you fail to return with every debt by then, Jacob has my permission to do whatever he pleases to our dear princess.”
His father pinned Sebastian with the look that used to turn his stomach to water and have him clenching his fists against the pain before the first blow struck.
Sebastian followed Teague out of the cage, his shoulders back and his head held high, while his scars burned as he left the girl he cared about more than anyone in the world with the monster who’d raised him.
FORTY-TWO
EVERYTHING HURT. ARI’S eyes burned from the tears she’d shed into the night and again this morning. Her muscles ached. And every heartbeat sent a shaft of grief through her veins.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d lain on the mattress after Sebastian left—an hour? Three?—but her tears had dried now. She was a hollowed-out vessel, and the howling grief that had torn her to pieces in the night had become a weary kind of acceptance. She had no more tears. No more desperate pleas for Cleo to come back to life.
All that was left was a small flicker of anger whispering within her.
It was impossible that a few short months ago, she’d had her mother to smile at her with love and pride in her eyes and to scold her for chapping her hands when she was born to be a princess. She’d had Cleo by her side to break Mama Eleni’s rules, to steal pastries and gossip about the nobility, and to fill a part of her that she hadn’t know was incomplete until Cleo was gone.
She’d had Thad, unburdened by the weight of ruling a kingdom he couldn’t protect. She’d had her anonymity and her ignorance of the true state of affairs on the streets of Kosim Thalas.
Now, her mother was dead. Her brother couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. Her people were dying—Cleo had died.
And she could lay the blame for all but her mother at Teague’s doorstep.
The flicker of anger that burned within her became a steady flame, consuming her despair and replacing it with furious purpose.
Teague, with his insatiable need for power at any cost, had laid waste to her life. Her family.
Her kingdom.
And now he was going to do the same to the rest of the kingdoms.
And she’d been the one to suggest it.
She wanted to be sick, but she had nothing in her stomach.
She wanted to cry, but she had no tears left. Besides, tears wouldn’t change this. Wouldn’t stop this.
She had no weapons, no Book of the Fae, no freedom, and no plan.
Despair dampened the edges of her anger, and she shoved it back.
She wasn’t beaten. She refused to be beaten. This was a problem, and all problems had solutions. Instead of focusing on what she didn’t have, she needed to look at what she did.
She had her memory of the poem in Magic in the Moonlight. The one that matched the statue in Teague’s study.
Something about the poem had been tugging at her mind for days, but she’d been distracted by the house coming alive around her, and Maarit and Teague looking over her shoulder, and her research in the Book of the Fae. Now she had nothing but time and a stone cell, so she closed her eyes and examined the poem.
The story said that a werewolf had married a werehawk, and they were very much in love. But years passed without the wolf bearing a child, and she became more and more despondent until finally she refused to eat. On that day, the werehawk made a deal with a powerful devil who agreed to open the wolf’s womb for a price. The wolf became pregnant, but when she delivered her child, both parents were shocked that the baby had the head of a wolf, the talons of a hawk, but the cloven hooves of a devil. In terror and dismay, the wolf tried to eat her child, but the baby possessed the power of all three of her parents, and she destroyed both the wolf and the hawk and left the secret given to her on the day of her birth behind with her parents. Henceforth, she was known as the Devil’s Child, and no one was able to stand against her because no one could name her secret.
Ari picked up each piece of the story and examined it. The connection to Teague might be in the devil who granted the werehawk’s wish, but Teague was a Wish Granter, not a devil. The book made a distinction between the two, so that meant the only logical connection was the secret that no one could name.
A secret, by definition, would be something no one else could name. Not helpful. Gritting her teeth in f
rustration, Ari slowly looked at every piece again.
A secret no one could name.
A secret given to her on the day of her birth.
What was given to a baby on the day of its birth? A blanket? A bracelet? Something specific to the fae?
A name?
Ari’s skin tingled, and her eyes flew open.
No one could stand against the Devil’s Child because no one knew her name.
Teague came from the isle of the fae. She’d heard the language he used when he spoke his commands over the beasts or his incantation to take her soul. The words were soft and lilting, rolling off the tongue like poetry.
They sounded nothing like the name Alistair Teague.
What if that wasn’t his real name? What if the key to controlling Teague was to learn his true name?
Slowly, she sat up and brushed dirt from the front of her nightdress. Parchment rustled against her skin.
The contract. She’d taken it from Maarit’s room the previous afternoon and hidden it in her chemise so she would have it at hand for her first opportunity to study it.
And because she couldn’t think of a better hiding place after Teague had torn through her bedroom searching for anything that didn’t belong, she’d decided to wear her undergarment beneath her nightdress and keep the contract with her.
“Don’t look very royal to me,” Jacob said from his chair by the door. He waited a beat and then said, “What are you, deaf? Or just stupid?”
Ari ignored him, her fingers still pressed to her chest as a whisper of hope flickered within.
She wasn’t without options. Without plans.
She had a blank contract already signed by Teague.
She had Sebastian, hiding his grief and his fear so that he could be the kind of person he had to be to meet Teague’s demands and keep her safe.
She had the contract, she had Sebastian, she had the idea that she needed Teague’s true name, and she had herself.
She knew how to negotiate. She knew how to talk her way out of things.
And she knew how to solve problems.
Maybe she didn’t have access to the secrets in the Book of the Fae, maybe iron and bloodflower didn’t work on Teague, and maybe she was chained to the wall inside a room with the man who’d scarred Sebastian’s back and left him afraid to be touched.