Page 29
She sweeps her hand over the dark silk, then lifts her palm to show a fine dusting of gold powder clinging to her skin.
Cursing in recognition, I pull the flask of healing water from a hidden pocket in my robes. “I told you not to touch anything until we checked it.”
“The Gold fae tried to kill you by powdering your sheets with poison.” Her head lifts, pupils blown, a flush rising to her cheeks. “It appears the Dark King just wants to make sure you get laid.”
I offer her the waterskin. “Quick, wash it off before you’re overcome.”
She studies me, head tilted, fingers curling over her tattooed palm. “You don’t want to fuck me?”
Beyond our chamber, music swells, faint at first, then rising in volume. The notes move like water, instruments conjuring sounds that should not exist. The melody chases itself, doubling back, harmonies vibrating in bone rather than ear.
The music stirs a primal instinct, a call to join the wild dance, to surrender thought for pure sensation. Even with centuries of discipline, I’m not immune to the desire to follow the music to its source.
It would be easy to tumble Amalia onto the sheets and let the night pass in pleasure.
Instead, I steady myself. “I don’t require drugs to bed a partner.”
“Right answer.” The flush fades from her cheeks as she wipes the powder onto her pant leg. “Save whatever that is for when it’s actually needed. It appears fae sex drugs don’t work on me.”
I frown at her. “Was this a test?”
“The twins are very interested in getting into my pants. And you sent Caelan to my bed to make sure I didn’t try to run.” She strips the tainted sheets from the bed, her color rising and fading as the powder tries, and fails, to work through her system. “I was curious how far you’d go.”
“Caelan would have gone to your rooms last night, even if I hadn’t approved.” I watch her. “You have bewitched my brothers.”
“No bewitchment here.” She rolls up the bedding, the flush returning for a few heartbeats every time her skin brushes the powder. “Just good old-fashioned schoolyard flirting.”
I tuck the water skin away. “What does schoolyard flirting mean?”
She shrugs. “I punch them, they get smitten, we fight, blah blah blah.”
“I very much want to know more about the blah blah blah,” I murmur.
“It’s healthy to be left wanting every now and then.”
The sithean stone pulses, irregular and bright, reacting to some stimulus beyond my senses.
“Can you sense Elionn, now that we are within the Dark Spire?”
She touches the stone. “I’m not sure.”
The gem flares, its light pushing back the siren call of the Dark Sithe’s magic. For a moment, the music outside dims, the pull lessening.
Her head turns toward the door. “What is that?”
“Court music, meant to loosen inhibitions and lower defenses. It’s the prelude to tonight’s festivities,” I say. “King Nyctarian will not confirm or deny Elionn’s presence. Instead, he’ll lead us through ceremony and entertainment to test our resolve and measure our desperation.”
She lets her hand fall. “If Elionn is here, he’s too far for this connection to work, or it’s being blocked, as you suspect.”
“The Dark fae are masters of spatial manipulation. Distance here is subjective.”
The music swells, then drops away, leaving a silence more pointed than the sound. In its wake, laughter ripples through the corridors, too synchronized to be real, too perfectly timed to be chance.
Thalindor shifts by the door, watchful. “The sithe assembles. They will summon us soon.”
I have seen this before. Centuries before Amalia Wolf drew breath, before Elionn and Caelan were born, I played this game, when the boundaries between courts were more fluid, and magic ran freer.
“Do whatever preparations are needed,” I tell Amalia. “The hunt begins as soon as we step inside.”
