Viessa tilted her head. A calculating expression came over her face, but I had learned to recognize a fae trick when I saw one. She was pretending to think, but whatever came out of her mouth next was the real reason she’d let me get this close to Collith. There was a reason it had been so easy. Viessa wanted something, and she was using me to get it.
“He has information I need,” she said finally. “By all means, if you can persuade Collith to tell me what I want to know, I’d be happy to revisit the issue of his confinement.”
And there it is. I understood now. Collith had withstood their tortures, and Viessa thought I was his weakness. A new tactic. I’d choose how to play this once I could see the entire board, I decided silently. “What is it you want to know?” was all I said.
She didn’t pretend to think about this response. “Bank account numbers. The location of hidden passageways within this Court. The sort of things only a king would know.”
If Viessa wanted account numbers, maybe she hadn’t been able to access the crown’s finances. The council members, I thought suddenly. She’d disbanded their organization and taken their power. In return, those bloodlines had probably pulled whatever investments they’d made, or called in their loans. I couldn’t remember the technicalities of how everything worked—during Lyari or Nuvian’s lectures, my thoughts had kept drifting off. I was regretting that now.
I mulled over the reasons I should keep that information from Viessa, but I couldn’t come up with any. Despite my guilt over how I’d handled my abdication, I didn’t want to rule again. Unless Collith gathered an army and reclaimed his power, ruling wasn’t an option for him, either. With a mental shrug, I turned slightly and directed my next words at the dethroned king. “Are you feeling more talkative now?”
If he handed the information over to Viessa, she might actually let us go free. We could walk out of here without shedding a single drop of blood. Collith knew what his refusal meant; I could see it in the set of his jaw. But he still answered exactly how I’d known he would. “No.”
Good thing I didn’t mind spilling a little blood.
I gave Collith a grim smile, then turned to face Viessa. I hoped the fae couldn’t hear my rapid heartbeat. Adjusting my grip on the sword, I shifted so that I stood slightly in front of Collith.
It was the equivalent of drawing a line in the sand. If the tension had been subtle before, it was everywhere now, and I knew the faeries had gotten my message loud and clear. Including Lyari. I matched Viessa’s regretful tone as I said, “Forgive the cliché… but if you want him, you’ll have to go through me.”
“Actually, you’ll have to go through us.”
Laurie materialized on my other side. I glanced at him, knowing he’d see my annoyance. Took you long enough.
He shrugged as if to say, I wanted to see how this would play out. To Viessa he said, “This may seem like a strange request, but would you take about seven steps backward?”
I frowned. Seven steps? Did that mean what I thought it did?
Viessa heaved a sigh at the sight of Laurie. “You do realize this means war between our Courts, Prince Laurelis.”
“If you wanted to get me in bed, dear, all you had to do was ask. I mean, I would’ve rejected you in a heartbeat, but you still could’ve asked.” Dismissing her, Laurie’s gaze moved to Collith. Something passed between them.
“Why?” Collith said. He was asking Laurie why he was here.
The other faerie’s answering grin was faint, bittersweet. “No one tortures you but me. Those manacles are hot, by the way.”
“Seven steps?” he asked suddenly.
Laurie nodded. “Give or take.”
A blast of ice shot down the length of the tunnel, making me slam against the wall and lose my grip on the sword. Shards still caught my shoulder, shredding through the layer of polyester, tearing skin as easily as bits of glass. I cried out, but I knew it was probably nothing compared to Laurie’s wound. He’d been Viessa’s target, and he’d been standing partially in front of me.
Through the haze of pain, I heard Viessa speaking again. Her voice was as cold as the frost covering the cell bars next to us. “It’s clear now, why I could never fully claim your heart, Collith,” she said. To me she said, “I like you, Fortuna Sworn. I wish I didn’t. It would make this far easier.”
Lowering her hands, Viessa stepped back and nodded to Nuvian. He, in turn, signaled to one of the Guardians behind him. I searched for Lyari, but she must’ve shifted out of view. Collith, me, and Laurie were all wounded, robbed of speed and strength. Gil couldn’t help us.
Shit. We didn’t plan for this.
That was all I had time to think before Nuvian gripped me by the throat. He placed the tip of his sword at my gut, and his arm tensed. If I could’ve moved my mouth, I would’ve screamed.
“Now we’re even,” Nuvian whispered, his eyes boring into mine.
He never got the chance to make the killing blow. He’d barely finished speaking when Collith bellowed. It was a sound I’d never heard him make before. And then… he imploded.
Heavenly fire—more lightning than the red-orange flames people thought of when they heard the word fire—filled the dark. Lyari materialized at my side and yanked me down the tunnel, out of the inferno’s path.
The heat was so powerful that it burned a hole in Nuvian’s shoulder and through the other Guardian in its path. It knocked all the faeries in the passageway back as if they were a bunch of bowling balls. Collith stood before them, his chest heaving, his eyes burning hotter than the flames he’d just released. His bare, bloody body gleamed in the torchlight.
“Threaten her again,” he said quietly, a drop of sweat sliding down his temple, “and their deaths will seem like a mercy compared to yours. Would you say that was seven steps?”
“I’d say so. Excellent work, Sylvyre.” Laurie appeared on my other side, and I was relieved to see his wound had already started healing. But Nuvian didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at any of us, actually. His blue eyes scanned our surroundings, and he didn’t try to hide a confused frown. I followed his gaze. In an instant, I knew why he was so mystified.
We weren’t on the path next to the cells anymore.
When Collith had thrown so much power behind that blast, he’d lost hold of the illusion he’d been casting over everyone. The illusion he’d created the moment I let him inside my head. The illusion Laurie had also been working on from the moment Viessa and her guards arrived in the passageway at the top of the stairs, and had continued all the way down here.
I abruptly switched my focus to Viessa. I knew the instant she figured out what we’d done because I was watching her face when it happened.
The queen was standing inside the very cell she had put Collith in.
The cell she’d still been seven steps away from when Laurie finally revealed himself.
From the moment they set foot in these dungeons, Viessa and her Guardians had been under the sway of Laurie and Collith’s shared power. An intricately designed illusion. It was necessary to put the images inside my head, too, since I’d had to stick to the limitations of the room in order to lure Viessa and her Guardians over the threshold… and across the boundary of the spell.