There are a few ways it could go wrong, of course, but Nox has carefully considered those, thinks we can plan ahead to avoid them.

“What do you say?” he asks, holding my hands between his. They’re warm and steady, and I wonder then if we could manage the everyday tasks of life if we never let go.

I was never one for everyday tasks, anyway.

I want to say yes, but my mouth trembles, hesitates.

Nox frowns, reaches up and brushes the hair that’s fallen into my face yet again.

My throat aches and I glance away because I can’t stand to have those piercing moon-white eyes on me. Not if his answer is… “And then?”

“And then?” He cocks his head to the side. “I’m afraid that’s not the most specific of questions.”

I laugh, but it’s unconvincing. “And then you’ll return to your family, and I’ll return…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Well, I’ll figure something out. And we’ll think fondly of one another when we’re old and decrepit and tell our respective grandchildren of the time we escaped from the clutches of an evil queen.”

Nox kisses me again, and it’s just the interruption I need.

“How about we tell them together?” he asks, pulling away.

My heart stutters a bit, but it’s a welcome malfunction. “Okay,” I say, because it’s the only word I can muster.

“Okay,” he says, and when he smiles, it’s the type of beautiful that fills my stomach with jagged rocks. Because even while he’s looking at me like this, it’s the type of smile I know I’m destined to miss.

Nox returns to his room that night. It’s lonely and cold in my cell, and as much as I find I rather dislike being parted from him, it’s not worth the queen finding us down here together in the middle of the night.

We both feel it’s for the best if we avoid provoking Abra’s jealousy.

My dreams take a sharp turn that night, settling into nightmares of flashing teeth and a cruel, sultry voice.

I rise, abandoning hope of getting any rest tonight, and light a candle.

I know Nox already has a plan to rid me of my magic, but there are still factors we can’t fully account for, and as the night of the full moon draws near, I can’t help but feel antsy about the procedure.

The grimoire I’m working through has taken me even longer to read than the rest. Part of it’s a motivation problem. It’s not that I’m less than motivated to be cured. It’s that I haven’t been persuaded this particular grimoire will be of much help. Many of them are written more like history books than grimoires, but this one is the worst about it. And though Nox has told me from the beginning that magic and history are inseparable, I’m fairly sure he found his solution to my problem in an actual grimoire.

But there’s nothing like a potentially catastrophic procedure drawing near and a slew of nightmares that have me squinting my eyes and swarming to decode the lopsided letters in a book by candlelight.

Most of what’s contained in this particular book is hearsay—legends, at best. I have to rifle through repeat information about blood being used as a binding agent, physicians using marebone to anesthetize their patients, despite knowing the potential that they might never wake, and the several methods humans have employed over the centuries to force love into another’s heart.

But then I find the passage I’m looking for.

The history of what exactly occurred when the fae entered this realm has been lost to time—rather conveniently for the fae, I might add—so I’m not sure whether there’s any truth to be gleaned from the stories.

But I suppose the stories had to come from somewhere, even if they have been twisted and cropped and oiled and shined like a pair of leather boots over the centuries.

But then I read one story in particular, and every bit of doubt in the validity of these stories fades away and is swallowed up by dread.

Because within the pages of this book is the story of the Old Magic, how a fae prince of old hunted down the humans who freely hosted its siblings.

It tells of how the fae prince and his companions made a deal with the ancient beings. How they duped them into forsaking their human hosts in favor of joining a host more powerful. Bodies that would never die.

It ends with a pile of human bodies on a creaky wooden floor, their minds ripped to shreds after being forsaken by the magic that had once inhabited them.

I’m wide awake, frantically flipping through the pages, searching for something, anything, to prove there’s an exception to what happens when a magical parasite is removed from a human body, when a key rattles in the lock.

“Nox, we can’t. We can’t perform the ritual tomorrow. If we do, it will—” I say, but I instantly regret it because it’s not Nox at my cell door.

It’s the queen.

CHAPTER 36

BLAISE

I sit straight up upon the dais, leaping to my feet in case I need to make a run for it.

Not that I have any chance of outrunning a fae queen, anyway.

“Did I startle you?” The queen’s lips twist into what I suppose is supposed to be a comforting smile, but given how pale she is and the way the light dances off her face, resulting in her looking like she’s a dismembered head, I’d say the attempt is unsuccessful.

“Were you expecting me to have my hair combed and my feet washed for your unannounced arrival in the middle of the night?” I ask, resting my elbow on the dais and leaning back on it.

The queen’s smile doesn’t falter, but irritation flashes in her cold, blue stare.

She’s here to kill me.

She’s changed her mind. She’s on to the fact that Nox lied about my death causing the parasite’s destruction, and she’s here to hack my brain from my skull as a last attempt to rip this stupid parasite right out of me.

But then the queen lets out a gentle laugh, and it’s almost convincing. “You’re right. How silly of me to assume you’d still be awake at this hour.”

“It’s all right. Understandable mistake, given that I haven’t seen daylight in weeks and my body has no idea what time it is.”

The queen’s exhale is pleasant enough. I suppose she wants something.

In my experience, the queen wanting something rarely ends well for others.

“Well, perhaps you’d enjoy stretching your legs. Taking a stroll about the castle.” She offers her arm, like we’re forever friends about to skip through a field of dandelions.

“Thank you, but I have my balance back. Venom’s finally worked its way out of my system,” I say through my teeth.

The queen’s smile is tight-lipped. “Then you won’t mind climbing a few sets of stairs.”

She gestures for me to follow, and I do, figuring if she were going to kill me, she could easily do it here. It is her dungeon, after all.

The stairs are cold underneath my bare feet.

She doesn’t offer me shoes.

We climb four sets of staircases and traipse down seven winding corridors before we come to a stop before a set of ornate wooden doors.