“I’m not here for her. I’m here for what she’s holding.”
My breath catches in my lungs as I close my left hand tighter around the tiny scroll.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Finn says. “We came down here to pay respect to my father.”
“Nice try, but I watched the two of you fumble around the atrium for a good ten minutes trying to solve the clue you found at the Conservatory.”
Narrowing my eyes, I shoot invisible daggers at the fae. “I knew that was you. How were you able to find us through our shield glamours?”
Edevane’s lips twist into a smug grin. “A magician never reveals his secrets, Your Highness. Now hand over the next clue. I have a spear to find.”
“Like hell you do,” I grate out. I summon a swirling ball of violet fire with my right and thrust it at him with a rage-filled shout.
Edevane flicks his wrist like he’s swatting a fly, and the fire ball changes course. It blows a hole in the side wall, the force of the explosion throwing me into Finn. He steadies me, then lunges for the Light King with a roar. Another casual flick sends Finn flying across the cavern and crashing so hard into the back wall that the cement buckles and cracks. When he falls forward onto his hands and knees, blood leaks from his head and trails down the side of his neck.
“Finnian!” I rush to his side but he’s already shaking it off and pushing to his feet.
“I’m good.” He tilts his head to each side to crack his neck, then rolls his massive shoulders back.
I whip my gaze in Edevane’s direction. “Your magic,” I say, seething. “I can feel traces of mine in it. How the fuck did you do that?”
“Oh, that? There are more than just a few traces of you in here,” he says, sweeping his hand down the front of his body. “All those times you were knocked out in my facility, we were taking your blood.”
I think back to the times I woke up after being unconscious, trying to reconcile what he’s claiming. A needle mark would’ve been small enough to heal before I could see it. But a massive loss in blood would explain why I always felt so weak afterward. Fear at what this means grabs me by the throat, preventing me from screaming at him like I want.
“Unfortunately, I have to keep replenishing after using too much magic, but that’s why I made sure I have a huge stockpile of it. Once I had enough for what I need, I decided to tip off your brother and his new friend here with your Armas. I wasn’t going to let you go, but I didn’t care if they managed to break you out either. I was curious if they could.”
Edevane looks at Finn. “Nice work using Garvey, by the way. He had no choice but to help you; that was clever. I still killed him, obviously, but I forgave him first. I’m not a complete monster.”
Finn’s hands clench into fists at his sides. “That’s debatable.”
Edevane chuckles like Finn just told a joke. “Anyway, I’ve spent the past year learning how to use these glorious Mystic powers of yours, Princess. It was downright messy for the first few months, as I’m sure you know, but I’ve more than gotten the hang of it now.” He tilts his head and pins me with a knowing look that turns my veins to ice. “Jealous?”
“Of a second-rate, wingless royal with no real magic of his own? I don’t fucking think so.” I glance at Finn. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he answers, keeping his focus trained on the enemy. “Get the fuck out of here, Edevane. You don’t belong in this city, and you sure as fuck don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.”
Edevane folds his arms over his chest and leans against the doorway with a bored expression on his face. “I’m not going anywhere without what’s in her hand. You know now that you can’t win. Give it to me, and I’ll be on my way. I’ll even leave you alive. Cross my heart.”
You can’t win. The truth of his words makes my insides tremble. I can’t even process what it means for him to have siphoned my magic, but I know it makes him incredibly dangerous. I have precious few seconds before what’s in my hand is no longer in our possession. But if I’m right, then this is the clue that leads us to the Spear of Assal. And if Edevane gets it before we do, he’ll have the power to destroy Faerie. And my mother.
I have to do something—anything—to prevent that from happening. And I have to do it using lesser magic. Come on, Taryn, think.
Finn tries a different tack. “Even if we gave it to you, it wouldn’t do you any good. She said she hid it in Faerie, remember? You told me that.”
“True. I believed it was in Faerie because my grandfather believed it and wrote about it in his journal. She made him think it was in the Darks’ original Temple of Rhiannon, but it’s not there. That’s when I decided to see what you were both up to, and lo and behold, we were on the same quest.”
Finn tenses beside me but I don’t dare take my eyes off the snake in front of us to check his reaction. “How would you know the spear isn’t there? You can’t get into Faerie any more than I can.”
The Light King’s smile never quite reaches his electric green eyes. “Again, we’re back to secrets. You have yours—or had, at any rate—and I have mine.”
I’ve finally come up with a plan. It’s a long shot but right now it’s the only one we have. Silently, I start reciting an incantation in my head and pray I have enough time for what I’m attempting.
Finn glares at Edevane. “Keep your secrets, asshole. We’re not giving you shit.”
The amusement falls from Edevane’s face. “Did I give you the impression you had a choice? That was my mistake. I’m simply giving you the option to be reasonable and maybe make it out of here alive. But I’m good with the alternative, too.”
My left hand is heating up, giving me hope this might actually work. I just need a little more time.
“You might have her powers,” Finn says, “but so does she, and she’s had centuries with them, not mere months. You should reconsider getting into a battle of magic with a Mystic.”
Edevane’s eyes widen for a split second before he erupts in laughter. It’s genuine, and I hate how it transforms his normal fae good looks into cover model stunning. People’s outsides should match their insides. If they did, the Light King would be as attractive as a bridge troll dipped in acid.
“Newsflash, Baby Verran,” Edevane says after he calms down. “The princess doesn’t use her Mystic powers, never has.”
I freeze in place, the incantation I’ve been reciting in my head all but forgotten as Edevane’s words slice me open and spill my darkest secret to the one person who’s come to mean more to me than I ever thought possible. The last of my masks has been ripped away, and now Finn will see me for what I really am.
A coward.
Finn scoffs. “Yeah right.”
The blond fae shakes his head and tsks. “Think about it. I used her magic to teleport out of the iron cell beneath your Temple. By the time I learned that particular trick, she’d been in the facility for months. She was weakened, yes. But not weak enough that she couldn’t escape. I tested it out myself before allowing you to capture me.”
Edevane drives home his point, leveling his piercing green gaze on me. “So you see, young prince, your princess chose not to use her Mystic powers to free herself.”
My stomach turns, and I have to fight the urge to throw up. The bravest male I’ve ever known, next to my brother, knows how weak I am. There would be no point denying it even if I had the ability to lie; Edevane’s ability to get out of a near-identical situation with ease proves that I could have done the same. Instead, I remained imprisoned in that mountain for a year and would still be today if Finn and Dmitri hadn’t broken me out.
Finn looks down at me, his thick brows drawn together. “Is that true?”
