No Heroes: Iron Bound, #5

By Z.J. Cannon

Queen Mab has a heart of ice. To save my son, mine has to be colder.

 

The Winter Court is no place for humans… or half-humans. But my son is trapped here, at the mercy of Queen Mab, and I intend to survive long enough to get him out. Even if that means killing off every ounce of human compassion in my heart to embrace the ruthless fae within.

 

And Mab isn't the only threat out here. I'm about to come face to face with the enemy who has been watching me from the beginning. I thought I understood what Arkanica was all about, but I was wrong. And if I don't stop what's coming, everyone will face the consequences—the Winter Court, the Summer Court, and all of humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Z.J. Cannon
• Release date: Mar 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201592172

Book preview

Chapter 1

I adjusted my sunglasses and pulled my wide-brimmed hat low over my eyes as I stepped into the bank. I didn’t need an excuse to pull my coat tightly around myself—it was summer outside, but no one would ever know it from the arctic air blasting out of the bank’s vents. I shoved my hands in my pockets, then took them out again when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a plastic divider. I was a caricature of a shady character.

I took my hands out of my pockets, straightened my shoulders, and tried not to be too obvious about the way I was keeping track of everyone around me in my peripheral vision. I didn’t adjust the hat or take off the sunglasses. The infamous criminal mastermind Kieran Thorne was dead, and I didn’t intend to call that into question by letting someone spot him strolling into the First Bank of Hawthorne.

A gray-haired man next to me gave me too long a look. I tensed and angled my face away. He frowned. You in line? He pointed to the teller’s window that had just opened up.

With a mumbled apology, I strode up to the window, trying to project a casual confidence I didn’t feel. I was here on a routine errand, nothing more—or that was what I wanted my body to convey. Silas Lefebvre, I said, angling my head to the side like I was only half paying attention to the teller, even as I watched her hands from behind my sunglasses to make sure she wasn’t going for the silent alarm. I need to access my safe deposit box.

She gave a perfunctory nod without looking up at me. ID?

I slid Silas’s driver’s license, freshly printed this morning, across the counter to her. I’d had the alias for years, but I had lost my old copy of his ID along with everything else in my former apartment. Besides, after being a regular feature on the news for months, I could hardly go around handing out an ID with my own face on it. The new picture was still me, mostly, but with enough subtle alterations that—hopefully—no one who gave it a cursory glance would make the connection. His hair was lighter, his cheekbones higher, his face a tad thinner.

The teller studied the ID, then looked up at me. Glasses off, please.

I pulled the sunglasses off and held my breath. My associate Skye—who served as conscience, surrogate daughter, and hacker extraordinaire—had once taken great pleasure in needling me about a forum she had found online devoted to Kieran Thorne groupies. There had been multiple discussions about my eyes—chocolate brown with yummy golden sprinkles, someone had called them, which was not a phrase I needed floating through my head every time I looked in the mirror. As the teller scrutinized my face, I fervently hoped she had never frequented a group like that one.

After what felt like several hours, she slid the ID back to me. Someone will be with you in a moment to take you down to the vault. Her hand crept under the desk, and I got ready to run—but all she did was pull out her keyboard tray and start typing, Silas Lefebvre already forgotten.

Even so, I didn’t let myself take a deep breath until the vault door closed behind me, and I was alone in front of a row of gleaming steel safe deposit boxes. All that metal in one place—not to mention the steel walls of the vault—made my teeth clench in pain, my half-fae blood reacting to the presence of cold iron. But I didn’t care. The ID had worked. Now all I had to do was retrieve what I had come for and get out.

Then the hard part would begin.

My box was up in the corner, the smallest size. I unlocked it and slid the drawer out. I carefully unfolded the silk wrapping.

Even this small box was too big for the item that lay inside. It was a dull gray sphere, about the size of a pea. When I ran a finger along the smooth surface, I couldn’t tell whether it was metal or plastic or something else. But I could feel the core of iron underneath—small enough to be almost indetectable to my inner senses, but unmistakably there.

When I had destroyed Arkanica’s headquarters in Hawthorne several months ago, I had dug this out of the neck of one of their prisoners. Not just any prisoner, but Vicantha, who had then been Queen Mab’s right hand and the reason I had started looking into the clean-energy company in the first place.

Back then, she had been my blackmailer, my reluctant ally, the person most likely to stab me in the back. Now she was… I shook my head. Better not to think about it. Not when I still didn’t know whether she had survived her attempt to sabotage her queen’s plans.

The small sphere was all I needed to focus on right now. Arkanica had implanted these things in the necks of their fae prisoners, to keep them paralyzed while the researchers drained their blood for their miracle fuel. Placed against the spine, the iron inside would disrupt the prisoners’ nerve function, while the coating would keep the metal from getting into their bloodstream and killing them. Arkanica was gone now, but I had kept this in case I might need a weapon against one of the fae someday. Given how much the Courts liked to send assassins after me—they took exception to the idea of their precious fae magic in a half-human body, and didn’t care much about the fact that I hadn’t exactly chosen to commit the crime of being born—I’d had a feeling it would come in handy sooner or later.

And I had been right. Although not in the way I had expected.

I tucked the small ball carefully into my wallet, next to Silas’s ID and a handful of others from the new aliases Skye had set up for me after my supposed death. I didn’t have my old resources anymore, the connections that could craft aliases with paper trails more convincing than those of some people who actually existed. But Skye had connections of her own, and was happy to be my go-between. I had met one of these friends of hers, a fellow hacker with connections to a Boston crime syndicate. She kept evading my questions about the others, and I had stopped asking. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.

The ball gave the wallet a noticeable bulge, but it was small enough that I could still pull the leather strap closed. I tucked the wallet into my back pocket and turned the doorknob.

The door didn’t open.

I took a slow, deep breath. I had hoped I would make it out of here without incident, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. It was more than I had hoped for that the ID wouldn’t raise a red flag. The authorities had all my old aliases by now; the odds had been slim that this one would be an exception.

I had planned for this. The only thing I had really been worried about was not making it down here to retrieve the item. The rest, I could handle. Or rather, Skye could, as long as she was monitoring the situation like she had said she would.

I knew I could count on Skye. Still, something about being trapped in a giant steel box woke up some deep primal fear in the fae half of my brain. Or maybe it had more to do with my hundreds of years’ worth of memories of humans locking me up—memories that never ended well. Either way, I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep from tugging harder at the knob, even though I knew it wouldn’t open for me.

And there was a part of me that wanted to skip that step and move straight to throwing myself at the door like a caged animal. That part of me wasn’t in the bank anymore, but back in the last cage where a human had trapped me. Back on Charles Engstrom’s island, with his researchers and their scalpels and the endless beeping of their monitors.

My fingers clenched together tightly enough to strangle each other. My nails dug into the backs of my hands. I took another deep breath.

Mr. Lefebvre? The low feminine voice sounded like it was coming from inside the room, but a quick jerk of my head from side to side confirmed that I was alone. I’m with the FBI. I’d like to speak with you.

It took me a few seconds to locate the speaker in the upper right corner, and another few to figure out why this FBI agent had gone to the trouble of using it instead of just speaking to me through the door. With several inches of steel between us, I doubted I would have been able to hear a word she said. The reminder of where I was did nothing to improve my disposition. You know that’s not my name, or you wouldn’t be here.

I held my breath. I wanted to hear what she said next.

What would you prefer I call you? she asked.

You tell me.

She paused for a long time. My tension ratcheted up with every second that went by. I’ll be honest with you, she finally said. We know nothing about you. We thought Kieran Thorne worked alone—we never found evidence of any associates. But now someone comes along using one of his aliases to retrieve an item from a safe deposit box in an obscure Massachusetts town—the same town he targeted with his bomb. That tells us you have deep knowledge of his operations. What we’re wondering is whether you’re the only one.

I let my breath out all at once, and hoped there were no cameras in the vault to pick up the naked relief on my face. She knew I was using one of Kieran Thorne’s aliases, but she didn’t know I was Kieran Thorne. I hadn’t undone all my hard work; the FBI still thought Kieran Thorne was dead and buried. That was all I needed to know.

We left this and several other locations under surveillance in case someone tried what you just did, the voice went on. If there are others, we’ll find them the same way we found you. But you’re the first—which gives you a unique opportunity. If you help us uncover the rest of Mr. Thorne’s operation…

I tuned her out. I wasn’t interested. She had already told me what I needed to hear. I stood ready, watching the door, and waited.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if Skye had been listening in, because I didn’t have to wait long. It only took a few more seconds for the alarm to sound.

The sound bounced off the rows of metal boxes, adding a shrill whine to the wail. I clapped my hands over my ears. As I did, I fought not to smile. Just in case there really were cameras.

This bank, like all banks, employed sophisticated techniques to guard against robberies. But that didn’t leave them immune to the grade-school prank of pulling the fire alarm.

Of course, what Skye had done was a tad bit more complicated than pulling a big red lever. The company that provided fire protection for the First Bank of Hawthorne worked exclusively with clients that had reason to be concerned about security, and they assured all their clients that their systems were tamper-proof. But tamper-proof or not, they were no match for a sixteen-year-old with a keyboard. At least not this sixteen-year-old.

I hoped the bank could get their money back on the installation fee. Skye had given me a peek at the price. These systems weren’t cheap.

I tried the vault door again. The knob jiggled under my hand, but didn’t budge. Shouldn’t the electronic lock have automatically disengaged when the alarm went off? No, I realized, of course not—the vault was meant to protect the valuables inside the safe deposit boxes, and in a fire, the boxes were better off with the door closed than open. Normally, when bank customers were in this room, the door was unlocked. The system wasn’t configured for a situation like this.

But Skye had probably thought of that already, and was working on disengaging the lock at this very moment. Maybe. I hoped.

Come on, Skye, I thought—and as soon as I did, the lock disengaged with a beep. The door clicked open a crack.

Thank you, Skye, I said silently. A second later, I was glad I hadn’t said it aloud, because a woman with an FBI badge in one hand was waiting on the other side. Her other hand rested atop a holstered gun.

My mind went blank for a good five seconds. The alarm cut out. I didn’t hear anything but static, and saw nothing but a pulsating red. I didn’t smell anything but my own blood.

I looked down at myself, and remembered that I wasn’t bleeding. There were no bullet holes in my chest, no scalpel cuts at precise intervals down my arms. But the smell was still there.

I thought I was hallucinating the light too, until I caught sight of the red bulb in the hallway behind the FBI agent, flashing in time with the alarm. The sound of the alarm crashed in on me again as soon as I thought about it. It sounded like screaming. I might have clapped my hands to my ears all over again if I had been able to move.

The FBI agent’s hand tightened on her weapon. —hands out in front of you, she shouted over the alarm. I had the sense it wasn’t the first time she had said it.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.

I had faced down humans with weapons more times than I could count over my seven hundred years of life. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t taken its toll; this wasn’t the first time I had frozen up. But usually it wasn’t this bad. Usually I didn’t lose a precious few seconds while I tried to remember who and where I was. Why now?

I laughed, startling the FBI agent into drawing her gin an inch out of the holster. Why now? For starters, maybe it had something to do with the fact that the last time I had seen an FBI agent, I had successfully taunted a roomful of them into filling me with bullets, because all the other options had been worse.

I was sure it didn’t help that less than twenty-four hours before that, I had escaped from a lab where a pair of humans had spent several weeks systematically testing the limits of my healing abilities. I had died many times before that day, but the lab… that was the first time I had ever endured that kind of pain for so long without respite. Say what you will about death, but at least after it happens, people tend to stick you in a cozy little box by yourself and leave you alone.

Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe, after seven hundred years, I was finally reaching my breaking point. The fae, with the magic in their blood that could heal anything short of an amputation as long as an iron weapon wasn’t involved, were built to take mortal injuries and survive. Humans, though… their brains weren’t equipped for that. They weren’t supposed to face the pain and panic of death and live to do it all over again. And again. And again.

Ever since my fae father had sent his first assassin after me when I was six years old, I had resisted the way the fae saw half-humans like me: as people whose inherent weakness made us too dangerous to live. But maybe my human weakness was finally catching up to me.

The FBI agent pulled the gun another inch free. —not a drill—was up there when it happened—system reported an actual fire. You can stay down here and burn, or you can come with—

The fire protection system might have reported a fire, but the bank would realize it had made a mistake as soon as the fire department got here. I didn’t have long. I couldn’t afford to stand here frozen. I had places to be tonight.

I closed my eyes. Not being able to see her made it a little easier. Without moving my hands from my sides, I stretched my left fingertips up toward my wrist until they caught the clasp of my heavy black steel watch.

What are you doing? Tension sharpened her voice, making her words clear even over the screeching of the alarm. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know she had drawn the gun.

I don’t plan on spending my life in a prison cell, I told her truthfully. You go if you want. I’m staying here. I fumbled with the clasp until I found the catch. It released under my fingers.

You don’t have to do this. I didn’t know whether the fear in her voice came from the fire she was imagining, or the thought of losing her only lead on Kieran Thorne’s nonexistent organization. Probably both.

Yes, I do, I said as I let the watch fall to the floor. Also the truth. I wouldn’t have taken off my watch in downtown Hawthorne if I had seen any other choice. Hawthorne and I had a history. A history Hawthorne still wore as a scar, in the form of half a block of buildings that hadn’t been rebuilt and a new memorial wall outside the mayor’s office. That day had left me with scars of my own, but I wore mine on the inside.

I opened my eyes, and prayed for fire.

When the fae called people like me weak, they weren’t entirely wrong. I was born with my father’s magic. But I also had my mother’s blood. Human blood. Complete with the hemoglobin that carried oxygen through my body. And everyone who has been through grade-school science knows the key ingredient in hemoglobin.

Iron.

I had fae magic, but the iron in my blood meant I couldn’t control it. The best I could do was keep it suppressed with iron worn against my skin. When I set it free, it did what it wanted, when it wanted, and dragged me along for the ride.

Occasionally, that worked to my advantage, when it found a more elegant solution to a problem than I could have thought up with my conscious mind. Most of the time, it meant I was at its mercy. If it wanted to reduce someone to their component atoms, it didn’t matter if I had been hoping to take them alive. If it didn’t feel like fighting that day, well, then I was on my own.

I didn’t want to hurt the FBI agent in front of me. She was only doing her job. All I needed was a distraction—something to get me out of the building. Something like, say, a fire. It didn’t have to be a big one, just enough to turn Skye’s lie into truth and remind the FBI agent why she was afraid.

I knew better than to think my magic would give me what I wanted. More than likely, it would decide the best way to get me out was to make certain the FBI agent couldn’t stop me. One more death on my conscience. If I had been headed anywhere else tonight, I wouldn’t have risked it. But I had unfinished business, and I had put it off for too long.

I only hoped my magic made it quick and painless for her.

But she was still standing there, vibrating with fear and frustration, gun trained on my chest. This is your last chance. Come with me and I promise—

I didn’t get to find out what promise she planned to make. Her words cut off as the smell of smoke drifted down the hall. Underneath the wail of the alarm, flames hissed and crackled. Orange flickered in the distance.

She stared round-eyed at the fire, then at me. With a muttered curse, she jammed the gun back in its holster and took off down the hallway.

I could have sworn I heard my own power laughing at me.

I didn’t waste time wondering why my magic had done something helpful for once. There was that saying about gift horses, after all. I slipped the watch back onto my wrist, and I ran.

Chapter 2

I lay facedown on the lumpy mattress, staring at the stained sheets I was certain didn’t meet operating-room sterility standards. If not for my magically-enhanced immune system, I would have counted myself lucky if I didn’t catch something just from stepping into this room.

The cheap hotel room, ours for the next two hours, smelled like cigarettes and a previous occupant’s grapefruit perfume. Skye had given a nervous giggle when she had first seen the place, which she had quickly covered up with a joke. The man at the front desk had curled his lip at me and tossed the room key across the counter rather than risking brushing my fingers with his. I could only imagine what he thought I had brought Skye here for. But apparently this place didn’t pay him well enough to raise the alarm at a man who appeared to be in his thirties renting a room with a sixteen-year-old girl.

I wondered what he would think if he knew why we were really here.

Lara Delaney’s house was only a few minutes away. I was sure she would have lent us a room for as long as we needed. But my history with Delaney was… complicated. The kind of complicated that started with me abducting her from her home and ended with her having to fake her death and go underground. With a slight murder attempt in the middle. She was understandably uncomfortable around me after everything I had done. I didn’t want to inflict any more discomfort on her than necessary.

Or answer her questions about the methods I had used to bring Arkanica down. Delaney was that rarest of creatures, a genuinely good person. The problem with that was that the rest of us invariably fell short.

I tried not to tense as Skye dabbed alcohol over the back of my neck. But the remembered smell of bleach overtook the grapefruit perfume. For a second, I thought I heard a member of Arkanica’s science team chattering cheerfully about nothing as he prepared to cut into me. I flinched away.

Skye paused. Did I hurt you?

I’m fine. I forced my head back to its former position. Go ahead.

Are you sure you want me to do this?

Want, no. Need, yes. So get it over with, will you? I tried to keep my voice light. I wasn’t sure how well I succeeded. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep lying here, waiting for the bite of yet another scalpel. Waiting for Engstrom’s researchers to—

To do nothing. Engstrom’s researchers were dead. This was Skye. I trusted her with my life. If only I could get that through to my jumpy nervous system.

I breathed in grapefruit and secondhand smoke, and wished I had thought to have Skye tie me down.

I’m really not sure I’m qualified for this, said Skye. If you were a computer, it would be no problem. But you’re all organic and… squishy. I don’t like looking at blood.

Can you do it without passing out?

I… think so?

Now that was the voice of confidence I wanted to hear from someone who was about to cut into me with a sharp implement inches from my spine. Then do it now, before you talk yourself out of it. I softened my voice. If I could do it myself, I would. But I need you for this.

You must really be out of options if you’re willing to admit you need help. Her laugh wasn’t enough to cover up her unease, but it brightened the atmosphere of the room a little. All right. On three.

No. Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. If I have any warning, I don’t know if I’ll be able to—

I gasped back the rest of my words as pain bloomed across the base of my skull. Intellectually, I knew the pain wasn’t that bad. Compared to my mental scrapbook of painful deaths, one little cut was nothing. But it was more than a cut. It was the sharp burn of a scalpel, with the bleach-and-saltwater smell of the lab all around me. It was the research team rattling off numbers in their curt voices. It was—

Kieran? How are you doing?

I’m fine, I said through gritted teeth. Finish it. Before I heal.

She hesitated for so long I thought she wasn’t going to do it. But then I heard her swallow, and rustle around on the nightstand for the small metal orb—which I had left in its silk wrapping, so as not to contaminate it with whatever had been in this room before us. My magic could heal just about anything, but even it had its limits.

How deep? Skye’s voice only shook a little.

Just underneath the skin. That’s how Arkanica did it. I didn’t know whether that mattered or not, but I wanted to match what they had done as closely as possible. That was why I was having her implant it in the back of my neck, instead of doing it myself somewhere I could easily reach.

I wasn’t as sensitive to iron as a full-blooded fae. I didn’t know how much the minuscule amount of iron, heavily shielded as it was, would affect me. My hope was that if I put it up next to my spine the way Arkanica had, the effect would be strong enough to inhibit my magic, but not strong enough to paralyze me the way it had Arkanica’s prisoners.

The cold metal ball sent a needle of pain through me as it slid under my skin. That was the iron. But once it was in place, all I felt was a dull ache. It was fainter than I had expected—even less noticeable than the constant background pain of the watch around my wrist. That almost made up for the fact that I could feel my skin regrowing around the foreign object, and soon the metal sphere would become a part of me. Until the moment came when I had no choice to rip open my skin and tear it out. That thought sent a wave of dizziness through me.

Well? Skye asked. Can you move?

I flexed my fingers experimentally, then my toes. Everything seems to be working fine.

Good. Stay there until it’s healed, just to be safe. I’m going to clean up while you… no, scratch that, I think I need to sit down. The mattress squeaked as it bent under her weight. Sorry. Nowhere else to sit in here but the floor, and have you looked at that carpet?

I gave her a moment. When her breathing sounded like it was under control, I said, I never did thank you for your help at the bank today.

"Don’t mention it. It was kind of fun to use my powers for evil. Doesn’t everyone secretly dream of planning the perfect heist? Not that I stole anything while you were escaping, but I could have."

Just don’t make a habit of it. I paused. How are things going with Titania? She was teaching the Queen of the Summer Court how to hack, which sounded to me like an arrangement that could only end badly— both for Skye and anyone who found themselves on the wrong side of Titania’s new skills. The fact that I had been the one to get Skye into this bargain didn’t change my opinion.

Same as when you asked me two days ago. She’s a model student. Hasn’t tried to trick me into any bargains like you warned me about, either.

Or you haven’t noticed. This conversation wasn’t exactly conducive to resting. I was relieved when the itching in the back of my neck stopped; that meant I was healed enough to move. I pushed myself to a sitting position, and brought a hand to my forehead as the room spun.

Probably should have rested a few more minutes, Skye said in the matter-of-fact tone all know-it-alls used.

I heal fast. I stood. Time to see if this worked. Wait outside while I test it.

Skye made a face. I’m still feeling woozy.

You’ve seen what my magic does. If the inhibitor doesn’t work… I didn’t finish that sentence. Bad enough that I have to do this with other people just outside these walls. If we had more time, I would drive until there was no one around for a hundred miles before I took this thing off. I rattled my watch at her. As long as there’s the slightest chance of failure, I am not testing this with you only a few feet away. Go wait outside.

Skye looked like she wanted to argue. A glance at my watch closed her mouth. She must have been remembering the times she had seen my magic in action. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to see it again—in fact, I was counting on it. Still, that look of fear hurt.

But it got her out the door, which was all that mattered.

I unclasped the watch, but didn’t drop it. I took a deep breath. Taking off the watch in the bank earlier, in the grip of adrenaline, had been one thing. Now there was no one aiming a gun at my chest, and nothing to distract me from the thought of what could happen in the space of a few seconds if my magic decided to level the whole flea-ridden motel.

I forced my thoughts to my son instead. Lucien was trapped in the Winter Court, waiting for me to cross through the portal and rescue him. The portal that would only let me through if I wasn’t wearing iron.

I tossed the watch onto the floor.

I waited for the rise of Summer heat in my blood—the legacy of my father, the king of the Summer Court. I waited for the electric surge of power through my limbs, and the subtle signs that would tell me my magic was about to unleash a storm of destruction—a whisper of wind, a flicker of flame, a tremor in the walls.

Nothing happened. I didn’t even feel my power lying dormant in my core, the way I could when it decided—for whatever reason—not to come out to play. Where my magic should have been, all I felt was numbness. Exactly like when I was wearing the watch.

I gave it another few minutes, just to be sure. Then I opened the door.

Skye must have been leaning against it, because she tumbled into the room, windmilling her arms to keep herself upright. She glared at me.

Then her gaze dropped to my bare wrist. Her glare turned into a wide-eyed stare.

It worked? She didn’t sound as happy about that as I had thought she would.

Seems that way.

So that’s it. You’re leaving.

Tonight, if I can. I dug through the bag I had brought, and pulled out the clothes I had chosen for my trip through the portal. Flannel and thick denim—not my usual style. I preferred my clothes upscale, subtly flattering, and butter-soft to the touch. But my last trip to the Winter Court had taught me to dress for the cold and for the wilderness.

A gray wool coat completed the ensemble. At least the coat had a touch of class to it. That was sure to impress Mab before she blasted my head off.

I laid everything out on the bed, along with the weapons I had bought last week. Three knives of varying lengths, a stun gun, an expandable baton, and pepper spray for good measure. Not one of them contained a single fleck of iron.

Overkill? Maybe. But I was going into the heart of the Winter Queen’s territory with no access to my magic. I had to be prepared. I had no intention of going up against Mab herself with my power suppressed, but I didn’t intend to remove the inhibitor until the last possible moment. I couldn’t go taking it out and putting it back again whenever I wanted. And since tearing through Faerie with uncontrolled magic didn’t sound like a good way to stay inconspicuous, that meant I had to be able to fight without my power.

I picked up the watch, but instead of putting it back on, I held it out to Skye. Keep this safe for me.

She didn’t take it. You could wait until tomorrow to leave. Go out for a nice dinner or something. Live it up before your big wilderness trek.

I’ve already waited two weeks. On top of the time I wasted on Engstrom’s island. I had waited those two weeks at Skye’s insistence, and although I hated to admit it, she’d had the right idea. In that time, I had put on a little of the weight I had lost as Arkanica’s test subject, and even gotten a few nights of restful sleep. But all the while, I hadn’t been able to forget that every day I spent resting meant another day of suffering for Lucien.

If he was lucky. If not, if the time dilation between Faerie and here didn’t work in our favor, each day of my time could be ten years of his. Or more.

Exactly. After two weeks, what’s one more day? Her voice was pleading, but her face was resigned. She already knew I wasn’t going for it.

Take the watch. I kept my voice soft, and pretended I didn’t see the glistening at the corners of her eyes. I’m going to need it when I get back.

She swiped a hand across her own eyes before she looked up at me. Her gaze searched mine. "When you get back? Are you that sure? You haven’t forgotten who you’re going up against, have you? She fingered the smallest of the knives. Because I don’t think this is going to cut it against the Winter Queen."

If I don’t come back, neither does Lucien. And that’s not acceptable.

Then promise me. Skye crossed her arms. You want me to take your watch for you? Promise me you’ll be back for it.

I had already made her a promise that had gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion. My magic was diluted enough that I could tell lies, unlike the full-blooded fae, but my promises were binding. What she was asking for, though, wasn’t nearly as risky as the last one. The only reason I wouldn’t be able to keep that promise was if I was dead—permanently so—or trapped somewhere with no hope of escape.

In the first case, a broken promise wouldn’t be able to do anything to me. And in the second, I would welcome the death it brought me.

But I couldn’t do it. Because what she was really asking for was an assurance that I would come back. And I couldn’t give her that.

"When