“What are you doing?” Caed demands, still keeping guard over Máel.
“He needs to heal,” I reply. “Titania, I need you.”
My grandmother appears on her knees beside me, her colourful robes paler thanks to the iron’s proximity. I inch us as far from the metal as I can, though Bree’s weight and my reluctance to hurt him hinder my efforts.
“We’ll make it fast,” she promises, staring at him with pity written in the tense lines of her eyes. “Are his ears still here? If we’re lucky, he’ll stay unconscious. Reattaching is easier than regrowing, though it will still be painful.”
I expected as much after healing Caed, but my stomach still turns at the thought of causing him more pain.
Searching through the sheets for his ears is the most gruesome thing I’ve ever had to do. I find a bloodied knife, slivers of skin, and other objects I have no name for scattered amongst the sheets before I come across the first. It takes me hanging over the edge of the bed to discover that his secondear has landed on the rug. I hold the blood-slicked appendages gingerly, hating how cold, rubbery, and lifeless they feel.
We’ll have to regrow whatever tattoos he’s lost, because there are too many missing and I wouldn’t even know where to reattach them.
Taking a deep breath, I hold my connection to Danu tightly in my mind. Titania grips my shoulders as I press the two pointed ears back against Bree’s head. Her healing magic slams into his body in a wave. His back arches under the onslaught, and his emerald eyes snap open, dashing my hopes that he might sleep through this.
Titania is working fast, no doubt eager to get it over with swiftly, for all our sakes. My grandmother is silent, stoic in a way that tells me she’s seen worse before, but I don’t have that luxury.
By the time it’s over, both Bree and I are shaking and crying, but he’s healed. Black tattoos flick across his torso without so much as a single scar to show for his ordeal.
I go to pull away, afraid that I’ll make this whole thing worse by touching him, but he clings to my dress like he’s drowning.
“Rose,” he breathes, hoarsely. “Am I…? Is this real?”
I nod, not trusting the lump in my throat to let the words past.
“Present for you, púca.” Caed slams Máel down on the bed, the iron collar locked around her throat.
Bree scrambles back, even though the bed is so large, there’s no chance of them accidentally touching. Máel is stirring, clawing at her throat before she’s even fully awake.
“I will have your heads for this,” she vows. “Guards! Guards!”
“No one can hear you,” Caed promises. “The guards are dead.”
“Who has your father allied himself with?” I demand, putting myself between her and Bree. “What are his plans?”
Something about the way Eero treated Ciara screamed of more than just anger. There was panic there, and I need to know what could get a fae with the power of invincibility running scared. If more of the minor courts are against me, I have to know.
“Fuck you.”
Bree edges around me, his breath catching at the sight of his tormentor in chains. I feel rather than see the slither of scales as Espen slithers past me. It isn’t the smaller, cuter version of the nathair that I’ve gotten used to, nor the giant one who saved me in Fellgotha, but a serpent as thick as my thigh that makes the bed creak as it wraps itself around Máel’s leg and climbs her body slowly, his black mouth open and fangs exposed.
“Tell my mate what she wants to know,” Bree orders as the snake rears back and hisses in Máel’s fearful face.
The scent of piss—already faint in the room—strengthens as the princess faces down the most painful death known to fae and realises there’s no saving herself.
Bree’s hand crushes mine as we stare down at her.
“You weren’tthere,” she gasps. “They were razing villages. Burning fields. We had to choose.”
“What are you talking about?” I snap, and the snake’s tongue darts out to lick the salty tears from her cheeks.
“The Fomorians,” she confesses. “Draard offered to cut us a deal with their king.”
Draard. I fall back against Bree, shuddering at the memory of the menacing Fomorian who delivered all of those lashes in Elatha’s throne room.
“Eero bargained with Elatha?” My eyes dart up to meet Caed’s, but the frown on his face suggests this is news to him as well. “Why?”
“The nobles were furious that their ancestral lands were being scorched,” Máel says, a hint of disdain creeping into hertone. “They were plotting against us, seeking to replace my father with Ciara, ofallpeople.” She spits her sister’s name. “So he made her crown princess and cut a deal with the Fomorians to stop the raids. As long as we do what Elatha wants, we’ll be left to rule the Summer Court in peace, without any Fomorian ever setting foot on our soil.”
