“See the witch to his room.”
“I’d rather have a cell,” Bran croaked out, the collar around his throat impossible to ignore, but he refused to cower, even if that was all he wanted to do in that moment.
“Your room locks, and I hold the key, so consider your wish granted.”
“And Cillian? You’ll give him a meal like you promised? Something cooked and not rotten?” He went for specificity because he could see the way his words could be bent when the promise had been to just feed Cillian.
Ainmire seemed to find his attempts to navigate their dance of words amusing. “A meal will be brought to Cillian, as promised. If you want him fed in the morning, you will join me for breakfast.”
Bran wanted to do anything but that, except he had no choice. “I want to see him.”
“You may earn a visit if you behave.”
Bran hated the cruelly amused look in the Fae lord’s eye as he dangled the choice like bait between them. There was nothing Bran could say to him that wouldn’t make his and Cillian’s predicament worse.
Ainmire let him go, and Bran got dazedly to his feet. Damarus escorted Bran out of the dining room and back down the long hallway, to a small room on the first floor that didn’t look like the cell it was until he stepped inside it. The door shut and locked behind him, leaving him alone without magic for the first time in his entire life. It wasn’t gone—just out of reach. Muffled. Impossible to touch.
Living without it would drive him mad.
Bran stumbled toward the window, wanting fresh air, and found it wouldn’t open. He banged his fist on the glass, yanking his hand back with a hiss when fluid lines curled across the pane, magic in their shape. He stared at it, hand throbbing from the fiery shock he’d experienced at the touch.
It was a witchmark, one meant to contain.
Placed there, most likely, by a witch on behalf of the Fae.
Shaking his head, Bran sank down against the wall beneath thewindow, gripping his hair and giving it a hard yank. The momentary pain helped him focus, to get himself centered again, but the fear didn’t leave him. He curled a hand over one shoulder, breathing raggedly, hyperaware of how close his fingers got to the collar.
If this was how Ainmire and other Fae controlled witches, Bran could see the appeal of promising anything so they could feel their magic again.
Bran silently promised himself he wouldn’t ever bargain like that.
It was going to take everything he had to keep it.
Chapter Twelve
Cillian lifted his head at the sound of the door to the dungeon opening. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the stiffness in his body as the blanket he’d been given by a guard slid to the ground. He hurried to the cell door, glancing at the dirt floor, relieved to see the ice was gone. Whatever magic was in the cell, it existed to make his stay uncomfortable.
The fear that had kept him company all last night disappeared when he saw Bran step through the dungeon’s door with a tray of food in his hands, escorted by Damarus. Bran hurried over to him, and Cillian did a double take at his appearance.
“What the hell is around your throat?” he growled. “And why are you wearing that outfit?”
Bran wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d hiked in through the forest but the same sort of courtly outfit Damarus was in, only less bright and ornate. It looked like he was playing dress-up for a Renaissance Faire. But it was the collar wrapped around Bran’s throat that had Cillian clutching the cell bars with a fury that made him wish he could punch something. He didn’t like it and wanted to rip it off.
“What does it look like? I have to take my meals with the Fae lord so you get to eat,” Bran said tiredly, making a face. “There’s no accountingfor taste when it comes to clothes, but the food is decent. Did you get dinner last night?”
“Yes.” The bread and thin soup had arrived at some point last night, pushed through the narrow food delivery door in the cell by a bored-looking guard. He hadn’t eaten it, and when he’d woken up after a fitful doze, the tray had disappeared.
“Good. I asked to bring you breakfast so I could see you.” Bran stepped up to the cell door, his eyes searching Cillian’s face. “Are you all right?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that. You’re the one having to deal with the Fae.”
Bran grimaced. “You’re the one stuck down here. I have to keep you safe somehow.”
Cillian shook his head. “You don’t have to do that.”
He didn’t say that Bran should find a way to leave, even if it meant abandoning Cillian, because they’d come here to find Aisling. Cillian couldn’t stand the thought of her trapped in the wyrding, hunted by the lights.
“I won’t leave you behind.”
