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“She would turn on fae folk?”

“Perhaps they manipulate her too?” Livia offered.

Erik pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “So forgiving of sea witches, love.”

True enough. A sea witch had been part of Livia’s torture when Larsson Bonekeeper stole her away. Livia proved her strength as queen by slitting the witch’s throat during the battle for the Ever.

“How did the mortals use the fae magic?” Gavyn asked.

“Don’t know, My Lord.” Swordeater shook his head. “All we knows is when they took it, we wouldn’t be breathin’ no more.”

Erik’s eyes shadowed. “Windswayer broke his oath for these wretches?”

Tait matched his cousin’s hatred. “Aye.”

“I want his eyes, his tongue. I want his damn heart hung from the mast of the ship.” Erik’s fist curled above the table.

“Mira already crushed his bones, cousin.” Tait looked at me with a touch of pride. “Had him walk straight off a cliff without even knowing it.”

The Ever King’s gaze locked on mine. A slow, wicked sort of grin spread over his lips. “I told you once before that your ability was useful.”

“And as I told you, I shall take that compliment as proof that you and I are now the fiercest of friends.”

Erik frowned, glancing back to his crew. “You said Windswayer threatened the princess?”

“Aye, My King,” Swordeater said. “We be thinkin’ that’s how he bartered for his life. Offered to make little fae babes if those mortal sods could find the lost royal lovey. They seemed to like the notion.”

Livia’s face paled. She looked at me across the table with a touch of horror. All the men shifted, some sitting a little nearer to the women, like they all might rush in front of us in a moment to keep us from such a fate.

No mistake, if Eilifur found the Ever Seas, Livia could be at risk. Skadi. Any woman with magic in her blood was in danger if Eilifur’s purpose was to create a gaggle of fae babes they could slaughter for their needs.

But why did they need our blood?

“You could not sense their desires, cousin?” Erik asked Tait, a bite to his tone.

“All I ever felt from them was the desire to bring us to their isle. We suspect with Windswayer’s help, they took care not to reveal their true hearts.”

“Are we all in agreement that the isle Tait and Mira found has some connection to these bloodthirsty mortals?” Jonas asked.

Grumbles of agreement rippled down the table. The isle kept us complacent, much like Eilifur. I rubbed a hand down my leg where the lashes from the sand still faded on my skin. My heart stopped.

“Tait.” I lifted the hem of my skirt, revealing the fading marks. “What if they tracked us? What if…the sand was less a trap and more a spell? What if remnants of it could be tracked?”

Tait tugged up the leg of his trousers. True enough, the marks from the sand still faded from his own skin. “They were strange marks.”

“Lena is skilled at tracking.” I dug my fingers into my hair. “The Summons, if it truly calls them—what if we were trapped in their snare the whole time and did not realize it?”

“Why did they not come for us then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we were like fish in a net still in the sea, unaware we were prisoners, but they would pull us up when they needed us.”

“It’s a good theory, Mira,” Sander said. “I’ll try to research more, but my instincts are telling me this entire event seems bespelled. A dark spell at that. Think about it: you fell into the sea during a cursed storm. Even if you weren’t trapped from the ship, the cursed sea might’ve tossed you exactly where they desired you to be.”

“With unknown witches, there’s no telling what’s possible,” Gavyn said, twisted frustration written on his features, “but I want to know how bleeding mortals and one sea witch could destroy a sea fae ship.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. In truth, the way the darkness devoured the Sea Void reminds me a little of Skadi’s affinity.”

Skadi could disappear any matter with her dark mists, never to be seen again. Or she could merely move items from one place to the next. Her affinity held the strength to devour the violent spell of the Chasm between the earth and sea fae realms; it was not so outlandish to imagine a power existed with enough strength to destroy a ship.