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The elven queen shuddered outside the door.

“We can speak somewhere else,” I offered.

“No.” Skadi shook her head, the numerous rings along her pointed ear clinking. “I was simply recalling how cold I felt then. How different life is now. Feels rather impossible to fade in such a way.”

I squeezed her hand. Skadi’s affinity could numb her heart if used for cruelty and wickedness. It left her apathetic to anything around her. I’d seen it done after the battles, but since she’d been vowed to the whirlwind that was Jonas Eriksson, only brightness lived in the elven woman’s eyes.

“All right.” Livia faced us. “Sander feels she’ll be more comfortable with women first. Some of the inner guards of Eilifur admitted that the sea witch controlled her.”

“Could be a bad thing to have us go in first, then,” Celine offered. “Might think we breasts will sell her off to another sod to use.”

Livia considered the thought. “It’s possible. That’s why Sander is here. He carried her out, kept her safe on the ship, and if needed, he’ll take over.”

The alver prince still had a bandage around his neck from Eeva’s bite, but the color had returned to his skin, and he looked every bit a tricky prince in his dark clothes and the hood he kept over his head.

He wasn’t certain how Eeva would respond to him or if the blood call would make him more prey than man. He opted to conceal his features for now.

“And if she is not free of the pull?” Skadi asked.

I blew out a long breath. “Then, my friend, I suppose you know what to do.”

There was no desire to see Eeva pulled into Skadi’s mists, lost to the void of the Nothing. But if she could not be free of the lust for blood, then she was too great a risk.

“Ready?” Livia placed a palm on the latch.

With a collective nod, the queen opened the door and we stepped inside. The room was adorned in glimmering shades made from sea plants and satin sofas. A smaller bed than Tait’s chamber was positioned near a tall arched window.

Eeva sat on the edge of the mattress, peering through a nearby bubbled glass window at the gardens below. The woman appeared as she did the first time I met her in Eilifur, merely more broken and somber.

Bruises and scrapes marred her arms and across her brow where Tait had hit her with the stone.

Heaviness clouded her gilded eyes. The woman was not wicked. Gods, the way she stared longingly outside the palace, it seemed like she might be despising everything about herself.

“Eeva.” I approached first.

She looked over her shoulder. A polite smile followed, but it did not reach her eyes. “Hello, fae princess.” Her accent was a soft lilt in her gentle voice. A bit of pink teased her cheeks when she looked down at her hands. “I’m actually not certain how fae folk address each other.”

With a touch of caution, I stepped nearer. “Call me Mira.”

Eeva took note of the other women, then looked back out the window. “You needn’t fear me. I am not lost to the blood call. It fades quickly. Although, I most certainly do not hold whatever you plan to do with me against you. I am grateful you’ve allowed me to breathe this long.”

Livia and I shared a quick look, then I sat beside Eeva on the bed. “We’re not here to kill you.”

She blinked. “Why? I fell from my blessed nature and allowed the call of darkness to take me. It is grievous in my clans to do such a thing.”

“But Eeva, you were forced. And I’m not certain you even knew it was happening.”

Tears filled her eyes. She blinked and two streams fell down her cheeks. “I do not know what to say. I do not understand why you are not executing me. Even in my own clans, I would be tried and killed. We are the bringers of life. If we fall to the darker instincts, we bring only death. It’s abominable and unforgivable.”

Livia crouched in front of the woman. “Hello, Eeva. I’m Livia, queen of the sea fae. We do not know your customs, so we use our own. It is our custom, if someone is forced to do violence beyond their control, that they are innocent. We have no reason to kill you, not unless you are a threat to us.”

“I was.” Eeva’s breath shuddered. “I do not even know how many…how many of your folk I have killed. All I remember is your fae love.” She looked at me.

“How do you recall Tait and not the others?” I asked.

Eeva sniffed and cleared her voice. “I don’t know. I think it is because I somehow quelled the call to blood.”

Celine tapped my shoulder and handed me a parcel wrapped in linens. Lena’s talisman.