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Her glittering lashes swept down to cover her eyes for a long, silent moment. Then they flicked open, and she gave him a smile of pure, undiluted condescension, with no hints of openness or vulnerability anywhere to be seen. “Very well,” she murmured. “I accept your bargain.”

At her words, a hot shock of magic suddenly charged the air between them, like a fire catching light. It burned against his skin for a single, scalding instant and then vanished … but its message lingered in his still-tingling skin and twisted gut.

Bargains were far more than mere words of commitment in the fae realm, apparently—and on this magical battlefield, for the first time in years, Gerard was well out of his depth.

Hundreds of miles away and in the mortal realm, another battle was about to erupt in a snowy mountainside camp. Ten feet away from a massive boulder coated in transparent ice, ten armed soldiers stood guard before their commander’s tent, facing off against five others, who flanked an official Imperial messenger. Raised voices rousted even more soldiers from their tents, while white-and-gold-cloaked Gilded Wizards clustered in a separate group nearby, watching and whispering worriedly to each other.

The Imperial messenger’s irate voice carried the accent of the highest court and lashed his gathered audience like a whip. “Your precious Golden Beacon may have given you his orders, but His Imperial Majesty will not be denied! He requires the attendance of your general now, by swiftest course to the capital, with no more cowardly lagging along the way. General de Moireul will be on the train that leaves Kölnir station tonight, or he will be declared guilty of disobeying Imperial orders … again!”

Angry muttering sounded through the crowd of watching soldiers as they edged closer.

The five soldiers who stood behind the messenger dropped their hands to the hilts of their swords in rolling unison, like a wave of impending violence.

Unseen and undetected by any of them, the distant observer who watched it all through the boulder’s thin coating of ice winced in pained anticipation …

And then one of the cloaked Gilded Wizards stepped forward, pushing back her hood as she interrupted the standoff. “Wait!” Turning from the Imperial messenger to the officers who led the human shield before the general’s tent, she said loudly, “We think you should all know. One of my colleagues walked past the Golden Beacon’s tent yesterday morning … and he’s certain he sensed the remnants of fae magic coming from inside it.”

The crowd erupted into a new kind of chaos at that news …

And, seated far away in her efficient royal office in her cold, northern capital city, Queen Ailana of Nornne let out a low groan, closing her eyes for a brief moment of respite from the scenario playing across the sheet of ice on the silver tray set on the desk before her.

“Oh, Lorelei,” she murmured wearily. “What have you done now?”

7

The moment that the first round of the Tournament of Leaves began, Lorelei found herself swept away from the open playing field and confined, alone, within a dark, freezing cavern with no breaks in the damp walls around her and no sign of her reluctant partner anywhere.

Luckily, she was confident that she could find her way out of this trap—within a minute at the most!—if only she could keep her racing mind on the challenge … and away from that terrible, treacherous moment when she’d nearly lost her head over a man for the first time in years. Not just any man, either: It had been the godsdamned Golden Beacon, of all the worst possible choices! What would her fellow Queens of Villainy say if they ever found out about that mortifying misstep?

At least Lorelei had had some excuse to be surprised by betrayal when it had come from her first two lovers. Back then she’d been young, lonely, and naive, and both of them had sworn loyalty to her on their knees.

Stiff-necked, stubborn Gerard de Moireul saved all of his loyalty for the emperor who wanted to march heartless armies across the continent and turn Lorelei’s beautiful, unique Balravia into one more flat and soulless Imperial archduchy covered in iron rails like a cage. Every magically gifted human would be forced into the regimented Gilded Wizards, and not a single wild fae influence would be left at all.

… And for all she knew, Gerard might be trapped in a nest of venomous flying serpents now, surrounded and overwhelmed without her magical help, while she fluttered about this absurd cave fretting about unimportant feelings.

Curse it!

She had not expected to be separated from her partner in the very first challenge that was set. Still, if Oberon thought he could throw her off her game, he was very much mistaken.

Drawing a deep breath, Lorelei tipped her head back and purposefully set aside every years-old memory of burning poison and humiliation … and the even more dangerous heat that had scorched the air between her and the Golden Beacon when he’d finally snapped his leash for a single, breathless moment.

He’d come so close to kissing her…!

Lock it away. Breathing deeply and evenly, she turned in place and reached out with all her senses to absorb the illusion that enclosed her. Formed by some of the most ancient fae in her mother’s kingdom, it was of unmatched quality; in other circumstances, she would have dearly loved to study its effect. From the irritating drip—drip—drip of a distant fall of water, coming from deep in the shadows of the cavern, to the overwhelming smells of moss and damp and the chill of slick stone ground against the bare soles of her feet, every detail felt unassailably real, solid and true.

Somewhere in the near distance, the fae audience must be watching, chatting and cheering, sharing snacks and laying bets with their friends and enemies over how long it would take her to find her way out. All that Lorelei could hear, though, was the endless drip that nagged at her ears as the cold, moist air pressed in against her bare arms, trying to force her to shrink into herself.

It wouldn’t work—and the fact that he’d chosen it proved that Oberon didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.

All across the continent, in the mortal and fae realms alike, ignorant followers of her escapades might agree that this must be her nightmare: to be trapped on her own, far from any glittering parties, handsome lovers, or adoring crowds. If she were truly the paper creature of their imaginings, she would panic at her solitude and discomfort and use herself up far too soon, rashly flinging all of her power at the illusion to shatter it in a full-blown attack.

But Lorelei had learned decades ago how to function alone behind her sparkling public image—and every battle or assassination attempt that she’d survived since then had helped teach her the exact limits of her magic.

So, instead of bracing herself to battle with magic, she closed her eyes and reached out—not with her fallible physical senses this time, but with something far deeper and more true: her ingrained link with the earth itself and all that grew from it.

I’m back, darlings, she called out in a silent, musical lure. Why don’t you come find me? It’s been far too long.

According to tales her mother’s attendants had told, flowers had shot out from the ground to curl around her crib in blessing before she was even old enough to notice them. When she’d been expelled into the mortal realm to stake her claim at her father’s court, that move had cut her off from every leaf and bloom in the fae realm, and the loss had felt like an amputation.