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Mal pauses, his boots slowing just a fraction on the warm grass. His brow furrows in that genuine, endearing confusion that always highlights my mortal origins. “A... Rapunzel? Is that another earthly explosive?”

“No,” I say, a small smile touching my lips despite the lingering adrenaline. “It’s a mortal fairy tale. A princess with impossibly long hair locked away in a stone tower by a wicked witch, waiting for someone to climb up and break the lock.”

Mal’s hazel eyes darken, a slow, calculating curl of his mouth returning as he processes the story. He doesn’t offer a courtly reply. Instead, his long fingers slide down from my lower back, his palms grazing the bare skin of my thighs beneath the sheer, damp silk of my gown.

The touch is heavy and entirely uninhibited. He pulls me closer, our bodies locking into the carnal thrum of the solstice, his chest rising and falling in hard, ragged sync with mine. I look up at him, the Vesper-wine buzzing behind my eyes, the silver light of the three moons painting his handsome features in ethereal grace.

He is beautiful.

He saved me.

His lips had tasted like a promise in the dark forest last night.

But as his hands trail higher up my thigh, a sudden, cold weight drops straight into the center of my chest.

My mind doesn’t flood with the carnal surrender the triple moons are demanding. It doesn’t lock onto Mal’s heat. Instead, my thoughts violently fracture, flashing back to the terrace—to the image of a boy bound in iron chains, watching the court dance on the blood of his family. I think of piercing blue eyes that looked at me with a possessive panic before turning away into the fog.

A sickening, quiet certainty strikes deep into my marrow.

This is all wrong.

TWENTY-THREE

Ibroke the connection before the carnal pull of the moon could trap me completely, shoving my palms flat against the smooth white silk covering Mal’s chest. I took a sharp step backward, my bare feet skidding slightly on the warm, dewy grass as I created a sudden, definitive distance between us.

Mal stilled instantly. For one brief, unguarded fraction of a second, a flicker of confusion broke through his eyes, completely shattering his dangerous facade. But before I could read into the weight of it, his jaw clenched hard, and his sharp features smoothed into a wall of absolute indifference. The emotion vanished into the silver mist as if it had never existed, leaving him perfectly composed in his loose festive silk.

I didn’t offer an explanation, and I didn’t stay to watch his mask lock back into place. A male from the western tiers passed by with a half-empty goblet in his grip, and I snatched the heavy crystal out of his hand without a word. I pounded the vintage in three long, throat-scorching draughts, letting the magic of the Vesper-leaves flood my veins, desperate to drown the sudden, terrifying clarity clawing at my chest.

I spun on my heel and walked away from him, weaving mindlessly through the undulating mass of white silk and locked bodies. The atmosphere beneath the high lords’ ward was stretching to an absolute breaking point, the tropical humidity turning thick enough to choke. We had to be close to midnight by now. The swollen silver faces of the moons were directly overhead, bleeding a heavy, unnatural light across the valley. It was almost time for the ceremonial bells to ring, signaling the absolute peak of LunaStiya—the moment the court stripped away their garments to fully give in to the carnal tides.

But the anticipation turned to pure ash in my throat. I was not where I wanted to be. And I was definitely not with the male I wanted to be with.

I pressed through the final ring of dancers, retreating to the very edge of the field where the shadow of the ancient pines met the steaming, dark waters of the lake. The music from the center was a distant, thrumming roar, but out here at the edge, the air felt slightly cooler against the damp silk of my gown. I found a stone table laden with discarded decanters and continued to drink, pounding glass after glass of the dark wine, forcing the numbing magic deep into my system until the walls of my mind finally gave in to the heavy vertigo. I let the alcohol blur my vision, trying to ruthlessly crush the image of a broad-shouldered silhouette fading into the fog.

BONG.

The first midnight bell erupted from the high stone spires of the citadel—a deep, resonant chime that rippled across the valley floor and shattered the mist. The sound vibrated straight through the grass, striking into my bare soles and rattling against my ribs with the force of a physical blow.

The crowd let out a collective, primal roar as the first silks began to drop to the ground, but the world went perfectly, terrifyingly quiet in my head. The alcohol-induced haze fractured in a single millisecond, leaving nothing but a raw, unyielding truth in my chest.

I knew exactly what I wanted in this moment.

I turned on my heel and took off in a full sprint, my bare feet cutting through the warm grass as white silks continued to fall in breathless heaps around me. Fae were shedding their garments, casting aside their formal constraints to give their flesh entirely over to the moons, but I was tearing through the crowd like a weapon looking for its target. Twelve bells. The ancient solstice magic dictated twelve imposing chimes of midnight, and I had exactly that long to reach him before the night sealed his isolation.

BONG.

The second bell rang, the deep vibration rattling the silver chains against my hips just as I reached the far end of the field. I didn’t look back at Mal, or the high lords, or the writhing sea of white. I threw my weight forward, tearing through the iron gates and sprinting around the rocky path toward the stone bridge that spanned the chasm back toward the citadel.

The transition was a physical assault. The moment I crossed the boundary of the ward, the humidity vanished, replaced by the brutal reality of the mountain peaks. Freezing air slapped my lungs, and heavy flakes of snow immediately began to fall, sticking to the bare skin of my shoulders and chest. The damp, translucent silk of my gown turned to an icy sheet against my thighs, but I barely felt the bite. The Vesper-wine was a volatile furnace in my gut, the dark magic of the leaves burning through my veins as the only heat my body knew in this moment.

BONG.

The third bell sounded, echoing off the high granite spires as I crossed the threshold, tearing through the first set of heavy oak castle doors. My bare feet slapped wildly against the freezing flagstones of the lower corridor, the silver threads laced through my toes clicking in a frantic rhythm. I sprinted down the dark hallway, my hair flying completely out of its pins, my focus locked. I was heading for the guards’ courtyard. When Caspian retreated from the court’s theater, he always sought the iron discipline of the training rings. I was certain I would find him there, buried in the dark.

BONG.

The fourth bell tolled, the heavy bronze resonance vibrating through the stone walls just as I turned a sharp bend in the corridor. My breath caught in short, ragged gasps, my heart throwing itself violent and loud against the thin silk covering my ribs. Just two more bends. Two more corridors to clear before I reached the vaulted archway that opened into the guards’ courtyard. Eight bells left to find him in the dark.