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“Did you hit your head on something?”
“Come.” Norah pulled her away from the wall and toward the stairs leading down from the battlements. With a glance over her shoulder at the approaching army, Bree sighed and turned her back on the fight. She followed Norah into the castle corridors and into the empty throne room. The chill of the empty castle seeped into her bones.
“I feel like I’m abandoning them,” Bree said, her steps slowing. “I should be out there, ready to fight.”
“You won’t feel that way in a second.” Norah glanced around, closed her eyes, and then sighed. “Did you know that Autumn fae have the power to cast illusions?”
Bree raised her brows. “Erm, yes. That’s what your necklace did. The one your mom gave you. It tried to hide what your powers were.”
“Exactly,” Norah said. “It cast an illusion.”
“I’m not following.”
She blew out a breath. “I have the powers of all of the seasonal courts, which means I have Autumn fae power, too. I can cast an illusion. I can make it seem like you’re one of them.”
Bree drew back, hissing between clenched teeth. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you want to glamor me to look like a demon so that I can infiltrate their army?”
“There it is.”
“Ha!” Bree shoved her hands into her hair and stared at her friend. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Norah.”
“I have, unfortunately, never been more serious in my life.” She sighed again. “I would never ask this of you if I did not think it was the only way. We need to find out how to merge the realms and close the gates. We won’t win this fight, so we have to stop this army some other way.”
“And so I’m...what, exactly? Supposed to wear an illusion and just saunter on in there? Why would any of them even speak to me? I’d be a random soldier.”
“Well.” She shifted on her feet. “That’s where Taveon comes in.”
“Where I come into what?” Taveon asked smoothly as he strode into the throne room with the grace of a tiger. He prowled around the room, sizing up Norah with a suspicious eye. He’d heard every word of their conversation through the bond—Bree no longer wanted to close herself off to him at all. Everything she saw, he saw, if he wanted to.
“Don’t act coy,” Norah said. “I know you two are linked.”
“Right to the point. I like that.” He nodded. “However, if you think I’m going to let Bree go anywhere near that army, then you aren’t the ruler I thought you’d be.”
“Let?” Bree asked, scoffing.
Taveon frowned. “You could be killed.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” she shot back, though she was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth. She’d thought this whole thing was a terrible idea, too, but now that Taveon was challenging her, she could see that...
Bree frowned at him. “Wait a minute. You’re just playing devil’s advocate, aren’t you? You want me to agree to this because Norah’s about to say something I won’t like.”
He smiled, scratching the back of his neck. “You’ve gotten better at reading me through the bond.”
Shouts exploded from the battlements. Bree stiffened and gazed out the throne room door, her body itching to go and fight. The beast inside of her did not want to be caged like this. It wanted to help.
“So, what’s your idea, Norah?” Bree asked, turning back to her friend, who had clasped her hands tighter around the golden hilt of her sword.
“I can put an illusion over you to make you look like one of them,” Norah said. “And then we ‘hand’ Taveon over to you, surrendering him to the demons. You take him into the camp and get an audience with their king. And you try to find out how all this works so that we can end this once and for all.”
