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Dante splays his fingers. “But what would the witch have to gain from this war?”
“She might not be working independently.”
“Hired by someone who wants to weaken one or both countries?”
“But we would have heardsomerumors about her….”
As they lose themselves in guesswork, Nadiya furrows her bushy brows. “Blood. She wants blood to spill. She mentioned it makes her magic more powerful.”
I suck in a breath. Everyone looks to me. Behind my back, I clench a fist around my injured palm. “Is it possible the Witch of Nightmares is a Seer?”
Nadiya frowns deeper. “I’m not sure, Sighted Mistress. She did say something about the Fates.”
“If she’s a Seer, that could explain why she set you on these tasks. She might have seen the path to a future she wants.” I slowly piece out the possibility. From my glimpse ofthe witch, she looked too young to be Balica’s and Verdant’s known Seers, but maybe she never told anyone about her Sight. “Future threads can change or be contradictory…but maybe her Sight is stronger than what I’m familiar with. Or maybe the Fates are guiding her.”
Cyrus rises to his feet. “The Fates? Why would theFateshelp the witch?”
If he only knew that he’s still alive due to my continued disobedience of their wishes. I deserve at least another thank-you note for that, but will I get one? Doubtful. “The Fates are the reason your cursed prophecy exists in the first place. Whywouldn’tthey help someone who’s making it finally happen?” I scoff. “You’ve never spoken to the Fates. If you have, you wouldn’t be surprised that they don’t care about us. All they’re after is blood. And what do beasts and wars do? Causebloodshed.”
Cyrus looks incredulous. “The Fates aren’tevil.”
“If you say so. They certainly aren’tjust,if that’s what you think instead.” If blood makesmymagic morepowerful, it’s not such a stretch to wonder if they make the Fates more powerful too.
“Sighted Mistress, Your Highness…sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.” Nadiya hesitantly gets to her feet and glances particularly at me, as if afraid I might tackle her again. “My fairies are very weak and I came here to help them.”
In a blink, her doe eyes have distracted Cyrus, who turns away from me at a speed that’s, frankly, offensive. “What happened?”
“Have some dignity, Princey,” I mutter under my breath.
“My fairies drew the dark magic from the beast earlier—the one who changed back into a man. They were hiding in my sleeve the whole time. I didn’t actually do anything.” Nadiya raises her cupped hands. The glow inside quivers, and I can make out the shape of tiny, fluttering wings. “I wouldn’t have risked them exhausting their magic, but the king was pressuring me to prove myself, and he was getting awfully close to finding out my ruse…so I agreed.”
“That was my fault,” Cyrus soothes. “I should have stopped him.”
A faint hue rises to her cheeks. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Your Highness. I thought my fairies would be okay. They were near-dead when I first rescued them, but when we crossed through the Fairywood to enter Auveny, they recovered. So I thought, if I bring them to the Fairywood again…”
He glances around at the gnarled trees enveloping us, lush relative to our surroundings. “These are just the hunting grounds. There’s no Fairywood for two days’ ride from the capital.”
“Oh.” She bites her lip. She’s definitely about to cry.
“Will they die? Do we need to make the trip?” Cyrus wraps his hands around hers, nauseatingly chivalrous. I roll my eyes; I guess it doesn’t take much for him to trusther.“Will ambrosia help? Many fairies in the city subsist on ambrosia—”
“I tried. They need their home. They need the magic of the Wood.”
“My tower—” I inhale sharply through gritted teeth. Now evenI’mhelping her. Unfortunately I do think she’s innocent, and she’s our best lead toward finding the witch. Besides, a poor girl caught in a callous court foreign to her? The similarities to my own beginnings aren’t lost on me. She’s lucky I still have heartstrings to tug. “If you need real, live Fairywood, my tower technically counts.”
Her big, bashful doe eyes light up. “Can we go there, Sighted Mistress?”
“That’s why I mentioned it,” I drawl. “Let’s go before your fairies turn to dust.”
The trek to my tower is ironically less suspicious with us clustered in a group. It looks like Prince Cyrus and a few of his closest companions—and me—went for a quick hunting trip. Odd, but nothing that can’t be explained by the presence of wine. Camilla once rode back into the palace drunk at midnight in nothing but mismatched underwear, a tale she still proudly tells at holidays.
Hand in hand with Nadiya, I check her memories as we walk. They open up to me, eager to be witnessed.
I learn the witch enchanted Nadiya to look like Raya, but the magic only lasted as long as the ball. Nadiya wasalways supposed to be discovered as a fraud, to cast doubt upon Balica. I don’t think she was supposed to run from the ballroom that night. I feel her doubt in the moment her disguise unraveled—the desire to give up, just to escape the exhaustion of playing pretend—before a desperate compulsion to survive took over. I know that feeling well. However clumsily, Nadiya’s been maintaining her ruse through veils and fairy charm.
I see how Nadiya came to have so many fairies: they were originally the ones trapped in the witch’s scepter. Nadiya secretly stole the scepter and smashed it, releasing them just before she left for Auveny. The fairies have been loyal ever since—even risking their lives during the demonstration with the beast today.
The Witch of Nightmares herself…I wish I could see more about her. I wonder about my theory that she’s another Seer. The magic she performed is beyond my imagination—but not so long ago, I wouldn’t have imagined creating a thorn out of nothing but my blood and a bit of Fairywood. The witch had a scepter of fairies. If I only tried, could I manipulate magic the same way?
