Lucus was winning this thing.
The pines closed in on the unseelie queen, boughs creaking and needles raining down. She shouted something in fae, then threw a ball of light at the nearest pine.
Nothing happened.
Was her magic not working?
I looked back at Lucus, who flew high now, far above the action.
Then what sounded like a heavy sigh crossed the dueling field. All the pines, the grass, the oaks, and beeches too—all of them turned black and crumbled into powder.
The silence that followed was so loud that my ears buzzed with it.
Arleigh flew above the ruin, a quiet laugh pouring from her horrible, gorgeous face. Her fae took up the sick gaiety and ran with it. They began to dance in the blackened earth, to kiss and grope one another, and to sing off-key songs.
“That’s enough dueling for now, don’t you think, Lord Lucus? We will continue after the feasting if it pleases us. After all, neither of us is properly blooded. I do hope to enslave you for the time the curse gives you to live.” Her smile cut through her face.
Eyeing the queen and her court with disgust, Lucus joined me. His clothing was stained with dirt and his hair matted.
I was cold down to cell level. The whole area was just…dead. Unseelie were so messed up. “I’ve run out of descriptions for the horror that is this place.”
Lucus set his mouth against my head. He smelled like the earth stuck in his fingernails. “We will rise above this, Coren. We must.”
“Yeah, if they don’t have proper baked goods at this shindig, that’ll be the final nail in their coffin.”
“So you’re holding back on your commitment to our plans based on bread.”
“And cake.”
“Understood.”
I grabbed his fancy belt and tugged him into a walk, following the crowd into the woods, toward the trees that still lived. “I swear if I have a pretty bite of fae cake in my mouth and that woman pulls the black rot trick, I’ll portal the lot of them to the bottom of the sea.”
“Could you?”
I snorted, knowing full well that wasn’t happening. I didn’t want to imagine how hard it was going to be to portal just our group back to Nashville, but I shoved my Negative Nelly crap down and took on a joking tone.
“Don’t think I won’t try, pretty man. Don’t think I won’t try.”
Chapter 24
Fae outfits were not my thing. I was a black boots and jeans gal. I lifted the hem of my tunic thingamajig and shook my head. The glistening, embroidered branches around the edges were made of what looked like dew. I touched the watery lines, and my finger came away wet. Huh. I was never going to understand fae magic, but it did feel pretty nice on the skin. The rest of the outfit was soft as flower petals, and the dark blue color probably looked good on me. The boots they’d given me weren’t my favorite though—too flimsy for proper ass-kicking—but they’d have to do. I needed to look like I was going along with all this until we could escape.
Scratching at the braids the fae assistant had wrangled my thick locks into, I left the clustered pines that made up the changing area and followed the crowd toward the sounds of a party, my plan ticking through my head. First, get another fae knife. If Lucus dropped one, I doubt he’d be able to snatch it back before it plunged to the valley below, so grabbing an extra blade was just smart. Next, I had to look for a good time to slip away with Hekla. The Binder had told us the cells were past a forked path and a waterfall that sat behind the feasting location.
I didn’t know why I’d thought the feast would take place in the first spot where we’d met Arleigh, but I was wrong. The pines opened up to a large, moonlit meadow where low tables ran between mounded tufts of pale moss and shimmering, gray mushrooms big enough to sit on. Hundreds of fae lounged before plates piled with root vegetables, luminous sauces, and slices of some kind of meat. They lifted stone goblets with their unseelie hands, their fingertips black like watercolor paint running toward their palms, their veins glowing red through their skin.
Torches flickered at the edges of the meadow, and bare trees grew between them. My heart shunted through a long, sluggish beat. The bare trees were spaced evenly, planned out, and they extended into the woods. These had to be the blood trees, and there, beyond the feasting above a dais fitted with a row of oaken thrones and small tables, was the Yew Bow.
Suspended in the air by magic, the Bow flickered with a faint light in the color of deep purple and blood red. The bowstring caught a sliver of moonlight and blinked it back at me, and I couldn’t fight the oddest sensation that the weapon was…watching me.
Of course this was the perfect place for Arleigh to celebrate Nora’s upcoming sacrifice to the Yew Bow. I rubbed my eyes, feeling not a little bit overwhelmed. When I finally looked up, I saw Corliss standing at the end of the first table. She tucked a braid behind her black-tipped ear. Her eyes glowed like her veins.
I jumped back, startled, and someone grabbed my arm. Lucus’s scent drew me in, and I turned to slide into his arms, grateful for the company. “Their eyes are so freaky.”
He set his cheek against mine and whispered, “Please give me a sign just before you leave for the drop cells. I want to be aware, prepared.”
His breath sent shivers down my chest, and as his fingers curled against the back of my neck, I exhaled, my
