I slumped back into my seat, trying not to let my heart sink. This was also the same male who had commanded the water to drag a group of soldiers into the depths of the Spring Court.
I turned back to Drayce and ran my fingers down the side of his cheek. “Keep fighting the moss. I’ll free you soon.”
“Your Majesty,” Aengus said from behind the door. “What are your orders?”
My teeth worried at my bottom lip, and I tucked a lock of Drayce’s indigo-black hair behind his pointed ear. Sending emissaries to the harpist wouldn’t work.
“I will approach him alone.” I placed a kiss on his soft lips, walked across the suite, and opened the door.
Rosalind and Aengus stood side-by-side in the narrow hallway that separated our suites. Rosalind changed into black, leather armor that matched both her wings and my long-skirted armor, while Aengus still wore the same white tunic from before except with a red cape that brought out the red in his golden curls.
“At least allow me to fly you down to negotiate,” said Rosalind.
I nodded, and Rosalind opened the carriage door, letting in cool, algae-scented mist. The water stretched out beneath us, its gentle waves reflecting the dim light.
“Your Majesty?” asked Aengus.
“Retreat with the carriage at the first sign of trouble,” I said.
His blonde brows lowered into a frown. “Your Majesty—”
“That’s an order,” I replied. “If the harpist imprisons us beneath that water, you’ll need to wake King Drayce and work with him to get us out.”
Aengus offered me a reluctant nod, even though he couldn’t see the logic in my words.
Deep in my heart, I had an inkling of hope that Drayce would find a way out of the curse. Perhaps he would leave that room through the door or jump out of the window, and his soul would land in his body.
“Good luck, Your Majesty,” Aengus murmured.
I nodded and turned back to Rosalind, whose grip around my back tightened as we stepped out through the carriage’s door. We plummeted for a moment. My insides lurched with trepidation, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth. In the blink of an eye, she stretched out her wings, and flew us toward the lily pads.
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” she said. “It has been a lifetime since I last stepped off a platform.”
“It was only a tiny jolt of surprise.” I reached between our bodies and held her hand.
Now that we weren’t traveling so quickly and without the barrier of a window between us and the lake, I noticed its stagnant state. Clouds of mosquitoes hovered above the water’s surface, and the ripples I once noticed didn’t move.
My gaze landed on the harpist. Long strands of hair hung down from a thin face with a hooded brow and a nose as curved as a hawk’s. Cliach wore a cloak that seemed to be fashioned from an entire water lily with a matching tunic and tights.
Along the swell of each cheekbone were five red dots that stretched outward from the bridge of his nose. He stared at us with a narrowed gaze but continued playing the melodic notes.
The fae female glanced at us through heavy-lidded eyes and yawned.
“Welcome, ladies to Loch Crotto Cliach,” he said as his fingers plucked the instrument’s golden strings. “The lake of my harps!”
“Are you Cliach?” I asked.
He nodded. “And who might you be?”
“Queen Neara of the Faeries,” I replied.
Cliach turned to the female in the tower and raised his brows. When that didn’t elicit a response, he turned back to me. “I won’t leave this loch to play for anyone, not even you.”
“My mate has been cursed to sleep.” I pointed at the carriage in the distance. “We brought him here to listen to your harp. Can you awaken him?”
“I can…” He tilted his head and stared at me with a closed-mouth smile. It was the kind of look merchants made when a customer was stupid enough to exclaim how much they liked a particular item, a gleam of greedy triumph that promised a hard bargain.
The lining of my stomach fluttered with trepidation, and I hoped he wouldn’t make an outrageous demand. I inhaled a deep breath of cool air through my nostrils and raised my chin. “What is your price?”
Cliach nodded toward the tower. “That beautiful maiden is the daughter of Bodb Dearg. I have played to her for two-thousand-five-hundred nights, commanded the moat to rise through the windows and drown her mother, her father, her sisters, and her servants. Each day she thwarts my love and each day, my sorrow swells.”
I pressed my lips together into a tight line. “You killed her household?”
“Order her to love me.” He pointed at the red-haired faerie.
“That’s impossible,” I said through clenched teeth.
Cliach stopped playing and turned toward us. Rosalind flew us several feet backward through the air, her hand on the hilt of her sword. I held my breath and waited for him to order the water to swallow us both.
He didn’t say anything for several moments, only staring between Rosalind and me, his gaze assessing. “Am I not handsome enough to attract such a beauty?”
My mouth dried with the onset of nerves. This was the sort of trick question that could lead to the male taking great offense or turning his murderous affections to one of us. I swallowed hard, my mind racing for the right way to phrase the truth.
“It’s hard to fall for someone when they’ve drowned everyone you love,” I said.
Cliach blinked, realization widening his gray eyes. I clenched my teeth, not wanting to say anything else to prompt him to drown us where we hovered. He was just as bad as Crom Cruach and wasn’t even deserving of a swift execution, let alone love, but I needed him alive for long enough to awaken Drayce.
“I see,” he said, drawing out the last word. “Then you or your handmaiden will pleasure me on my bed of lilies. After seven days of
