I hauled myself into the canvas tent when the fire was dying out, the space barely big enough for Lucien and me to sleep shoulder to shoulder.

His red hair gleamed in the faint firelight a moment later as he shoved through the flaps and swore. “Maybe I should sleep out there.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please.”

A wary, considering glance as he knelt and removed his boots. “You know Tamlin can be … sensitive about things.”

“He can also be a pain in my ass,” I snapped, and slithered under the blankets. “If you yield to him on every bit of paranoia and territorialism, you’ll just make it worse.”

Lucien unbuttoned his jacket but remained mostly dressed as he slid onto his sleeping roll. “I think it’s made worse because you two haven’t … I mean, you haven’t, right?”

I stiffened, tugging the blanket higher onto my shoulders. “No. I don’t want to be touched like that—not for a while.”

His silence was heavy—sad. I hated the lie, hated it for how filthy it felt to wield it. “I’m sorry,” he said. And I wondered what else he was apologizing for as I faced him in the darkness of our tent.

“Isn’t there some way to get out of this deal with Hybern?” My words were barely louder than the murmuring embers outside. “I’m back, I’m safe. We could find some way around it—”

“No. The King of Hybern crafted his bargain with Tamlin too cleverly, too clearly. Magic bound them—magic will strike him if he does not allow Hybern into these lands.”

“In what way? Kill him?”

Lucien’s sigh ruffled my hair. “It will claim his own powers, maybe kill him. Magic is all about balance. It’s why he couldn’t interfere with your bargain with Rhysand. Even the person who tries to sever the bargain faces consequences. If he’d kept you here, the magic that bound you to Rhys might have come to claim his life as payment for yours. Or the life of someone else he cared about. It’s old magic—old and strange. It’s why we avoid bargains unless it’s necessary: even the scholars at the Day Court don’t know how it works. Believe me, I’ve asked.”

“For me—you asked them for me.”

“Yes. I went last winter to inquire about breaking your bargain with Rhys.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—we didn’t want to give you false hope. And we didn’t dare let Rhysand get wind of what we were doing, in case he found a way to interfere. To stop it.”

“So Ianthe pushed Tamlin to Hybern instead.”

“He was frantic. The scholars at the Day Court worked too slowly. I begged him for more time, but you’d already been gone for months. He wanted to act, not wait—despite that letter you sent. Because of that letter you sent. I finally told him to go ahead with it after—after that day in the forest.”

I turned onto my back, staring at the sloped ceiling of the tent.

“How bad was it?” I asked quietly.

“You saw your room. He trashed it, the study, his bedroom. He—he killed the sentries who’d been on guard. After he got the last bit of information from them. He executed them in front of everyone in the manor.”

My blood chilled. “You didn’t stop him.”

“I tried. I begged him for mercy. He didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen.”

“The sentries didn’t try to stop him, either?”

“They didn’t dare. Feyre, he’s a High Lord. He’s a different breed.”

I wondered if he’d say the same thing if he knew what I was.

“We were backed into a corner with no options. None. It was either go to war with the Night Court and Hybern, or ally with Hybern, let them try to stir up trouble, and then use that alliance to our own advantage further down the road.”

“What do you mean,” I breathed.

But Lucien realized what he’d said, and hedged, “We have enemies in every court. Having Hybern’s alliance will make them think twice.”

Liar. Trained, clever liar.

I loosed a heaving, sleepy breath. “Even if they’re now our allies,” I mumbled, “I still hate them.”

A snort. “Me too.”

“Get up.”

Blinding sunlight cut into the tent, and I hissed.

The order was drowned out by Lucien’s snarl as he sat up. “Out,” he ordered Jurian, who looked us over once, sneered, and stalked away.

I’d rolled onto Lucien’s bedroll at some point, any schemes indeed second to my most pressing demand—warmth. But I had no doubt Jurian would tuck away the information to throw in Tamlin’s face when we returned: we’d shared a tent, and had been very cozy upon awakening.

I washed in the nearby stream, my body stiff and aching from a night on the ground, with or without the help of a bedroll.

Brannagh was prowling for the stream by the time I’d finished. The princess gave me a cold, thin smile. “I’d pick Beron’s son, too.”

I stared at the princess beneath lowered brows.

She shrugged, her smile growing. “Autumn Court males have fire in their blood—and they fuck like it, too.”

“I suppose you know from experience?”

A chuckle. “Why do you think I had so much fun in the War?”

I didn’t bother to hide my disgust.

Lucien caught me cringing at him when her words replayed for the tenth time an hour later, while we hiked the half mile toward the crack in the wall. “What?” he demanded.

I shook my head, trying not to imagine Elain subject to that … fire.

“Nothing,” I said, just as Jurian swore ahead.

We were both moving at his barked curse—and then broke into a run at the sound of a sword whining free of its sheath. Leaves and branches whipped at me, but then we were at the wall, that invisible, horrible marker humming and throbbing in my head.

And staring right at us through the hole were three Children of the Blessed.

CHAPTER

7

Brannagh and Dagdan looked like they’d just found second breakfast waiting for them.

Jurian had his sword out, the two young women and one young man gaping between him and the others. Then at us, their eyes widening further as they noted Lucien’s cruel beauty.

They dropped to their knees. “Masters and Mistresses,” they beseeched us, their silver jewelry glinting in the dappled sunlight through the leaves. “You have found us on our journey.”

The two royals smiled so broadly I could see all of their too-white teeth.

Jurian, for once, seemed torn before he snapped, “What are you doing here?”

The dark-haired girl at the front was lovely, her honey-gold skin flushed as she lifted her head. “We have come to dwell in the immortal lands; we have come as tribute.”

Jurian cut cold, hard eyes to Lucien. “Is this true?”

Lucien stared him down. “We accept no tribute from the human lands. Least of all children.”

Never mind that the three of them appeared only a few years younger than myself.

“Why don’t you come through,” Brannagh cooed, “and we can … enjoy ourselves.” She was indeed sizing up the brown-haired young man and the other girl, her hair a ruddy brown, face sharp but interesting. From the way Dagdan was leering at the beautiful girl in front, I knew he’d silently made his claim already.