I groan. “Not you too.”

“So you don’t believe it?”

“That my soulmate is taking soldiers?” I say. “No, I don’t.”

And I mean it. Wicked though Des is, he’s no monster, not like the Thief of Souls is.

I step closer to Aetherial. “The truth is that since I laid eyes on your king, I’ve assumed he’s the one involved with the disappearances.”

Aetherial’s head snaps to me. “Seriously? Why?”

I frown. “When I was delivered to Karnon, I saw the man who captured me—it was your king.”

“Impossible,” she says.

“Why do you think Des attacked your king the night you all arrived?”

Aetherial searches my face. “You’re telling the truth,” she murmurs. She shakes her head. “But it’s impossible. I’ve seen my king’s truth too. He’s had nothing to do with these disappearances.”

I lift a shoulder, my attention moving to where we last saw the fae rulers.

We are all turning on each other—this person to point the finger at that person, that person to point the finger at yet another individual. The truth of the matter is that we are all being played by the Thief of Souls, whoever they might be.

The Thief of Souls …

I rotate to Aetherial. “You wouldn’t happen to know the last known location of Day soldiers who’ve gone missing during Solstice, would you?”

She shakes her head. “They disappeared all over the palace grounds—mostly just outside the royal gardens.”

Mostly just outside the royal gardens.

The reports I’ve been given corroborate this; they mentioned the men vanishing on the outskirts of the palace grounds.

The only thing beyond the gardens is the queen’s sacred oak forest, which ringed the entirety of the property. I’ve been in that oak forest a time or two, but more than that, I’ve dreamed of the place, over and over again.

What had the Bargainer told me weeks and weeks ago?

In the Otherworld, dreams are never just dreams. They’re another sort of reality.

My skin buzzes, as if with electricity. It’s the sensation I got as a PI whenever I felt particularly close to solving a case.

“I have to go,” I say.

Aetherial gives me a quizzical look. “Didn’t you just get here?”

I wave the question off. “I’ll be right back.”

The Thief of Souls has been hunting during Solstice, and now I know just where to find him.

Chapter 46

I walk through the Flora Queen’s sacred oak forest, frowning at the soldiers shadowing me.

“It’s not safe for any of you to be here.”

Had I taken a moment when I left the ballroom to consider the fact that a handful of Night soldiers would be guarding me, I’d have tried to slip past them. At the very least I’d have requested all women, considering that the Thief of Souls isn’t trying to capture them these days. Of the six soldiers surrounding me, only one is female.

“King’s ordered that we guard you,” one of them says.

It’s the same answer they’ve given me the last several times I’ve tried to shake them off.

I turn back to the forest ahead of me. Other than a few warm droplets of blood on my skin, I haven’t found anything suspicious or unsettling about this place.

Fairy lights hover between the boughs of the trees, casting the woods in an ethereal glow.

“You could always return to the dance,” one of the soldiers suggests.

Ugh. Back to those schmoozing, scheming fairies? Back to Mara with her cloaked insults and brittle smiles, or the Green Man and his leers?

“Give me a few more minutes.”

Just thinking about the Flora rulers has me rubbing my skin. There’s something off about those two.

“Callypso …”

I pause. “Did you hear that?” I ask the soldiers.

Two of them nod, their faces grim. One of them grabs my upper arm. “Time to get back to the ball, my lady.”

Of course they’re right, but I still hesitate. Finally something slightly spooky happens out here, and now I’m to be whisked away to safety.

I let them steer me back towards the gardens anyway, which I can just barely make out in the distance.

“Enchantress …”

My spine goes stiff. I glance back, towards the origin of the voice. For a split second I catch sight of a shock of white blond hair in the darkness.

“Des?” I whisper, before I can help it.

As soon as I breathe his name, my guards hesitate, looking back to the woods for their king. But where he once was is now dark as ever.

One of my guards yelps.

I whip around. “What happened?”

They glance at each other, each one as perplexed as the last. It takes a few seconds for all of us to put together what, exactly is off about the situation.

A second ago there were six soldiers at my side.

Now there are only five.

“Move, move, move!”

The soldiers don’t stop to search for their comrade. They grab me and begin hustling towards the gardens.

They’re not fast enough.

We’ve barely taken ten steps when a slew of vines drop from the treetops, reaching for one of the soldiers.

It happens in less than a second.

They wrap around his arms and shoulders and jerk him up into the canopy overhead.

“Oh, shit,” I curse.

I’ve never seen that before.

The soldier’s feet kick at empty air as the treetop swallows him up.

My wings open on reflex.

Not going to lose another soldier.

Before any of the others can stop me, I leap into the air. My wings beat furiously, lifting me toward the guard. He’s still tangled in vines, and they pin his body to the trunk of the tree.

Using my claws, I slash through the plants. But as quickly as I cut through them, more form, winding around the soldier.

What in the world?

I manage to free one of his hands, and with it, he pulls out his own sword and begins hacking away at the vines.

One of the ropey branches darts out, wrapping around his wrist and squeezing, squeezing. I hear the crack of his bones breaking. The soldier cries out, his weapon falling uselessly to the forest floor beneath us.

I rip through the plants, freeing his now mangled wrist. As I do so, I feel vines snake around my own body, twisting around my torso.

Shit.

I’m pried away from the guard, my body flung to the ground. I land on my hands and knees, and for several seconds I just rest there, breathing heavily.

The four remaining soldiers close in around me, helping me to my feet. Already several of them have their wings out. No doubt about to join me up in the canopy.

I glance above me. As I watch, the vines completely ensnare the soldier, cleaving him to the tree.

And then—horror of horrors—with a wet rip, the trunk of the tree parts around the fairy and begins to suck him in.

“Holy fuck.”

Once more, my wings flare out, but the remaining soldiers hold me fast.

“We need to leave,” one of them says.

But I can’t look away.

It only takes seconds for the trunk of the tree to fully wrap around the fairy and then another several seconds for it to reseal, starting at the soldier’s feet and working its way up, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake.

And then it’s over.

A tree just swallowed a soldier before my eyes.

I did this. I led these guards into this sinister-ass forest, and now two men are gone.