I stare down at my bracelet, twisting it around my wrist. Not all hope is lost. If I understood Karnon correctly, Des might be able to track my magic.

But if he could, wouldn’t he have shown up already?

“Callie?” Aetherial interrupts my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“No one gets magically impregnated here.”

Her meaning doesn’t register at first, but when it does …

My eyes close at that. At what she’s not saying. Strong Aetherial immobilized, powerless to stop what happened to her.

“It was Karnon?”

“The devil himself,” she affirms.

I don’t have words. It’s happened to me before, it might very well happen to me again, and somewhere between it all, you’d think I’d have something to say, but I don’t. Not for brave Aetherial.

She clears her throat the best she can. “Just thought you should know.”

I swallow. “Thank you for warning me,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.

But I’m not sure I’m better off knowing what happened to her, what awaits me.

Sometimes knowing is just another kind of hell.

It’s not working.

Whatever venom Karnon’s trying to feed me isn’t taking.

I huddle in the corner of my cage, my body covered with a sheen of sweat. My entire body shakes violently. From my best guess, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived. I’ve gone through two more of the Fauna King’s ministrations, and each time my body rejects his poisoned magic, he gets more and more frustrated.

He hasn’t touched me yet. Perhaps the monster doesn’t like victims who fight back. Though I doubt at this point I’d present much of a challenge to Karnon; I’m too weak to do much on my own. Despite my sorry state, I’m not being dragged under by his magic, not like the other women here.

A horrible sort of malaise is settling into my bones. It feels like the magic will either do Karnon’s bidding, or I will cease to exist. And so far, it’s not doing Karnon’s bidding.

I’d assumed that all fae magic worked on humans. After all, the Bargainer could use his magic on me. But perhaps my assumptions were wrong. Perhaps there are some limits to fae magic. Perhaps being a human right about now is a good thing.

Although, it’s hard to call the state I’m in a good thing. I lay listlessly on the pallet, my dress hanging loosely on me. Now the guards simply carry me to Karnon’s chambers without a fight. There’s no more small talk.

If I’m greeted with the evil version of Karnon, he gets right to work. If I’m met with the kinder, crazier version of Karnon, he rocks me against him, murmuring nonsense about wings and gills, claws and scales.

“Aetherial?” I call out.

Silence. It’s been like that for the last several days.

I begin talking to her anyway, just in case she can still hear me, telling her anything that crosses my mind. But not once do I mention the one thing that weighs most heavily on my mind—

I’m going to die here.

Chapter 28

Day who-the-fuck-knows and visit number six with Karnon, the guy who’s beginning to star in all of my nightmares.

When we arrive, the guards drop me unceremoniously on the ground before retreating.

Groaning a little, I push myself onto my forearms, reaching for my blindfold. Lately the guards have stopped binding my wrists and ankles. What’s the point? I’m too weak to escape.

I pull off the cloth around my eyes, blinking against the brightness of the room. I freeze when I take in my surroundings.

The first thing I notice is that I’m not in Karnon’s bedroom. Here, dead leaves are scattered across the floor, and spindly, dead vines cover most of the walls and much of the ceiling. They’re even wrapped around the great antler chandelier ending far above me. This derelict room looks like it’s been left to the elements.

A wild room for a wild, mad king.

My gaze falls to a raised dais at the far side of the room. The massive chair perched in the center of it is a chair made entirely of bones. And sitting on it is Karnon.

He assesses me from his throne. “Precious bird,” he says, “you are dying.”

He stands, and that simple action alone sends a shiver down my spine.

Today won’t be like the other visits.

His footsteps echo as he descends down the stairs in front of him, leaves crunching beneath his boots.

I get a good look at his eyes, and it’s my stepfather all over again. The half-mad lust that looks more animal than man. The trigger-short temper that can veer to anger at the slightest provocation.

He stops less than a foot away from me. It’s just the two of us in this room; whatever guards or aides or officials are normally stationed here are now gone.

Karnon kneels next to me. I try to scramble away, but my limbs are heavy and sluggish. I want to shriek in frustration. I’d vowed long ago to never again be a victim. And here I am, powerless beneath the will of a mad king.

He begins petting my hair. “What a pretty, pretty bird. A shame you cannot fly, trapped as you are in this cage of a body.”

He cups my face. “You are dying because the animal in you is being smothered.”

Riight, that’s why.

“I’m dying because you’re poisoning me,” I say.

He stares back at me, his gaze distant, and I can already tell my words didn’t register with him. He begins petting my hair again. “How can a creature survive when she doesn’t have gills to breathe or wings to fly?”