“Don’t move, Rook,” Morgana said with a sultry little smile. “Or I’ll slit the warlock’s throat.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Astrid

  Things moved faster with experienced faeries at my back.

  I wasn’t lost, for one. Fox led the way, with about three dozen well-armed autumn soldiers trailing about half a mile behind us. None of them had ventured too close, and I suspected my uncle had ordered them to stay back so we could have a little privacy.

  I shook my head at the thought.

  Goddess, Fox was my uncle which technically meant he was right—I was a princess, if only in name. I wasn’t exactly clear on the etiquette of the faerie courts, so I couldn’t say what their stance was on bastard children. Marriage had to have some importance to them or Fox wouldn’t have been so determined to rope Taliyah into one, despite her clear disinterest. It wasn’t the sort of patriarchal system I’d seen in werewolves though. So, what was the consensus on kids born out of wedlock?

  “You have a superb sense of direction,” Fox said after the silence had stretched uncomfortably thin.

  I snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right. I was stumbling through Faerie with absolutely no idea where I was going. The only thing I have less of than direction is patience.”

  There was still no sign of Oleander, and I refused to go back without him. We’d started this journey together, and we’d end it together, damn it. I’d made him trespass on another court’s lands, so I’d take the responsibility for whatever had happened to him.

  “Only a day has passed in the outside world, and yet you found your way here without aid or the conscious use of your powers. If you’re capable of this much, you definitely have more of your father in you than I initially anticipated. I should have checked in on you more often, Astrid. You’ll have to forgive my lapses. Winter has been a terror of late.”

  I chewed my lip, unsure exactly what I could say to that. No worries? That didn’t fit. I really could have used a little assist from my extended family when Aunt Celestine had thrown me out. If Wanda hadn’t been willing to take me in, who knew where I’d be now? Probably brooding in the back room of Maverick’s apartment, a miserable echo of myself. Then again, it wasn’t as if I’d have known who Fox was or what the spell he was talking about. Mother hadn’t exactly been jumping at the chance to tell Maverick or me anything about our father. I couldn’t miss what I’d never known. I glommed onto the only safe topic for lack of anything better to say.

  “Why are you so involved with Haven Hollow? Don’t you have a castle and Autumn court business to attend to?”

  Fox tilted his head a fraction, giving me a glimpse of his inhumanly beautiful profile. He’d dropped the human glamor not long after we’d set out, conserving his energy for whatever was coming next. He raised one perfectly arched brow, giving me a pointed look.

  “Right. Taliyah.” I sighed and shook my head. “You really need to move on, man. It’s getting sad at this point.”

  “Thank you,” he answered with a frown.

  “I’m saying this as your niece,” I said. “And, well, as your friend too.” Strangely, I did feel like his friend. Maybe because he was helping me or maybe it was this sort of underlying feeling that he was a good guy. I had to figure Poppy felt the same because she’d always come to Fox’s defense. “The point is, Fox,” I continued, wanting to give him some advice and do him a solid. “Taliyah is married now and I think she’s pretty serious about Maverick. Don’t ask me why. I still think he’s a snarky asshole, but he’s my snarky asshole, so...”

  “Olwen will change her mind eventually,” Fox said, brows knitting together in frustration. “She’s an intelligent woman and enough losses will make her see that she’s in error. I don’t like going about it like this, but she’s too stubborn to see the truth any other way.”

  I stopped dead and stared at his retreating back, mouth slightly parted in shock. It took him several paces to realize I wasn’t crunching through the underbrush after him. The lines between his brow only grew deeper when he found me glowering at him.

  “What?” he demanded, hands on his hips and scowl fully in place.

  “You’re just planning to let her people die?”

  “What choice do I have?” he insisted, heat growing in his voice.

  “Um... to not let them die?”

  “They are no longer my concern.”

  “If you weren’t my uncle, I’d tell you just how low and shitty that is of you.” I frowned at him and let the anger pour into my expression. “Actually, Uncle Fox, do you know how low and shitty that is of you?”

  “Court politics are court politics.”

  I frowned. “Hmm, it’s really hard to see why Taliyah decided to pass on you.”

  I tried to keep my voice level but failed miserably. The words were sour, dripping with every ounce of contempt I felt in that moment. What Maverick had done with Taliyah was impulsive and a little weird, but I’d never throw stones at him again if this was the man Taliyah had been destined to. Maybe Poppy had it wrong all along and Fox wasn’t as chivalrous as she made him out to be.

  “Not you too,” he sighed. “I thought I was through having to explain this.”

  “Just try to say it slowly, like I’m beneath you,” I said, slapping on an insincere smile and a sickly sweet note to my voice. “Since you seem to be so good at treating people as your inferiors. Tell me, was my dad this condescending or is that just a you thing?”

  The leaves at our feet lifted into the air as the wind picked up. After a moment, I realized it wasn’t a breeze coming off the slopes at our backs, it was whipping off Fox himself. His hands had balled into fists at his side and I swore I saw the curling leaves flitting through the tawny of his eyes just before he blinked. Then they were gone.

  “None of you understand,” he said in a low, dangerous whisper that still managed to carry even over the gale.

  “Try to help me to understand because you’re right—from over here, you look like the asshole. Not Taliyah.”

  He further frowned at me. “You have no idea what we’ve given up. Fennec was my brother. My only brother and he had only your mother as a lover. He refused the bed of Sidhe women, even for purely political purposes. Thus, he had no pureblood faerie children to ascend to the Autumn throne.”

  “What about half-fae children?”

  He shook his head. “Changelings never lived long enough to be considered for any position in our court, no matter how powerful they became. Olwen was promised to me so that there would be a chance at a direct royal lineage. I needed a woman who could provide Autumn with children so that my court didn’t become a vassal state to Winter, in the event that I should have died in battle with Janara. So, in effect, your precious Taliyah is putting herself above the lives of millions of faeries, both her subjects and mine.”

  He heaved in a breath, continuing before I had the chance to even formulate a response.

  “We’ve withdrawn our aid from Olwen’s claim, but it isn’t enough. Janara will have taken the throne of winter by now since Taliyah refused it. That means, Janara will target us for having the audacity to ally ourselves with another Winter Sidhe, Olwen, with a direct line to the throne. It won’t be today or tomorrow, but Janara will try to destroy me eventually, and I have no heirs. Thus, there’s no one who can lead my people, the court of Autumn, when I’m gone, and it's Taliyah’s fault.”

  “And what exactly am I? Chopped liver?” I snapped.

  Silence.

  “Pardon?” he asked, looking over at me with that haughty expression of his. Yes, I could sort of see his side but I could also see Taliyah’s side and my brother’s.

  I scuffed my foot in the pile of fallen leaves. The sky was beginning to lighten, and I felt my exhaustion acutely. I needed blood and a nice, dark place to bed down for the morning. The sunlight in Autumn wouldn’t kill me, true, but it did make me sleepy.

  “I’m your niece, which means I’m a princess, sort of, right? Or do I have that wrong?”

  Fox considered me carefully. “You’re not wrong, but you do seem to be missing the point.”

  “Okay, call me slow. What’s the point?”

  “You’re a changeling.” He shrugged.

  “Who could conceivably live forever now—right?” I pointed out. “The problem with changelings is that they aren’t as long-lived as the fae, right? Isn’t that the point you were trying to make?”

  He was quiet a moment and then nodded while huffing out an impatient breath. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Right, so as a half-witch and half-Sidhe, I’d have a lifespan of what? Three or four hundred years?”

  “Perhaps.”

  I nodded. “It’s longer than most, but not as long as you or any of your theoretical kids would live right?”

  “Right.”

  “But now I’m dead, Fox. So, physically, nothing will ever change. I’m nineteen, in the full bloom of my powers and I always will be unless I get a stake to the heart.”

  “I will do my best to ensure you don’t.”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “While that’s nice of you to say, my point is: I could help you. If you don’t let my friend, Taliyah, and her people die, that is.”

  We’d stood for long enough to allow his men to catch up to us. He waved them off, never taking his eyes away from me. When they were out of earshot, he said, “Are you blackmailing me, Astrid?”

  Gulp. Time to tread very carefully.

  “No. It’s just a request. You’re not the only one dealing with his world being flipped upside down, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You didn’t want to be single and dealing with your mid-existence crisis, right?”

  He chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

  “Great,” I nodded. “Well, join the freaking club, Fox.” I paused. “Do you want me to call you Fox or Reynard?” I decided not to tell him what my brother called him. Dear Goddess, Maverick was not going to like it when he learned that Fox was really his uncle. Anyway...

  “How about ‘uncle mine’?” Fox asked with a laugh.

  “Um, no.”

  “Fox it is then.”

  “Okay, Fox... where was I again?”

  “I’m not the one dealing with my world upside down and a pseudo midlife crisis.”

  “Ah, right,” I nodded. “So... I didn’t want to be brutally mauled and turned into the one thing witches hate more than patriarchy, but here we both are and we both have to deal with it. The point is—I can help you and you can help me.”

  “What are you proposing?”

  I breathed out my own irritation that he wasn’t following along. “I’m proposing that I can be your sparkly faerie princess and heir to the throne of Autumn if you promise not to abandon my sister-in-law and her people.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Deal?”

  Fox snorted and faced forward again, loping toward the distant cornfields. I vaguely recognized them as the ones I’d cut through not so long ago. Or maybe it had been a while ago. I couldn’t tell. Time in faerie was tricky, and the conversion between faerie time and the outside world could be simply insane.

  “Lesson one. Autumn princesses don’t sparkle.”

  My heart lifted a little. Did that mean what I thought it meant?

  “Twinkle?”

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “Glint? Gleam? Glisten?”

  Fox blew out a breath through his nose, and I bit back a smile. He looked a lot like Maverick when he was put out. If I looked past the color palette, there was definitely a family resemblance there. In the jaw, maybe, and definitely in the shape of the lips and the sullen expressions. I didn’t think Maverick was quite as good looking as Fox (I mean—how can you think your brother is hot—just yuck) but there was something there. Then I realized I had no business thinking my uncle was hot either and decided to just stop thinking about the subject altogether.

  “Keep up the japes, niece mine, and I’ll rethink your claim to the throne.”

  A nearby rustling sound drew both our gazes up. I had a handful of russet light in one palm before I consciously thought of moving, and would have released it at the intruder if I hadn’t recognized the verdant shade of his skin. His uniform was torn and matted in sticky blood in places. Leaves stuck in the uncontrolled thicket his hair had become. Between the dull golden color and the twigs, it looked like a bird had settled in to nest on top of his head. The light burst into a shower of sparks that fizzled to nothing when they hit the ground and before I knew it, I was moving forward and hurling myself into him with all the strength and speed of my new vampire form. I took us both off the ground.

  Breath left Oleander in a whoosh when he hit the hard-packed earth with me on top of him. I couldn’t help myself. I peppered his filthy face with kisses, all the while letting out little hiccupping sobs. Oleander hugged me back and crooned something in my ear that I couldn’t understand but sounded like the words of relief.

  I was just so relieved to see him alive and (mostly) whole. Up close, I could see the gashes weren’t from teeth or claw marks, just an unfortunate encounter with a honey locust. After we held each other for another few seconds, Oleander rolled me off him, staring bug-eyed at Fox, eyes shifting from the prince to me and back again.

  “Astrid, what are you doing with the Prince of Autumn?” he wheezed, shock still evident in his gaze.

  “Oh, him?” I asked and made a raspberry sound as I waved Fox away with one hand. “That’s just my uncle.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Astrid

  “Ack!” Oleander exclaimed, pitching to one side.

  Ack indeed.

  There were at least four vampire hybrids waiting for us when we returned to the small town just outside Blood Rose Academy. Uncle Fox had at least had the good sense I’d lacked and brought us through a gateway on the main street that led up to the academy, instead of the flimsy gateway I’d set up in the cellar.

  Valserak must have discovered my absence sometime in the interim and had set up an ambush in case I was foolish enough to come back here. And I was foolish enough, though now I had my own army—small though it might have been.

  The vampires were staked out all around the clock shop and as soon as they saw us, they attacked. Oleander tumbled out of Shasta’s path, narrowly avoiding her extended fangs as she lunged for him. It didn’t matter how many times he pleaded with her, telling her they were cousins and so on and so forth. Valserak had done a number on her because she was out for blood, in this case—her cousin’s.

  Her hands closed on empty air, and she yowled like a wounded cat when Oleander slammed a foot into the side of her knee, clearly giving up on trying to reason with her. Her kneecap came loose with a meaty pop and she listed sideways, still screaming. It wasn’t going to keep her down for long though. She’d start healing as soon as she shoved the joint back into its socket, but it was still enough of a distraction to let Oleander scramble away from his bloodthirsty cousin.

  I offered him a hand up and he took it gratefully. Pretty much the only sparring Oleander had done was verbal, and he wasn’t physically or magically equipped to deal with any of this.

  Fox’s men were taking on the bulk of the attack, driving back the undead fae slowly. The change apparently heightened a faerie’s magic, because none of the low-level abductees should have been able to take on a trained warrior like those among Fox’s lead and hope to survive more than a few seconds.

  Which was a frightening prospect, the more I thought about it. If Valserak had been allowed to continue, recruiting more and more faeries and eventually even some of the most powerful that the school had to offer... it wouldn’t have been a fight with the witches at all—at least, not a fair one. He would have slaughtered them in a few hours.

  “Come on,” I said, tugging Oleander up the road toward the castle. “Fox has it covered here. We need to find Rook and Morgana and warn them about the fight that’s coming.”

  I broke into a jog. Well, it felt like jogging to me. Yet, I was still going way faster than Oleander, who had to sprint to keep up with what seemed to me like a reasonable pace. He looked paler than usual, more blanched asparagus than grass green.

  “About that,” he panted. “It might be a bad idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Oleander put on a fresh burst of speed, coming level with me. He looked nauseous and I could smell the fear that tainted his otherwise earthy scent.

  “I had a lot of time to think while I was wandering around Autumn,” he started and there was something that looked like regret in his eyes. “When I wasn’t dodging the tricksters on the fringes, I was sleeping in out of the way places, wondering how the hell things went so wrong in such a short time, and then something occurred to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Think back to when we first found out where Valserak was keeping Shasta.”

  “In the clock shop?” I asked, frowning as I tried to understand what point he was making.

  “Right. You shifted us through Autumn to get to town, and then we went to the tavern in search of Loch who told us where we could find the vampire hybrids.”

  “Okay.”

  “When you shifted us through the gateway from Blood Rose to the town, that saved us about an hour’s worth of walking, I figure. It was a forty-five-minute lead if you subtract the time it took to gamble our way into getting some answers from Loch.”

  “Okay.”

  He nodded. “So, even moving at his fastest, Valserak would have needed to leave at the exact same time or just before we did in order to beat us to that cellar.” I breathed in quickly as Oleander looked at me and nodded again. “And not to mention—what are the odds that Valserak just happened to feel the urge to randomly cut his night classes and venture into town to check on his hybrids?”

  My lips parted in surprise as that sunk in. That question hadn’t occurred to me. I could probably chalk that up to the starvation and cold I’d experienced for the first week or so after being blooded, but I was kicking myself for not taking the time to think it all through when I made it safely into Autumn. Because Oleander was right. It was way too coincidental that Valserak had shown up at the exact moment we had. No—he had to have been alerted to the fact that we were headed to the clock shop. And that meant there was a turncoat in our midst. Only four of us knew where we were going and what we were up to that night, and I could safely cross myself and Oleander off that list. Which meant only Rook and Morgana were left as the potential culprits.