“Try exhausting preliminary options before flinging yourself onto a runaway train headed for the last resort, Ms. Lane.”

  “You don’t think being what you are is terrible.”

  “Jack Lane would think so,” Barrons says flatly. “Dageus has a darkness your father lacks. That darkness is necessary to live as we do. Do you have enough power to sift? Can you follow her?”

  “I can’t just leave—”

  “She wants something from you. If Jack dies she won’t get it. Use your head, Ms. Lane. Turn off your heart. No love, no rage. This is a game. You play to win. Jack would expect no less of you. Box that shit and sift us. Now!”

  He’s roaring at the last, and it does exactly what he thought it would, lights a fire inside me. I snatch his hand, close my eyes, focus on Winter, and we’re—

  Standing in a small, verdant glade in the middle of a towering, triple-canopied forest, with a humid, perfumed breeze ruffling the leaves high above us. I stagger and nearly go down. Barrons catches me, yanks me upright, and slips an arm tightly around my waist. Unfortunately, as I suspected, getting here took the last ounce of power in my possession. Wherever we are, we’ll be staying awhile. Fortunately, I have my spear and a natural born Fae-killer at my side. I can stab from a prone, badly injured position. I’ve done it before.

  Barrons moves behind me, his back to mine, lending me his spine for support, and we circle in defensive formation, searching the forest beyond the clearing.

  Winter is nowhere to be seen, but she’s here. I can feel the proximity of her rage, cruelty, and hunger for vengeance.

  My dad is alone in Faery, tied to a chair of ice, suspended for now, but dying. I clutch the hilt of my spear tightly, as I flash back to the memory of saying goodbye to him earlier at Chester’s, gripped by the foreboding they might be the last words I would ever say to him.

  Is my queenly power of premonition so frighteningly subtle that I might mistake a warning about our future for no more than my own imaginings and fears? If Winter kills him, will I be able to restrain myself from raining down destruction on all the Fae? Impossible to rule them if my father dies at her hands!

  I frown. Winter is moving away from us, not toward. Why? Does she expect us to follow?

  Remove your boots, Barrons orders, via our bond. This world bristles electric with power.

  I will them away but nothing happens; I’m too drained. I have to bend and untie them, then sit on the ground to tug them off. The moment my bare feet touch the grass, I tuck my spear into my holster and sprawl on my back with gratitude and relief.

  There’s a motherlode of power at the core of the planet, dense and rich and beautiful.

  Barrons gazes down at me, one brow arched, as if to say, you think to face your enemy, lying down?

  I pat the ground next to me. “I can’t feel her anymore other than in a general ‘she exists and is the consummate bitch from hell who’s soon to be returned there’ kind of way. She aggressively moved away from us. I think she’s looking for someone or thing. When she gets it, she’ll return. That works for me.” I’ll drink my fill of power and be ready. He settles on the ground next to me, on high alert, scanning the terrain.

  “I’ll feel her when she approaches,” I assure him. “Barrons, my father—”

  “Is currently suspended and feels no pain,” he cuts me off.

  “But you said it won’t last and the poison—”

  “I’ll tell you the moment I feel the spell shatter. Until then, worrying about his condition yields nothing. Cease doing it.”

  “Easier said than done,” I grouse.

  “Work harder at it then.”

  Unyielding, demanding man. But he’s right. I know the importance of boxing things and shoring up reserves for the next thing. I’ve had to do it time and again. Problem is, boxing worry about my father makes me feel like a terrible daughter and lousy human being.

  “Your feelings. Not reality. Were Jack here, he would advocate the same, commend you for being strong enough to cease thinking about him when you can do nothing to help him at the moment.”

  Right again. I let my eyes drift shut, playing tall, tender grass through my fingers, and focus on drawing power gently from the planet. I want to gulp it, greedily suck it down, but sense not only would that be wrong but met with strident rebuke from the planet itself. “Where are we?” I change the subject.

  “I have no idea. It smells similar to Earth long ago. Unspoiled, pure. I doubt you’ll find a sentient biped here. Nature at her finest. Nothing but beasts.”

  “Do you feel it, too? As if this place is one of a kind?”

  He’s quiet a moment then says, “If the human Garden of Eden exists, this is it.”

  Exactly. I can’t put into words how being here makes me feel, but I guess, in a nutshell, I’d say totally free. No pain, no fear, no grief, no time. Only hope and love and the present moment. It’s delicious. It’s overwhelming. It’s fortifying beyond belief. Especially after the endless, back-to-back battles I’ve been fighting.

  “I have to send Ryodan a message. There was no sign of Dani at Winter’s castle.”

  “Rebuild your energy reserves first.”

  God, I want to talk to Dani! Catch up, learn all about her new life. But in order to do that, we have to find her first. Oddly, I don’t worry quite as much about Dani as I would if it were anyone else. She’s as close to a superhero as it gets, doubly now with Hunter in her veins, and I can’t imagine anyone or anything that could possibly kick her ass. She’s been through the Hall of All Days, survived five deadly years Silverside as a teen. Resourceful, brilliant, superfast, and strong as ten men, she’s been through more than anyone I know. If something harms her, my vengeance will know no bounds.

  We sprawl for a time in silence, warmed by the sun, being replenished by the power of the pristine planet. It’s so much lovelier and more tactile than any overblown Fae illusion of a paradise. It’s as if I can feel the purity oozing from every ounce of nature surrounding me. Here, there is no war, hatred, envy, greed, or discrimination. No ugliness, no violence. Here, things simply are what they are in their natural state and delight in being as they are, unfettered and without fear of persecution.

  Eventually I open my eyes and gaze up.

  High above, birds and velvety-pelted creatures frolic in the multicolored limbs of trees that tower like vast, leafy skyscrapers against a brilliant blue sky. The rush of water tumbling over rocks in the distance is melodious, mesmerizing, and I imagine dozens of waterfalls tumbling hundreds of feet to sparkling lagoons below. Birdsong fills the air with lovely arias, their many and disparate melodies—not competing but blending into the theme and motif of a sumptuous orchestral feast.

  I hunger to explore. I could live here one day. Run with my beast. When things finally get back to—

  “There’s no such thing as normal,” Barrons says. “You keep thinking that. You suffer hiraeth.”

  “Here-eyeth?” I echo.

  “A Welsh word that means unattainable longing for a place—or perhaps more accurately a state of being—that never existed. Nostalgia for something that never was. You experienced calm, happy security as a child and keep thinking when you fix just one more thing, you’ll feel that way again. Good luck with that.”

  He’s the pin in my balloon sometimes.

  “Find a better balloon. One that’s real. Life is messy, complicated, and difficult. Relish it as it is. Quit expecting it to change. You might find you feel, well, normal then,” he mocks. “And realize life never was normal. You were just happy. Be it again. Your choice.”

  He drives me bugfuck sometimes.

  Soft, dark laughter rolls. “In the best of ways.”

  I drowsily concede the point while also conceding that I feel like I’m getting drunk off the planet. I’m more relaxed and peaceful than I’ve been in years. Everything is going to be all right. We’re just one step away from—

  I stiffen and explode up from the ground in a smooth, powerful surge. “She’s coming, Barrons!” I exclaim. And she isn’t alone.

  * * *

  When Winter appears in the glade, I know it can only be the prince of Autumn accompanying her. His skin is chestnut, his waist-length hair rich mocha, his eyes flame, and his tall, muscular body radiates the heat of a fiery forge. He wears brown trousers low at his hips, soft suede boots, his upper body bare but for a torque of gold around his neck. I notice Winter positions herself some distance away. Glazed with ice, I imagine were she to stand too near, she might echo the cry of a fictional witch from the land of Oz.

  They are each other’s opposite, although, I suppose, not antithesis. That would be summer to winter, autumn to spring. Yet as they stand near each other, Winter, so icy and pale, Autumn so dusky and warm, it drives home to me how elemental the Fae are, the embodiment of the seasons themselves.

  I wonder for the dozenth time if they weren’t once vastly different than they are now. What creator would craft such elemental beings only to leave them sadistic and empty? What being would grant such a dispassionate and soulless species the priceless gift of the Song of Making? It doesn’t compute.

  “What have you done to my father?” I demand, as we face off at a distance, Barrons and I at the east end of the clearing, Winter and Autumn at the west.

  “An ancient toxin,” Winter says coldly. “The name doesn’t signify. You possess no knowledge of it.”

  “Because your memories have been restored by the Song,” I say. “And the queen’s files don’t go back that far.”

  If surprised by my insight, they conceal it, and, undeterred, Winter hisses, “There is no antidote.”

  “You said I could save him.”

  “You can.”

  “How, if there is no antidote?”

  The prince steps forward. “I am Azar, prince of the Autumn Court. That is Ixcythe, princess of Winter. You may save him by passing the queen’s power to Ix—”

  “Never,” I cut him off flatly.

  “Then he dies,” Azar says just as flatly.

  “Then he dies,” I agree coolly, although inside my heart is raging. Not only would I have no guarantee they would restore my father once I was no longer queen, but I would imperil the entire human race. It will slay me alive to enforce this decision, but I will, and my father would expect—no, demand—no less from me. Jack Lane would be ashamed of me if I did otherwise. Possibly even despise me.

  Ixcythe’s eyes narrow to icy slits. “You sentence your father to death. We won’t stop with him. We will take more of those you love.”

  “Try,” Barrons says softly. “You want endless war? Endless casualties? No, wait, it won’t be endless. I’ll take ten of your court for every one of hers you touch. The others of my kind will take ten each as well. And Mac, well,” he breaks off with a snort, “she destroyed your entire court in an instant, with a mere thought. The Fae will be extinct in no time, the world ours.”

  Ixcythe turns to Azar and hisses, “I told you that was what she wanted!”

  He slants her a fiery look. “You attack first and are surprised when she attacks back?”

  “I didn’t attack first!” Ixcythe snarls. “She destroyed my court!”

  “After you took her father.”

  “She took the True Magic from us! And you agreed with my plan!”

  “We were supposed to take the mother. You couldn’t even get that right!” Azar snaps.

  “We couldn’t find her, and how would that have made any difference, you fucking moron?” she snaps back.

  “Negotiate, Ixcythe,” Azar growls. “She holds the queen’s power. She’s not going to give it to you. Get past your fucking jealousy for the first time in your frigid existence and put the fate of our—”

  “Fuck you, Azar, you overblown bag of hot air!”

  “Fuck you, Ixcythe!” Azar snarls. “You have no one. You are princess of None. You think you can stand against me? I’m all you have, so I suggest you pussy up and make me happy if you want to survive!”

  “Pussy up? Did you just tell me to pussy up?” Ixcythe explodes, teeth bared, eyes glittering sharp as icy razors. “You were honored far in excess of your lowly station to even get remotely close to my glorified—”

  “You were so stiff and cold it was like fucking a glacier. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”

  Ixcythe opens her mouth then closes it after a long moment. She curls her hands into fists and pierces the flesh of her palms with sharpened nails. Blood wells on pale skin, drips to the ground. Nostrils flaring, lips peeled back in a snarl, she hisses, “I apologize, Azar. Your autumn lands are—”

  “Right. All that nonsense. Winter is lovely, too,” Azar cuts her off tightly

  They whirl as one to glare at me.

  Shock and horror vie with the nearly uncontrollable urge to laugh. “Oh, God, I was right!” I exclaim, stunned. It was one thing to suspect it, entirely another to see full-blown evidence of it. “Memory isn’t the only thing the Song of Making restored. It’s given you back emotions!” And it’s my worst nightmare come true. A race of grudge-holding, wildly volatile, immortal savages.

  “Oh, fuck you, bitch!” Ixcythe snaps and vanishes.

  I struggle to wrap my brain around the horrifying development, flashing back to the scene in Winter’s courtyard. I’d told myself the depth of brutality was merely the marriage of ancient grievances to immense power. But there’d been a personal savagery to their attacks that had nagged at me and, now, made perfect sense. They’d remembered their grievances, with the full capacity to feel them.

  Azar sighs heavily. “Ixcythe can be a handful.”

  “You think?” Sarcasm drips from my voice. “What about you? Why have you remained?”

  “I petition the right to speak on Ixcythe’s behalf. On behalf of all Fae.”

  “Where is the other mortal you took?” I demand. “Her name is Dani.”

  “We took only one. We have no other humans.”

  “I don’t believe you. Dani vanished from Chester’s before my father did.”

  “I can only assure you that Ix and I did not take her. As you saw in Winter, our courts are beyond rational action. That leaves only Severina, the princess of Summer, who might have abducted your mortal, and although Sev’s beauty is blinding, her warmth staggering, her physical attributes far exceed her mental endowments. Vastly exceed.”

  “You don’t think she’s powerful enough.”

  “She’s powerful enough. Intelligent enough. Not motivated enough. Severina is unfocused, easily distracted by a ray of sunshine, the promise of pleasure, and more often than not, she lazes about in a summer-intoxicated stupor. Little penetrates.”

  Sounded like the perfect version of summer to me: sunshine, pleasure, intoxication. Or at least, to the Mac I once was. Although I lack Christian’s lie-detecting abilities, I sense no lie in Azar’s words.

  “What about the other princes and princesses?” I press.

  Sorrow flashes across his dark, regal features. “They are dead.” He’s silent a moment then says, “I rue their loss. Emotions are not easily borne, when presented with such a vast store of memories. Our ability to feel faded slowly over a long period of time, along with our ability to sire offspring. When you lose something in minuscule degrees, you scarce notice. Until it’s gone. Then you no longer even understand what you lost.”

  I feel the truth of his words in my bones and incline my head. “You may speak.”

  “I do not believe the Fae can accept a human queen after discovering we were long deceived by both a human queen and an Unseelie masquerading as one of our Seelie princes. Compound that betrayal with the return of emotion and memory, and you have a species tested to its limits. You saw what was happening at the Winter Court. We seek a boon. My queen,” he drops to his knees and fists his arms across his chest in a gesture of fealty, “we need a boon if we are to have any hope of avoiding a war that will only result, as your guard astutely observed, in our extinction. Unless Ixcythe speaks the truth, and our extinction is what you desire.”

  In all the time Barrons and I wasted at the Fae court, I was never once alone with a Fae, one-on-one. They’d besieged us en masse, distracting us with chaos and spectacle, neatly avoiding any and all talk, while they studied us and plotted to destroy us. This was my first opportunity at meaningful dialogue with a royal. “I do not desire your extinction. I desire a peaceful solution that affords a life worth living for human and Fae alike.”

  “And how do you envision such a thing coming to pass?”

  “Ideally, I would sing the wall back up between realms. You would have your share of the Earth, the mortals would have theirs.”

  “A return to the old ways, which the majority of our kind found repugnant. Few would entertain it. Those that did would be outcast.”

  “The new way, in which you preyed upon mortals, was equally repugnant to a majority of mortals, and none would entertain it. Neither species can prey upon the other. That is nonnegotiable.”

  “What is negotiable?”

  “My lack of interference once the realms are separate. I would leave you to govern yourselves.” Gratefully. Sealed safely behind walls. If only I can figure out how to sing those walls back up.

  “In order to attempt such a negotiation, we require a boon.”

  “What do you seek?”

  A scrap of parchment materializes in the air before me and flutters to the ground. I don’t stoop to collect it but read it where I stand. The Light Court wants me to return a number of items and agree to multiple concessions. Not one boon but many.

  The items are: the four Light Hallows: cauldron, stone, spear, and sword. All Seelie objects of power currently in museums or private collections. All elixirs and potions held by the queen.