Silence again. Azriel spoke in their own language, and Rhysand translated. Perhaps Rhysand had been translating for Azriel mind-to-mind these last few minutes.

  “He says we have no such stories about our people migrating to another world.”

  Yet Amren let out a small, choked sound.

  Rhysand turned slowly, a bit incredulous. “Do we?” he asked smoothly.

  Amren picked at an invisible speck on her silk blouse. “It’s murky. I went in before …” She shook her head. “But when I came out, there were rumors. That a great number of people had vanished, as if they had never been. Some said to another world, others said they’d moved on to distant lands, still others said they’d been chosen by the Cauldron and spirited away somewhere.”

  “They must have gone to Midgard,” Bryce said. “Led by Theia and Pelias—”

  Amren held up a hand. “We can hear your myths later, girl. What I want to know”—her eyes sharpened, and it was all Bryce could do to weather the scrutiny—“is why you came here, when you meant to go elsewhere.”

  “I’d like to know that, too,” Bryce said, perhaps a bit more boldly than could be deemed wise. “Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to get out of your hair immediately.”

  “To go to … Hel,” Rhysand said neutrally. “To find this Prince Aidas.”

  These people weren’t her friends or allies. This might be the home world of the Fae, but who the fuck knew what they wanted or aspired to? Rhysand and Azriel looked pretty, but Urd knew the Fae of Midgard had used their beauty for millennia to get what they wanted.

  Rhysand didn’t need to read her mind—no, he seemed to read all that on her own face. He uncrossed his legs, bracing both feet on the stone floor. “Allow me to lay out the situation for you, Bryce Quinlan.”

  She made herself meet his star-flecked stare. She’d taken on the Asteri and Archangels and Fae Kings and walked away. She’d take him on, too.

  The corner of Rhysand’s mouth curled upward. “We will not torture it from you, nor will I pry it from your mind. If you choose not to talk, it is indeed your choice. Precisely as it will be my choice to keep you down here until you decide otherwise.”

  Bryce couldn’t stop herself from coolly surveying the room, her attention lingering on the grate and the hissing that drifted up from it. “I’ll be sure to recommend it to my friends as a vacation spot.”

  Stars winked out in Rhysand’s eyes. “Can we expect any others to arrive here from your world?”

  She gave the truest answer she could. “No. As far as I know, they’ve been looking for this place for fifteen thousand years, but I’m the only one who’s ever made it back.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The Asteri. I told you—intergalactic parasites.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They are …” Bryce paused. Who was to say these people wouldn’t hand her right over to Rigelus? Bow to him? Theia had come from this world and fought the Asteri, but Pelias had bought what they were selling and gleefully knelt at their immortal feet.

  Her pause said enough. Amren snorted. “Don’t waste your breath, Rhysand.”

  Rhysand angled his head, a predator studying prey. Bryce withstood it, chin high. Her mother would have been proud of her.

  He snapped his fingers again, and the blood, the dirt on her, disappeared. A stickiness still coated her skin, but it was clean. She blinked down at herself, then up at him.

  A cruel half smile graced his mouth. “To incentivize you.”

  Amren and Azriel remained stone-faced. Waiting.

  She’d be stupid to believe Rhysand’s incentive meant anything good about him. But she could play this game.

  So Bryce said, “The Asteri are ancient. Like tens of thousands of years old.” She winced at the memory of that room beneath their palace, the records of conquests going back millennia, complete with their own unique dating system.

  Her captors didn’t reply, didn’t so much as blink. Fine—insane old age wasn’t totally nuts to them.

  “They arrived in my world fifteen thousand years ago. No one knows from where.”

  “What do you mean by arrived?” Rhysand asked.

  “Honestly? I have no idea how they first got to Midgard. The history they spun was that they were … liberators. Enlighteners. According to them, they found Midgard little more than a backwater planet occupied by non-magical humans and animals. The Asteri chose it as the place to begin creating a perfect empire, and creatures and races from other worlds soon flocked to it through a giant rip between worlds called the Northern Rift. Which now only opens to Hel, but it used to open to … anywhere.”

  Amren pushed, “A rip. How does that happen?”

  “Beats me,” Bryce said. “No one’s ever figured out how it’s even possible—why it’s at that spot in Midgard, and not others.”

  Rhysand asked, “What happened after these beings arrived in your world?”

  Bryce sucked her teeth before saying, “In the official version of this story, another world, Hel, tried to invade Midgard. To destroy the fledgling empire—and everyone living in it. But the Asteri unified all these new people under one banner and pushed Hel back to its own realm. In the process, the Northern Rift was fixed with its destination permanently on Hel. After that, it remained mostly closed. A massive wall was erected around it to keep any Hel-born stragglers from getting through the cracks, and the Asteri built a glorious empire meant to last for eternity. Or so we’re all ordered to believe.”

  The faces in front of her remained impassive. Rhysand asked quietly, “And what is the unofficial story?”

  Bryce swallowed, the room in the archives flashing through her memory. “The Asteri are ancient, immortal beings who feed on the power of others—they harvest the magic of a people, a world, and then eat it. We call it firstlight. It fuels our entire world, but mostly them. We’re required to hand it over upon reaching immortality—well, as close to immortality as we can get. We seize our full, mature power through a ritual called the Drop, and in the process, some of our power is siphoned off and given over to the firstlight stores for the Asteri. It’s like a tax on our magic.”

  She wasn’t even going to touch upon what happened after death. How the power that lingered in their souls was eventually harvested as well, forced by the Under-King into the Dead Gate and turned into secondlight to fuel the Asteri even more. Whatever reached them after the Under-King ate his fill.

  Amren angled her head, sleek bob shifting with the movement. “A tax on your magic, taken by ancient beings for their own nourishment and power.” Azriel’s gaze shifted to her, Rhysand presumably still translating mind-to-mind. But Amren murmured to herself, as if the words triggered something, “A tithe.”

  Rhysand’s brows rose. But he waved a broad, elegant hand at Bryce to continue. “What else?”

  She swallowed again. “Midgard is only the latest in a long line of worlds invaded by the Asteri. They have an entire archive of different planets they’ve either conquered or tried to conquer. I saw it right before I came here. And, as far as I know, there were only three planets that were able to kick them out—to fight back and defeat them. Hel, a planet called Iphraxia, and … a world occupied by the Fae. The original, Starborn Fae.” She nodded to the dagger at Azriel’s side, which had flared with dark light in the presence of the Starsword. “You know my sword by a different name, but you recognize what it is.”

  Only Amren nodded.

  “I think it’s because it came from this world,” Bryce said. “It seems connected to that dagger somehow. It was forged here, became part of your history, then vanished … right? You haven’t seen it in fifteen thousand years, or spoken this language in nearly as long—which lines up perfectly with the timeline of the Starborn Fae arriving in Midgard.”

  The Starborn—Theia, their queen, and Pelias, the traitor-prince who’d usurped her. Theia had brought two daughters with her into Midgard: Helena, who’d been forced to wed Pelias, and another, whose name had been lost to history. Much of the truth about Theia had been lost as well, either through time or the Asteri’s propaganda. Aidas, Prince of the Chasm, had loved her—that much Bryce knew. Theia had fought alongside Hel against the Asteri to free Midgard. Had been killed by Pelias in the end, her name nearly wiped from all memory. Bryce bore Theia’s light—Aidas had confirmed it. But beyond that, even the Asteri Archives had provided no information about the long-dead queen.

  “So you believe,” Amren said slowly, silver eyes flickering, “that our world is this third planet that resisted these … Asteri.”

  It was Bryce’s turn to nod. She motioned to the cell, the realm above it. “From what I learned, long before the Asteri came to my world, they were here. They conquered and meddled with and ruled this world. But eventually the Fae managed to overthrow them—to defeat them.” She loosed a tight breath, scanning each of their faces. “How?” The question was hoarse, desperate. “How did you do it?”

  But Rhysand glanced warily to Amren. She had to be some sort of court historian or scholar if he kept consulting her about the past. He said to her, “Our history doesn’t include an event like that.”

  Bryce cut in, “Well, the Asteri remember your world. They’re still holding a grudge. Rigelus, their leader, told me it’s his personal mission to find this place and punish you all for kicking them to the curb. You’re basically public enemy number one.”

  “It is in our history, Rhysand,” Amren said gravely. “But the Asteri were not known by that name. Here, they were called the Daglan.”

  Bryce could have sworn Rhysand’s golden face paled slightly. Azriel shifted in his chair, wings rustling. Rhysand said firmly, “The Daglan were all killed.”

  Amren shuddered. The gesture seemed to spark more alarm in Rhysand’s expression. “Apparently not,” she said.

  Bryce pushed Amren, “Do you have any record about how they were defeated?” A kernel of hope glowed in her chest.

  “Nothing beyond old songs of bloody battles and tremendous losses.”

  “But the story … it rings true to you?” Bryce asked. “Immortal, vicious overseers once ruled this world, and you guys banded together and overthrew them?”

  Their silence was confirmation enough.

  Yet Rhysand shook his head, as if still not quite believing it. “And you think …” He met Bryce’s stare, his eyes once again full of that predatory focus. Gods, he was terrifying. “You believe the Daglan—these Asteri—want to come back here for revenge. After at least fifteen thousand years.” Doubt dripped from every word.

  “That’s, like, five minutes for Rigelus,” Bryce countered. “He’s got infinite time—and resources.”

  “What kind of resources?” Cold, sharp words—a leader assessing the threat to his people.

  How to begin describing guns or brimstone missiles or mech-suits or Omega-boats or even the Asteri’s power? How to convey the ruthless, swift horror of a bullet? And maybe it was reckless, but … She extended her hand to Rhysand. “I’ll show you.”

  Amren and Azriel cut him sharp looks. Like this might be a trap.

  “Hold on,” Rhysand said, and vanished into nothing.

  Bryce started. “You—you can teleport?”

  “We call it winnowing,” Amren drawled. Bryce could have sworn Azriel was smirking. But Amren asked, “Can you do it?”

  “No,” Bryce lied. If Azriel sensed her lie, he didn’t call her out this time. “There are only two Fae who can.”

  It was Amren’s turn to start. “Two—on your entire planet?”

  “I’m guessing you have more?”

  Azriel, without Rhysand to translate, watched in silence. Bryce could have sworn shadows wreathed him, like Ruhn’s, yet … wilder. The way Cormac’s had been.

  Amren’s chin dipped. “Only the most powerful, but yes. Many can.”

  As if on cue, Rhysand appeared again, a small silver orb in one hand.

  “The Veritas orb?” Amren said, and Azriel lifted an eyebrow.

  But Rhysand ignored them and extended his other hand, in which lay a small silver bean.

  Bryce took it, peering at the orb he laid on the floor. “What are these?”

  Rhysand nodded to the orb. “Hold it, think of what you want to show us, and the memories shall be captured within for us to view.”

  Easy enough. Like a camera for her mind. She gingerly approached the orb and picked it up. The metal was smooth and cold. Lighter than it should have been. Hollow inside.

  “Here goes,” she said, and closed her eyes. Pictured the weapons, the wars, the battlefields she’d seen on television, the mech-suits, the guns she’d learned to fire, the lessons with Randall, the power Rigelus had blasted down the hall after her—

  She shut it off at that point. Before she leapt into the Gate, before she left Hunt and Ruhn behind. She didn’t want to relive that. To show what she could do. To reveal the Horn or her ability to teleport.

  Bryce opened her eyes. The ball remained quiet and dim. She put it back on the floor and rolled it toward Rhysand.

  He floated it on a phantom wind to his hand, then touched its top. And all that had been in her mind played out.

  It was worse, seeing it as a sort of memory-montage: the violence, the brutality of how easily the Asteri and their minions killed, how indiscriminately.

  But whatever she felt was nothing compared to the surprise and dread on her captors’ faces.

  “Guns,” Bryce said, pointing to the rifle Randall fired in her displayed memory, landing a perfect bulls-eye shot in a target half a mile off. “Brimstone missiles.” She pointed to the blooming golden light of destruction as the buildings of Lunathion ruptured around her. “Omega-boats.” The SPQM Faustus hunted through the dark depths of the seas. “Asteri.” Rigelus’s white-hot power blasted apart stone and glass and the world itself.

  Rhysand mastered himself, a cool mask sliding into place. “You live in such a world.”

  It wasn’t entirely a question. But Bryce nodded. “Yes.”

  “And they want to bring all of that … here.”

  “Yes.”

  Rhysand stared ahead. Thinking it through. Azriel just kept his eyes on the space where the orb had displayed the utter destruction of her world. Dreading—and yet calculating. She’d seen that look before on Hunt’s face. A warrior’s mind at work.

  Amren turned to Rhys, meeting his stare. Bryce knew that look, too. A silent conversation passing between them. As Bryce and Ruhn had often spoken.

  Her heart wrenched to see it, to remember. It steadied her, though. Sharpened her focus.

  The Asteri had been here—under a different name, but they’d been here. The ancestors of these Fae had defeated them. And Urd had sent her here—here, not Hel. Here, where she’d instantly encountered a dagger that made the Starsword sing. Like it had been the lodestone that had drawn her to this world, to that riverbank. Could it really be the knife from the prophecy?

  She’d believed that destroying the Asteri would be as simple as obliterating that firstlight core, yet Urd had sent her here. To the original world of the Midgardian Fae. She had no choice but to trust Urd’s judgment. And pray that Ruhn, that Hunt, that everyone she loved in Midgard could hold on until she found a way to get home.

  And if she couldn’t …

  Bryce examined the silver bean that lay smooth and gleaming in her hand. Amren said without looking at her, “You swallow it, and it will translate our mother tongue for you. Allow you to speak it, too.”

  “Fancy,” Bryce murmured.

  She had to find a way home. If that meant navigating this world first … language skills would be useful, considering the extent of bullshit still to be spun. And, sure, she didn’t trust these people for one moment, but considering all the questions they kept lobbing her way, she highly doubted they were going to poison her. Or go to such lengths to do so, when a slit throat would be way easier.

  Not a comforting thought, but Bryce nonetheless popped the silver bean into her mouth, worked up enough saliva, and swallowed. Its metal was cool against her tongue, her throat, and she could have sworn she felt its slickness sliding into her stomach.

  Lightning cleaved her brain. She was being ripped in two. Her body couldn’t hold all the searing light—

  Then blackness slammed in. Quiet and restful and eternal.

  No—that was the room around her. She was on the floor, curled over her knees, and … glowing. Brightly enough to illuminate Rhysand’s and Amren’s shocked faces.

  Azriel was already poised over her, that deadly dagger drawn and gleaming with a strange black light.

  He noted the darkness leaking from the blade and blinked. It was the most shock Bryce had seen him display.

  “Put it away, you fool,” Amren said. “It sings for her, and by bringing it close—”

  The blade vanished from Azriel’s hand, whisked away by a shadow. Silence, taut and rippling, spread through the room.

  Bryce stood slowly—as Randall and her mom had taught her to move in front of Vanir and other predators.

  And as she rose, she found it in her brain: the knowledge of a language that she had not known before. It sat on her tongue, ready to be spoken, as instinctual as her own. It shimmered along her skin, stinging down her spine, her shoulder blades—wait.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  Bryce didn’t dare reach for the tattoo of the Horn, to call attention to the letters that formed the words Through love, all is possible. She could feel them reacting to whatever had been in that spell that set her glowing and could only pray it wasn’t visible.

  Her prayers were in vain.

  Amren turned to Rhysand and said in that new, strange language—their language: “The glowing letters inked on her back … they’re the same as those in the Book of Breathings.”

  They must have seen the words through her T-shirt when she’d been on the floor. With every breath, the tingling lessened, like the glow was fading. But the damage was already done.