have to, so I remained silent.
My heart crashed in my chest, each beat harder than the last as the silence dragged on, but slowly the sound of murmured conversation picked up around us again. The two fae stared at me a moment longer, and then without another word they turned and walked away. The mistletoe-clad fae sat at a table with two thorn fae, and the scorpion fae joined a cluster of goblins gambling on a dice game in the back corner. They just wanted to issue a warning?
I sank into my chair, relief making my hands shake enough that I shoved them in my lap. Edana had slipped away at some point during the conflict, so it was once again just Rianna and me at the table. Wel , and Desmond. Not that I had any delusions of privacy—there were definitely ears turned toward our corner.
“So . . .” I said, tugging on the cuff of my glove. I wished I had something in front of me—food, pen and paper, anything at al —to focus on. But I didn’t. I just had Rianna sitting across from me, watching me fidget.
“You’re not going to come to Faerie, are you?” She phrased it as a question, but her voice betrayed her lack of hope.
I cringed. I’d had enough of Faerie for one day. Besides, I couldn’t claim ownership of Rianna. “You’re my friend. I can’t claim you as property. It’s weird and wrong.”
“So you’d rather someone else who is not my friend and who may see me only as a tool, take over?”
Okay, when she put it that way, it was the lesser of two evils, but . . . I released a deep breath, letting the air drag out of me and take with it the panic fluttering in my stomach.
But nothing. I couldn’t let someone else, someone who wouldn’t have Rianna’s best interests in mind, walk in and make her a slave again. The least I could do was see if Faerie recognized me as the heir to Coleman’s holdings. If it did, I could try to figure out a way to free Rianna.
“What do I have to do?”
“Thank goodness.” She pushed away from the table.
“Thank goodness.” She pushed away from the table.
“Now, we go deeper into Faerie.”
And somehow I’d gotten talked into going to the one place that scared me the most.
Rianna led me through the club, toward the large tree growing right through the floorboards of the bar. Over our heads, a swol en moon glimmered high above the tree limbs. I frowned at it. The ful moon had passed almost a week ago on the mortal plane. The ful moon here was not a reassuring indication of time.
“How do we get there?” I asked, lagging slightly behind.
Desmond had glued himself to Rianna’s side, and there wasn’t room for al three of us to walk abreast between the crowded tables.
“We’l have to pass through the winter court,” Rianna said without turning around. “Then we’l take another door to Stasis—that’s the no-man’s-land where the holdings are currently located.”
She stopped as she reached the tree and turned back to me. Motioning me closer, she raised on her tiptoes and whispered, “I wouldn’t mention where we are going.
Coleman’s holdings are nothing magnificent, and surely nothing to fight over, but the Winter Queen was miffed to say the least when Faerie didn’t award it to her court. In her opinion, her knight is responsible for Coleman’s death, even if he employed the help of a feykin. She doesn’t take rejection wel and she isn’t the most pleasant person when displeased.”
“I take it the winter court wouldn’t be one to align with then?”
Rianna lifted one thin shoulder and let it drop. “I know you have . . . interests . . . in the winter court—which, by the way, I also recommend that you not mention. The queen is infamous for her jealousy. But any court you decided to join would be better than staying in Stasis, cut off from would be better than staying in Stasis, cut off from everyone.”
Interests. I almost laughed. That’s one way to say I slept with the queen’s pet assassin and lover. Of course, I hadn’t known he was either at the time. I shook my head. “You know that even if Faerie recognizes me as inheriting, I’m not going to automatical y join a court. I don’t know anything about the courts.”
“I know. But at least if the holding is claimed, that wil be taken care of.” She gave me a weak smile. “Desmond and I can wait it out as long as we know we’re not going to be tossed and traded around.”
“Am I inheriting the dog as wel ?”
The dog in question rol ed back his lips, showing fangs, and Rianna winced. “Not exactly. I’l explain later. Are you ready?”
Well, I guess this is it. I nodded and fol owed her as she walked around the back of the tree. I expected a trapdoor in the ground, or maybe in the tree itself—after al , folklore reported Faerie to be a subterranean land, and I’d heard Caleb say before that he was headed “under hil ,” but there was no door—there was just tree and the back side of the bar.
“Rianna, wha—”