She smiled softly. “Aye, it is true. Please tell me you’ve discovered a way to mend this predicament with Chrysalis?”
All serious now, he nodded. “Yes. You were right when you considered true love as a factor. I believe that can penetrate through the curse, but…” He grimaced and stopped speaking.
It always made her unbelievably nervous when he gave her that look, for it never boded well. “Jericho, what? What is the matter?”
“Gods, Calanthe, I did not want to tell you this, as I wasn’t certain of it myself, but last month when I tried to tell you, I simply couldn’t because I had to dig deeper and now I know.”
“What, Jericho, what?” she nearly shrieked, causing the stone above them to vibrate like a tuning fork.
“Siria is the one responsible for placing the curse upon Chrysa. The night she took control of my moon, it was she who did it. And I can only believe it was petty jealousy on her part that caused her to.”
“That witch!” she hissed, wanting to use a much sharper word, but she’d promised Jericho that she’d try to work on her potty mouth. She’d become a bit of a rapscallion in his absence, a fact she thought he might secretly love.
He rubbed her arms. “But as I told you then, there is a way to undo this. But not only this, my sweet fae.”
His eyes were shining, and though it was dark, it wasn’t hard to mistake the bursts of starlight dancing through his irises. “I read the sacred lore—”
She snorted. “As have I, there’s nothing but useless lies and rubbish written within.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No.” His smile turned jubilant and it was positively infectious, because she felt her own lips responding in kind.
“What did you find?”
“That both our problems can be solved.”
Her heart stopped beating. Literally. It took such a giant pause, that she had to pound her chest again to get it to restart. Sucking in a deep breath, eyes going wide, she didn’t want to believe it. Because believing something would happen would develop expectation and there was nothing worse than unmet hope.
“Please don’t lie to me.”
“My love,” he grabbed her flailing wrists, and kissed each hand, “I would never. Siria broke not only fae law, but the law of Kingdom itself.”
She tried to jump off his lump, wings buzzing with excitement. “Then let us grab the fairy council now. They must know this, this could end tonight. We could be together again, forever, oh Jericho, oh goddess…I’m…” her voice warbled with threatening tears.
Pulling her back to his chest, he kissed her temple. “My love, would that it were so easy. I can assure you I would have gone to seek them out myself, but in order for them to cast Siria permanently from Kingdom and undo both curses, we’ll need incontrovertible proof.”
She closed her eyes, understanding dawning immediately. “And how do we get that?”
Shoving blunt fingers through his hair, worry scrawled harsh lines around the corners of his eyes. “This was the part I really do not want to share with you, and once I do, you must share it with the Hatter and his Alice.”
“Okay.”
“Most of my time has been spent this past month either trying to get Siria to tell me the truth of that night, which of course, was an exercise in futility. And scrawling through endless miles of history. Trying to find that one thing I might have missed the night I was locked away.”
“Yes?” she whispered on bated breath. “And?”
“And I did miss something.” He licked his lips and Danika could sense he did not want to tell her what he was about to tell her.
Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she forced him to look her in the eyes. “You can trust me with anything, Jericho, always. I vow it.”
“I know, love, I know.” He inhaled deeply. “Siria did not simply curse the girl with moon glow, she extracted a sliver of her own soul and placed it within Chrysalis herself.”
“Dear heavens,” Danika squeaked out, as suddenly every piece of the puzzle locked into place. “So the darkness inside of her, it is not—”
“Her at all,” he finished for her. “Precisely. It is Siria.”
“I did not know you guys could split your souls in that way.” She frowned. “That is a very dark art and not one easily learned.”
“Agreed.” His lower lip jutted out in an adorable fashion, and even though the world felt like it was currently falling to pieces around her, Danika couldn’t help but snuggle deeper into his arms.
When Jericho was with her, the scary monster didn’t seem quite so menacing.
“What worries me about all this, is who taught her that? There are few inside of Kingdom who knows such potent magic.”
His hawk-like gaze turned to her. “The Ten know it.”
Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, Danika didn’t even want to nod in agreement. Because he was absolutely right. The Ten did know that type of arcana and if one of them had passed that knowledge on to someone outside of their sphere, they would be tried and found as guilty as Siria herself would be.