“You came to claim Tamlin?” Amarantha said—it wasn’t a question, but a challenge. “Well, as it happens, I’m bored to tears of his sullen silence. I was worried when he didn’t flinch while I played with darling Clare, when he didn’t even show those lovely claws …
“But I’ll make a bargain with you, human,” she said, and warning bells pealed in my mind. Unless your life depends on it, Alis had said. “You complete three tasks of my choosing—three tasks to prove how deep that human sense of loyalty and love runs, and Tamlin is yours. Just three little challenges to prove your dedication, to prove to me, to darling Jurian, that your kind can indeed love true, and you can have your High Lord.” She turned to Tamlin. “Consider it a favor, High Lord—these human dogs can make our kind so lust-blind that we lose all common sense. Better for you to see her true nature now.”
“I want his curse broken, too,” I blurted. She raised a brow, her smile growing, revealing far too many of those white teeth. “I complete all three of your tasks, and his curse is broken, and we—and all his court—can leave here. And remain free forever,” I added. Magic was specific, Alis had said—that was how Amarantha had tricked them. I wouldn’t let loopholes be my downfall.
“Of course,” Amarantha purred. “I’ll throw in another element, if you don’t mind—just to see if you’re worthy of one of our kind, if you’re smart enough to deserve him.” Jurian’s eye swiveled wildly, and she clicked her tongue at it. The eye stopped moving. “I’ll give you a way out, girl,” she went on. “You’ll complete all the tasks—or, when you can’t stand it anymore, all you have to do is answer one question.” I could barely hear her above the blood pounding in my ears. “A riddle. You solve the riddle, and his curse will be broken. Instantaneously. I won’t even need to lift my finger and he’ll be free. Say the right answer, and he’s yours. You can answer it at any time—but if you answer incorrectly …” She pointed, and I didn’t need to turn to know she gestured to Clare.
I turned her words over, looking for traps and loopholes within her phrasing. But it all sounded right. “And what if I fail your tasks?”
Her smile became almost grotesque, and she rubbed a thumb across the dome of her ring. “If you fail a task, there won’t be anything left of you for me to play with.”
A chill slithered down my spine. Alis had warned me—warned me against bargains. But Amarantha would kill me in an instant if I said no. “What is the nature of my tasks?”
“Oh, revealing that would take all the fun out of it. But I’ll tell you that you’ll have one task every month—at the full moon.”
“And in the meantime?” I dared a glance at Tamlin. The gold in his eyes was brighter than I remembered.
“In the meantime,” Amarantha said a bit sharply, “you shall either remain in your cell or do whatever additional work I require.”
“If you run me ragged, won’t that put me at a disadvantage?” I knew she was losing interest—that she hadn’t expected me to question her so much. But I had to try to gain some kind of edge.
“Nothing beyond basic housework. It’s only fair for you to earn your keep.” I could have strangled her for that, but I nodded. “Then we are agreed.”
I knew she waited for me to echo her response, but I had to make sure. “If I complete your three tasks or solve your riddle, you’ll do as I request?”
“Of course,” Amarantha said. “Is it agreed?”
His face ghastly white, Tamlin’s eyes met with mine, and they almost imperceptibly widened. No.
But it was either this or death—death like Clare’s, slow and brutal. The Attor hissed behind me, a warning to reply. I didn’t believe in Fate or the Cauldron—and I had no other choice.
Because when I looked into Tamlin’s eyes, even now, seated beside Amarantha as her slave or worse, I loved him with a fierceness that swept up my whole heart. Because when he had widened his eyes, I’d known he still loved me.
I had nothing left but that, but the shred of fool’s hope that I might win—that I might outwit and defeat a Faerie Queen as ancient as the stone beneath me.
“Well?” Amarantha demanded. Behind me, I sensed the Attor preparing to pounce, to beat the answer from me, if need be. She’d tricked them all, but I hadn’t survived poverty and years in the woods for naught. My best chance lay in revealing nothing about myself, or what I knew. What was her court but another forest, another hunting ground?
I glanced at Tamlin one last time before I said “Agreed.”
Amarantha gave me a small, horrible smile, and magic sizzled in the air between us as she snapped her fingers. She nestled back in her throne. “Give her a greeting worthy of my hall,” she said to someone behind me.