The skin around the dart immediately darkened, the glow in his skin dampening. Whereas the tendrils crawling under my flesh were a cloudy gray, his spread out in ink-black lines. Falin had once told me he’d been switched during infancy so that he’d not only learn about the human world, but also gain some resistance to all the metals, especially iron, found in mortal reality. I’d also grown up outside of Faerie, so I had some resistance as well. But Ryese was a pampered noble, and the iron poisoning shot through his flesh, creating an elaborate spiderweb of darkness across Ryese’s palm.
“I’m removing this poison from our court,” Falin told the queen as he hauled the howling man to his feet.
The queen’s fevered gaze swept over Ryese, taking in the darkness spreading over his skin. Then she nodded and leaned closer. “If you are alive, my favorite nephew, blood of my blood, my Ryese, then you are banished from this court and all my territory. As long as I rule here, no door will open for you in winter. Here witness it, all of you.”
Ryese’s pitiful cries took on a new level of frenzy, but the words had the ring of a binding oath to them, and I felt the magic of Faerie shift, acknowledging the queen’s proclamation even as the huddled fae murmured their witness to her words. Falin gave no heed to the other fae’s pleading, but dragged him to where two winter guards stood waiting.
“See him to the edge of our territory in the mortal realm,” he told the guards. They nodded, and then hauled Ryese out of the room. As soon as he passed through the doorway, the sound of his cries fell off abruptly.
Falin turned back toward me. I tried to smile at him, because we’d won. The alchemist had been caught and dealt with. The queen couldn’t deny me my tie to Faerie now. But my face seemed frozen, unable to respond to my prompting.
I realized I wasn’t cold anymore. I didn’t even hurt, though the gray tendrils were now circling down to my elbow. All I felt was tired. So very bone-weary tired.
I tried to sit, not caring that the only place to do so was the snow, but my legs gave out halfway down and I crashed onto my butt. I didn’t even have enough energy to yell.
I lay where I fell, my eyes fluttering closed. The last things I saw were the three Deaths hovering over me. Then the world went dark.
Chapter 34
I drifted in and out of a fevered sleep. Sometimes the Deaths were there, yelling at me. Other times I woke to Falin curled around me, clutching me tight. More than once the world was lost in endless snow. Others I was burning alive from iron spikes driven through my back.
Or maybe all were dreams.
When I opened my eyes, finally sure I was truly awake, I sat up. I was in a large four-poster bed I’d never seen before, wearing a silky gown I knew wasn’t mine, but at least it wasn’t sleeting.
“Well, I guess this means I survived.”
“Astute observation,” a voice said from the other side of the room.
I jumped, whirling around. Falin leaned against the doorframe, watching me, a small crooked smile touching his lips. He pushed away from the wall, striding toward the bed, and I became very aware of how thin and airy the material of the gown felt. Was it see-through?
“Where are my clothes?” I asked, gathering the royal blue comforter and clutching it to my chest, which earned me an amused—and knowing—smile. Okay, yes, he’d seen all I had to display, but we were just friends now, and I was dating Death.
The thought of Death made me shiver as I remembered the three fake versions the drug had conjured from my fears. And they were my own fears. Magnified maybe, but the issues they addressed were real. Death and I needed to sit down and have a long talk.
But first I needed my clothes.
“They were ruined. I convinced them to spare your boots.” He nodded to a spot on the floor near the foot of the bed. “And it looks like your brownie has visited while you were sleeping, because they were not in that good of a shape when the healers peeled them off you. And that gown is spun from spider silk; it is a lot more substantial than it feels.”
Oh. I dropped the comforter and slid to the edge of the bed to reclaim my boots. He was right—they were in better shape now than the last time I’d put them on. Which had to mean Ms. B had stopped in. And if she’d left the castle . . .
I realized I felt better than I had in weeks. I was more than just healed and free of the drug, I was energized. “Did the queen grant me my tie to Faerie?”
Falin nodded. “You have a year and a day of independent status.”
A year to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it bought me time.
“So are you guarding the door for my protection or to prevent me from leaving?” I asked, and Falin winced, but it was a legitimate question.
“Maybe I’m hiding, avoiding more duels?”
“Have you been fighting a lot?”
He gave a half shrug, as if the answer wasn’t important, but said, “In the days immediately following Ryese’s banishment, several opportunistic fae both in our court and in others thought to take advantage while the queen was both emotionally off balance and still mentally and magically impaired by Ryese’s drug. Since the effects of the Glitter have worn off and the court has begun to recover, the challenges have dropped off.”