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  “About Herla’s collection?” Mavek grunted. “Of course.”

  Krit hummed, and repeated. “Of course. That’s how you were able to stand so confidently before Titania and the rest after sending him to the Underground in a mortal’s place. He had, what? Five souls on him at the time?”

  “Eight,” Mavek corrected.

  “Oh, even better.”

  “What are you talking about?” Arden asked Mavek, fingers tightening around the thick material of his jacket sleeve. Clearly she was meant to hear and understand this conversation, otherwise Krit wouldn’t have insisted on her presence, and she hated that she was in the dark.

  “Do you recall the rings Herla always wore?” When she nodded he continued. “Each contained a human soul.”

  “The souls of all his successful Heartless,” Krit added. “After one of his Heartless won him the Tithe, he’d send their loved one as the sacrifice, then kill them and take their soul for himself. Honestly, when I heard he’d been sent to the Underground, I thought he’d use them to bargain for his freedom and eventual return here.”

  So, whether or not Everett had won, the Erlking would have murdered him?

  Brix had to have known that, right? He’d been with the Erlking for so long, how could he not? And if that was the case, why hadn’t he warned Everett from the beginning?

  “He hasn’t?” If he was worried about that possibility, Mavek didn’t show it.

  “He doesn’t have many friends, though I’ve been told the Crown Prince took an interest.”

  “Even though he wanted to reject him as the Tithe?” Arden asked.

  “We’re a capricious lot.” Krit shrugged, as if that explained everything.

  “While this is all very interesting,” Mavek drawled then, “I’m not seeing what this has to do with either of us here.”

  “Which brings me back to how I started,” he said. “I have no proof, as it’s been kept highly classified—not even the rest of the royal family know, apparently—but rumor has it, the Crown Prince is here.”

  “What possible reason could he have—” Mavek stopped, ground his teeth as realization hit him. “He’s curious about Arden and me.”

  “An Unseelie has never sided with a human against his own so publicly before,” Krit agreed. “And it’s well known she won’t be human much longer. Your reputation precedes you, even in the Underground, Midnight. It’s not like you’re unaware of this fact. You should have realized they’d be curious to see what kind of creature was able to ensnare you so.”

  Arden tried not to react when Krit turned that odd grin her way once again.

  “Midnight has never shown an interest in the affairs of the heart before. He’s the only one among us who never once wavered toward another, never taken a lover for more than a night, never taken a second glance in anyone’s direction. He’s always been colder than the Winter Prince when it comes to romantic feelings. And yet…”

  He’d tossed the Erlking into the Underground without a second’s hesitation. For Arden. Krit didn’t have to finish his sentence for her to catch on.

  “You don’t seem surprised by any of this,” he added, still watching her.

  In the beginning, Mavek had comforted her, had come whenever she needed him to. But he hadn’t been warm, per se. Reliable was a better word. They’d made a deal, after all, they’d needed each other in order to achieve a common goal. She would be his Heartless and win him the Tithe, and he would ensure her family’s curse was broken. That had been the extent of it.

  Then once she’d started developing feelings, he’d softened some, but never enough for her to consider he reciprocated. It wasn’t until close to the Tithe that he admitted he loved her too, and to say she’d been surprised was an understatement. The most interest she’d seen him show in anyone up until that point had been with Titania when she’d caught them in the greenhouse.

  “Curious fae are dangerous fae,” she said finally, wanting to get them back on track. “Should I be worried about this prince, whoever he is?”

  “Probably not,” Krit answered. “Maybe so.”

  “That’s oddly not very comforting.”

  “Again,” he said, “this is merely a rumor. It might not even be true. Surely we would have felt if someone as powerful as the Crown Prince had arrived.”

  “Finch isn’t the type to lurk in the shadows,” Mavek agreed, thinking it over. “He’d need fanfare and attention.”

  “Exactly.”

  “If it isn’t true, why do you think people are saying it is?” Arden asked.

  “It’s one of many rumors circulating the Underground.” Krit crossed his arms. “The infighting between the brothers has gotten intense, even the king apparently can’t put an immediate stop to it. Everyone’s talking, trying to stir things up from the outside.”

  “You think this was a lie told by the Crown Prince’s people in order to fool his younger brother?” Mavek clucked his tongue. “Sparrow won’t fall for it easily.”

  “If he thinks Finch is here, he’ll come to see for himself.”

  “So,” Arden’s mind raced to keep up, especially since they were using names she’d never heard before, “if this Crown Prince—Finch—is here—”

  “Which is very doubtful,” Krit put in, but she held up a hand. His eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t reprimand her.

  “—he’s probably just watching from the sidelines and I don’t need to freak out. But, even if he’s not here, it might be a lie told in order to get this other prince—Sparrow—to come here and keep him distracted? Either way, there will probably at some point be a royal prince in town soon. Correct?”

  “She says as if she isn’t currently standing among royalty already,” Krit said to Mavek, though his tone was teasing and light. “But yes, that’s the gist of it. Perhaps you should avoid speaking with any foreign fae. Just to be safe.”

  “You people talk to me,” she stated, “not the other way around. If I had my way, I’d wash my hands of the lot of you.”

  “Arden,” Mavek warned, but it was impossible to tell if it was because she’d hurt his feelings or if he was worried about her insulting Krit.

  “I don’t know anything about how the Underground works,” she told them, “and I don’t want to. If you came here because you think I might go around actively looking for these princes you’re—”

  “You think you’ve been clever enough to mask what you’ve been up to?” Mavek interrupted. “You have not, heart.”

  “It’s true,” Krit agreed. “We’re well aware that you and your friends are trying desperately to find a way to stop your change. Another reason so many Unseelie have stuck around. We’re all curious to see how long it takes for you to give up.”

  Arden’s breath caught in her chest. “There has to—”

  “I give you a handful of weeks, at best,” he cut her off. “You should really consider accepting your fate before then. I’m older than Midnight, Arden Archer. Older than Titania and Brix and Cato and any other fae you may have come into contact with in your very short lifespan. There’s no need to go off looking for Underground princes to ask them to give you the same answer I’m giving you now.”

  That’s why he was telling her all of this. He thought she was going to hear about Finch or Sparrow and look for them in the hopes that they’d give her a way out of this mess. It only confused her more, because… Was he warning her off knowing she’d actually find something? Or was he warning her off—

  “Why do you care if I get involved with them?” she asked, realizing there wasn’t really another reason she could see.

  “I don’t care about you,” he stated, humor finally dropping away. “But it seems like Midnight isn’t the only one snared in your orbit.”

  “Brix.”

  “He’s newly crowned,” he confirmed. “If you do something to piss off one of the precarious princes, they’ll take out their ire on the people around you. Midnight is too high standing, even for them. They cannot
touch him. But Brix? As a Lutin, he was never meant to be an Autumn Prince in the first place.”

  He’d said as much to her before, when they’d been at her house, so she knew it was true.

  “For a species that constantly claims not to be selfish, you all really like coming to me in order to protect others.” Brix had done the same with Eskel, more than once. Now here was Krit.

  Twila wanted revenge for Victor, and Mavek, even as twisted and messed up as his love was, did love her. The Unseelie were monsters, she couldn’t reject that notion, but they had feelings––made connections––same as humans did. Maybe Arden couldn’t stop changing, maybe they were all really telling her the truth about that. Either way, it didn’t mean she had to become a monster. It made her sick, the realization that she’d just gained comfort from them, but at least they weren’t aware of it.

  “I’m never going to be someone like the Erlking,” she said aloud, drawing both of their attention with her sudden change of topic. “Or Titania. I won’t mess with people for the fun of it, or put their lives in jeopardy for my own selfish gains. I don’t ever want to be one of you, but more than that, I don’t want to see my friends get hurt. Their safety is the most important thing to me.”

  “Even more important than being human?” Krit seemed to find this concept fascinating, and maybe she should have been suspicious of that.

  “Yes,” she found herself answering, watching as that freaky grin split across his face a third time.

  “You’ve delivered your message,” Mavek said between them, “and your concerns.”

  “Very true.” Krit tore his gaze off of Arden, his smile a little less bright. “I’ll take my leave then. You won’t be seeing the Autumn Prince or me for a while, so this is goodbye for now, Midnight.”

  “Brix is going with you?” Arden couldn’t help but frown.

  “His place has always been by my side,” he told her firmly. “I appreciate the friendship you’ve shown him, and I expect you to continue to do so in the very long future ahead of you.”

  She wasn’t sure how she was meant to take that. He didn’t really give her much time to think it over. With one last glance at them both, Krit turned and disappeared out of the house, leaving the front door open behind him.

  “Well,” Mavek drawled once they were alone, “this night didn’t exactly go as I had hoped.”

  Realizing she was still holding onto him, Arden dropped his sleeve and moved away. “It wasn’t going to anyway.”

  His mouth thinned, but he didn’t reply to her statement, instead announcing, “I’ll take you home.”

  “I can go just fine on my own, thanks.”

  “I wasn’t asking you, Arden.”

  She considered fighting with him over this as well, but pride aside, she wasn’t sure she could actually make it home on her own. It was pitch black out now, and the temperature had dropped even more. Her thighs still ached from her exertion earlier, and the thought of getting back on her bike and pedaling home made her want to groan.

  “Fine,” she gave in with a sigh, ignoring the shocked look on his face, “but my home. If it so much as looks like you’re headed for the manor, I swear I will jump out of the moving car.”

  “I can simply lock the doors,” he said, then held up his hands when she glared at him. “It was a joke, heart. Come.” He motioned toward the exit. “I had Cato bring the car as soon as you arrived.”

  Of course he had.

  “They live in the shadows and the light, part of this world and not. Forever is their eternal friend, and they will not succumb to minor things like disease or famine. Their beauty, though sometimes grotesque, is unmatched by any other worldly being, and if given the slightest opportunity, they will turn that beauty against any human person. Greed is their sole desire, curiosity their main purpose. They are—”

  “—super annoying and all assholes?” Tabby interrupted, holding up a hand to make a talking motion with her fingers. “We aren’t going to find anything in that book we don’t already know. It’s just like all the rest.”

  Eskel sighed and dropped the thick volume he’d checked out from the library into the center of their circle, on top of a pile of others they’d also recently retrieved.

  They were in Arden’s living room, seated on the floor, where they’d been for the past hour. It’d only been a day since she’d overheard Cole and Tabby’s conversation at Howl’s and she’d hoped to avoid them for a bit, but they’d shown up without calling, forcing her to let them in.

  Logically, she knew she was going to have to talk to Tabby. There was no way she could go on acting like everything was fine. But she didn’t exactly know what to say yet. A lot had happened that day, and she was still struggling to sort through all the various things she felt not just for her best friend but for Mavek as well. For now, she was just trying not to seem too obvious, though it was hard to look Tabby in the eye. She was sure Eskel had already picked up on the weirdness between them, even if the other two seemed oblivious. He kept sending her sideways glances, silently asking what was wrong whenever she caught him staring.

  Arden sighed, eyes burning from reading all the tiny words, and tipped her head back against the couch cushions. “We should just stop.”

  What she really wanted was for them to leave her alone so she could think.

  “There are still three more we haven’t even opened,” Eskel argued, at the same exact time that Cole said absently, “She’s right.”

  Everyone grew silent, and when Arden lifted her head again, she found Cole was meticulously picking the thinly sliced apple from his piece of pizza. He didn’t seem to notice that he was being stared at, too busy flicking off lingering bits of cheese so he could keep that while discarding the fruit.

  Arden and Tabby’s choice in pizza was pretty unique, she had to admit, as it was something they’d come up with when they were kids. But Cole had always loved the apple, bacon, and three-cheese blend. Next time she saw Cato, she should ask how long the effects of the rotten faerie fruit would last. She felt bad that Cole had only recently broken his curse and gotten his appetite back, just to end up like this.

  “Uh, hello?” Tabby said finally, when her cousin still didn’t react to their attention. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “It’s the truth. She knows it. Even if there is something to find, which there isn’t, we certainly aren’t going to find it in any of these musty old books.”

  “Oh, so we should check the local bookstore and find something new, is that what you mean?” her voice oozed sarcasm.

  “We should give up,” he corrected casually, like he was merely suggesting they order French fries with their pizza next time.

  “Dude.” Eskel elbowed him in the side.

  “What?” Finally, Cole abandoned his pizza and glanced around at them. “Our friendship would be better served helping her to come to terms with herself––that’s all I’m suggesting. While we waste time trying to find a cure to the incurable, Arden is rapidly changing. Unless we want the Midnight King to swoop in at the last second to teach her the things she needs to know, we’d best reevaluate how we spend our days.”

  “How do you know there’s no way to fix it?” Arden asked. Up until this point, he’d been onboard with the others, confident that they’d find something eventually as long as they kept looking. “Did Titania say something to you the other night?”

  “So what if she did?” Eskel stated. “Unseelie lie.”

  “Imagine, for a moment, that they didn’t,” Cole suggested, “at least, not about this. We’ve already done a ton of research and found nothing, correct? As far as we can tell, there are no known cases of humans-turned-fae turning human again, at least not without many years passing and immediate death occurring once the change is reversed. We might not want to believe it, but all signs point to there really being no cure.”

  Everyone Arden had spoken to so far had said as much, and she just hadn’t wanted to b
elieve them. Now that it was Cole agreeing with them though, it was harder to ignore. They really hadn’t made any progress whatsoever, and truthfully, she’d been starting to feel like they were all wasting their time.

  The vision the Erlking had shown her of her death raced through her mind. A Tithe every seven years meant many people out there had to be wearing Erlking’s ring. But there were only two that Arden knew of, and they were both seated across her. She hadn’t believed that either Cole or Eskel would kill her, but… if she really was turning into an Unseelie, who could say for sure that they wouldn’t be tempted?

  No, she inwardly scolded herself. She had to put a stop to those thoughts. Of the three people in the room with her, only one of them had shown they couldn’t accept her if she was a faerie. And it wasn’t either of the guys.

  Maybe this was her opportunity to broach the subject––get Tabby to express how she really felt to her face, instead of behind her back. It was cowardly, not bringing it up directly with her, but Arden wasn’t sure she could handle hearing Tabby say that she would eventually hate her. At least she’d have Eskel and Cole here to comfort her if Tabby said as much in front of them.

  “Let’s say I turn fae,” she said, shaking her head when both Tabby and Eskel opened their mouths to argue. “Just, let’s say I do. What happens then?”

  “What do you mean?” Tabby frowned.

  “She doesn’t know her place,” Cole rightly surmised, and Arden nodded.

  “With us,” Eskel tentatively asked, “or with them?”

  “Either,” she admitted.

  “We aren’t turning our backs on you,” he told her, “no matter what you are. You should know that by now.” He reached out and gripped her hand tightly. “We’re always going to be here for you.”

  Tabby remained silent, but no one else seemed to notice.

  “Well sure,” Cole drawled, “but what about the Unseelie? They aren’t going to make it easy. They never do. We also have to suppose that Mavek has an elaborate plan in mind, a place for Arden within the hierarchy. He went through a lot of effort in order to turn her, after all. He wouldn’t have done so without considering what her station would be.”