Chapter Twenty-Four
Dante
Grant wakes up in the middle of the night. The iron has eaten away at the spell keeping him under and he rolls over with a groan, tipping off the bench and onto the floor.
“Ow.”
The sound wakes me from my doze, but Ophelia hasn’t slept at all and she’s quicker, helping him back up on the bench. Grant winces and touches his head.
“Are you okay?”
He grunts. “Feels like I got too much sun again. Except for the bit where I’m not fully charged. I remember the fae attacked us. What happened?”
“Aodhan,” I say. “He sent the Seelie to grab Ophelia. He brought us here.”
Grant looks up at her. “This is where you were before?”
“Yeah.”
“Way out?”
“They locked the door this time.”
Grant gives Ophelia a disbelieving look, which only serves to make her smile. Good. We sat for about an hour trying to come up with a plan to get out, but there was no way we were going to leave Grant behind. Not that it came up that we would.
We need his power to get out anyway.
“Your head?” I ask.
“I’ll be better soon,” he says. “We need to get to Lark and Oisin, I bet?”
“Seems like Aodhan is after one of them. He wants a crown.”
Grant sighs. “Figures,” he says, and he sounds… disappointed? I snort and shake my head. “Are they going to come and feed you? Water you?”
“I’d hope so,” Ophelia mutters.
I tip my head back against the wall and watch through half-lidded eyes as Grant gets up and inspects the bars of the cell.
His magic lashes out, but it feels strained and spiky.
We might almost be better waiting a while, except I’m sure if the fae come down here and realise he’s awake, they’ll try to knock him out again.
Aodhan might be able to kill him.
How can this be the fate Lark has to fulfil?
If we’re fated to be soulbonded, then how can his fate be to stay here and suffer through all of this?
I sit up straight again. It’s not that fate has anyone living an easy life.
I know that. But I just can’t get the two different facts to sit right in my head.
Fae can’t lie. The witch can’t have lied about what he agreed to any more than Lark can. And I could understand him agreeing to any silly condition, thinking that he would never be back.
But why wouldn’t fate step in? Or am I supposed to stay here like this, never truly bonded to him? Is this our way of being together?
“What is fate?” I say aloud and, bewildered, Grant and Ophelia turn to look at me.
“Are you…” Ophelia crouches down and squints through the gloom. “No, you’re awake. What’s going on?”
“What’s fate? The bonds… They’re fated.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“So what is it?”
Grant looks helplessly at Ophelia, who shrugs, but when she goes to answer, I shake my head. I’ve felt this before. Even as I ache and I’m so fucking tired, I’m also on a precipice. I know something. I just don’t know that I know it yet.
“It’s magic,” I say, and they both edge closer, though Grant throws a wary glance at the door that leads into the room.
“Of course it is,” Ophelia says.
“No,” I say, “it’s magic. That’s all it is. It’s without intention.”
Grant frowns and comes to kneel on the floor next to me. “I don’t get it.”
“I mean, we’ve been acting like fate and magic are two different things. Magic is something we do and fate is something done to us.”
“But the bonds are done to us,” Ophelia objects. “I didn’t—You didn’t…”
“No. I mean, yes, but—It’s just compatible magic when it comes down to it.”
“Yeah?” Grant looks up at Ophelia, who shrugs.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Right. So, if Lark’s magic is nudging him to wear a crown, then why would his magic be compatible with mine? Why would he leave in the first place?”
Ophelia gives up and sits cross-legged next to the two of us. “It’s not that simple. I think. I mean, following your theory, no one would ever be able to deny a bond, and they can. Wolves can.”
“And wolf magic comes from fae magic,” Grant adds.
I lean back against the wall. That feeling of discovery has all but gone. I really thought I was onto something. No, I know I am. This entire situation has been off from the beginning.
“Can fae see bonds like you can?” I ask Ophelia.
She shrugs, but Grant nods. “Why wouldn’t they?” he asks. “I can.”
“You can?”
“I mean, I can see mine and Vlad’s. And I can see Asher and Quinn’s if I try to look. The rest of the Hunt, too.”
“Did you ever…”
Grant shakes his head before I can finish the sentence. “No, I mean. I really have to try, but I’ve got more magic than the rest of them, though I bet Maurice can sort of see them too. If fae deal in bonds like they keep saying, why wouldn’t they be able to see them?”
“So why would they take you and not me?” I ask Ophelia. “Or why take you at all?”
She sighs. “They sensed a bond? It’s weak. They might have figured it’s because Lark doesn’t have his magic.”
“But Aodhan would have known. He wanted Lark’s soulbond,” Grant says.
“I didn’t see him,” she replies with a shrug.
“Were you conscious the entire time?” I ask.
She pales. “No. But still, I don’t… I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Something’s been wrong ever since we got here,” I say. “Why would they chase Lark down and not his brother? Why would he agree to both of us dying if he didn’t fulfil his fate when he already knew who I was? It doesn’t make sense.”
Ophelia frowns, but when I look over at Grant, he’s staring past me. Ophelia and I exchange a glance, and then she waves her hand in front of his face. “Grant?”
He jumps to his feet. “No, that…” He paces back and forth. A headache is building at the base of my skull. I feel like shit, honestly, like I’m ill or something. That would be perfect on top of everything else.
“Oh my God,” he says after a moment. “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” Ophelia asks.
“It’s—” The door to the room opens and the more powerful fae from earlier walks into the room. He scowls when he sees Grant standing, but Grant whirls around and fixes him with a glare. “Shut up.” He spins back to us. “It’s so fucking obvious! We saw it from the beginning!”
“I… What?”
“The suns. The moon. The fucking dais and you said, after, the tombs…”
I said about the tombs? That was… two days ago? Yesterday? Fuck, I can’t remember. “I did?”
Grant makes a frustrated sound and throws his hands up into the air in frustration. He turns on the fae again. “Who ruled here before the last king and queen?”
The fae takes a step back. I guess he wasn’t expecting this when he walked in here. “That is not—”
“Simple question,” Grant growls. “Who were they?”
“I… they…” The fae stutters and comes to a stop. He draws himself up to his full height, but before he can say anything else, Grant growls deep in his chest.
All the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“I was born while the last king and queen were on the throne,” the fae bites out.
“No, but someone should have told you. You’ve got the sense that someone told you, don’t you?”
Slowly, the fae nods.
“Someone made them forget,” Grant says to us. “Someone made everyone forget.”
“How?” Ophelia asks.
“Magic,” Grant replies.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, no shit, but—”
“The veil.” They both look at me, and even the fae looks alarmed at that. “Lark said the veil was strengthened a couple of hundred years ago. It’s all magic, too, just a big net of spells. What’s one more woven in with the rest?”
“That is impossible,” the fae blusters. Whatever he came down here to do is apparently forgotten as he draws close to the bars. “There is no one power—” The word cuts off midway through and he pulls a face as though he’s eaten something sour.
Grant gives him a smug smile. “Who do you know who’s powerful enough to feed a spell into the veil?”
He knows. I know. The fae realises we know and scowls. “She would never. She did not even strengthen the veil alone.”
“Who raised it with her?” Ophelia asks.
“The prince.”
The prince. Grant shakes his head. Iagan, most likely. Lark would have mentioned it. From what he told me of Ronan, he might not have cared enough to.
But who weaved the spell? Iagan or the witch? If he did it, I can’t work out why. If she did—how would he not notice?
“Why would either of them want everyone to forget?” I ask.
Grant is pacing again. “Iagan would have strengthened the veil to keep people safe,” he says and shakes his head at my incredulous look.
“No, I know. But he has the Hunt for a reason. He doesn’t trust the fae, and you know the stories.
It used to be way easier for fae to cross over.
Plus, it would make more sense for her to have done it. I dunno. Maybe. It’s a leap.”
“What is?”
“There aren’t two crowns. There are three.”
I lean back against the wall again. There it is. That’s the bit I’ve been missing. And Grant might think it’s a leap, but the sentence settles in my bones, ringing true. Two suns, one moon. A dais big enough for three thrones. A room with space for three tombs, so instead it rings wide and hollow.
“She was supposed to be the third,” I say, “and now she’s punishing the princes for it.”
Ophelia gapes at me. “You can’t know that.”
“Lark said no one has three children. No fae. They had Ronan, but he had a human soulbond, so they had Lark, and”—I glance at the fae, still watching us in astonishment, and swallow down another truth I know—“so does he. So they tried for Iagan.”
Grant snorts. “Yeah, his soulbond is human, too.”
“Ronan’s soulbond got him killed. I… She was never going to let me and Lark be together. Why else wouldn’t we find our way through the woods? Why else would the mirror fail?”
“She wants Iagan on the throne then?” Ophelia asks, but Grant shakes his head.
“I don’t think things are going well for him, romance-wise,” he says with a grimace. “Not that I know for sure. Obviously. But they’re not about to bond or anything.”
“This isn’t helpful,” Ophelia says. “I mean, it is, but it doesn’t help us get out of here.”
Grant focuses on the fae again. “You want a Seelie to rule, right?”