With both of them looking my way, an entire world hit me, as cold and solid as ice.
Sit straight.
Knees together—you’re not a whore.
You need to learn.
Keep still.
Bastian’s lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
They started towards us, and it was like the rest of the pillared room drifted further away.
How? How?
I thought I’d left them in Albion. Last I’d heard, Robin had fucked off on more of his travels, and Bastian had warned Rufus off so thoroughly, I’d barely seen a strand of his red hair since the night he’d tried to force me to Caelus’s rooms.
No. No. I clenched my hands into fists and pulled on that word. No.
I seized my anger and breathed life into its embers.
Because I was not the woman they and my father had squashed into a mould. I was not quiet and meek and mild.
I was fucking furious.
Maybe I didn’t know everything about who Kat Ferrers was, but I knew that much.
With a pop, my hearing cleared.
“—here with you,” Bastian said, voice low and vicious. “No matter what, they can’t hurt you.”
It was a triumph to see Robin’s step falter as he met my glare. Uncle Rufus wasn’t the slightest bit affected. I’d take one out of two.
With fire racing through my veins, I could take in the rest of the room, and I blinked when I saw Prince Cyrus at Uncle Rufus’s side.
I bit my tongue against asking what the fuck they wanted—didn’t seem wise with a prince right there.
Cyrus gave Bastian a wide, wide smile, the kind that I imagined the Big Bad Wolf giving Little Red Riding Hood right before he ate her. “Throne room. Now.”
We were past sunset, so the summons had to be from the queen.
The queen who’d murdered her own daughter.
“Your Majesty, this is the fae who stole my wife.”
“What?” I blinked from Robin to the Night Queen, then glanced back at the throne room’s main doors, wishing I could escape through them back to Dusk. “Your Majesty, that is not what happened. I’m a person, not a fu—”
I clamped my teeth around my tongue and cleared my throat. “I’m a person, not an object.” I shot Robin a sweet smile. “I can’t be stolen.”
Fingers biting into the Moon Throne’s arm, the queen sat rigid, but it wasn’t me she was looking at—it was Bastian.
And that look could’ve killed a mammoth at fifty paces.
Up on the dais, framed by the gilded and silvered doors only she and the king used, she looked every inch the ancient monarch she was. Dangerous and dazzling.
It cooled my anger, letting fear smother me.
“A woman can’t be taken away from her husband, though, can she?” Uncle Rufus stepped forward, and I refused to look directly at him, even as I tugged the collar of my coat. “Or so His Highness led me to believe.”
“His Highness is, of course, right.” The queen gave him a rictus smile, and I could see all the ways in which she wanted to rip him or anyone else apart right now. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Bastian? Any defence for breaking our laws and coming between husband and wife by bringing her across the border?”
“I brought her here.” He slid his hands into his pockets, but I spotted them fisting on the way in. His shadows kept close, rippling like a pool full of eels, agitated and ready to break free.
“Approach,” the queen barked, and her glare snapped to me. “Both of you.”
We obeyed. Of course we obeyed—she was a fucking queen.
“What the hells were you thinking?” she hissed at Bastian. “How could you be so foolish to leave yourself open like this? You’re lucky you got back after nightfall, but with Cyrus involved, you know I have to punish you.” She sat back, waiting for his response.
He gave none.
“Do you understand, Bastian?” She bared her teeth. “The rumours about the two of you are one thing, but bringing her here without his permission?”
It took every scrap of control not to blurt that I shouldn’t need my husband’s permission—or anyone’s—to come to another country. When had I ever given permission for his travels around the continent?
It wouldn’t help. From my understanding of fae law, permission wasn’t required because I was a woman and he a man, but because we were married.
I swallowed back my anger and fear, which had merged into something lukewarm and sickly, and tried to summon an ounce of reason. “He gave permission.” I glanced at Bastian who stared straight ahead. “Bastian told me.”
“Is that right?”
He took a long time working his jaw side to side, his nostrils flaring. “We made a bargain.”
I shot him a look. He hadn’t told me that part. So Robin viewed me surviving as a thing that helped him. He had some plan for me.
The queen cleared her throat and straightened. “I understand a bargain was made.” She narrowed her eyes at Robin.
But it was Uncle Rufus who scoffed and stepped forward. “Under what terms? My nephew-in-law is no foolish girl to go making bargains with fae.”
“We had no bargain.” Robin folded his arms. “I spoke no words of power. I didn’t shake his hand.”
“Did you?” The queen raised an eyebrow at Bastian.
“No.”
She blasted a sigh. “Then I have no choice but to decide your punishment.”
“The rules are clear,” Cyrus said with a lilt that told me he would enjoy Bastian’s punishment.
“But if he hadn’t brought me here, I’d be dead.” I stared from the queen to Cyrus.
“Your Majesty,” came a voice from the back of the room. “Cousin.” In the doorway that led to Dusk, Asher bowed before approaching. “Technically, there would still be a bargain if both parties received the agreed upon benefit.” He raised his eyebrows at Bastian, prompting.
Bastian remained silent, giving the slightest shake of his head.
“That is true.” The queen inclined her head, expression easing a touch. “What did you give her husband in return?”
I frowned up at him. He hadn’t mentioned any exchange. Asher was clutching at straws and, from the look on Bastian’s face, coming up empty handed.
Did this mean I’d be sent back to Albion? My antidote and cure—they couldn’t send me back knowing it would kill me. Surely—surely that was worse than breaking the contract between me and that man.
As if he felt my hatred, Robin shuffled and scowled at the floor.
“Bastian,” Asher said from between gritted teeth, eyes widening.
Bastian lifted his chin, though his gaze remained downcast. “I wanted to bring her here, and I did.”
A growl laced the queen’s breath out, and Cyrus wore that awful smile again.
My pulse thundered like the stags’ galloping hooves as we’d tried to escape the Ascendants. We’d survived them and finally got past every bloody thing that had kept us apart for so long, only to now be divided by this.
This.
I wanted to scream.
“Bastian paid him.”
Every pair of eyes in the throne room turned to Asher.
I blinked. “Paid?”
“No,” Bastian rasped. “Don’t—”