“Mother!” Juliana appears at the back of the sanctuary and races to her side, rolling the priestess to her back. “What did you do?” she shouts at Finn.
“Nothing,” he says, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I did nothing but ask for a portal to see Mab.”
Juliana presses her hand to her mother’s chest. “Please, Mother.”
“I’m sorry, Jules,” Finn says, flicking his gaze to her briefly. “I didn’t know this would happen.”
She lifts her head, and tears roll down her beautiful face. “I don’t understand.”
“She swore an oath to protect this land and to serve the court. I don’t think the gods liked her refusing me—us.” He takes my hand and squeezes hard. “It seems that Mab wants to see her descendant. Abriella is a child of Mab.”
Juliana’s head snaps up, and she stares at me in shock. “That can’t be. She was human.”
“It appears there’s more to the story,” Finn says reverently.
Shaking her head, Juliana strokes her mother’s cheek with bloody fingers. “Leave. Just leave me.”
Finn practically pulls me out of the temple, leading me past the guards and down the steps, where Pretha and Kane are being restrained by guards, as if they’d sensed something wrong and had been trying to get to us.
“What happened?” Pretha asks, shrugging out of the grasp of the guard holding her.
“We’re leaving,” Kane growls at his guard, pulling out of his hold and following us toward our horses.
“We need to get back to the Unseelie palace,” Finn says. He grips my hand tightly, as if he’s afraid I might disappear.
“Explain,” Pretha says. She tugs on Finn’s arm and makes him stop. “We felt something awful.
Something big, but they wouldn’t let us in.”
Finn looks at me and then back to Pretha. “The High Priestess denied us. She refused to open a portal. And then . . . something else took over her body to deliver a message—to tell us where to find a portal and tell us that Abriella and I will be able to open it.”
“How?” Pretha asks.
Finn looks at me for a long moment, and his throat bobs as he swallows. “By using her blood mixed with my own. My suspicions were right. I am her tethered match.”
Pretha and Kane exchange a look. “How?” Pretha breathes.
“Because my magic responds to the power in her blood. Abriella is a descendant of Mab. She is —”
“Our rightful queen,” Kane murmurs.
“I don’t understand.” My head is spinning. They’re throwing out these words— tethered and portal and queen—and my mind is still back in that sanctuary watching a dead priestess speak to me.
“That . . . thing called me a child of Mab, but I’ve never met her. It doesn’t even make sense. My mother was human. My sister is human. I was human until I took that potion.”
“We didn’t understand,” Finn says. He’s still watching me with that stunned, awe-filled expression. “There was always a reason Oberon was able to pass her the crown.”
Kane slowly lowers himself to one knee and bows his head. “My queen,” he murmurs. “It is an honor.”
Pretha follows his lead, kneeling and bowing her head. “We will serve you.”
I half expect Finn to burst out laughing, but there is nothing but reverence in his eyes as he lowers onto one knee, still holding my hand. “Our queen.”
I can’t make sense of my friends kneeling before me, so the crunch of gravel under boots is a welcome distraction, and I turn toward the sound to see Juliana running toward us, breathless.
“We didn’t know,” she says. Tears streak down her blood-smudged face. “I swear to you, we didn’t know. We just wanted Finn on the throne. We thought Mab’s line was gone.” She gasps for air, then blinks at the others, kneeling in the gravel. “My qu-queen,” she blurts, and drops to one knee.
“Allow me the honor of serving you.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Get up. This is a mistake. I can’t be . . .”
Finn’s gaze lifts to mine, and I see the conviction in his silver eyes as his hand squeezes mine.
That’s when I feel it—power weaving up my legs and down my arms, coming from the earth, from this sacred land of Mab’s.
My breath leaves me in a rush. There’s no room for air when my entire body is buzzing. My entire being lights with energy and potential.