“I was me.” The bedding rustled, and Faun’s voice projected more clearly. “But everyone thought I was her.”
I turned toward her. “But were you her, also?”
Her brow drew together. “What are you getting at?” She wasn’t. She didn’t even need to explain.
I pressed the knife shut. “Nothing.”
“Nothing never means nothing. Especially not when you’ve just mangled your own clothing and then studied a blade like you want to memorize its edge.”
Curse her perceptiveness. That was exactly why I’d appointed her my second, but not so she’d turn it onme. Or maybe it was.
I couldn’t meet eyes. If I did, she’d see all.
“That third trial,” she said. “Were you in Carys’s mind?” I said nothing. She scooted toward me on the bed. “Eury?”
Now I did meet eyes. She had that hawk’s gaze, her green eyes searching. She must have found what she was looking for, because she punched the bed. “That’show you did it.”
I gripped the knife harder. “I didn’t?—”
“You were in Carys’s mind.Somehow you merged with her.”
“I wasn’t?—”
“And now you fear you’re like her. This isn’t about Dorian—it’s aboutyou. You fear yourself.”
The metal bit into my palm. I raised my chin at last, but not to meet her gaze. What point was there in hiding from this woman? She was like a weevil in wheat.
Faun reached over, swiped the knife from me. I resisted, but she yanked it away. When she flicked it out, the dull blade seemed duller in her hand. “You’re not Carys. You won’t become Carys.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
She studied the blade, ran a finger over the edge; it came away uncut. “In that cave, you asked the Wild Hunt to spare me.”
The cave. The second trial. It felt like a different life.
“You had no good reason to do that,” Faun went on. “And every reason to let me die.”
Right now, I couldn’t remember any of the reasons I had wanted to save Faun’s life. She was the embodiment of Theo’s wiggling finger in my ear when I was six. And I didn’t want to dwell on my character. I never had.
“Dorian,” I said. “He’ll always be watching me, won’t he?”
She closed the blade. “That’s his role now. But he’s your protector, too.”
Protector.The fae who’d killed changelings with relish. “And I have no choice in that.”
“Few of us have choices in anything.” She tossed the knife back to me. “Be grateful for how many you possess.”
I drew in a full breath and nodded at the crumpled corset. “I choose never to wear one of those again.”
“Until Queen Liora sends her regards.”
“Queen Liora?”
“The Dawnmaker, ruler of the summer court. The Festival of the First Light is a celebration of all the champions who will die in the Killing Fields. They do love their bloodshed there, and their dresses.”
“Gods, Faun.Highmark?” Right now, I could barely remember my own name.
“And we’re short on time to make you halfway a queen.”