“What does that even mean?”
Her lip curled. “Dresses. Decorum. Cunning.”
I closed my eyes tight. “Three of my favorite things.”
She scoffed. “Don’t pretend about the last one. You’re a wily bitch who sleeps with that knife under her pillow.”
I opened my eyes.Nowshe felt more than ever like someone from the Dip. “You always knew I was a changeling. Right from the start.”
She didn’t shrink, didn’t look away. “Of course I did. What’s the point of putting a human in the trials?”
“You hated me, to start.”
“No.” Her head tilted left. “I distrusted you.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I had no idea who you were.”
Every conversation with Faun proved to me why she was one of two fae I would keep close. Her, and Haskel. “Who else can I trust in this court?”
“Precious few. Haskel. Mirek. Dorian’s one, much as you aren’t inclined to believe that.”
My throat tightened. “Dorian’s a changeling-killer.”
She shrugged. “Hate runs thick in Feyreign. But he’s not your enemy, Eurydice. Perhaps someday you two will dredge up your skeletons.”
“Dredge up?”
“Not my story to tell.”Not the first time I’ve heard that.She started toward the door. “I’ll come for you before sunrise.”
“So early?”
She pointed two fingers between her eyes and mine. “Your night vision is shit, for one thing. So are your skills with bow and blade.”
I waggled the knife. “I did defeat a queen.”
“Not with bow. Not withthatblade.” She opened the door, glanced back at me as she passed through it, and winked. “Sleep well, my queen.”
Faun hadn’t been gone five minutes before another knock came. I had stripped out of the rest of my dress and stood in my underthings. I straightened. “Who is it?”
“It’s Dorian.”
CHAPTER TWO
Dorian
The pulltoward her was a hook under my rib. I’d felt it the moment the spiritstag cast the spell and every moment after.
As she’d turned, walked up the stairs away from me.
As she’d passed down the hall out of my sight.
As she slipped through the door and closed it.
She was at the other end of that line—a god’s thread between the two of us.
Veyre.The first time I’d read the term in a book, I had spoken it aloud, rolled it over my tongue. It was a binding, a vow—a curse. And yet when the spiritstag had spoken the word into my head today, it had shown me a vision I found terrifying.