Page 163 of Castle of Nevers and Nightmares

Stone-cold, dragon-bonded eyes lock with mine. “You might be fast enough to avoid the Baleful gaze. You might even be fast enough to stop me activating the stone. But if I don’t return tonight, the Keepers have been instructed to activate the copies.”

I could rifle through his mind and find out who he gave the copies to, but the druids wear masks to hide their identities.

“Agree to my terms,” he says. “Accept responsibility for taking a dragon-bonded’s life. We can spin it any way you want, say a Nightmare influenced you, who gives a shit as long as you’re in the Cabinet, encased in stone, and no one knows what you really are.”

I lean in to snarl, “And what am I, Puck?”

“A monster.”

Chapter

Fifty-Six

WILLOW

It’s been three hours. I’m back at the keep, and still no sign of Fox. Cricket is about to dish up dinner in the main dining room, but I’m down on the basement level, pacing in the corridor outside the servant’s dining room, the portal stone to Elphyne in my hand. Geraldine, Max, and Peggy opted to room down here with Cricket and Finch.

I don’t blame them. The Sluagh are all a little scary if you don’t know them.

When he arrived back from his military mission, Fox healed their flaws. That was when he learned of my punishment and raced to the Shadow Tower.

Geraldine’s skin is now smooth as silk. Peggy’s limp is gone. Her eyes are now free of every wrinkle that formed over the years. Max is no longer balding. I do not know how Fox did it, but they’re not Nothings anymore.

They’re Nevers.

No . . . I shake my head, pacing.

They’re people.Goodpeople.

“Stop wearing a groove in the carpet, hun!” Peggy shouts from inside. “Come in and join us.”

I walk into the room and they barely glance at Fox’s coat wrapped around my body. I needed to smell him, so I immediately raided his closet after arriving here. But when I place the portal stone on the table, they give it a curious look.

“This is a portal stone to Elphyne,” I explain.

Three sets of eyes snap to me, then they all share a look I can’t decipher.

“Are you going home?” Geraldine asks warily.

“No. I need to be here. I feel like it’s my responsibility to do something about Titania.”

“Why?” Max asks.

“Because I was the one who woke you all from... from death.”

They stare at me with unblinking eyes.

“For real?” Geraldine asks. “You necromanced the shit out of us?”

Max turns to her. “It’s like when Dr. Doom went back in time and used a shard of Excalibur to reanimate everyone it killed.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I say. “But you’re notreallydead. You must have been frozen like my mother was, and, I don’t know, maybe you were all going to wake at some point anyway.”

Peggy asks, “Do you want us gone?”

“No!” I shake my head vehemently. “I would never ask you to leave. You’re my friends.”

“Good.” Peggy nods to the others. “Then we’re staying.”

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