Chapter Thirty-One Felicity

Chapter Thirty-One

Felicity

I F I WEREN'T STILL FIGHTING the cave demon's toxin, I might've been able to keep myself from sleeping for a day, maybe two. But my body is too brutalized and battered, even after the healer, and I can't use any of my old tricks.

Pacing my cell wears me out in minutes instead of hours and makes me more exhausted instead of keeping me alert. The dungeon's too dark, and flooding my cell with light to keep myself awake uses more magic than I can spare so soon after my brush with death. Talking to myself gets old after an hour or two.

I doubt I lasted a whole day before my dreams dragged me under.

When I wake up, I'm in my own skin for the first time in three years, and it's such a relief. Like taking off a pair of boots that are a little too tight. I'd revel in it, stretch like a cat, if the consequences weren't so terrifying.

I'm dead.

I wonder how well guarded this dungeon is. Erith will come for me now—will know where I am now that I'm in my body again—and being down here might be the only way I survive. If Misha doesn't kill me first.

I know I'm not alone before I even open my eyes. I feel him.

Misha is in the cell with me. It's dark, but I can make out the long lines of his silhouette as he lounges against the opposite wall, sitting with legs wide, knees bent. I don't dare move toward him. He could crush me with his magic. I see the rage in his eyes when they meet mine, and I realize he might.

With a snap of his fingers, fire ignites from his fingertips, and the flickering flames cast shadows that accentuate his angular features. "Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?" he asks, waving his free hand up and down to indicate my form. My true form.

I flinch. I suppose it might feel that way to him. I'm nothing like Jasalyn. Not nearly as appealing by traditional standards. Though I've not been in this body for three years, I don't need a mirror to know it's not changed much from how I looked at sixteen.

A joke. I wish he had kicked me instead.

"What do you want with my court and our Hall of Doors?" Misha asks.

I bow my head and don't respond.

"I'll admit I'm impressed," he says. "I've never met a shifter with such impeccable abilities nor one with the ability to alter her scent so precisely . You fooled even Finn's wolves. Perhaps I've underestimated shifters."

"I'm not a shifter," I whisper.

He scoffs. "Well, you are certainly something , and it's not Jasalyn. I wouldn't have thought it was possible. I welcomed you into my castle, let you live under my roof." He narrows his eyes, and I sense what he's not saying. It's worse than me living here. Worse than me fooling him for all these days. He had feelings for me. Believed he might have a future with Jasalyn. And not just any future but the kind he craves. I made him believe he had a chance at love and family. For that he may never forgive me.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, and I've never meant an apology so sincerely.

"I suppose you want me to believe that." He scoffs. "I know who you are, Felicity, daughter of Erith, Patriarch of the Seven."

A chill runs down my spine at the sound of my name on his lips. He knows. He knows everything. "You broke into my head." My chest aches. He never would've done that if he still had any respect for me.

"You broke into my castle," he growls. "I'd heard of you. I know the oracle told your father that his wife would give him twins. A boy and a girl. She told him the daughter would end his life. I know that your mother paid her midwife to hide you when you were born and to present your brother to her husband as a solo babe. I know that midwife ran to the other side of Elora to give you to another family, the Kendricks, who raised you and kept you safe—until Mordeus told your father of your mother's deception, and Erith put together a team to find you."

I squeeze my eyes shut. He knows more about me than I knew about myself until I was sixteen years old. The day Erith's soldiers showed up at our home was the beginning of the end of a life I cherished. Dad died trying to give Mom the time she needed to hide me, and when the soldiers left, Mom had no choice but to tell me the truth about my birth, about my father, and about my destiny. She sent me to the oracle then, hoping I might be shown a path to safety. Instead, I was shown an image of my birth father for the first time. After watching myself plunge a blade into Erith's heart, I was shown Hale's death, and found myself in a deadlock with fate.

If I killed Erith, I would lose my brother. And if I didn't, it wasn't a matter of if Erith found me. It was a matter of when .

My only option was to leave the only place I'd ever called home. As long as I never killed Erith, I wouldn't have to watch Hale die too. As long as I never took my own form, as long as I never lived in my own skin, Erith couldn't track me.

And for three years, I haven't. Until now.

"Tell me," Misha says, his voice louder than before, "what do you want with my court and Hall of Doors? What are you after, Felicity ?"

Every day with him, I craved the sound of my name from his lips, and it hurts to hear him say it with such disgust. "I was never going to bring any harm to your court. My friends are looking for a way into the Eloran Palace. They want to bring down the Seven and restore Elora to her rightful queen. That's why I wanted to find your Hall of Doors."

"Try again."

"That's the truth."

"My Hall has no portal to the Eloran Palace. It never has. The Magical Seven have never allowed anyone from my court to portal in."

"But we were told—" I draw in a breath. That intelligence came from Shae. Shae, who's been so cruel. Shae, who wanted me to rush into my search for a portal guarded by a deadly cave demon.

"I opened up to you," Misha says, "and it was all a lie. Why? What is it that you're after?"

I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the hot tears roll down my cheeks. Nothing about what I felt for him was a lie, but he'll never believe that now.

"What did you do with the princess? What do you want with her? What do you want with my court?"

"I told you, I didn't hurt her. She wanted me here to cover for her." He doesn't believe a word I'm saying, so I'm not sure why I'm wasting my breath, but I keep going. "She has a magic ring that gives her the kiss of death. I think it's all connected with the faceless plague and the resurrection of Mordeus."

Heavy footfalls sound in the corridor beyond, and I turn to see Finnian, the Unseelie king consort, standing in front of my cell, his silver eyes glowing. Behind him, his queen glares at me, rage burning in her eyes. At any moment those shadows of hers will rise up from the ground and tear me to pieces.

"This is treason," she says, pacing the corridor in front of my cell as Finn falls back.

She stops and grips the cell bars, leaning forward—all menace. Wisps of shadow curl like fond cats around her wrists. "Where is my sister?"

"I told Mish— the king . I told the king I don't know. She asked me to come here in her place. I think she's still in the Unseelie Court. Everything I know..." I bow my head. I've spent my life hiding the full truth of what it means to be an Echo. The gift is sacred and not to be shared unless it's a matter of life and death. And this is. I swallow. "Everything I know comes from the memories I've gained when shifting into her form. And lately I've seen a couple of things that seem... more recent. About her buying a magical ring."

The queen spins to face Misha, who's still sitting on the opposite side of my cell, as if he doesn't trust me to be alone in here. "What is she talking about? Memories from shifting? Have you heard anything of the sort?"

Misha eyes me cautiously. "I've heard rumors but..." He shakes his head. "Felicity claims she's not a common shifter."

"Prove it," Brie says. "Tell me something no one but Jasalyn would know."

I grasp for something special. Something other than the scars and the horrors of Mordeus's dungeons. "Your mother told you stories at bedtime. Tales of this land. Jasalyn was small, but you'd hold her hand and giggle together about what it might be like to visit Faerie."

She folds her arms, expression harder now. "That could be any two human girls. Try again."

I meet her angry gaze and hold it. "I don't know everything about your sister, but I know enough—from meeting her and from what I've seen—to understand that she doesn't want you to know what she endured in the dungeons. She doesn't want you to know the truth about her scars."

The queen flinches. "We don't know where those are coming from. They've just been appearing."

"But she knows. They're scars from what Mordeus and his guards did to her in the dungeons, but she didn't know that they were from blood magic—that they are signs that he's calling on that connection he made between them in the dungeons. That he's using her to come back."

Abriella looks to Misha. "She's just twisting what you learned from that witch."

He stares at me. "I don't know anything about a ring," he says. "Or the details of what happened in the dungeons."

"Tell us," Abriella says.

"Why should I?" I ask. "Why should I reveal her secrets when you've already decided I'm a liar?"

"Why?" the queen asks, brow raised. "Because otherwise you're dead before sunset."

I'm dead anyway.

"I'm waiting," the queen snaps.

"Do you even want to hear it?" I ask, voice hushed with the shame of sharing what Jas has spent three years trying to hide. "How scared she was to be in this realm? How she hated having to pretend she was okay each day but dreaded the nights even more? Do you really want to know that she hated being touched so much that even you—even her sister whom she loves more than anything—couldn't touch her without her wanting to crawl out of her skin?"

The queen's face crumbles, and tears leak from the corners of her eyes. "That's enough."

I lift my chin. "That's what I thought. I guess Jasalyn was right to believe you couldn't handle the truth."

A ball of shadow lunges forward, fists in my hair, and yanks my head back until I'm meeting the queen's gaze again. "What did they do to her?"

My eyes water from the pain but I don't care. "They hurt her. They made her bleed—for the magic but also..." I shake my head. "I don't know. Mordeus never explains it in her memories. He spoke like he knew she had magic and was going to be important to him—but I think he did everything he did to make her fear him, fear those dungeons, and fear everything about this court. I think he knew her fear and hatred would bring him back."

The shadow queen grips the bars, her knuckles turning white. "This story feels too convenient. You haven't told me anything to prove you haven't killed my sister and hidden her body with plans to take over her life."

Misha snaps his head to the side to stare at the queen. "Brie," he says, his voice simultaneously censorious and soothing.

"My queen has a point," Finn says, leaning back against the cell on the opposite side of the corridor and folding his arms. "We need more details. If you can't lead us to the princess, then at least give us something more. Something you'd have no way of knowing."

I throw up my hands. "How would I know any of this without her memories?"

"Perhaps you're from the old race that ate the hearts of their victims to steal their magic," Finn says.

I draw back in horror. "The princess was alive last I saw her. I don't eat hearts. "

"So this magical ring my sister is supposedly using," the queen says, "where did it come from?"

"She got it from a witch in Elora in exchange for her immortal life." I look to Misha. "What if he could take over her life somehow? What if Mordeus is planning to come back through Jasalyn?"

"You've gone too far," the queen spits.

"The witch made the princess get her a book—the Grimoricon—she said she needed it to create the ring."

"That's enough." Abriella spins, and her cloak flares behind her as she storms away, her king consort right behind.

"I speak the truth," I call to her back, determined. "There's something about your sister that Mordeus knew he would need—something about her unique gifts that will allow him to do what only Mab has done before."

Misha scoffs and pushes to his feet. "The Grimoricon doesn't leave the Midnight Palace. Even the shadow princess couldn't have gotten it out of there."

I blink and he's on the other side of the cell bars, staring at me with folded arms.

I jump to my feet and run to the bars. "My father will be coming for me. He's wanted to kill me since before I was born."

"Then I guess he'll save me the trouble." There's anger in his eyes but hurt too, and the sight of it makes everything feel too heavy. He keeps looking me over, like he doesn't understand me in my true form. At last, he leans closer—close enough to touch. "You better hope we find her fast. You better pray to whatever gods haven't forsaken you that her deepest wish is for us to spare your life."

I wrap my hands around the bars, framing his face. "I never meant to hurt you."

His eyes flash, going hard in an instant. "I never meant to let you."