Chapter 22

"What a waste," she heard Valroy say through a sigh.

Alex wanted to scream. Wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back out. If her heart could stop from grief alone, she was certain it would. She wanted to destroy Valroy—to rip him to pieces.

Agony and fury mixed together, lighting a dangerous flame. She might be bound for death, but fuck if she wasn't going to try to take Valroy down with her.

Kissing Izael one last time, she placed his body carefully back down to the stones before standing.

"Hm?" Valroy chuckled, amused in the way that one might be watching a child stand defiantly against an army. "What is this?"

Shutting her eyes, she focused on the music around her. Of the triumphant, terrible dirge. Izael's song had ended, the strings fading as the piece he played stopped and fell silent. Izael was dead. His music was over.

And soon, so would the music of the Maze of Shadows. She didn't move. Didn't lift her hands. She didn't need to. That was all just a tool—a device to aid her focus. But she had all the inspiration she needed in the world.

Izael was dead.

Valroy was about to follow.

With one single word, one single silent command, she reached out to all the music around her—of the Maze. Of the bellowing tree. Of the thing behind her that pretended to own a heart and a soul.

Stop.

There was a cracking noise. A sound of wood shattering that echoed through the trees around her as the Maze did its best to obey.

"Wh—" Valroy gagged in pain. Turning, she watched as he clutched his heart, his eyes wide in the first show of fear she had ever seen from him.

The forest had fallen silent. All the creatures within had stopped singing their woeful tunes. Monsters and animals, the Nameless, the fae within, all ceased.

The only sound that remained were the two pipe organs. She commanded them again, this time audibly. "Stop."

Valroy fell to one knee, shuddering as he fought against her power. The great tree that was Valroy's heart sputtered but did not end. "You think I am so—so easily broken? You think you can win?" He sneered at her.

"I don't care." It was true. She didn't care if she won or not. It was about returning the favor. This was about revenge. It wasn't even justice. This was eye-for-an-eye. He had killed Izael. So, she would kill him.

Raising her hands this time, she turned her whole focus to the music of the ancient tree. "St?—"

"Wait!"

A new song had broken through the silence she was struggling to finish.

It was Abigail.

She was kneeling at Valroy's side, her palm to his cheek, worry and fear etched over her features. Alex knew Abigail's expression mirrored her own as she had knelt by Izael's side. It was the face of a woman who was watching the love of her life slip from her fingers.

Valroy rested his shoulder against her. That one small motion spoke volumes to Alex. That terrible, goading, evil thing was resting against the Seelie Queen, relying on her. He loved her. Loved her and trusted her beyond measure.

Could she kill him? Could she destroy their love in the same way that Valroy had destroyed hers? Gods, she wanted to. She really, really wanted Valroy to fucking suffer. But Abigail? The Seelie Queen had been nothing but kind to her.

No.

She couldn't do that to Abigial.

I am a failure at everything.She let go of her chokehold on the music around her. Most of the instruments didn't return—she had destroyed the life in the Maze for a good distance in all directions. But the two pipe organs, Valroy's body and his true self, remained—muted though they were.

It didn't matter. None of it did. She'd failed to save Izael. She'd failed to kill Valroy. Now, all she had left to do was to kill herself. Walking back to Izael's body, she knelt beside him and picked up his limp frame, holding him in her lap.

Smoothing his sea-green hair away from his face, she wiped up some of the blood from his lip with her sleeve. She didn't know why she bothered. A few of her tears landed on his cheek, cleaning the dirt there in a streak as it ran along his skin.

"I know what you're about to do." It was Abigail. She had left Valroy's side to approach Alex.

"Who told you?" Alex heard her exhaustion echoed in her voice. "Doesn't matter. Not really. I'm just curious who our snitch is."

"No one. I just know what I would do in this instance." Abigail frowned. "Come with me, Alex—we will rid you of this magic of yours, and all will be well."

That made Alex laugh. "All will be well? All will be—" She choked back her ragged laugh. "I loved him! I loved him and I never even told him." She glared at Abigail, furious—though perhaps not at the Seelie Queen. No, she was furious with herself. "I didn't want to make this worse for him."

Turning her attention back down to Izael, Alex shook her head before finishing her thought. "He should have died knowing he was loved." She sniffed. She really hated crying. "He shouldn't have died at all."

"You needn't spend your life in concert with his." Abigail knelt across from Alex. Valroy, mercifully, kept his distance and his mouth shut.

"I won't let that fucking douchebag"—she pointed at Valroy accusatorially—"use me for his own ends."

"I understand. Trust me, I do." Abigail's expression was thin. "Firsthand."

"I am still right here," Valroy said through gritted teeth.

"Trust me, we cannot forget." Abigial smiled wryly at her husband.

Yeah, Alex liked the Queen. Probably more than she should. Alex shut her eyes. "Take my magic away."

"Do you wish to surrender it, truly, in your heart of hearts?"

Did she? No. She didn't. Wiping her nose on her sleeve, she looked up at the array of rusted and abandoned weaponry embedded into the tree beside her. "And if I don't?"

"The act of removing it would sunder you. You would die. Or go mad."

"Great. So. I die either way." She looked back down at Izael's body and stroked his hair again.

"How were you planning on doing it?" Abigail's tone was gentle. "I can do it for you, if you like. I will make it fast. The Gle'Golun work quickly and painlessly."

"Poison." Alex held up her hand with the ring on it.

"Leave it to the Unseelie to gift you a deadly engagement ring." Abigail rolled her eyes. "Melodramatic, the lot of them."

"I am still right here." Valroy had finally managed to get to his feet. He took a step toward them.

"Fuck you," Alex swore at Valroy. "Just fuck you and don't come a step closer." She could barely see through her tears. "Or I don't give a shit how much you two love each other, I'll turn this whole place into the surface of the fucking moon!"

Valroy stopped his approach and held up his hands in a show of harmlessness. Yeah, right.

Looking down at the ring on her hand, she took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. "I think I'll go by poison. Seems right, having loved a snake." Sure, Izael had been a constrictor—but she wasn't going to sweat the details as she stood on the precipice of death.

"Your power was a gift from the Unseelie, and so it is mine to wield," Valroy argued. "You by rights belong to me."

"It is over, Valroy." Abigail turned her attention back to her husband, her expression growing steely and hard. "You have lost. Yet another one of your bloodthirsty campaigns has ended only in the death and suffering of you and yours. You have succeeded in nothing."

Valroy bared his teeth, snarling at his Queen, before storming away to the edge of the stone ring, clearly fuming.

Alex couldn't give a single, flying fuck. She sniffled, wiping her nose again, as she looked down at Izael's body. Kissing him one last time, she almost choked when she felt how cool his lips had already become.

Flicking open the small, hidden compartment in her ring, she braced herself. It wouldn't hurt, he had promised. It would just be like going to sleep. It was definitely a better way to go than he had.

"The worst part is," she said partly to Abigail, partly to herself, but mostly to Izael. "I finally have my wish." Tipping the powder into her mouth, it tasted oddly sweet. She swallowed it before letting out a breath.

It was done.

She was going to die.

"I finally have my wish, Iz…" Smiling down at Izael brokenheartedly, she stroked his cheek. She would die here, holding him, at his side. "I wish…"

She felt a warmth spread over her body as her vision blurred just a little. The poison was going to work. He wasn't kidding—it was fast. And he hadn't lied about it being painless.

Taking in a wavering breath, she heard her own song shift to its conclusion. She had only a measure of music to live. Perhaps two.

Finally, at long last, she closed the contract with her snake.

"Izael, Duke of Bones, you win our game." Her tears finally dried as the world began to go black. Alex spoke her final words.

"I wish we could be together."

Someone was kissing her.Gently. She woke as if from a dream. Not a dream—a nightmare. All she knew was that she was warm. She was comfortable. And she felt as though she had crawled beneath a weighted blanket. She didn't want to move.

Murmuring, she curled closer to the source of the warmth.

"There you are, my songbird…"

That voice. She knew that voice.

The nightmare she had endured crashed back to her like a bolt of lightning. Shooting up, she cracked her head on something hard.

"Ow!" The figure over her recoiled, pressing a hand to his chin. "I was worried about you, too, thanks."

She wiped her eyes, furiously trying to blink herself awake. It wasn't possible. It wasn't. Had it all been a dream? When she could focus, she tried to take in everything around her. She was sitting in Izael's boat that he used for a bed. The weighted blanket she had mistakenly thought she was underneath was, in fact, coils of his tail.

Izael.

"You're—" She couldn't believe what she was seeing. He was still rubbing his chin grumpily. "You're?—"

"Bruised, now, thank you," he muttered. But his annoyance quickly fell away as the fa?ade cracked. He smiled, giving up the game. "I'm alive. As are you, songbird."

"But—but how—" She had died. Hadn't she? Hadn't he?

"You made your wish." He leaned in, kissing her cheek. "And wishes are sacred in this world."

She could still hear the music around her. Panic clutched her heart. Nothing had changed! They were right back to where they started! "But—Valroy?—"

"Cannot wield you against the treaty." He smiled dreamily, kissing her cheek again.

"But—"

"You haven't noticed. Look at your hands, songbird."

Brow furrowed in confusion she looked down at herself. And pulled in a breath of surprise. Her hands were a pale purple. Her fingernails were black and slightly pointed. Just like they were when she was wearing the glamor he made for her. Why was she wearing it now?

Izael scooped her up in his arms and slithered down the tree before she had the chance to ask the question. Before she could gather up what was left of her wits, he stood her in front of his mirror. "Look."

She stared at herself. Her hair was still a deep, nearly black shade of purple. Her arm was still tattooed. But her eyes were violet, and faintly glowing. From her temples curled two delicate horns.

"I am going to have fun with these." He grabbed hold of one and pulled her head half an inch. "You come with handlebars now!" Izael cackled.

She shook him off before turning to face him. "Back up. Just back up. What's happening?"

"You wished for us to be together." The smile never left his face. And in his eyes, she saw love and adoration. He stroked his fingers across her cheek. "Abigail decreed that despite my recent demise, our contract was not yet void. That with your dying breath, you had lost our game—and your soul was mine. But it could not go to a lifeless form. You brought me back."

"And—and—" She held up her hands, staring down at her palms. "I…I'm Unseelie."

"We can be together. Just as you wished. My brilliant, beautiful songbird." He wrapped an arm around her lower back and pulled her flush to his chest. "Imagine how rough I can be with you now…what fun we will have together."

"Slow down, you horndog." She pushed back on his chest, though she couldn't help but laugh a little. "I need a moment to process."

"Fine. Then I will run you raw."

Alex turned back to stare at her reflection in the mirror. She was an Unseelie fae. The world around her—now that she had a moment to see it—had changed. Not in its form, but in the way she perceived it.

"Now that you are fae, Valroy cannot use you against the Seelie. Your power simply adds to our own." Izael rested his hands on her shoulders, taking in her reflection as well. "Abigail argued to make you Seelie, but I pointed out that you would despise being a vegetarian. You are meant to be one of us."

That made sense. She really would be a terrible Seelie. Shutting her eyes, she let out a wavering breath.

She was alive. He was alive.

They were Unseelie.

And they could be together.

Turning in his arms, she wrapped her own around behind his neck, gazing into his sea-green eyes.

"Say the words I long to hear, my songbird," he murmured.

Three words. So simple yet so powerful. She pulled him down into a kiss, but before she placed her lips to his, she finally told him the truth.

"I love you."