Squirt had a choice.

  Either she could attempt to take a bath in the fancy contraption, or she could go outside and take one in the creek.

  Going outside meant seeing the pipsqueak, and her cheeks were still tinted with color.

  Just… the way he… looked at her. It agitated her like nothing else.

  Yet, for some damn reason, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.

  Actually, she knew the reason, but gods damn it all, why him?

  Avoiding the question as it was only midafternoon, she busied herself in the open experimental room, losing herself to cataloging the newly discovered feybeasts and starting to think up ideas on how to use it all. Hours passed by in a blur, and it wasn’t until the day had long since faded into night that she decided to do the best of both worlds and towel off from the bathtub.

  No one would see her, so it didn’t matter.

  And if she went outside…

  Damnit. The image of his smile in her mind’s eye at her return…

  She grimaced, baring her teeth in annoyance at the thought. No. No. Just no. She refused to admit any form of—after all, he was attractive, sure, but that was just—that was a terrible idea tied up in a beautiful package, and anyway, her hand worked just fine—

  Groaning in frustration, she stalked off to the bath and muttered about annoying psychotic pixies with annoyingly beautiful wings.

  Scowling at his bright violet eyes and entirely too happy smile, Squirt had half a mind to turn right back around and stomp back into the cabin. The early dawn light was only just now peaking over the horizon. He was never up this early—

  And that was when she remembered that he said he didn’t sleep.

  Powerful fey could go days at a time without sleep. The power scale of someone who just didn’t sleep was—

  Nope. She wasn’t thinking about that.

  He smiled at her, and her scowl turned to a glare.

  He cleared his throat and gave a flourishing bow as he said, “My goddess, would you do me the honor of allow me to escort as spring turns to summer?”

  She palmed one of her blades.

  His face turned horrendously piteous. “Please?”

  Gods. The power of that face. It made her heart—

  Nope. She had played this game once, and never again.

  She would never be trapped again.

  ***

  Feldan watched as she went from teetering to shutting down in a flash of cold rage. His goddess seethed out, “Fuck off,” before running out to the greater forest.

  He let her go, rubbing the back of his neck and wondering where he went wrong this time when his sister-by-mating stepped up behind him.

  “Left you in her dust again?”

  He turned and shrugged with a casual, confident smile. “Yes. But she’s a vision even as she walks away.”

  His sister heaved an annoyed sigh. “Stop scaring her off before I can thank the woman for saving my daughter’s life, pipsqueak.”

  He gestured in his huntress’s direction. “But it is the game. I am the cat, she the mouse. Though sometimes I feel like I am the mouse.”

  She snorted. “If half of these hunters’ stories are true, the mouse is chasing the cat, and she’s going to knock him flat.”

  Feldran sighed wistfully. “Goddess, I think I’d be into that for her.”

  “Gross.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  He shrugged with a teasing grin. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

  She sighed. “Just do not wait too long before you leave. With summer here, they cannot wait for you any longer.”

  His gaze turned back to where she had disappeared, a wistful edge to it. “I know. I promise.” Just not yet. Not until he confessed his identity and asked for her to join him. The palaces of Skye may be but a gilded cage, but she would be treated like the goddess she was, never to want for anything ever again, safe where he could always protect her.

  Always.

  Still, a fracture of doubt he’d been blatantly ignoring creeped into his heart again, and as his sister-by-mating sauntered away, he found his mind occupied by Bartos’s plea and the confident way she navigated that treebed.

  Squirt spent the intervening time gathering supplies in the woods in the morning on her way to the lord’s keep, purposely timing her trip to arrive exactly as the gates to the city opened. If he was having her go just to report to him before giving her a week off and openly inviting her to peruse his library, she wanted to spend every possible second in that library.

  Dawn was just coming up over the horizon as she reached the keep. Few were awake. She was surprised Quint was awake already, though through pure blind luck, she wasn’t spotted by the stoic woman, darting on through the counter’s exit without needing to lift the top up before escaping to the halls. Carefully, she knocked, waited, then let herself into the empty lord’s office.

  Thank the gods. She’d done it.

  With glee, she darted in, pulled the statue, and escaped to the library. Just as before, it was devoid of any fey. Lights lined the room, a magical type of enchanted lantern that would stay lit as long as someone was in the space. For the first hour, she simply pulled out random books to get a sense of the organization. No two fey organized their libraries the same, after all, and many books were untitled, making it difficult to figure out at a glance. Whoever managed these stacks had a rather lackadaisical approach—there were general categories, but no further distinction she could discern.

  She found a tome on feybeasts, opening it up and reading it as she sat on the floor. One ear she kept out for any footsteps or noise that would proceed her getting caught while the rest of her attention focused on reading as quickly as she could. Once she finished reading it, she’d go back memorize the important bits, but this was the most efficient way to get as much as possible out of a single book, and she’d long since learned how to be a fast reader.

  In two hours, she’d finished the entire tome, putting it back and grabbing another, this time on ritual spellcasting.

  It was when she grabbed the third book that she realized with annoyance the lord had still not come into his office. Typical titled fey. Probably sleeping in.

  She grinned with a devilish edge to it. Then she picked up a book on runic theory.

  She ignored her grumbling stomach and dry mouth. Nothing mattered but the words on the page and reading as much as possible before someone interrupted her or changed their mind—

  It was midafternoon when the door to the office finally opened and shut. Scowling, she heard the lord sigh tiredly before his steps stopped and he murmured, “Athereon?” so quietly she thought she might have imagined it.

  Someone knocked on his door. There was a pause.

  He responded with a stilted, “Come in.”

  Then everything went wrong.

  ***

  Bartos, meanwhile, did his best not to draw attention to the open passage he had hidden behind an illusion.

  He wiped his hands down his face after Siabith burst into his office and said in dramatic fashion, “Lord Everwinter, I’ve been meaning to speak to you—have you thought any more on—”

  “For the last time, Lady Scholar Siabith Moorn, I know no one by that description—”

  “It’s just, I’m so worried about her, my lord. She was hurt, badly, and I… I… Gods, I should have…” and much like she had twice before since he returned home yesterday, she burst into tears.

  Irritated by the woman for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on, he still followed all basic decorum, serving her some tea and inviting her to sit while she calmed herself.

  The elf in front of him was blessed by Beauty Himself, a stunning vision that irritated him to no end. He could never put his finger on why she irritated him so, as she’d been nothing but charmingly captivating, openly earnest, and truly heartfelt in her declarations.

  Something just didn’t feel right about her, much like Annabelle had said.

  If Athereon escaped out the bolt tunnel in the quartermaster’s rooms in the next few minutes, he’d have the confirmation of his suspicions he needed to act.

  As the minutes passed, he slowly let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Good. She was odd and suspicious, but not dangerous to Athereon.

  Still, he waited while she used every fey trick in the book to trap him with convention using ancient fey laws governing hospitality. Finally, he lost his temper, biting out, “Lady Scholar, we can continue this conversation later. I have work to do, and summer is almost upon us. Good day.”

  Having effectively dismissed her, she lowered her lashes sadly before giving a perfect curtsy. “Very well. Just… please. I just want to know she’s okay.”

  Something tugged at his heartstrings, and to his own surprise, he almost gave in.

  His blood ran cold.

  She’d truly charmed him. Not just using sheer charisma to affect an emotion but truly manipulating his emotions into losing his suspicions and loosening his tongue. Had he not had the jolt of figuring out her talent, he might still be lost to it.

  Instead, he glared at her, a warning growl reverberating in his words as he said, “Try that on me again, and I will take your head, mage.”

  Wisely, she bowed and left, even if she kept her head held high.

  He waited several long, exhausting minutes, hoping that Athereon had simply tuned out the conversation to read as much as possible. “Athereon? She’s gone now. You can come out.”

  Nothing.

  His eyes tiredly slid over to the hidden path, but she didn’t appear.

  “Athereon?” Maybe she was the type to be so lost in the book she couldn’t hear her surroundings at all. Just in case, he ended up ducking over to the library through the secret entrance. There, he found a book open and lying on the ground on alchemy and herbology. Standing from his crouch, he stood and breathed in the soft jasmine of her scent.

  It was gone.

  As was she.