Kestrel was already seated at the table when the faery held the door open for Seraiah. It was the same room they’d dined in on their first night.

  "Dinner will be served shortly," he informed them before leaving again.

  Seraiah could feel Kestrel's gaze boring into her as she crossed the room and pulled out the chair opposite of her friend.

  "What is that?" Kestrel asked, her eyes zeroing in on the scabs marring Seraiah's cheek. “What did the faeries do to you? They told me you were unharmed, but that doesn’t look unharmed.”

  “It wasn’t them.” Before Seraiah could say anything more, the pumpkin faery arrived with its cart of food. As with the night before, the cart was laden with more food than the two of them could consume.

  By unspoken agreement, they waited to continue their conversation until the pumpkin faery finished unloading the food and left.

  “If it wasn’t one of them, then who was it?” Kestrel asked, picking up right where they’d left off. “I asked after you today, but they told me you were busy, and I could see you at dinner.”

  “It was my mother. They allowed me to see her, and the Queen’s warning was correct.”

  Kestrel laid her hand atop Seraiah’s. “I’m so sorry. We don’t have to discuss it if you’d rather not.”

  “Thank you for your concern, but it’s fine. It’s better if I discuss it, I think.”

  Kestrel busied herself with adding food to her plate. She didn’t push, but Seraiah could almost feel her curiosity filling the room.

  “She was different than I expected,” Seraiah said, taking the platter of hand pies Kestrel passed to her, “but also somehow not. I had no memories of her from when I was a child, and I knew from others telling me I didn’t look like her, but we have the same eyes. It was—unsettling.”

  Kestrel’s brow furrowed. “How so?”

  Seraiah added green beans to her plate while she gathered her thoughts. “It was like looking into my future, I suppose. One minute she was there with me in the room, and then suddenly she wasn’t. Her eyes were seeing something I could not.”

  “The madness?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Did she say anything? Did you speak with her?”

  “Sort of. At first, she didn’t seem to notice I was there. Then she told me I shouldn’t have come and mumbled something else I couldn’t make out.”

  Kestrel stabbed a piece of potato with her fork. “Not a happy reunion, then.”

  “Not what I had imagined, no. Then again, I did not expect to find her here at all, so I suppose I should be grateful for anything at all.”

  Kestrel gave her another sympathetic look.

  “Anyway, after that she told me fate cannot be fought, and I can’t change what is to come. I’m not sure what to make of it, or if it was only the ravings of a madwoman.”

  “Hmm. Well, it’s not very specific. She could be talking about anything. Was there anything else? When did she do that?” Kestrel pointed to the scabs.

  Seraiah stared at her plate. Everything looked delicious, but she didn’t have much of an appetite. “I asked her what she meant, and she grew agitated. She told me I already have the answers, and that’s when this happened.” She gestured to her face. “The faery came in and pulled her off of me, and ended the visit.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve decided it’s not worth worrying myself over. I came here for answers about the madness. Not whatever riddle this is.”

  “But what if it is about the madness? What if she was trying to tell you there is no way around it, and you already know this?” Kestrel said.

  Seraiah had already had this thought herself, but it couldn’t be true. She refused to give up yet. “I’ll seek another audience with the Winter Queen tomorrow. She must know something more than she has said.”

  “You think so? Even after seeing what your mother is like? The Summer King said your mother came looking for answers to the same questions you have. From what you’ve said, it doesn’t seem as though she got them. She could have been trying to warn you away. Who knows what the faeries might want with you? You heard how the Winter Queen said you still have potential. It sounded like a threat to me if I’ve ever heard one. We should consider leaving sooner rather than later.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Seraiah pushed her plate away and changed the subject. “What did you do all day? Did they keep you locked in a room?”

  Kestrel eyed her. “Why would I be locked in a room? And don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding the subject of leaving.”

  Seraiah grimaced and explained how she’d woken up, discovered her door was locked and briefly contemplated using the mark to bring Ren to them.

  “See. What did I tell you? Something is not quite right here, but also I find it very interesting that Ren is the first one you think of when you need a rescue,” Kestrel said.

  “I panicked. That’s all. He was the first person I thought of who I could get in contact with immediately.”

  “Well then. Unlike you, the faeries didn’t lock me in. For the most part, they let me roam around the court. Only seeing you was off-limits.”

  Kestrel’s theory of the faeries, wanting her for something, sounded more and more plausible by the second. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “Unsure. I asked for news of Nyrene, and some of the reactions were strange. No one told me anything we didn’t already know, but I got the feeling there was something they were hiding. I really don’t like any of this. If you insist on staying and seeking another audience with the Winter Queen, you better be careful. We should be prepared to run at any moment.”

  While Seraiah got ready for bed that night, she couldn't stop herself from thinking about Ashe's words again. She wasn’t sure which was worse, that Kestrel might be right, that they were a warning about the madness or that they meant nothing at all.

  I will talk to her again tomorrow, Seraiah told herself as she climbed into bed. First, she would seek an audience with the Winter Queen and then pay another visit to her mother. With any luck, she’d have the answers she needed and could leave the Unseelie Court behind. It wasn’t only important to get out of here because of the threat the faeries posed, but also because Sterling was waiting for her. She may have been focused on her own problems, but she hadn’t forgotten about her sister and the shadows. Perhaps she should ask the Winter Queen what she knew of those as well. Tomorrow … tomorrow she would figure out everything.

  Seraiah drifted off to sleep, and a vision took hold.

  She recognized the room almost instantly. It was the one at the top of the tower in Nyrene. The Queen’s room. But what was she doing back here?

  A baby's cry split the air, drawing Seraiah’s focus to a cradle across the room. That certainly hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen the room.

  A woman, presumably the baby's mother, rushed over and scooped the baby up, murmuring to it quietly. The woman was an older version of Sterling.

  Did this mean they’d found a way to help Sterling and take back Nyrene?

  Then, as the woman moved, Seraiah caught sight of another familiar face. Jensira stood against the far wall, watching the silver-haired woman soothe her baby.

  Seraiah's heart sank. This wasn't the future at all. It was the past.

  The silver-haired woman wasn't Sterling, but her mother, the former Elven Queen.

  "What do you think this means?" the Queen asked, drawing Seraiah's attention to the fourth person in the room.

  He was an old man, hunched over and clutching a cane in his right hand. No one she recognized.

  Until he spoke.

  "I don't interpret the visions. It is not my place. I simply tell you what I have seen." His gaze wandered to the baby resting in the Queen's arms.

  "Atherly," Seraiah whispered to herself.

  His eyes darted over to her corner of the room for a moment before going back to the baby—the baby who, Seraiah was willing to bet, was her future adopted sister.

  "What would you do if this were your child?" the Queen persisted.

  "My Queen, I cannot—"

  "What would you do?" she demanded sharply.

  Atherly bowed his head, speaking to his feet. "I would have her killed."

  "Your own child?"

  He kept his head down as though afraid to see the response to his words. "Yes. The girl must die, or the kingdom will perish."

  "One for the good of many," the Queen said bitterly. "How noble of you."

  Atherly stayed silent.

  Seraiah watched as the Queen stared down at baby Sterling cradled in her arms, her face growing hard.

  "Tell no one," she instructed Atherly.

  The old seer bowed low and retreated from the room, his cane clicking against the polished stone floor.

  Once he was gone, the silence stretched, filling the room.

  Finally, the Queen turned and laid the baby back in her bed. Her hands gripped the side of the cradle hard enough to make her knuckles turn white as she stared at the sleeping girl.

  "Fetch, Neorah," the Queen said softly. "We must announce the death of the heir."

  Even though she already knew how this would end, Seraiah's heart leaped into her throat.

  "Yes, Your Majesty." Jensira bowed to the Queen and hurried from the room.

  The Queen's heartbroken sobs were the last thing Seraiah heard before the vision dissolved around her.

  Seraiah scrambled out of bed, tripping over the tangle of sheets in her rush. Where was her bag? Her brain was still foggy from sleep, but she knew one thing with certainty—her mother had been right. Seraiah had the answers all along. She’d been carrying them around with her this whole time.

  Her mother’s words hadn’t been the ravings of a madwoman nor a warning about the madness—they’d been about Sterling.

  Now if only Seraiah could find where the faeries had put her bag.

  Her gaze swung around the room until it landed on the wardrobe. If it was in this room, it had to be in there.

  She yanked open the doors and shoved the clothes aside. There, on the floor at the very back, lay her bag. Seraiah snatched it up, undoing the flap and turning it upside down. The contents spilled out across the floor. There wasn’t much, but there was the one thing she was looking for. Seraiah dropped the bag and bent to scoop up her prize.

  Atherly's journal.

  She’d never bothered to finish reading it all those months ago, thinking she’d learned everything she could from the little book.

  But she’d been wrong. There was one last very important thing to learn. It had nothing to do with her madness, and everything to do with what had started all of this: Atherly's vision of Sterling's fate.