After Seraiah left with Maescia, Wisteria disappeared off somewhere on her own, leaving Kai to sit in Seraiah’s room alone. He paced across the small space, annoyed at being told he wasn’t invited to the meeting with the Summer King. Who knows what they could be talking about? The Summer King might even get Seraiah to agree to another terrible deal.

  Kai stopped pacing in the middle of the room. What they needed was to leave the Seelie Court, and he’d already gotten Seraiah to reluctantly agree with him. They all should have gone to meet with the dragons instead of splitting up the group again.

  If only the Summer King had agreed to make a deal for the transportation potion like Kai had wanted. That’s why he hadn’t been here when Seraiah had woken. He’d been late coming back from meeting with the Summer King, who once again had been reluctant to promise him anything. That reluctance worried Kai. For all his insistence that he wasn’t working with his sister, the Summer King wasn’t exactly working against her either. Having Seraiah report the Winter Queen’s plans from her visions did nothing.

  Kai ran his fingers through his hair and resumed pacing. It could be that the Summer King was using the reporting as an excuse to monitor what they’d learned. He could be feeding information back to his sister about what they were doing, and then she, in turn, could be manipulating what Seraiah saw in her visions. They could be controlling everything.

  Seraiah had heard the Winter Queen speak to her through Lonan, and while she thought it might be a symptom of the madness, maybe it was something else. They didn’t know the full extent of faeries’ powers. When the gods had punished their world, they’d taken something from all of them, but it was possible the faeries had been the ones to lose the least. The Summer King and Winter Queen still held some control over their respective elements. They also retained their immortality and knowledge of potions, but there could be so much more that they were hiding.

  Kai stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the unmade bed. There were threats all around them, and he hadn’t a clue what to do about it. Kestrel might know or Eryx. He sorely missed being able to discuss these things with his friends. The first place they would go after leaving the Seelie Court would be to Ren’s cabin to reunite with them. He understood their reasoning for staying behind, but he wished they hadn’t.

  The door flew open, bouncing off the opposite wall.

  Kai sprang to his feet, hands reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.

  “You tried to make a deal without me?” Seraiah asked, hands planted on her hips.

  “You’re back.” Kai let his hands fall to his sides.

  “Of course, I’m back. Did you think I wouldn’t be? I wasn’t the one trying to make a deal for transportation potions.”

  Kai winced. He should have known the Summer King would tell her. It wasn’t like it was a secret that he hadn’t wanted her to know. There just hadn’t been any reason to discuss it since the Summer King hadn’t wanted to come to terms.

  Kai tried to tell Seraiah all this.

  She pursed her lips as she listened, tapping one foot on the floor. “I know you need something to do with your time while I am in my visions, but you at least could have warned me before I went to see the Summer King. It doesn’t matter now. I’ve made a new deal with him.”

  “You did what?” It was as he had feared.

  “Has something happened? What’s going on? I heard noises,” Wisteria said, coming up behind Seraiah, who still stood in the doorway.

  “Come in,” Seraiah said, stepping aside to let Wisteria into the room. “I was just about to tell Kai about the new deal I made with the Summer King.”

  When the door was closed again, Seraiah turned to face them.

  “Please tell me you didn’t—” He cut off when Seraiah held up a hand.

  “I made a deal that I renegotiated our original deal so that I would still get the vision potions and report to the Summer King, but I do not have to remain here.”

  Wisteria clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s good news. Are we going to join Ren and Virelai then and go see the dragons?”

  “I think we may have other plans,” Seraiah told her, “but we will see them again eventually.”

  “You get to leave?” Kai asked, finding his words again. “How? What made him change his mind?”

  “I asked.”

  “And that was all?” Kai didn’t want to believe it. It sounded too easy.

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  “That was all. Well, I may have implied that if his sister was able to contact Sterling from long distances away and also know if I was there in a vision, then surely he must be able to do so as well.”

  “Oh, a sibling rivalry,” Wisteria said.

  Seraiah nodded. “He’s promised me at least a dozen potions.”

  A knock on the door made them all jump.

  “Is it the potions already?” Wisteria whispered.

  Kai hoped it was. They could leave right now, and travel straight through the night—

  “Thank you, Maescia,” Seraiah said, shutting the door again. In her hand, she held a slip of paper and two vials of bright blue potion.

  “That’s not a dozen,” Kai said, “and I don’t think those are vision potions.”

  Seraiah shook her head as she scanned the paper.

  “What is it? Has he gone back on the deal already?” Kai asked.

  They’d been so close.

  “No,” Seraiah said slowly. “These are transportation potions. The Summer King says to consider them a gift and to expect more when I receive the vision potions. They can be used if I can’t make contact with him in a vision and need to report something to him. Then there’s a warning about everything having a cost, even a gift, but that I should already know that.” She looked up and met his eyes.

  “So you are free from this court, but still trapped,” Kai said.

  “I don’t think that’s what he means,” she said, looking down at the note again. “I think he is referring to the cost of my visions. I think he might mean there will be a cost to using these transportation potions as well.”

  It took him a moment to understand. “Does he say what this cost might be? Is it more madness or something else?”

  “Madness?” Wisteria asked. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  Kai didn’t answer. It wasn’t his place to explain what Seraiah’s visions were doing to her.

  Seraiah sighed and folded up the note. “The cost of using my visions is that I slowly go mad. The potions hurry this along. I believe the Summer King is warning me there is another cost associated with this one too.”

  “Then you can’t use them,” Wisteria said, looking horrified.

  Kai agreed with her.

  “But we must if it is necessary. We’ll just have to figure out the cost later. I’ve already taken two of these before, and Kestrel used one too. I can’t think of anything that’s changed because of it, so it can’t be too bad.”

  “I don’t like it,” Kai said.

  “Me neither,” Wisteria said. “I can find out what the cost is though, and then you can decide. I’ll just ask Maescia. She’ll tell me.”

  “Are you friends with her?” Kai asked.

  Wisteria shrugged. “Who else am I supposed to talk to around here? Besides, it’s good to have friends among the servants. Good for information, you know.”

  “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Virelai,” Kai muttered.

  “Thank you, Wisteria. If you could find out, that would be very helpful. In the meantime, we should prepare to travel.”

  Kai gave Seraiah a look.

  “What? I meant the old-fashioned way. On a horse.”

  Wisteria was very pleased with herself as she left Seraiah’s room in search of Maescia. Finally, there was something she could do to help their mission. Yes, it was only learning what the side effect was of a potion that Seraiah would likely use no matter what, but still, it felt good to be needed.

  Maescia had been at Seraiah’s room only a few minutes earlier, but that didn’t mean she would still be in the area. If Wisteria had learned one thing about the faery girl, it was that she was fast when she wanted to be. She was also excellent at not being found when she didn’t want to be.

  It was a skill Wisteria would have liked to learn from her if she had the time, but she was more than happy to be leaving the faery court. It meant they must be one step closer to saving their queen and getting back to their homes. Wisteria would love nothing more than to get back to the way things had been before. Well, maybe not exactly as they had been. Her job as a servant in the castle hadn’t all been terrible, but there were some areas that could use improvement, like the accommodations, for example.

  “Oh!” Wisteria ran smack into something or rather someone. She’d been so lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed their appearance.

  “Looking for someone?” Maescia asked, grinning at her in a way that Wisteria suspected meant she’d wanted Wisteria to trip over her.

  The faery girl was always popping up when she least expected it.

  “Yes, I wanted to ask you something important about potions. I thought you would know best, but if you don’t know, then I can ask someone else who might know better.”

  Maescia’s eyes narrowed. It had taken Wisteria a while to get used to their vertical slit pupils, but now she hardly noticed it anymore.

  “I will know. I know many things. I may not tell you all things though.”

  “Oh well. Nevermind then. I can ask someone else,” Wisteria said.

  She’d learned this trick from Virelai, and it seemed like Seraiah had used it to her advantage as well.

  “Ask me,” Maescia said, ducking into her path again.

  “But if you can’t tell me, then I shouldn’t bother you with it,” Wisteria said.

  Curiosity sparked in Maescia’s eyes. “I will tell you if you ask me.”

  Wisteria smiled. There it was. It was almost as good as a promise. Faeries could not lie, so if Maescia said she would tell her, then she must.

  “Good. I’m so happy you will tell me. So my question is about those transportation potions you gave to my friend.”

  Maescia’s expression turned guarded. “Yes?”

  “Those must have side effects, so I was wondering what might happen when someone uses them? If I were to take them, for example, what would happen to me?”

  “They are not for you,” Maescia said.

  “Yes, I know, but if they were. What might happen?”

  Maescia stared at her, clearly not wanting to give up the answer.

  “You said you would tell me if I asked you,” Wisteria reminded her.

  “The transportation potion steals time,” Maescia said.

  Wisteria wrinkled her nose. “Steals time? I don’t understand what that means.”

  “It takes time to travel, so that time must come from somewhere. When mortals use it, it steals their time. We immortals have all the time, but you do not.”

  “Oh. Oh no,” Wisteria said.

  “You understand now?” Maescia asked.

  Wisteria nodded. She understood.

  “Good. Then I must go back to my work. Perhaps we will play another game later.”

  Wisteria nodded again, but her thoughts were still on the potion. The potion stole time from your life. Maescia hadn’t specified how much, but all time was precious to a mortal since they had so little of it.

  Wisteria whirled around and raced back to their rooms. She had to tell Seraiah, but she wasn’t going to like this.