Page 48 of Fallen Court

“Take all the time you need.” She deserved that much, even if it nearly killed me to consider the possibility that she might reject me.

But her face was distant as she wandered under the glow of a streetlamp. We walked without speaking for another block before she broke the silence. “Now, tell me about my ring. Why did it break our bargain? I offered it to you the night I came to you about Channing. Why didn’t you just take it then?”

Had I thought getting all the bad news out of the way at once was a good idea?

I understood why she needed to know, but there was so much I was still trying to sort out.

We walked beside each other but separate, our footsteps echoing in the night. “It’s not the ring, exactly.” I hesitated. There was a reason I’d never told her the truth. Before MacAlister’s attack, I’d expected the right time to come along one day. He had forced my hand, and after I killed him, when I needed to break that bargain and sever the connection between us, I hadn’t paused to decide how to deliver the news. I’d had more important things to worry about. “First of all, the ring has to be given of your own free will. No one can take it.”

She twisted it around her finger, processing this information, but didn’t remove it. Finally, she nodded. “Oberon said the ring belongs to the Terra Court—to your mother’s court.”

Dread sluiced through me. I never should have arranged the marriage between Ciara and Bain. It was a mistake to invite the other courts into mine.

“Oberon recognized the ring?” The question sounded strangled even to my own ears.

She nodded. “I think that’s why he sent MacAlister after me. He called witches in to break the spell, but they helped me escape instead.”

Pieces began to fall into place. I’d risked her life by keeping it from her—another mistake I wouldn’t make again. That was if she was still talking to me at the end of this. All my poor choices were piling up. “Tell me what you know.”

I listened silently as Cate filled me in on everything that had happened at the Hallow Court: Oberon’s claims about the Otherworld, him taking responsibility for sending MacAlister, his plans to start a war.

“And I tried to look around the estate,” she continued. “He has a spell on everyone who works there so they can’t talk or communicate. And I found a room hidden in the basement. I heard sounds from inside it.” She shivered, her arms wrapping around her middle. “But it was locked, so I couldn’t get in to find out what he’s doing in there.”

That was a small miracle. If Oberon guessed what she was… But he couldn’t have. He had to think it was only the ring. If he had known the truth, he would never have let her go. He would have locked her away behind that door and done gods knew what to her.

I stared at the sidewalk, my head too heavy to face the path before us. More questions. More problems. More burdens to bear.

“It doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head. “Why would my mother have something from the Terra Court? And why can’t I take it off?”

“I’m not sure about that,” I admitted, frowning. “I can’t believe you were going to give it to him after what I told you.” If she had taken that ring off, Oberon would have figured it out.

It was all my fault. I had made that bargain, taking her away from her safe hiding place and thrusting her into my world.

But Cate didn’t shrink from me. “You didn’t tell me shit, Gage. And I would have given it to him to protect the Nether Court, to protect my friends and family.”

And I loved her for it, even though it would have put her in danger. More danger than she could have possibly known. Part of me wished that she had left New Orleans the night of MacAlister’s attack, that she had disappeared and I had never gone after her. Because there was no way to protect her from the truth or the burden it carried—a burden I’d carried alone since the day of my parents’ deaths.

I had to tell her now, and once she knew all of it—once she knew what I’d kept from her—I would let her decide if she wanted to walk away from the Otherworld, from the truth, from me.

I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“The Terra Court wasn’t like the courts today,” I began as we started across a wide boulevard. “It coexisted with humans.”

“Coexisted? The humans knew?” she asked. “A few of them or all of them?”

“Most of them. It was in the center of the city. There was a special spell on it. Humans who left the city forgot it existed. Those who stayed worked with the fae. They were friends. They even married. It was the Axis Mundi—the central point that tied our worlds together. When it was lost, magic changed. It grew unstable. Every day, it becomes more unpredictable…”

“The darkness shadowing Oberon’s court,” she murmured, stopping in the middle of the street. “If it’s that important, why didn’t you reclaim it?”

I braced myself to deliver another bombshell. Blowback was inevitable. “Because I’m not the heir to the Terra Court.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cate

“I don’t understand.” Where was the punch line? What did any of this have to do with me?

Something niggled in the back of my brain, but I refused to let it squirm its way into my thoughts. This was just more fae fuckery. Another trick like the bargain or the handfasting. I turned in the opposite direction, preparing to storm into the city’s familiar arms, but something held me. I wanted to trust Lach—needed to trust him. I couldn’t love him without it.