She cast around for a weapon, something easy to lift, and found nothing. Spilled inkpots, quills broken from the struggle, and a sea of parchment contracts scattered across the floor.
Contracts.
Holding desperately to the desk with one hand, she lifted the other and reached into her chemise.
The contract she’d taken before Teague had discovered her was still there, but this time when she pulled it out, there was a bloody fingerprint on the debtee’s side. She examined her hands and found a cut on the index finger of her right hand.
She lifted her eyes to Sebastian’s, and relief filled his face. He bucked beneath Teague, momentarily knocking the shorter man off balance, and slapped his hand against the side of the desk, shoving the top drawer open.
Teague attacked, a blur of motion that sent Sebastian flying off the desk to sprawl on the floor beside Maarit. He tried to get up, but Teague was already there, hands reaching for Sebastian’s throat.
Ari unfolded the contract with shaking fingers and scanned Sebastian’s cramped writing, while a vicious light of triumph ignited in her chest.
He’d done it. Somehow, he’d found a way to win back her soul and put her in a position to finish this.
To finish Teague.
Folding up the contract so that all that could be seen was the space reserved for the debtor’s fingerprint, Ari shoved it into her chemise and looked for a way to pierce Teague’s skin.
A blade glinted in the drawer Sebastian had opened. Ari snatched it and stumbled around the desk.
Sebastian bucked and twisted. Teague smiled and whispered something in fae as he crushed his hands around Sebastian’s neck.
Ari steadied the blade in her hand and then launched herself toward them.
Teague saw her at the last moment and swung to face her, momentarily letting go of Sebastian, but he was too late. Ari crashed into him and stabbed the dagger into his outstretched hand.
Teague snarled and yanked the dagger free. Blood poured from the wound, coating his fingers and dripping onto the floor.
“You’re going to pay for that. You’re going to pay for everything.” Teague leaped from Sebastian, who coughed—wet, hacking sounds that shook his entire body—but still struggled to his knees.
“What are you going to do?” Ari asked with as much attitude as she could muster. “Make another pipe out of my bones? Another reminder of the second human girl to betray you?”
His eyes glowed with fury, and Ari took a step back, her hands fluttering to her chest as if terrified.
Which wasn’t hard to do, because fear was a chest-crushing, breath-stealing monster living just beneath her skin.
“Taunt me again,” Teague said softly, “and see what I do to you.”
Ari’s mouth went dry, and behind Teague, Sebastian tried and failed to get to his feet.
It was time. She would either save them both or die trying.
Her trembling fingers closed around the square of parchment beneath her neckline as she said, “You’re nothing but a monster throwing a temper tantrum because a human got the best of you.”
He came for her, closing the distance between them so fast she couldn’t do anything but put her hands out as if to try to stop him as he collided with her and sent them both to the floor.
“Ari!” Sebastian’s voice was hoarse as he began crawling toward them.
“Princess Arianna,” Teague whispered, smiling his cold, awful smile. “You belong to me, now.”
She closed her hand around his bloody fingers, the contract pressed between them, and a jolt of power wrapped the parchment in brilliant strands of light.
Matching his smile with one of her own, Ari said, “No, Teague. You belong to me.”
FIFTY-ONE
ARI HELD TEAGUE’S gaze as strands of light danced over the folded-up piece of parchment lodged between their hands. He grabbed her shoulder, his fist raised.
“Stop,” she said.
His fist, already moving toward her face, jerked as if he’d plowed it into a wall. Shaking with fury, he snarled, “What have you done, you miserable little human?”
Ari climbed to her feet, contract in hand. “That’s no way to talk to your new master.”
Teague’s eyes glowed as he watched her walk past him and crouch beside Sebastian. “I have buried hundreds of your kind for lesser crimes against me, and I will bury hundreds more,” he said.
Ari wrapped her arms around Sebastian, held him through another coughing fit, and then helped him to his feet. Sebastian laced his fingers through hers, and together they turned to face Teague.
His lips peeled back in a snarl. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Then tell me,” Ari said.
Teague froze.
Ari took a step forward, Sebastian right beside her. She held Teague’s gaze and said, “Alistair Teague, tell me your birth name.”
His eyes widened, and the cords of his neck stood out as he clamped his lips together. His pale cheeks reddened, and his chest heaved.
“You cannot refuse me,” Ari said quietly. “I own your total obedience. Those are the terms of our contract.”
His smile was slicked with desperation, and every word sounded as if he was forcing it past the name he refused to speak. “If those are the terms, then you have no need of my name.”
“And if the contract burns or disintegrates in water? If you find a way to trick someone into destroying it or killing me?” Ari shook her head. “I want your birth name.”
He gnashed his teeth and tore at his clothes, his pipe falling unheeded to the floor.
“Tell me your birth name.” Her tone was hard and unforgiving. “Now.”
His body shook, and he arched his back. Clamping his hands over his mouth, he tried to stop himself from speaking, but the terms of his contract were absolute.
The word seemed to swell in the back of his throat, a hum of noise that became a roar as it moved to the tip of his tongue. He threw back his head, and in a voice of wild forests and moonlit magic he cried, “Rumpelstiltskin!”
He shuddered and glared at her as his name echoed off the walls. After a long silence, he whispered, “I suppose you’re going to banish me from Súndraille now.”
Ari locked eyes with him. “Banishment is the least of your worries. Stand there, harm no one, and be quiet until I tell you that you can speak.”
If hateful looks could drop a princess where she stood, Ari would’ve joined Maarit on the floor. Turning away from Teague (she couldn’t quite think of him as Rumpelstiltskin), she stepped into Sebastian’s embrace and held on tight.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
“I just did what you would’ve done. I talked fast, made an offer he couldn’t refuse, and then put your own plan into place,” he said, but there was something dark and grief stricken in his voice.
She pulled back and framed his face with her hands, studying his eyes. He looked haunted—hollowed out and weary in a way that reminded her of Thad as he told her he couldn’t bear to look at himself in the mirror.
“Tell me,” she said, and he did.
She listened as he explained how Teague could possess a vessel once he owned the soul, and how the fae had planned to possess her. How Sebastian had argued until Teague agreed to restore Ari’s soul before it was too late, but only if Sebastian brought him one hundred souls he had no right to take.
“I did it,” Sebastian said, his shoulders bowed as if the weight of those one hundred souls was crushing him. “I tricked his employees into signing contracts and then took their souls because Teague had to be stopped, and your plan was our best chance.”
He closed his eyes. “I couldn’t see another way. I couldn’t trick him into obeying me because I didn’t have a contract filled out. The only way to sneak one out of the study was to demand that I get to take your body with me, but if I did that, the only guarantee that I would ever see Teague face-to-face again was if I offered something he couldn’t poss
ibly refuse.”
“Sebastian,” she said, and waited until he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Thank you.”
She tried to put everything into those two little words. Her gratitude for a chance to grow old and try new foods and ride a dragon. Her respect for the courage it took to face down a monster alone and do the unspeakable because he could see that sacrificing one hundred people was the cost of saving the world from Teague. And her grief that he’d had to make that choice and walk that road alone.
He leaned into her, buried his fists in the back of her dress, and whispered, “Their blood is on my hands, Ari. We have to make Teague put their souls back.”
“We will.”
She turned toward Teague, who stood watching them with hate seeping from every pore.
“Do you have to be next to a body to return the soul? Or can you do it from here?”
Teague shrugged.
Sebastian reached him in three steps, wrapped his hands around Teague’s throat, and lifted him off the ground. “You will answer clearly, or I will do things to you that would make even my father flinch.”
“That’s all right, Sebastian,” Ari said softly. “If I order him to, Rumpelstiltskin will destroy his own body, one piece at a time.”
Teague glared as Sebastian set him down, but there was fear lurking in his eyes now.
Ari moved in front of him. “Can you restore the souls from a distance? Answer me clearly, or I will have you break off your own fingers one at a time.”
Which was a disgusting thought. Ari was half proud, half worried that she’d thought of it, but one look at Teague’s face told her that her threat was effective.
“I can restore them from a distance,” he said, his voice an ice storm of rage.
Sebastian pulled the glittering vial of souls from Teague’s pocket and opened it. “Send them back,” he said.
Teague spat at him.
“Send. Them. Back.” Ari crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Teague.
His throat worked, but he couldn’t disobey her. A stream of fae danced off his tongue, and wisps of light shot out of the vial to swirl through the air.
“They need a way out,” Ari said, and Sebastian hurried to throw open the window. A gust of salty air rushed in, sending the wisps fluttering, but then they rushed for the opening. Ari joined Sebastian as they watched one hundred brilliant strands of light race for Kosim Thalas. He lifted the vial, which still had plenty of soul lights inside it.
“What do we do with these?” he asked softly. “The bodies are decayed. They can’t return.”
“Well they aren’t going to spend eternity trapped in this vial either,” she said, and turned to Teague. “Set these souls free.”
“Free to do what?” he snapped.
“Free to find their way to what comes next. Do it now.”
He spoke in fae again, and the rest of the shimmering wisps escaped the flask, danced through the air to the window, and then chased each other toward the canopy of stars above them.
“Good-bye, Kora,” Sebastian whispered. Ari slid her arm behind his back and leaned her head against his shoulder as the wisps disappeared into the fabric of the brilliant night sky.
“One last thing,” she said.
“Do you want me to do it?” he asked, his shoulders tense, but his tone steady.
Yes, she did, but that was unfair. He’d shown the courage to do the hardest things over and over again, and the scars he bore from it would last a lifetime. It was her turn to do the hardest thing. Her turn to bear the scar.
“Wait for me,” she said, and left him standing with the sea breeze and the moonlight.
When she stood in front of Teague, his clothes ripped, his pipe forgotten on the floor, she held his gaze. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Teague sneered at her. “If you’re expecting an apology for Cleo or the merchant, you’ll be disappointed. If you think I’m going to regret using your brother, you’re wrong.”
Anger burned within her, but it was fading into a weary, resolute purpose. She wanted to be done. She wanted all of Súndraille to be done.
“Let me guess,” Teague said. “I’m your personal Wish Granter now. You want to expand the influence of Súndraille. You want riches. You want—”
“I want you to set your soul free,” she said quietly. The words were heavy, cumbersome things that took all her strength to speak, but she could find no pity as his eyes widened and pleaded for mercy.
Mercy he had refused to show to Cleo. To Thad. To anyone who had dealings with him.
His mouth opened in a soundless howl of agony, and his skin shimmered with light that gathered in his chest and then poured out of him. She turned away as his body fell to the floor and joined Sebastian as they watched the soul of Rumpelstiltskin sway in the breeze, flutter over trees and through grasses, and then drift toward the open sea and the distant isle of Llorenyae.
For a long moment, they stood there, cocooned in silence and starlight. Ari leaned her head against Sebastian’s shoulder, and he tangled his fingers with hers.
Finally, he looked at her, peace on his face and warmth in his eyes, and said, “Ready?”
She smiled. “Ready.”
Hand in hand, they stepped into the windswept night and headed toward the palace.
FIVE MONTHS LATER
FIFTY-TWO
“I DON’T THINK I can do this.” Sebastian tugged at the collar of his silk shirt and looked over his shoulder for the door that led from the palace library to the garden.
“Of course you can.” Ari straightened his cravat and batted his hands away when he went for his collar again.
“There will be crowds of nobility in there.”
“Yes, but there will also be pie.”
He gave her a pained look. She smiled and leaned into him.
“So much has changed. Your father is in the dungeon for life. Your mother has a clean start in a new city. And you have the respect of everyone in Kosim Thalas.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She snorted. “You single-handedly dismantled Teague’s criminal organization—”
“I had plenty of help from the city guard—”
“Who were following your orders. You cleaned up the streets of east Kosim Thalas—”
“Again with help from the guard.” He looked at the exit.
“And then you started a school for children in the slums—”
“Actually I just found the teachers. They’re the ones—”
“Who’s giving this pep talk?” She glared at him.
His eyes crinkled. “I guess you are.”
“If you can handle the renovation of east Kosim Thalas, you can handle a room full of nobility.” She smoothed a hand over his hair and brushed a speck of lint from his shoulder. “Besides, I have a surprise for you afterward.”
He ran his hands down her arms and tangled his fingers with hers. “It had better be a really amazing surprise.”
She grinned, her heart feeling like it was expanding in her chest. It was an amazing surprise if she did say so herself. She couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when she showed him.
“Ready?” she asked as a page knocked on the library’s door.
“No,” he said, but he walked with her anyway. They left the library, moved down a short hall past windows closed to keep out the chillier winds of winter, and entered the ballroom.
“Sebastian Vaughn, our guest of honor!” Thad threw out his arms in welcome, a genuine smile on his face, and miracle of miracles, Sebastian managed to (awkwardly) smile back.
Ari walked confidently onto the platform and stood beside her brother. She was getting used to wearing a crown and to handling the responsibilities that came with it. And the people were getting used to Thad and Ari ruling Súndraille as a team.
“We should make this quick before Sebastian runs for the door,” Ari said under her breath as her brother took her elbow and gently steered t
he two of them toward the stage that usually held the musicians for a ball.
“I heard that,” Sebastian said.
“Is she wrong?” Thad asked.
Sebastian treated them both to a mock glare and then muttered, “No.”
Moments later, the crowd of nobility was seated in the chairs that had been placed in rows before the stage, and Thad was listing all Sebastian’s recent accomplishments while Sebastian looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.
Thad turned to Sebastian, his eyes gleaming with emotion, and said in a husky voice, “And finally, the throne recognizes your incredible act of selfless bravery, which saved the life of the princess and rid our kingdom of the threat of Alistair Teague.”
Ari’s throat swelled as Thad reached for the parchment that was lying on a table beside him. She still missed her mother and Cleo, and part of her always would. But there were things to be grateful for too. She had her brother back. The kingdom was on the mend. And Sebastian—the boy who’d sacrificed everything for her—was going to be recognized for the true hero that he was.
Thad held up the parchment and said in his most regal voice, “In reward for your acts of heroism, I, Thaddeus Glavan, do hereby promote you to the status of Lord Sebastian Vaughn, Duke of Kosim Thalas, and confer upon you all of the privileges that come with the title.”
The crowd applauded. Thad smiled. And Sebastian, looking like he was three seconds from bolting, gave a little awkward bow to the king and then looked to Ari for rescue.
An hour later, when they’d greeted everyone in the room and sampled two pieces of pie each, Sebastian said, “How long do I have to stay?”
Ari grinned. “You’re Lord Vaughn now. Unless specifically ordered to by the king, you can come and go as you please.”
He raised a brow at her. “Then I believe you mentioned something about a surprise?”
They ducked out of a side exit, and Ari shivered as the winter sea breeze whipped her hair.
“Where are we going?” Sebastian asked as he wrapped his coat around her shoulders.