I TURNED TO FACE AITI. I couldn’t help it. Yes, I knew what the Queen really wanted—to rip my bond to Ryder asunder and use it, plus the Kingmaker, to step her dictatorship up to a new and more horrifying level. I’d promised the kitchen fae that wouldn’t happen. From the circle that surrounded us, their hooded eyes bored into my face.
Betraying them seemed inconceivable. Still, the future happiness of everyone in Faery paled when weighed against Aiti’s continued health.
And matters were worse than I’d expected in the mother department. Her moment of lucidity in the cavern was long gone now. Aiti stood twenty feet away from the Queen, just inside the circle of fae, looking nothing like the mother of the bride. Instead, her arms were outstretched as if she could feel the wind rustling thro
