Chapter 2

Nathan had heard stories of what happened to humans who made bargains with fae. Fae were immortal. Humans were not. But if given freely to the dark or light fae court, a human man or woman could become something almost immortal, only imperfect and obedient, like a wraith without any will of its own. To the fae who owned such slaves, it meant great prestige and power.

She would take the deal.

“James is not the same as he was when he left you,” said the Messenger, and although Nathan could not see her lips beneath the beak of her mask, he knew she was smiling. “He is and always has been a changeling. Now that he has been with the dark fae court, his powers will begin to mature and True Awakening is not far behind. We cannot reverse what has already come to pass. We would only be able to cloud his mind for a time.”

“Fine, then…then cloud his mind, whatever, just let him go,” said Nathan. “He has to remember that he’s Jim. If he’s Jim when he comes back then I know he can stay that way no matter what you bastards did to him.”

The Messenger grew silent. She watched Nathan with a scrutinizing stare for some time. Then, without giving the slightest sign that she might move until she did, she swooped toward him. The sound of her invisible wings rustled as she drew closer, and the tips of her long auburn hair dusted the edges of the grass.

Instinctively, Nathan took a step back. The wind had picked up speed, and he remembered nervously that the edge of the cliff was not far behind him.

“Your offer is…agreeable,” said the Messenger, so close to Nathan that the sharp point of her beak was practically catching him on the cheek. “Though we cannot promise James will not remember in time and seek us out himself.”

The Messenger seemed to take up all the air around Nathan, and yet she had no scent. It was unnerving being a hair’s breadth from something that smelled like nothing was there. Nathan could see the slits of her pupils, the sign that she was a dark fae instead of one of the light.

“Do you understand?” the Messenger pressed.

“Yeah, I get it,” said Nathan. “Just take the deal and let my brother go.”

“As you wish.”

The land went almost instantly black. Nathan couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.The ambient sounds around him disappeared. It was like floating in deep space, with only the Messenger’s voice echoing surreally around him.

“Your offer is accepted by this court, Nathan Grier. James is returned, and you…belong to us.”

Nathan tried to speak but no sound came out. He trembled when the Messenger reached for him and yet, somehow, despite the tension in his body and that awful pull of the encroaching Veil coming to claim him, he managed to move. Nathan lifted the knife still in his right hand and struck, plunging the iron blade deep into the Messenger’s heart.

She shrieked in agony. All fae were allergic to iron; it was the only way Nathan knew of killing them, but the Messenger did not fall as quickly as he expected. She lashed back and tore into Nathan’s chest with her talons. They were real talons now, not merely sharpened fingernails, for the Messenger had shed her beautiful guise and become the beast. The mask was her real face now, an ugly beak with beady slit eyes, and her torn garments spread out around her as leathery wings.

The blackness faded from their surroundings, returning to a buzzing, noisy world where the sun had just risen and the wind was still blowing. The Messenger shuddered, whimpering in the awful voice of her true form, and finally fell at Nathan’s feet.

Nathan’s chest burned from where her claws had struck him, and he stumbled back. As he watched the Messenger’s form grow still on the ground, a substance thick as tar seeped out from beneath her like blood and covered her body until it consumed her. When she was truly dead, all that remained was Nathan’s knife lying amidst a black stain on the grass. The Veil doorway had long since disappeared.

Pain seared through Nathan’s chest again, unnaturally, as if something was being freshly branded into his skin. He gasped, stumbling further back at the sudden throbbing until he tripped and felt his feet slip from the edge of the cliff.

Air rushed past Nathan, blinding his vision. There was too much darkness to see clearly, despite the risen sun. He was freefalling with nothing below to catch him. Falling

Nathan braced himself for death, but impact never came. He was just suddenly on the ground, coughing up at the sky as if he had landed hard enough to wind him but nothing more. He should not have been able to survive such a long drop, and yet he had landed safely on the beach, far beneath the cliff he had been standing on a moment ago.