The summons arrives wrapped in shadow.

Not a written note—nothing so pedestrian. Instead, the air in my borrowed bedroom simply changes, becomes heavier, thicker, like breathing through wet silk. The temperature drops ten degrees in the span of a heartbeat, and I know without being told that Morrigan wants to see me.

I've learned to recognize the signature of each fae's magic the way I once learned to read a man's mood by the set of his shoulders. Kael's power tastes like ozone and tastes like him—electric, overwhelming, impossible to ignore. Rowan's is grounding, like roots sinking into earth. But Morrigan's?

Morrigan's magic tastes like poison wrapped in velvet.

I take my time getting ready, which is probably stupid—probably another form of that self-destructive defiance that keeps getting me into trouble. But I won't scramble. I won't show fear. I won't give her the satisfaction of knowing that my hands shake slightly as I braid my damp hair back, that my stomach is a knot of anxiety I can't quite untangle.

The mirror shows me what I always am: hard angles, wary eyes, a woman who's learned that flinching is the first step toward breaking.

I change into the clothes laid out for me—dark grey silk that somehow manages to be both soft and armor-like, fitted enough to move in. The fae have excellent taste in clothing, which feels deeply unfair. Everything should be ugly here. Everything should match the trap I'm caught in.

Her chambers are in the obsidian tower, the one that catches no light and seems to absorb it instead. Of course they are. Of course Morrigan would claim the darkest part of a dark palace as her own.

The guards escort me without speaking, which is somehow worse than if they'd tried to intimidate me. Silence means inevitability. Silence means this is routine.

The doors to her chambers open like a mouth.

Inside, candlelight flickers across walls covered in symbols that hurt to look at directly—spirals and curves that seem to move when you're not focusing on them. The air is thick with incense: black orchid, myrrh, and something metallic that coats the back of my throat like blood.

Morrigan sits at an obsidian vanity that's more throne than furniture, braiding her raven-black hair with deliberate, practiced motions. She doesn't look at me, which is somehow more threatening than if she had.

"Iris Blackwood," she says, and my name sounds like a curse in her mouth. "Finally."

"I wasn't aware I was late." My voice comes out steady. Good. "Your shadows were remarkably efficient."

She smiles at her reflection, and it's the smile of a predator who's just caught a scent on the wind.

"Come."

I move into the room, and every survival instinct I have screams at me to turn around and run. The problem is that running doesn't work anymore. The Twilight Court has no exits, and Morrigan has teeth.

She finishes her braid and turns to face me, and up close, she's even more beautiful and terrible than I remembered. Her skin is porcelain-pale, almost luminescent in the candlelight. Her eyes are black—not dark brown, but actually black, pupils and iris indistinguishable, like looking into a void.

"My brother is infatuated with you," she says conversationally. "Isn't that interesting?"

I don't answer. Answering is a trap.

"He's never been infatuated before," she continues, standing and moving toward me with the fluid grace of something that's never known gravity. "Two centuries of rule, countless lovers, and never once has he looked at a woman the way he looks at you. It's quite remarkable, really. Like watching someone discover fire for the first time."

She circles me slowly, and I force myself not to track her movements, not to tense. Predators respond to fear.

"The question, of course, is whether that infatuation serves the Court's interests or undermines them."

"I'm not interested in Court politics," I say flatly.

"No." She stops in front of me, and her scent is overwhelming this close—cloying, suffocating. "You're interested in surviving. How delightfully pragmatic. How delightfully mortal."

The way she says it makes it clear that being mortal is a disease.

"My brother has always been weak in certain ways," Morrigan continues, moving back to her vanity. "Romantic. Sentimental. He collects broken things and tries to fix them, believing that his love is redemptive enough." She picks up a brush made of what looks like bone. "It's a flaw I've spent centuries trying to manage."

"Is that what this is? Management?" I ask. "Dragging me here to tell me how broken I am?"

"No." She meets my eyes in the mirror. "I'm here to tell you about the binding."

The way she says it stops my breath.

"The marriage contract," she continues, running the brush through her hair with slow, deliberate strokes, "is not merely ceremonial. It's a magical covenant. Blood to blood, magic to magic, soul to soul. Once it's finalized, you and my brother will be bound at a level that transcends anything you understand about human connection."

I'm very still. "Finalized?"

"Oh, it's already begun," she says, and there's something almost delighted in her voice. "The binding started the moment you signed that contract. Every moment you spend in his presence, every time he touches you—and he will touch you, darling, that's what makes this so entertaining—the binding deepens. By the time the ceremony is complete, you won't be able to tell where he ends and you begin."

My hands are fists. I force them to open.

"He didn't tell you that, did he?" Morrigan's smile is vicious. "How typical. Kael always believes he can manage consequences through charm. He thinks if he's pretty enough and passionate enough, you won't mind being trapped."

"I'm not—"

"Trapped?" She sets down the brush and stands, turning to face me fully. "Iris, you're standing in a palace in another realm, bound by magic you didn't consent to, married to a man you've known for weeks, surrounded by creatures who view you as either a tool or a curiosity. What would you call it?"

The room spins slightly. I breathe through it.

"He said the binding was standard," I manage.

"Standard for a political marriage, yes. Standard for a union between two fae of equal power. But you're not fae, are you?" She moves closer, and I hold my ground even though everything in me wants to back away. "You're something caught between. Something neither fully human nor fully fae. That makes the binding... unpredictable."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Morrigan says softly, "that no one knows what will happen when it completes. It could strengthen Kael beyond measure. Or it could destroy you both. It could shatter the alliance before it even begins. Which is why I need to know: are you a tool that will make my brother stronger, or are you a liability that needs to be removed?"

The threat is so casual, so matter-of-fact, that it takes me a moment to fully process it.

"You're threatening to kill me."

"I'm assessing risk." She returns to her vanity and sits, picking up a vial of something dark. "Kael is too emotionally compromised to do it himself, which means the burden falls to me. As it always does."

She applies the liquid to her lips—poison, probably—and I watch the obsidian shine catch the light.

"He's had lovers before," she continues conversationally. "Fae courtesans, mostly. Beautiful, sophisticated, politically advantageous. He tired of them all within a few seasons. But you..." She pauses, examining her reflection. "You have something they didn't. Some quality that makes him desperate. I can see it in the way he looks at you. The way he touches you when he thinks no one's watching."

My pulse is thundering. I force my voice to stay level. "What do you want?"

"I want you to understand your position," Morrigan says. "You can be useful—help me keep Kael focused on the Court, on his responsibilities, on the things that matter. Or you can be a problem. And problems in the Twilight Court have a way of... dissolving."

"And if I refuse?"

She smiles, and it's beautiful and terrible.

"Then I suppose we'll find out what happens when a human woman's soul is bound to a fae prince and then torn apart."

---

I leave her chambers in a daze.

The guards escort me back through the palace, and I barely register the turns, the corridors, the way the light shifts from candlelight to something that might be moonlight or might be magic. My mind is a loop of the same thought, over and over: bound, bound, bound.

The binding started when I signed. Every touch deepens it. By the ceremony, I won't be able to tell where he ends and I begin.

The violation of it makes my skin crawl.

Not because I don't want him—that's the problem, that's the real problem. Some traitorous part of me has been thinking about him in ways that are dangerous and stupid and completely against my survival instincts. The way his silver eyes glow in darkness. The way he smells like night and lightning. The way he looks at me like I'm the only real thing in a palace full of illusions.

But that's his magic working on me. That's the binding pulling me toward him whether I consent or not.

I find him in the library, of course. It's become his habit to retreat there when the Court becomes too much, and I've learned to recognize the signs: the slight tension around his eyes, the way he moves slower, more deliberately, like he's forcing himself to stay contained.

He looks up from whatever ancient text he's reading, and his entire face changes.

"Iris," he says, and my name is a question and a prayer and a warning all at once. "What's wrong?"

"Don't," I say, and my voice is shaking now, all my carefully constructed calm crumbling. "Don't pretend you don't know what's wrong."

He sets down the book with deliberate care. "What did Morrigan tell you?"

"Everything," I say. "About the binding. About how it's already started. About how I'm already half-owned whether I agreed to it or not."

He stands, and the movement is careful, like approaching something wild that might bolt.

"It's not ownership."

"Then what is it?" I back away as he moves toward me. "Tell me what it is, Kael. Tell me in plain language what you've done to me."

"Iris—"

"The binding," I continue, my voice rising. "The magic that's tying me to you without my consent. The thing that Morrigan says will destroy me or transform me or god knows what else. Tell me what that is."

He's quiet for a long moment, and in that silence, I can hear my own heartbeat, the ragged edge of my breathing.

"It's a connection," he finally says. "A magical link between two people. In fae marriages, it allows partners to sense each other's emotions, to share magic, to—"

"To own each other," I finish.

"No." He takes another step forward, and I take another step back. "To choose each other. Completely. Without reservation or doubt."

"I didn't choose this."

"I know."

The admission stops me cold.

"I know," he repeats, and there's something broken in his voice. "And I would undo it if I could. But the contract is signed, the magic is spoken, and the binding is already weaving through you like roots through soil. There's no way to reverse it without—"

"Without what?"

"Without breaking the alliance," he says quietly. "Without destroying everything I've built to bring peace to this realm. Without proving that I'm exactly as weak and selfish as everyone has always said I am."

I want to hit him. I want to scream. I want to do something that will release the pressure building in my chest, the sense of walls closing in, of gravity pulling me down.

"You used me," I say instead.

"Yes."

The honesty should make it better. It doesn't.

"I wanted to protect you," he continues, and he's moving closer again, and I'm running out of space to retreat. "I wanted to bind you to the Court, to me, in a way that would make you untouchable. In a way that would make sure no one could take you from me."

"I'm not yours to protect," I say, but my voice is weaker now. "I'm not yours at all."

"Not yet." He's close enough now that I can smell him—that intoxicating combination of night-blooming jasmine and ozone and wild lightning. "But the binding is working both ways, Iris. You're not the only one being changed by this. Every moment we're near each other, I can feel it too. I can feel you."

I should move away. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to put distance between us, to maintain the armor I've built, to not let him close enough to hurt me.

I don't move.

"What do you feel?" I ask, and it's a dangerous question. It's the kind of question that requires honesty I'm not sure either of us can afford.

"You," he says softly. "Your fear. Your anger. Your need to run, and your need to stay, and the way you're terrified of both." He reaches out, and his hand stops just short of my face. "I feel the way your heart is racing right now. The way you want to trust me and hate yourself for wanting it."

"Stop," I whisper, but I don't move away from his hand.

"I can't," he says. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. The binding won't let me. It's pulling me toward you like gravity, and I don't have the strength to resist."

His hand finally touches my cheek, and it's like electricity running through my veins. The contact is warm and gentle and completely overwhelming, and I realize with something close to horror that I'm leaning into it.

"You lied to me," I say, but my eyes are closing.

"I did," he admits. "And I would do it again, because the alternative is a world where you're not here, and I've already lived too long in that world."

"That's not love," I say. "That's possession."

"I know." His thumb traces my cheekbone, and I can feel the magic thrumming under his skin, the binding pulling us closer. "And I don't care. I would be a monster if it meant keeping you safe."

"I don't need to be kept safe," I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're a lie. I do need safety. I've needed it for so long that I've forgotten what it feels like to have it.

"Yes, you do," he says softly. "You've been fighting alone for so long that you've forgotten how to let anyone fight alongside you."

He's right. That's the worst part. He's absolutely right, and knowing it doesn't make me hate him any less for using it against me.

"The binding," I say, forcing myself to open my eyes and meet his gaze. "Can you undo it?"

"No."

"Can you stop it from deepening?"

"No," he says again, and there's something like despair in his voice. "The only way to stop it now is to break the contract entirely, and that would—"

"Destroy the alliance. Yes, I know." I pull away from his hand, and the loss of contact is almost painful. "So I'm trapped. Magically bound to you, trapped in a palace I can't leave, surrounded by creatures who want me dead or want to use me. And there's nothing either of us can do about it."

"There is," he says, and when I look at him, there's something wild in his eyes. "You could choose me. Not because of the binding, but despite it. You could choose to make this real instead of a cage."

"That's not a choice," I say. "That's coercion wrapped in pretty words."

"I know," he says, and he sounds broken. "And I hate myself for it. But I would rather have you hate me and stay than lose you to your own need to run."

I leave before he can say anything else.

I leave before I can do something stupid like believe him.

I leave before the binding can pull me closer, and I don't look back even though I can feel him standing there, watching me go, his presence like a hook in my chest.

Morrigan was right about one thing: I'm trapped.

The only question now is whether I'm trapped by the palace, the binding, or by my own desperate need to believe that someone could want me enough to break the rules.

And in the darkness of my borrowed room, I press my hand to my chest and feel the binding thrumming there like a second heartbeat, pulling me toward a prince I don't trust and a future I can't control.

The walls are closing in.

And the worst part?

Some traitorous part of me is starting to like it.