“No,” Asil said. “The cuffs are in the trunk with the dead woman—who it is probably safe to assume is Spice.” He grimaced. “Did she pick the name from the singing group?”

Tad smiled. “Not unless they were around a couple of centuries ago.”

“Sliver is alone?” Zee sounded for a moment like a hunting wolf. “Interesting.” Then he looked at Mercy again, and some of the inhumanity slid away from him.

“Stealing someone’s willpower was always a rare and difficult fae gift,” Zee said. “It’s a spell easier to work on someone who is asleep or happy.”

Mercy shivered, as if she were suddenly cold, again. “I don’t like being obedient.” Adam hugged her and wished he could go back and kill the man who’d done this to her last time before he’d hurt her. Wished, at the very least, he could protect her from her memories because if this was making him remember, it had to be doing the same to her. Rage choked him—and Mercy patted his arm in reassurance.

Zee caught his eye and nodded grimly, and Adam knew he wasn’t the only one unhappy that such a spell had caught Mercy again. “Peace and Quiet was made as a gift for a fairy queen who collected the wrong fae’s son into her court.”

They’d run into a fairy queen before. They weren’t fae royalty precisely but had a gift that allowed them to enslave humans and fae alike. Almost like a honeybee queen, they set up courts designed to both feed their power and entertain them. Not Adam’s favorite kind of fae.

“She didn’t last long,” Zee continued, “because the cuffs only work for a short period of time on the fae, though it can be more permanent on humans.”

Zee put his hand under Mercy’s chin and looked into her eyes. “The woman who gave the fairy queen the gift wanted her son back. Once the queen died, all the humans and fae went back to their old lives.”

Without the glamour, his slate gray eyes were brighter and odder-colored.

“Beware of fairy gifts,” Mercy said.

“And Greeks bearing gifts,” agreed Zee without a pause.

“How do we break the spell?” Adam asked. “Killing the woman didn’t seem to work.”

“Love’s true kiss,” Mercy said, though Adam had been asking Zee. “But I can’t kiss Adam because it hurts him. Too much silver.”

A kiss?

Adam looked at Zee who shrugged. “Actually, a kiss from someone who loves you is an effective remedy for a number of the effects of fae magic.”

All right then. Adam lifted Mercy’s chin and kissed her. He’d kissed her at Sylvia’s apartment, too. But this time he didn’t let the burn of the silver distract him.