“Wasn’t she?” Very gently, Jem unclasped Rosemary’s necklace. He dangled the long silver chain, letting the heron charm spin slowly, gleaming in the afternoon light. “I thought this would be enough—a way to reach out if she needed me. But I knew she was in danger from the fey. I shouldn’t have underestimated that!”

“I recognized that faerie, Jem,” Tessa said. “The bronze braid, the designs on his armor—all those etchings of the sea—that was Fal of Mannan.” She’d studied the Riders of Mannan during her time in the Spiral Labyrinth, part of her efforts to better understand the Faerie world. They were very old—ancient, even, from an age of monsters and gods—and they served at the pleasure of the Unseelie King. These were no ordinary faeries. They were more powerful; they were made of wild magic. Perhaps most terrifyingly, they could lie. “Seraph blades are useless against the Riders of Mannan, Jem. They’re born assassins—a walking death sentence. Once he found her, no power on earth could have stopped him.”

“So then what hope is there for the boy?”

“There’s always hope.” She risked putting her arms around him then, and very softly extricated Rosemary’s hand from his grip. “We find the boy first. Then we make sure the fey never do.”

“Not until we’re ready for them, at least,” Jem said, a note of steel entering his voice.

There were those who believed that because Jem was so kind, so capable of gentleness and generosity, because Jem loved so selflessly, that Jem was weak. There were those who suspected he was not capable of violence or vengeance, who assumed they could hurt Jem and the ones he loved with impunity, because he did not have it in him to strike back.

Those who believed this were wrong.

Those who acted on it would be sorry.

Tessa squeezed the heron charm tightly, its beak pricking sharply against the soft meat of her palm. She could feel Rosemary’s essence simmering in the silver, and reached for it with her mind, opening herself to the traces of the woman left behind. It was second nature to her now, Changing into someone else. Usually she needed only to close her eyes and let it wash over her.