As she stared at him, he felt himself sinking into her eyes. When she stepped away from Padrick and came to stand on the other side of the crates, so close he could have lunged over the barrier and snapped her neck before the Fae could have reacted, he stopped thinking about Padrick and the bastard Fae Lord and the other Fae around them. There was only her, only the need to have her submissive. Drawing up every drop of his Inquisitor’s Gift, he aimed his will directly at her.

“You’re the one, aren’t you?” she asked quietly, her voice roughened by a thrilling touch of fear. “You’re the leader.”

“Lady, I appeal to your sense of what is right and just,” Ubel said. He knew better than to answer a question like that, but he wanted to answer. Why was it so hard to avoid giving her an answer? “We are being held unfairly. We’ve done nothing to harm the people here.”

“Perhaps not here, but elsewhere. You harmed so many.”

Her eyes looked so soft, so sad. “The ones who stand in the way of men claiming what is rightfully theirs must be punished.”

“You torture them, burn them, rape them, kill them.”

“I…” He fought against the need to answer her.

“You’ve been in the west before, haven’t you? You came to Bretonwood.”

“I…” He shook his head, as much to try to break the hold her dark eyes had on him as to indicate a refusal to answer. But he couldn’t look away, couldn’t break her hold. Why couldn’t he break the hold of this soft, useless female? He struggled to impose his Inquisitor’s Gift on her. “You have to let me go. I shouldn’t be held in this place. I should be released.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “You should be released. All of you should be released.”

Triumph surged through Ubel. Triumph so keen it felt like a sharp, momentary pain in his chest.

He smiled at her. When he raised his hands, he realized the shackles were gone—and also realized he could see the crates through the flesh of his hands. He heard cries of fear from the men imprisoned with him. He noticed the startled, yet satisfied, look the Fae Lord exchanged with Padrick. But his attention was still on the woman.

He watched as she pulled the pins from her coiled black hair, letting it tumble down her back and over one shoulder. He watched while her face changed from human to Fae, as the softness in her dark eyes changed to something exquisitely merciless.

“I have released you, Inquisitor,” she said. “But one of Death’s Servants will have to take you to the Shadowed Veil. I have to return to the east. I have a gift for the Witch’s Hammer.”