Ash’s flare of anger called to the final insult to their situation. Not only were they bound and jailed, but they’d been stripped of their dignity. They were imprisoned not as proud reevers but as clowns—mere laughing stock for the queen.

Amaris could not maneuver her hands to the front of her body as her friends had. While Ash’s and Malik’s chains were loose, standard cuffs, her ropes did not end at her wrists. They coiled up to her elbow, fusing her forearms together in a viselike grip. She’d been kept separate, bound differently, and gagged. If their situation hadn’t already been horrid, there was something unknowably ominous about these slight variations. They made no sense to her, but her gut told her that it couldn’t be anything good.

The others spent a moment talking hurriedly to themselves in gruff, muddled tones.

Ash locked on to her gaze as he spoke aloud.

“Ayla, just shake your head yes or no. Are you telling us that the crowned prince we saw was an illusion?”

The relief was like the cold water on her dry, gagged tongue. They understood her. They knew what she had been trying to communicate. Alleviation smothered her, taking whatever small solace she could. Amaris blinked rapidly, nodding with urgency in confirmation.

He tried again. “You were able to see the illusion for the same reason you can see the Raascot fae?”

Again, she nodded with enough ferocity that the very tendons of her neck might spasm. She let out a choked sob, relieved at being understood.

Ash swallowed, leaning his forehead against the iron bars as he eyed the space between them. He continued, “And the last thing you had said was that if Queen Moirai has the power of illusion, it must be her gift that has cursed the border with this perception spell?”

Amaris groaned, able only to nod in encouragement. She pressed into the bars, desperate to be as close to her friends as possible. The reevers were at least three arms’ lengths away from one another. Even if they had each been unbound and outstretched, they still would have found themselves unable to find the touch of comfort in reaching for one another. They were separated in a way that had been intended to leave them emotionally destitute.

“The queen couldn’t be persuaded,” Ash stated.

“But the queen is not fae.” Malik’s sentence was not a question. Moirai’s traits didn’t display a drop of fae blood. She had no ears, no large irises, no sharpened canines, not even a hint of beauty in her horrid traits. His voice was contemplative, lost to his own thoughts as he said, more to himself than anyone else, “Moirai is a witch.”