I stopped short just outside Sweyn’s throne room, my hand sliding down the white marble wall. Oh no. They know. Knots twisted in my stomach. I bit my bottom lip and tried to think if I needed to warn Everest they’d learned their secret.

“Fascinating, isn’t it, Sister?” The Unseelie Prince drawled, his voice moving as he spoke as if he was walking. “As equally fascinating as you somehow missing yet another detail⁠—”

“How dare you⁠—”

“Or what, Sister? Whatever do you suspect you hold over me? What fear can you strike within me?”

Sweyn growled. “Lilith⁠—”

“I do wonder what she thinks of your failures.” The Prince chuckled and it sent a chill down my spine as it echoed between the marble walls. “You missed the evidence of his loyalty to Heaven. Despite drinking from his vein, you missed the taste of Seelie in his blood. You never even checked if he could withstand sunlight in the last thousand years . . . and then his own little witchling of a soulmate stood right before your very throne and you missed it.”

“You weren’t here⁠—”

“And yet I sensed their connection the moment I arrived,” he snapped back.

I slid to the edge of the door frame and peeked through the crack between the door and the hinges. Sweyn was perched on her throne, gripping the armrests so hard little chunks of crystal crumbled between her fingers. The Unseelie Prince sauntered a path along the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands clasped behind his back. I glanced around, surprised to find the two of them alone. Sweyn always loved an audience yet tonight there was none.

“Everest has apparently strung you along his game of treachery for a thousand years and you missed every crumb. It is obvious he’s been making all of your plans because you’ve failed everyone you’ve attempted since he betrayed you. I wonder what else you’ve missed. Or maybe—” the Prince flew across the room to stop right in front of her throne, his back to me “—maybe you’re as loyal to Heaven as Everest is?”

“WHAT?” Sweyn screeched.

The Prince crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the side. “Perhaps that is why you missed the signs because you were equally involved in them?”

Sweyn stood, her arms trembling with rage as intense as the red glow of her eyes. “How dare you⁠—”

“The entire Coven was trapped within your walls here in October and yet every single one of them escaped⁠—”

“I trusted Everest!” Sweyn screamed. She lunged forward, stopping right in front of the Prince’s face with her upper lip snarled and her fangs elongating. “How dare you blame me for his betrayal. Your grievances are misplaced, Brother.”