That can’t be true. I’m not violent or power-hungry. I don’t want to destroy people. I didn’t know he was there, but I was certain the compass’s magic was infecting me somehow, and if it wasn’t—

Then, what does that make me?

“You’re lying.” My tone is vicious and wounded, more like a snarl than I thought I was capable of.

The statue is unaffected. His smile doesn’t slip, but he raises one delicate eyebrow. “Oh, am I?”

He isn’t. The realization feels like a weight dropping on my chest, but it rings so true I can’t pretend otherwise. I know in that moment, with total certainty, that this figure can’t lie. The realization dawns on me with an increasing slide into horror. I’m talking to a faerie, face to stone face. And not just any faerie: the faerie that’s been living in the enchantment under my skin for weeks.

I scratch my nails over my palm, like I can erase the past. “What do you want with me?”

“Seelie,” he breathes out again. I hate it. I hate that he knows my name, when I know nothing of him. I hate the familiarity of his tone and the softness of his marble face. “I want you to free me.”

I am breathless with disbelief. The absolute nerve of this faerie, to trick and deceive me and climb inside my head and somehow expect to be rewarded, is so dizzyingly intense that for a moment I’m not scared anymore. I’m just angry.

Flames leap unbidden to my fingertips, and this time, I don’t hold them back. I circle the pedestal, taking in the statue, the thick iron chains that loop over and over. He’s draped in clothes so beautifully rendered I can see the translucency of the fabric, with elfin eyes over high cheekbones and a long, sharp nose. His head can’t move, but his eyes follow me around.

“I’ve been trapped here for a long time,” he eventually says, in the same cool tone.

The fire sparks and snaps between my fingers. I know that he’s stone, and it won’t hurt him, but the relief of letting my magic free makes it feel like maybe I can manage my emotions without exploding. “Don’t.”

“A long time,” he repeats, raising his stone brows. Like he’s trying to say something, but it just isn’t coming out right. “Not a long time for a mortal. A long time for a faerie. I...faded. Mortal and faerie magic together forged these chains, so they could only be undone by a changeling, someone who wields both.”

I hesitate, remembering what he promised, so long ago, we’d find here. And then what Raze told us in the abandoned city, his ancestors’ part in the war that ended their world and birthed ours. “Are you a prisoner?” I ask breathlessly, reaching through my memory for what Raze called that war. “From the...the War of the Realms?”

The statue laughs, a hollow sound that rings against the stone walls. “The what?”