“He can’t hear us, can he?” Cécile was chewing on the edge of her thumb, then remembered what her hands were coated in, made a face and spit into the dirt.

“No.” But the Duke was very much awake, and there was no way to know what he was ordering my brother to do. Nor any way of stopping him, short of knocking him out again. Which I was sorely tempted to do.

“The Summer King called my debt.”

All thought of the Roland and the Duke fell away, and I rounded on Cécile. “What?”

“I was there, in the in-between-space – Arcadia,” she said. “He told me that Winter has been slowly gaining territory, and he blames it on so many of his people being trapped in this world. A loss of lines he called it.” She shrugged one shoulder, but it made sense to me. A good many powerful fey had been trapped along with my many-times great-grandfather, and the loss would have compounded over the centuries. It also explained Winter’s actions: why she’d believed we were a threat and why she had been so desperate to destroy my people. She’d known exactly what my uncle had been up to.

“He told me he wants his people back, and that I’m the one who is going to make that happen.” She started to chew on her thumb again, and I recognized it as a tick she’d adopted when under my father’s compulsion.

“Did he tell you how?” I asked, wary of pushing her.

“No, I came back before he could,” she said, and I saw a fresh droplet of crimson appear where she’d bitten through her skin. I caught hold of her hands, holding them away from her mouth.

“But he wouldn’t have asked me to do it if it weren’t possible, right?” Her blue eyes were wide, bright, and I felt the edge of fear slicing at both our minds. She remembered what it was like to be under compulsion, and with Aiden, she’d seen what it meant to fail.

If my uncle were truly desperate to bolster his host, potentially sacrificing the life of a human girl would mean little to him. Would mean nothing to him. “He’s not one to squander a debt,” I said, and any guilt I felt at the half-truth was vanquished by the relieved slump of her shoulders. Yet still, I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you have an idea of how you might proceed? Or how long it will take?”

She shook her head, then met my gaze. “I’m not sure I’ll figure it out in time to save Roland.”