already passed, and London and Ironbridge lay beneath bones and rubble.
Desperation made her bold. “Your Highness, I think we have both had enough of this game. Make me an offer, set me a task, and then we’ll see if it’s something I can actually do.”
“Very well,” Isolde said. Her eyes were cruel, all the glamour and compassion drained out of her in an instant. “I would like your hands as trophies on my wall. We could use the Ouroboros Blade to remove them, and I will then let you leave my realm with the blade. What do you say to my first offer, Donna Underwood?”
Donna didn’t know what to say—she could only hope that Navin was having more luck than her. At least nobody would be threatening to cut off any of his limbs. She hoped.
Swallowing her rising fear, Donna took a step back, still wondering if this was another of Queen Isolde’s “games.” But the faery’s perfect face looked deadly serious. Cruelty didn’t make her any less beautiful, though she did look a hell of a lot more terrifying. Especially considering the fact that she’d just suggested maiming her.
Reflexively, Donna squeezed her iron-clad hands into fists, wondering what she would do if anyone attacked her. Could she access her abilities quickly enough to get out of here? Open a doorway back to her own world? She doubted it. She still didn’t understand enough about this power that she possessed. Even as she felt the first matter begin to stir, she knew that she couldn’t reach those delicate threads in time. Moving between worlds felt more hit and miss than a precise science. And, if she were brutally honest with herself, it had mostly been “miss” so far. Apart from today, when she’d had Cathal to guide her.
The court’s wicked laughter rang in her ears as Isolde waited for a reply.
Donna decided not to play into whatever trap was being laid for her. She kept silent and crossed her arms across her chest.
Isolde pouted. “Ah, your silence shows wisdom beyond your years, mortal. If you will not give me your hands, I wonder what you would be willing give up?”
Donna felt her tattoos shift against her skin, and she hoped nothing was going to happen that she couldn’t control. She tried to ignore the familiar tingling at the edge of her mind.
“Your Highness, why must I give up something of my own? Maybe there’s something I can do for you. A … a quest of some kind?”
“You would accept a faery quest, alchemist?”
“If it means I get to keep my hands,” Donna muttered.
Isolde’s lips twitched in what looked like genuine amusement. “What about your friend, the boy you know as Alexander Grayson? Would you give up your claims to ownership and give him to me?”
Out the corner of her eye, Donna saw Cathal take a step forward. She ignored the faery knight and focused on the queen. “Ownership? He is not mine to give, Highness. He lives in the human world and therefore lives by our rules. No human belongs to another—not truly.”
Isolde stretched out her hands. “That is not what I hear.” Her voice was playful again, almost as if she was sharing secrets with a girlfriend.
But Donna didn’t have girlfriends. She didn’t care about boyfriend gossip because it was something so alien to her experience of life. “Xan is half human,” she said. “What would you want with him?”
“Halflings are welcome in my court,” Isolde replied. “His fey half is of particularly good lineage. Perhaps he would like to train with the sword, beside his father. Perhaps we can … heal him.”
Here, her gaze flickered to Cathal. The knight had relaxed, Donna noticed. Maybe he liked the idea of having his son here, living and working alongside him. Just the thought of Xan being healed made Donna’s heart pound with a powerful cocktail of emotions; she knew what that would mean to him. And, she thought, it would get him away from the alchemists. She swallowed her fear at the idea of losing him. There was no time for that now.
“Even if he wanted to come here, it wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” she said. “I can’t tell another person what to do.”
“Not even to save your little world?” The queen raised those perfectly angled brows again. “Not even to save everyone in it?”
Donna shook her head. This was hopeless. She needed to offer something—something that would tempt a queen. But what?
“I’m afraid it looks as