I sauntered across the Tower Green, sipping from my whiskey bottle on the way. A floral breeze kissed my skin.

I understood that the Shadow Fae reviled pleasure, but no one had taken away my whiskey yet, so for now, at least, it was my only real friend here.

As I walked, my heart was still racing out of control from the earlier encounter. At this point, I was nearly positive that Ruadan was an incubus, even if he didn’t act like one. Incubi inspired lust, and they fed off it, too.

I gritted my teeth, angry with myself for letting him catch me looking for his World Key. Now, he wouldn’t let me get anywhere near him. How angry was he, exactly? And what the fuck was I even looking for?

I needed some time to think. Since it seemed like he was attracted to me, maybe I could seduce him? Would he trust me that way? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t exactly a romance expert, and I didn’t know how to recreate the lust we’d felt in the tower room. I needed some more inspiration.

Instead of heading back to our shared room, I was making my way to the library. I pushed through a door, then climbed the dank tower stairwell until I reached the enormous hall.

My favorite Segway-riding librarian peered at me over the moon-shaped rims of her glasses, and I gave her a wave.

“Is there a romance section?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I have my own collection, of course, but those are private. We do have a romantic histories section.”

“Fine. Can you show me where that is?”

She pointed to a wall in the library that was partially overgrown with moon flowers.

I crossed to it, clutching the straps of my backpack. Here, glittering moths dusted the books’ spines. I sat on the ground before the stack, and I found an old favorite—a love story about a young knight, sent to fetch a wife for his rich uncle. But during their journey home, the two of them drank love potions. They fell in love with each other instead.

I chewed on my lip. What I needed was a love potion. If he were completely under the thrall of lust magic, I could get a glimpse under his shirt. Maybe I could even get him to tell me the truth in the heat of the moment.

I closed the book in my lap. I had no idea how to make a love potion, and maybe I didn’t need to rely on magic, anyway. The intensity I’d felt as we’d trained told me he wanted me without magic. Heat had crackled between us.

Seducing him was the best way to get to the World Key.

Despite the desire we’d both felt while training, I wasn’t exactly a genius at seduction. I’d had a boyfriend before, but that had been the result of getting drunk in Rufus’s bar, sleeping with a trumpet player, and then continuing to get drunk and sleep with the trumpet player until I realized we had absolutely nothing in common. Seduction was definitely not one of the skills taught at gladiator school. I’d literally spent my formative years in a cage. This was the sort of thing I’d have learned as a teenage girl if I hadn’t been so busy stabbing people to death, and now I was completely behind the eight ball.

I rose and started crossing to the exit. What I really needed was a female friend….

Melusine didn’t seem much like the seductive type, either, but she was a self-proclaimed genius.

I pushed through the door, heading out of the library into the glaring afternoon light.

As I crossed the Tower Green, I sniffed my way to Aengus’s room, following Melusine’s scent to a gleaming white tower.

Inside, I knocked on the door where her smell was the strongest. Melusine pulled it open. “Arianna. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I have been practicing three kinds of magic to prepare for our next trial.”

“Oh, wow, that’s very—”

“Shadow leaping, an explosion spell, and a second kind of explosion spell with more fire. What have you been practicing?”

I scratched my cheek. Talk about being behind the eight ball. “Not much yet. Is Aengus here?” I asked in a whisper.

“No.” She opened the door further, motioning for me to enter.

Mahogany furniture ringed the room, and Aengus’s bed looked as if it had been carved from a giant stag’s antler. Here, a soft bed of moss grew on the floor, and a musky scent filled the room. I noticed right away that a second, smaller bed stood against one of the walls, and irritation simmered.

“You have a bed?” I snapped. “Ruadan didn’t give me a bed.”

She shrugged. “You sleep on the floor.”

I folded my arms. “It would have been nice to have been offered one.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked.”

“Are you here to ask about shadow-leaping?” She beamed. “You must have heard I’m very good at it.”

“Um, not really. I was hoping you knew something about seduction.”

She stared at me. “Do I seem like the type of person who would know anything about seduction?”

“Not particularly. Not at all, really. But you’re the only woman here.”

She cocked her head. “You do know that the knights are forbidden from taking on any lovers.”

Conceal your true intentions.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I know that. It’s just that they’re not forbidden from killing novices. And I thought—if I really need it someday—seducing Ruadan might be a reasonable protection against getting killed by him. You know, getting him to like me.”

Her features cleared, and she eyed me dubiously. “I’m not sure if that makes sense.”

“Obviously, it’s not like we can have conversations,” I pointed out. “Seduction is my only defense.”

This seemed to convince her, and she nodded. “Yes. Of course. It’s not the worst idea in the world.” Her forehead creased as she thought about it. “You know, I don’t think there’s a lot to it. I don’t think you have to do anything fancy. I think men just like naked women. And you’re beautiful. I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Really? So … I should get naked?”

“I believe so. Men like bared breasts, especially.” She frowned at my chest. “And yours are fairly large.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong, and men definitely like breasts, but….” It couldn’t be that simple, could it? And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I thought this sounded completely accurate. “Okay, thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow night for the trial.”

“Of course.” Unless I managed to seduce the key away from Ruadan before then.

I found Ruadan in his room, engaging in his favorite, super pro-social activity: knife-sharpening. His blade glinted, and he didn’t even bother to look up at me as I crossed into the room.

Melusine’s suggestion about bare breasts had seemed totally sensible in her room. But now, as I stood before a fae-demon who’d murdered his last two novices, I couldn’t quite figure out how to just casually throw off my clothes without it being weird. Granted, Ruadan and Bael were fine with being naked, but it wasn’t normal to me. I loved my body and I felt beautiful, but that didn’t mean I’d just casually strip off in front of people.

I ran my fingertips over my ribs, where I felt one of the ridges of my scars. He’d offered to heal me before, hadn’t he? Maybe that would be a sufficient pretense. The thing was, I didn’t want them healed. I liked myself exactly the way I was, and each scar was a victory. But I’d do anything for Ciara.

Ciarianna would rise again.

I glanced in the gleaming reflection of one of his axes. I looked pretty enough, I thought. I pinched my cheeks a little to make them pink.

Ruadan was still looking down at his knives as he sharpened them. I took a deep breath. I sat at the edge of his bed and pulled off my boots. Then pulled off my dress, dropping it on a pile of my other clothes. The cold fortress air whispered over my skin as I stood in the middle of his room, just in my sheer black bra and knickers.

Ruadan was still looking down at his knives, pretending I wasn’t in the room at all. I looked down at myself, then traced my fingertips over the ridge of a scar by my hipbone. A hellhound had caught me with an ax. I’d killed him by bashing his skull in with a rock. I was much more at home with that sort of mission than with the sheer bra sort of mission.

The boobs were sexy. The legacy of death maybe wasn’t so much. But the scars were mine, and I hated to part with them.

Still, I crossed to Ruadan, and he lifted his gaze. His body went completely rigid at the sight of me. Sharp tendrils of his magic sliced through the air, menacing and ferocious.

Shadows darkened his eyes. I couldn’t exactly tell if he liked what he saw or if he wanted to murder me in that moment, but either way, I felt completely vulnerable standing before him. The intensity of his gaze hit me like a wave of powerful magic, and my breath caught in my throat.

I touched one of the scars by my ribs. “You said you could heal me. Can you heal my scars?”

A long moment passed, and he eyed me with that eerie stillness. Then, he shifted and started writing on his piece of paper.

I will heal your new wounds. Not the old ones.

“Why?”

Because they don’t need to be healed.

He was right. The wounds from the King of Mammon were still raw, and they hurt whenever I coughed or sat up too fast. The rest were just superficial. They didn’t need to be healed.

“Fine.”

He held out a hand to me, beckoning me closer, and I closed the distance between us.

As I stood in front of him, he brushed his fingertips over the wound on my abdomen. He curled one hand around me and it rested on my lower back. With the other, he traced over my skin around the cut. I stared as dark magic curled from his fingertips over my skin, snaking over the reddened marks. I was acutely aware of the fact that, with him sitting down and me standing up, my breasts were about level with his head. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but something about the studied intensity with which Ruadan ignored my breasts suggested to me that he was actually completely focused on them. Melusine had been right.

The dull ache in my abdomen subsided completely.

The other new wound marred my hip, and I tugged down the side of my knickers to expose it. His hand on my back tensed, his other reaching for my hip. Before he touched my skin, his hand tightened into a fist, as if he were restraining himself. I was definitely having an effect on him.

I’m not sure what compelled me to do it, but I took another step forward, then slid into his lap.

Being this close to him, heat built within me. Now, his eyes were locked on mine as he traced his fingertips over my hip, inside my knickers. His magic stroked my body.

Then, as soon as he’d healed my second scar, he pulled his hand away from me, and he straightened.

I understood that was my cue to get off his lap. Fine. Boobs or not, seduction was not part of my skill set. But I was certain he’d felt something, and I was making some progress to getting closer to his chest.

I crossed back to my dress and pulled it on over my head. “So, are you going to teach me to shadow-jump?”

No key yet. But I could learn a new skill while I was at it. After I stole from the Seneschal, shadow-leaping might come in very handy.