"Well, you said you'd go with me, so you're fucking going." I strapped an extra knife to my right leg and slid a narrowly pointed athame into my boot.

“I have no interest in sharing space with that…that…”

“Fae?”

He glared at me. “That conman.”

“Oh. Truth.” I stuck my fingers through the slash in my jacket. “Shit. Got any leather with you? This sucker saved my life for the last time, it seems.”

Niall tossed me a dark teal jacket. “Bought it in Butte, it’s not black, but it goes better with that purple hair of yours.”

It fit like a glove, and I glanced at Gray in askance. "Not my doing, Niall's always had a knack for ladies' sizes." He rolled his eyes, and I stifled a giggle. Gray's second in command and best friend had a way with women, it was true, but what I'd noticed more, was that he had a way of setting others at ease. Like Penelope, but for him, it was simply an aura, combined with his Irish lilt and sexy grin. No one was immune to him, and I knew sometimes he was what made us work so well as a team when Gray and I were ready to kill each other.

Puck had radioed less than thirty minutes before to tell us that Farley was in custody and being held by the special magical forces we’d had them call in. I contacted Orson to verify that I was staying in Montana long enough to finish my business with the Fae, but that Penelope would be on an early flight, accompanied by a certain amorous Leo professor. I could hear the calculator my boss called a brain ticking away at the news that Pen was a shifter, but at least he wasn’t blaming me for her condition anymore.

Carl and Sheryl were still running with their son, but Gray had only gone out with them long enough to show his support, then had come back to give that support to me. Now we were fighting again, only instead of it being about my aggressive independence, it was about my dependence on Tryst to get us in and out of Fairy safely.

"Okay. So, we're all on the same page. Tryst can't be trusted as far as any of us can throw him, but there's three of us and one of him, and he has no magic."

Niall shrugged and nodded, and Gray begrudgingly agreed. “Anything else?”

“Oh hell yeah,” I snorted. “Don’t eat anything, not one gods-forsaken seed. Do not drink anything, and that includes springs or streams. Fairy isn’t the mundane world, and the pit, well, I have no idea what’s going on down there, except that we get in and out as quick as we can. You’ll feel it when you cross the barrier, but the longer you spend inside the oubliette, the less you’ll remember why you need to get out.”

Neither of the men responded, which was better than if they’d both told me to fuck myself and walked away. There was still time for that, though.

“There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there?” Gray pulled me aside, even though I knew Niall could hear it all anyway.

"I want to talk to my father one last time before we commit to a prison break that could unleash something dangerous on the world."

“You said it was all pixies and brownies down there, lesser Fae who wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“But the oubliette is there for a reason. Just because I didn’t see the scary bad thing, doesn’t mean it’s not down there. I’ve got to talk to him, or at least try.”

He swore at me and walked away, then strode right back, pacing the inside of the cabin. “When were you planning to tell me?”

“When we weren’t in the camp, surrounded by big ears that don’t need to get the wrong impression of the Fae that live all around them, Grayson.” My own voice was getting dangerously loud. Stupid wars have been fought over those misunderstandings. I won’t be the start of one.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The problem was never if we loved each other. It was the things I suspected we each loved more. I would never be a shifter. A dozen fights with female challengers for Gray’s attention had proven that. Even if I proved shifters were related to us, Gray would never let himself be called a Fae. He was defined by his pride in being uniquely magical.

I stared from his broad shoulders down to his ass as he strode toward the door. He certainly had his own magic. If we made it back in one piece, I’d make certain he knew it.