"The high nobles would have voted differently," he says, confident. "There are two sides to every war, McKenzie. The king has told you only one version of our conflict's origins."

And you're only telling me your version, I want to point out, but a deep, repetitive banging distracts me. I scan the clearing, see nothing. It sounds like it might be coming from inside the inn. Sethan doesn't appear concerned about it, and I wouldn't care much either except for the fact that my head pounds with each erratic beat. I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping to find some relief.

The front door opens and Aren reemerges carrying a leaflined basket of fruit and cheeses topped by a circle of flatbread. He holds the basket out. It takes all my effort not to wrench it from his hands and dig in. The Realm's fruits are decadent-more luscious and sweet than any Earth-grown apple or melon I've ever tasted-but I force myself to fold my hands in my lap.

He frowns. "You haven't eaten anything in almost a day."

"I don't know what you put in it."

His laugh startles me. "You're incredibly stubborn, nalkin-shom ."

"My name is McKenzie." I manage to refrain from rolling my eyes, but this nalkin-shom crap is getting old.

Aren pops a purple slice of fruit into his mouth, holds the basket out again. I stare at it, my stomach rumbling.

"Do I need to try the cheese as well?" he asks.

When I realize it doesn't make sense to poison me, I heave a sigh and take the basket. He doesn't have to be devious if he wants to kill me. A knife across the throat would do the trick and none of the rebels would complain. Most likely, they'd celebrate.

My fingers bring a wedge of soft white cheese to my mouth. It touches my tongue, triggers my taste buds. If Aren and Sethan weren't watching me, I'd sink back against the bench and moan. The cheese is absolutely delicious, but then, in my half-starved state, I'd be content even with the bitter-bark the fae are so fond of.

I chew and swallow and reach for another wedge, ignoring Aren's satisfied expression as he turns to speak to Sethan in Fae. I tear a strip off the flatbread and fold it around an orangetinted cheese. Before I finish that one, another is on its way to my mouth. I save the fruit for dessert and try to slow my pace. Even so, I devour the whole basket in a few minutes. Now, if I could just get some sleep, I'd feel so much better. Even a fiveminute nap would be heavenly.

The two fae finish their conversation as I set aside the basket. Sethan doesn't look happy.

"I trust your judgment, Aren, and I hope you're right. McKenzie." He gives me a shallow bow before he trots down the porch steps. I watch him walk into the forest. A blink of light indicates he's fissured out. Unfortunately, his shadows are unreadable behind the foliage.

"I've bought you an extension on life," Aren says, leaning against the porch column. His casualness and the intensity in his silver eyes make an odd combination. I don't like the way he's observing me. I like even less the way the moonlight glows behind him, making him seem mysterious, almost debonair. When he doesn't say anything else or look away, I shift on the wooden bench.

"Okay," I say slowly, because the silence needs to be broken. "Do you want me to thank you?"

"You'll help us eventually." He sounds so certain.

I shake my head. "No. My allegiance is to Ky-King Atroth."

He smiles a little. "I'll earn your trust."

"I'll doubt everything you say."

He chuckles, pushes away from the column, and crosses the porch to stand in front of me. He takes my right hand in his. As he pulls me to my feet, I make the mistake of looking into his eyes. This close, I can become lost in them, especially with the heat of his edarratae traveling up my arm. He dips his head, staring down at me with mirth on his lips.

"You will be an interesting challenge." He draws a finger along the line of my jaw and lightning floods inside me, shooting down my neck and into my core. I'm lost for a moment, unbalanced, and burning with a need I'm afraid to identify.

Finally, Aren steps back. He opens the front door. "Come, nalkin-shom. I'll tuck you in."

When at last I regain my composure, I give the bastard my coldest glare. For some reason, he finds my defiance amusing.

FIVE.

I BECAME AN insomniac ten years ago. I was a sophomore in high school, president of my class and enrolled in every advanced course the school offered. My teachers loved me, my friends respected me, and my parents were proud. Meeting the fae changed all that. At first, I wasn't sleeping because I thought I was going crazy, hallucinating because no one else could see the lightning-covered people searching the corridors and classrooms. And it was clear they were searching for something. For someone. For me.

A false-blood named Thrain realized I had the Sight and dragged me into the Realm. He used me to wage a war against the king. When I refused to read the shadows for him, he starved me. He hit me. He threatened my friends and family. I had no choice except to help him. No choice, that is, until Kyol freed me. He returned me to my world, and I couldn't sleep because my blood burned in my veins when I lay down at night. Kyol intrigued me. He protected me, and when King Atroth asked me to help him capture Thrain, I didn't hesitate to say yes. That was when the nightmares began. Some of Thrain's fae didn't run or surrender. They fought. They killed. They died, and I couldn't sleep because I was haunted.

Now I can't sleep because I might never see Kyol again. I was sixteen when we first met and he was . . . older. The Realm ages people-both fae and humans-slower than Earth. Kyol looked like he was somewhere in his twenties, but he could have been twice that for all I knew. He wasn't Atroth's sword-master yet, but he was his friend. He became my friend, and we eventually became something. In the last decade, the only nights on which I've had a peaceful, restful sleep were the nights when Kyol watched over me. Despite my resolution to lead a normal fae-free life, that hasn't changed.

I've been staring at the ceiling for hours, surrounded by my fears. Occasionally, they loosen their stranglehold and my heavy eyelids close, but the creaks and groans of the inn wake me no matter how soft they are.

Footsteps stop outside my room. I feign sleep as the door creaks open. Someone walks inside, clears a throat. I keep my eyes shut and refuse to twitch.

"McKenzie."

Even though the sheetless slab of springs beneath me could double as a torture device, I still don't budge.

"McKenzie," the someone says, louder this time. I don't recognize the voice. It's female, but it's not Lena.

"McKenzie Lewis."

I crack open my lids to glare. I end up frowning instead. The light coming in from the doorway is just bright enough to see that the fae staring down at me is wearing human clothing: jeans paired with a tight red top, jingling bracelets, and a triple-layered black-beaded necklace. It's hard to be sure in the dim room, but it looks like a string of garnets and premthyste, a pearllike stone found in the southernmost province of the Realm, is braided through a lock of her dark, silky hair. I think I recognize the pattern the stones make. If I'm right, she's a daughter of Cyneayen, Tayshken Province's ruling noble.

"The sun is up," she says, nodding uselessly toward my boarded-up window. Not even a crack of light peeks between the wooden planks. The banging that gave me such a headache last night was Lena going to town with a hammer and nails. I'd have better luck clawing my way through the wall than through the layer of wood covering the window.

"It's time to get up."

"Not back home, it isn't." I close my eyes, willing her to go away.

She huffs out a breath. "I have instructions to place you in Lena's care if you're uncooperative."

Well, there's nothing like a threat to get you going in the morning. I sit up . . . and barely manage to suppress a groan. Despite not sleeping well, I didn't toss and turn much, and damn, my body's stiff. I guess jumping fences and dangling off the sides of buildings will do that to you. I rub my neck, trying to massage out some of the pain.

"Aren said you might be sore." The fae holds out her hand and uncurls her fingers to reveal two little white pills.

"What's that?"

"Ibuprofen."

My eyes narrow. "Fae don't take human medications."

"They're not for me."

Fae anatomies aren't all that different from humans', but they're not supposed to have anything to do with our food or culture. Not that the medicine is directly hurting her. If it was, lightning would be circling the pills in her palm like writhing blue snakes, but nontech items from my world are gradually weakening the Realm's magic. Of course, we're not in the Realm right now so the only one hurting here is me.

After reminding myself that poisoning me doesn't make sense, I pluck the two tablets from her hand. It takes a moment to work enough moisture into my mouth to swallow them. Unfortunately, it'll take another twenty minutes or so before they kick in.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"I'm . . . Kelia."

Interesting hesitation there. I've never met a fae who, on their first introduction, doesn't tell me who they're a son or daughter of. Are we hiding our ancestry, perhaps?

"Is that premthyste in your hair?" I'm sure I recognize the stone now. Only a few prominent bloodlines wear name-cords these days. She has to be a daughter of Cyneayen. If I remember Lord Raen, elder of Cyneayen, correctly, he's notoriously antihuman. He doesn't speak a word of English and every time I've run into him he's scowled as if I've put a bad taste in his mouth. This girl-Kelia-has impeccable English. She's perfected an American accent and could blend in with a crowd of humans so long as no one around her has the ability to see edarratae.

Her lips narrow into a thin line. "Aren wants me to teach you our language."

I might have called her out for avoiding my question if her statement didn't give me pause. Teach me to speak Fae? Why the hell would Aren want that? He speaks English. So do Sethan and Lena and anyone else who might need to work with humans. I wouldn't be surprised if half the rebellion has mastered my language. Plus, won't I be more of a liability if I can eavesdrop on their conversations? As it is now, they could detail their entire war strategy and I wouldn't have a clue what they were saying.

"The king's forbidden that." It's not that I don't want to learn to speak Fae-I'd love to-but I'm used to not knowing it. I'm used to keeping our cultures as separate as possible.

"He's also forbidden us from learning the languages of your world," Kelia says without missing a beat. "That hasn't stopped us. It shouldn't stop you, not unless you're afraid of the Court."

Afraid of the . . . Oh, I see his angle now. "Aren starts big, doesn't he?"

Kelia's eyebrows rise. "What?"

"Never mind." This is a devilishly clever move on his part. He's making a statement with this offer: the Court might not trust me enough to learn their language, but he does, or so he wants me to believe. Nice try, but I'm not stupid. The only way I might-might-have believed his intentions were pure is if I learned their language, then he let me go. Unfortunately for him, he and Sethan both made it clear that's not an option, not until this war's over. I won't fall for Aren's manipulations.

But I will take advantage of them.

"Okay. I'm game," I say, standing too quickly. My muscles protest the movement and my vision blackens around the edges.

She stares a moment. "After breakfast." She starts to turn, then suddenly she grabs my hand.

I ball my other hand into a fist, ready to defend myself.

"Is that a watch?" she asks.

I hesitate. "Um, yeah." It's a cheap digital watch, $14.99 at Wal-Mart.

Kelia's silver eyes widen. "Can I wear it?"

I pull my hand free from hers, rubbing it against my jeans to chase out the tingle of her edarratae. "It's tech."

"Small tech," she says dismissively. "Please? I'll give it back."

What the hell is wrong with her? Kyol hates it when I wear my watch, and I'm honestly surprised Aren didn't demand I take it off so he could send it to whatever tech graveyard my cell phone ended up in.

"Please?" she says again.

Well, it's her magic. I unstrap the watch and hold it out. Chaos lusters spring up her arm when she takes it. Not bothered by their increased activity, she tries to fasten the band around her wrist. It's obvious she's never done this before-why would she have?-so I help her insert the metal hook into a hole in the rubber. Beneath the strap, her skin glows a faint blue.

She rotates her wrist, staring mesmerized at the digital face. The light coming in through the door wasn't quite enough for me to make out the time, but she's fae. She can probably see the numbers.

"Thank you," she says without looking at me.

"There's a . . . You see that little button on the right? If you press it, the face will light up."

"Really?" She presses it and a trio of needle-thin edarratae rush up her finger and spread over the back of her hand like tiny blue spider veins. They disappear when she releases the button and then reappear when she presses it again. After lighting up the watch a dozen times, she finally drops her hands to her sides. The intrigue leaves her face when she realizes I've been studying her.

She clears her throat. "It's time for breakfast."

I close my eyes and press my palms into my temples. After three solid days of nothing but repeating everything Kelia says and naming everything she points to, I've reached my breaking point.

"Enough!" I yell.

"Na raumel e'Sidhe," she responds calmly. In the language of the Fae.

"No. No more. I need a break." Plus, I can't remember the Fae word for "enough," and I'm exhausted. The only times I've been left alone since Aren brought me here are when the rebels lock me inside my cell.

Okay. Room. And the rebels haven't exactly been awful to me. They've made sure I have plenty to eat and drink, and no one's outright threatened me since that first day, but they're always around. They're always watching, scowling, judging. They might as well have me shackled because I haven't had a single chance to escape.

Kelia folds her arms and cocks her hip, waiting, but if she thinks she's even half as stubborn as I am, she's wrong. I've been the perfect student since we began these lessons. I've never in my life crammed so much information into my head in so short a period of time, not even the evening I returned from shadow-reading in the Realm and was forced to pull an all-nighter for an exam I should have spent days studying for.

Kelia lectures me in Fae. I don't have to understand what she's saying-her tone makes her meaning clear-but at this point, I don't care if she turns over my supervision to the daughter of Zarrak. I can't learn one more new word. I won't.

Kelia finally realizes her words are hitting a wall-a very tired, grumpy, unmovable wall. Her shoulders slump as the fight whooshes out of her.

"Fine," she says, a petulant purse to her lips. "You hungry?"

"No." We ate lunch no more than half an hour ago and had a snack a little before that. Besides, I suspect this might be a scheme to get me to start naming foods and cutlery, and I'm serious about not learning another word of Fae today.

I walk to the picnic table and stare at my rock-carved map. My shadow-readings always look like they're drawn by a schizophrenic. This one is worse than my others, bigger and messier with a series of lines that cut off abruptly only to begin again a few inches to the right when my mental map scale zooms. To a normal human, the final sketch probably looks like a kindergartner's drawing, but to a fae who hears me name a city or a region, it's as good as having an imprinted anchor-stone. Without an anchor-stone or a shadow-reader naming the location on his or her map, fae can only fissure to places they've memorized. It's sort of like humans and phone numbers: they can remember dozens upon dozens of locations, but if they don't think about them often or dial in on occasion, they tend to forget them completely.

I plop down on top of my map's orchard, rest my elbows on my knees, and stare down at my boots. While I ate breakfast my first morning here, Kelia fissured out. Twenty minutes later, she returned with an armload of clothing. Most of it was for her, but she gave me two pairs of jeans, three new tops, and a pair of black leather boots-high-heeled, of course, because comfortable flats would make running away far too tempting. The jeans are just a smidgen too tight. Kelia's assured me they look fine-not that I asked or cared-and that the neckline of my azure blouse isn't too low, but this is definitely not my normal attire. I shop sale racks and wear T-shirts. This look is way too trendy for me. But not too trendy for Kelia.

She sits beside me on the tabletop, fingers the drawstring pouch tied to her belt, and gazes at the overgrown trailhead cutting through the dense tree line. She's been doing that for three days now, gazing at the trail. At first, I thought she was waiting for Aren to return. I haven't seen him since he deposited me in my room and, despite burning curiosity, I haven't asked where he is. Now I'm not so sure he's the reason for Kelia's constant head-turning, not unless she has a crush on him. I'm pretty sure Lena's in love with the guy-I suspect there are very few fae who wouldn't want to jump into bed with him-but Kelia never sounds love-struck when she mentions Aren's name. Maybe she's worried about the Court finding this place? I can only hope.

As I pick at a thick splinter on the edge of the table, my mood plummets. This is one of the reasons I've managed to endure three full days of language cramming. If I let my mind go idle, inevitably I get depressed. It's been four days now and I'm certain no one misses me back home, not even Paige, who is used to my long, sporadic absences. Those absences are the reason why I live alone in an apartment a couple miles from campus. I tried the dorm thing back when I was a freshman, but after being caught one too many times talking to myself-fae almost always choose to remain invisible to normal humans-my roommate requested to be transferred.

I flick the splinter I tore from the table away and search for a distraction. Anything to take my mind off my life.

"Aren," I say, grabbing hold of the first image that pops into my head. "Will he come back?"

Kelia snorts. "Probably."

"Where did he go?"

"The Realm." Her response is short, like she's closing the door to future questions about the false-blood. Or rather, the false-blood's decoy, if I'm to believe Sethan.

"How long have you known him?" I ask.

She stops fiddling with the pouch on her belt and eyes me. "You haven't mentioned his name in three days. Why the sudden interest?"

I shrug.