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PROLOGUE

DECEMBER

The fae lord stalked back and forth in his cell of gray stone Three steps, turn, four steps, turn, three steps He could do it all day Had, in fact, done it for teeks

His boots were soft and he made no sound as he paced Sound distracted him unduly from his purpose—which was to bore hi

His clothes, like his boots, were practical, but still representative of his position as High Court Lord—though he no longer re red hair was confined in a complicated series of braids that trailed on the floor behind hio Doubtless if there were still courts, still High Courts, he would be considered out of fashion entirely

He’d worn High Court dress for the first week he was here, but there was no one to ied the He could have put on jeans, he supposed, but he was losing that long-ago lord a day at a time, and the clothes served as a reh some days, so what he had once been was so important

There was a knock on his door, and he hissed in irritation because he’d nearly succeeded in nu himself to the imprisonment Immortality was a curse because no matter hoerful you were, there was always someone more powerful Someone to obey Sos of what you once had Then they took that, too, and here he was in this prison while his gut ached with need and his body ic, he had no savor

The knock sounded again He’d pissed off whoever it was because his whole prison shook with a noise that hurt his ears and his heart Wonderful One of the Powers had come to call upon him He almost didn’t anshat more could they do to him than they had already done?

He stopped in the middle of the roo worse they could do It didn’t do any good to speculate upon what He said, “Come in, then”

The woman who stepped in was neat and small She almost stirred that beast inside hione

She was the spiritual archetype of the evil queen in the fairy tales, partially because she’d participated in quite a few of the actual events that had spawned the tales She adored causing misery and pain to the short-lived humans All those centuries of power lived in her voice, even if she liked to hold the appearance of helplessness

“Underhill will beco as she looked around his current home, “and you chose a prison”

He straightened warily “Yes, lady”

She shook her head “And they want you?”

She didn’t say who “they” were, or what they wanted him for He didn’t ask because he still had some sense of self-preservation

She walked around the sination”

She folded her ar her torso first so as to see the ceiling stones and then turning until she got the proper angle to see the subtle bend in the wall that ranite block, the only one without mortar “They say you kno to hide froht hunt you because your glaood”

He wanted to stop her, to keep her fro his treasure He wanted to destroy her But they had taken away his power and he was left with nothing But that was vanity speaking; he knew that even if he’d had his power, it would have done hiainst one of the Gray Lords