And about to get closer.

He’d accepted her deal only when she’d pledged herself as his hostage.

You must let me use you to get in and out of the castle.

Eyes wide, she’d stared up at Dageus. Nostrils flaring, he’d shaken his head curtly. But the dark sorcerer had refused to come onto Keltar-warded land any other way, and Dageus had finally nodded.

How do I know this isn’t a trap? Trevayne had typed.

How do I? she’d countered.

There’d not been much to say after that. It had been the bottom line, really. They were both risking all. And they knew it.

She glanced at her watch.

It was eighteen minutes to midnight.

Dageus had been adamant they give Trevayne barely enough time to get to the mirror and pass the tithe through. I doona want him to have a single moment with you during which he doesn’t have to keep moving. Once it’s over, I’ll show myself and we’ll get him out of the castle.

It was now or never.

She braced herself for Trevayne’s hideous appearance.

Whatever happened from this moment forth, she would betray no fear, no weakness. She was Jessica MacKeltar, wife of Cian, and she would do him proud.

The bastard she was about to let in Castle Keltar had held her husband imprisoned for eleven hundred and thirty-three years and, though she’d never thought herself a violent person, she’d plunge her concealed dagger into Trevayne’s heart in an instant if she thought she had a snowball’s chance in hell of killing him.

She slid the deadbolt back and turned the doorknob.

“Lucan,” she said coolly, inclining her head.

“Good evening, Jessica,” Trevayne replied with a cordial smile. Sort of.

When he took her arm, Jessi barely suppressed her revulsion.

Dageus stood in the shadows of the corridor off the balustrade that overlooked the great hall, listening intently. Upon leaving Jessica, he’d loped up the back stairs, taking turn after turn, wending a circuitous route to his current position, all to avoid passing Cian’s mirror.

His brother, Gwen, and Chloe were safely ensconced in a chamber two corridors down. Until a few hours ago, he’d had to conceal his plans from even them so none could inadvertently betray it to Cian by thinking about it in their powerful ancestor’s presence.

’Tis too dangerous, Drustan had growled.

’Tis the only way, brother, he’d replied.

The Draghar knew this for a certainty?

Aye.

Too many things could go awry, Dageus. You have no way of controlling what happens.

Dageus hadn’t bothered arguing. It was a long shot and he knew it. He was doing little more than setting the stage, and hoping his instincts about the actors involved would prove true.

Drustan had been reluctant to agree, until Dageus had assured him that no matter what happened, Trevayne would not pass the tithe through. That he would stop him himself if necessary. But not until the last possible second, he’d added in the privacy of his mind.

A few dozen yards away, mounted on the wall of the landing, high above the great hall hung the Unseelie Dark Glass.

It was flat silver.

He imagined his ancestor inside it. Was Cian stretched out on his stone floor, arms behind his head, staring up at the stone ceiling, waiting for death?

If so, he knew the mere waiting was killing his ancestor a thousand times over. ’Twasn’t in a Keltar’s blood to accept death. Especially not once he’d found his mate and given the binding vows. Dageus knew. He’d been in far too similar a position himself.

Indeed, it was the similarity in their positions that had given him this idea to begin with.

He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to midnight.

Expect deceit, he’d told Jessica. Expect last-minute treachery. It will come.

What he’d not told her was that ’twould come not from Lucan but from him.

Cian had been listening to the clock in the great hall below him chime the passing hours all evening.

’Twas now but mere minutes to midnight, and he was as prepared as he would ever be to draw his final breaths. He’d conjured a perfect mental vision of Jessica’s face in his mind hours ago, and he intended to die holding it there.

It was jarred slightly by the sound of approaching footsteps. She’d promised not to watch, he’d thought, stiffening.

Then he jerked ramrod straight and pushed up from the floor as another sound reached his disbelieving ears.

The hated sound of Lucan Trevayne’s laughter.

Nay! ’Twas not possible! There was no way the bastard could get inside Castle Keltar! Not without someone helping—