Lorcan and Calix set up camp in stony silence while I paced in front of the temple's entrance. The place seemed innocuous enough. A towering round structure made of a white stone that had an iridescent shimmer in the sunlight.

It reminded me of the Greek temples I'd seen in history books. The fluted columns were topped with an entablature depicting various mythical creatures like unicorns and even a fierig, and in its center, directly over the entrance, five graceful humanoid figures fell from the sky in a rain of fire.

The Ancient Ones. I didn't need to ask Calix or Lorcan to be certain it was them. Either by magic or sheer talent, the stone carver had captured the power and otherness about the individuals. It exceeded even that of the Fae.

"You okay?" Calix asked, coming to my side and sliding his arms around my waist.

I leaned into the embrace. My heart fluttered so hard in my chest, I was certain he heard it, but this small intimacy nearly overwhelmed me. It had only been a few hours since I'd learned the truth, and I'd scarcely wrapped my brain around it. It was one thing to mourn the loss of the male I met my first time in Faerie, and a completely different thing to believe there was more than just lust between us.

"I wish I could remember what happened here that night."

His fingers inched beneath my blouse and danced across my stomach, making my breath hitch. There might be more between us, but the lust was certainly strong. I suspected he was touching me right now, more to reassure himself I was real than to seduce me, but every brush of the calloused pads of his fingers sent shocks to my core.

"The magic around this place is unpredictable. Especially since the Vow." Calix released me and stepped toward the temple, his expression serious as he looked over the structure. "Once, this place was sacred to the Fae. The Ancient Ones resided over it and kept the peace between the Courts. Now they are nothing but stone monuments to a world that needs to be forgotten."

"Stone monuments?"

Taking my hand in his, he led me inside the temple. I tensed, not sure what to expect, but other than a slight pressure and tingle along my spine, nothing happened. Our footsteps echoed on the stone floor, and as we descended deeper into the temple, I heard the sound of trickling water. Flashes of the cave came back to me, and I froze.

"Little Moon?" Calix tugged on my hand. "It's okay."

I nodded and resumed walking, forcing myself to breathe deeply through my nose. It helped that glimpses of the forest—still green and lush, this far away from Niamh's presence—were visible through the columns. And every so often a gentle rain scented breeze found its way to us, stirring the air and my softening my panic.

Then my eyes landed on the stone figures rising out of the floor in the middle of the temple, and I gasped. "Are those...They're not statues, are they?"

Sadness weighed heavily on Calix as he circled the Ancient Ones. "They're not."

"How?"

"They're truly immortal. Impervious to death, but even they are not immune to the price of great magic."

He stopped beside the smaller figure of a female. On her knees, with her hands pressed into the floor, she tilted her head back and looked into the sunlight that poured in from a circular opening in the roof. Hair the color of fire curled around her face, and a single teardrop glistened on her left cheekbone.

"Alric, Ciara, Roisin, and Rian each mated with humans and bore children. The first Fae, and through those children, the four Courts were born. Aisling was the only one of the Ancient Ones that never had children of her own, and she belonged to no Court. She is the one who created the Veil between the human realm and Faerie. To protect the humans who were being exploited."

I crept closer to Aisling's statue. She was nearly too beautiful to look upon, with eyes of emerald glass and cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Even in this form, kindness and love radiated from her.

"She's also the one who asked my parents to perform the Vow."

My eyes flew to his in shock. "Did she know what it would cost them?"

Calix rolled his bottom lip under his teeth and nodded. "It was nothing more than she was willing to give herself. And her siblings. My mother and father were the sacrifice. Representing the union of both realms, they gave up their life freely to bind the spell in blood. The Ancient Ones are the conduit of power, and because the magic that is required is great and must be constant, they have faded to this."

"Oh, Calix."

"It's fine. I was still a child by Faerie standards then, and I hardly remember them. But I want you to understand that I would never wish to break the Vow my parents gave up their life to create."

"So why would Niamh? Why would Lorcan?"

Footsteps sounded behind us, and I turned to find Lorcan approaching, his golden gaze locked on one figure in particular. One of the males. He went to him and cupped his bronzed cheek with a tenderness reserved for lovers.

"I cannot speak for my sister," he whispered, dropping his hand and head in shame. "Though I suspect she hungers for the power that was taken from us. I want none of that."

"Then why?" I demanded, anger surging through me. "What was so important that it was worth taking my life from me?"

He raised his head. Tears swam in his eyes. "Rian. My mate."

"Your mate?" I looked at Calix for confirmation, and he nodded. I touched my hand to my forehead and leaned against a pillar. "I'm so very confused. Why did you pursue me if you were mated? To an Ancient One, no less."

Lorcan scrunched his beautiful face as if he was fighting off physical pain. And maybe he was. Now that I recognized what was between Calix and me, the idea of being separated from him made me ache, and I did not feel the bond the way he did. For Lorcan to be this close to his mate but unable to touch him or talk to him...it had to be maddening.

"Tell her," Calix demanded, electricity sparking up his arms. A tempest brewed behind his eyes. "I spared you for a reason. Do not make me regret it."

The former king rubbed his arms through his thin linen tunic and looked at me when he spoke. "When Rian told me of the plans to create the Vow, he did not tell me the price it required. Since we were raised in a home where humans were treated kindly, I thought it a good idea, especially if it meant making Cassandra happy. She might not have been my mother, but she was my father's true mate."

Calix came to my side and drew me against him. I leaned into him and pressed my ear against his chest, comforting myself by listening to the gentle thud of his heart and smiling when it beat a little faster at my touch. It took great effort to force myself to pay attention to Lorcan with Calix so close.

"When I found out the truth, I was broken. I have spent three centuries trying to find out how to wake him."

"That's why you looked at me so strange when I told you this is where I stayed during my night in the forest."

He dipped his chin. "It is. It also made me believe that Niamh was right. That you were the answer to breaking the Vow. She was the one who came to me and told me she discovered how to unravel the spell. It required another human sacrifice. One not born in Faerie. I—I thought if I could make you love me, then it would make things easier on you in the end. Love is its own kind of glamour, you know."

"But it didn't work—thank the Ancient Ones," Calix said, brushing my hair aside and pressing his lips against my throat. Directly over my pulse. His sharp canines scraped across the flesh, drawing goosebumps to the surface.

"Because I'm a Changeling?"

"About that...did you know that when you were here the first time?" Calix asked.

"No. Jones told me. His mother knew his father was a Fae. Jones was raised with that knowledge. My father either didn't know or didn't want to tell me."

"That must be why her call was so strong that night," Lorcan muttered. "And that's how you could come into our world on a night that wasn't a full moon. Eira...that dirty whore. She knew about this loophole."

Calix ignored him asked, "Did Jones say who your mother was?"

"He didn't. Only that my biological father was Kevin, and that my mother was Fae. That for me to travel the Ley lines with him, I must have been born in Faerie and left before the full moon."

"Shit." Calix and Lorcan shared another look.

"Nope." I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me. "What's wrong?"

"If your mother is Fae, she's very likely still alive."

I swallowed hard. The thought had occurred to me in passing, but there had been so many other more pressing matters. And the part of me that grew excited thinking about my mother warred with the part of me that felt like wanting to meet her was a betrayal of my father.

"Why does that matter?"

"It matters because that changes your allegiance. Until you bind yourself to the Coire and choose your Court, you must obey the ruler of your mother's Court."

I shrugged. "That doesn't seem like a big issue, considering no one knows the truth about me except the two of you and Jones."

Lorcan shook his head." The two of us, Jones, Eira, and—"

"Niamh," Calix finished with a growl. "And you can't bet our sister is going to try to figure out how to use it to her advantage."