She'd just make it worse. "Iss juss a hangover." He'd lost count of how many pints he'd poured down his throat waiting for his lover.

"No. You're still drunk or worse." Phil dragged him into the hall.

Erick stumbled and leaned against what he'd thought was a frail old man. But Phil held him up and tugged him up the stairs.

"How coo I be wursss?" His lover hadn't come. That's how. Earth, he needed more ale.

Phil kicked open the door at the top of the stairs. "No more." He grunted and shifted for a better hold to haul Erick inside. He tossed Erick onto the bed.

The quick motion lurched through Erick's gut and emptied him over the side of the bed. Throat forced wide, eyes watering, stomach wrenched, he barely held consciousness. His throat burned. An acrid taste filled his mouth. The smell. Erick rolled away from it.

"Yes?" Eleanor's voice snapped like a whip.

Erick turned toward the door to glare at the girl. Darkness swirled about her. Evil creature. Remnants of rage from his dream demanded he bellow for her to leave.

She spun on her heels as if she'd heard him. Her blindingly white skirts flew about at a dizzying pace but she didn't leave.

Phil caught her elbow and her skirts crashed against his legs. "Just fix him up a little. Just enough that his brain doesn't rot."

"It's already rotten."

"Judgmental bitch." That came out clearly. Erick wasn't so intoxicated.

"You moron. What did you expect to happen? Did you think she'd come back to be your mindless whore? What woman would want that? To be so low, so empty and meaningless?"

"Rot in an elven-guarded tower, you fucking demon. Just stay out of my head. Get out."

But Phil slammed the door shut, blocking her exit. "It's just the alcohol talking. He's not himself when he's drunk."

"Is he any different when he's sober?" She twisted free from Phil's grip but approached the bed, dizzying skirts aflutter. Suddenly she halted and covered her nose. "Earth, Erick. Did you drink skunk oil?" With her free hand, she palmed his bare abs. Sparks erupted from her touch and jerked his aching body tense.

He pushed her hand away. He couldn't feel that with her.

"Do I have to put on a mask to touch you?" she sarcastically muttered.

She looked enough like Violet that he could pretend if she wore a mask. Sick. He threw the thought away.

"Relax. I'd rather freeze than fuck you."

She hadn't felt that way in the dungeon or when he pressed her up against the wall. Neither did you.

He hated that power she had over him, to slip so effortlessly into his mind. He'd thought he'd grown strong enough to keep her out. Maybe he was drunk.

But it's okay when Violet does it? Her hand glowed over his stomach.

Erick squeezed his eyes shut against the painful light. Before he could tell her stop, her hand burned his gut.

He hollered and tried to roll away but his body shook like a fish in a bucket. Pressure swelled in his bladder which threatened to burst.

Her spell stopped but the pain remained.

"Honey bucket," she said through clenched teeth to Phil. Hunched over the nightstand, she panted and sobbed on every exhalation. Her white dress had darkened to the color of the Biston river.

Phil brought the bucket to Erick and motioned for him to do his business.

But Erick could barely move. His limbs jerked sporadically, veins burning. The blinding light from the window had dimmed and vivid colors replaced pastels.

Phil rolled him onto his side, pulled down his pants and held the bucket expectantly.

Humiliatingly, Erick's body relieved itself through no command of his own. He didn't want to do this in front of her. He'd never pissed in front of a woman. Whatever she'd done to him burned his penis. The strong odor of pure alcohol stung his eyes and nostrils. It steamed up from the bucket as if snow filled the bottom.

Eleanor's sobbing breath slowed behind him. "I can only clean out a little more. It's too cold in here."

He wanted to tell her no but his mouth wouldn't move. Paralyzed. Something squeezed his lungs but no sound could escape his nearly closed throat.

Like an offered sacrifice, Phil turned Erick onto his back for Eleanor.

Tears dripped from her hard glare and streaked her flushed face. But the human color didn't alleviate his fears. Hybrid. A hybrid woman cast spells on him.

You can stop me at any time. But light burst from her hand over his stomach. And again, her touch burned.

His limbs twitched as if lightning had struck him. Arteries and veins pulsated in a frantic rush and something crushed him everywhere, all around and filled his burning bladder. Unbearable. Stop.

The glow extinguished and her hand fell away. She knelt on the floor, weeping. Blue tinted her fingers and crawled up her arms.

Spasms lingered, torturing him. Before he could piss himself, Phil rolled him on his side to catch the burning stream of pure alcohol. Erick grimaced and fought back tears of his own.

"You'll need to drink lots of," she inhaled sharply, "water. And please think about indoor," she sobbed a wet and sloppy breath, "plumbing. Honey buckets are so gross."

More criticisms. He flopped on the bed, paralyzed and she tortured him with his shortcomings? He didn't have Gildon's treasuries to invest in new technologies.

"I'm not trying to hurt you. It's just a suggestion. You don't have to be so proud." She gasped as if coming up for air. "You can let me help without seeing it as an insult to your manhood."

"I don't need your help," he hoarsely whispered. Had she stolen his voice? "No. What is wrong with you? I've never hurt you."

Nothing had ever hurt more than what she just did to him.

"Look at me." She held up her blue hands. "I give up everything I have and you think it's to harm you? Why? What could I possibly gain? Do I look like I enjoyed this?"

For the past five years, she'd seemed to enjoy torturing him with her escape attempts from her father's home but at that moment she appeared just as miserable. "I'm sorry, Ellie," he croaked. His dry throat felt like cracked stone.

"He needs water," she said to Phil and slumped against Erick's nightstand.

The old man left with a bounce in his step and a smile on his face, as if he expected some miracle to happen.

But this one favor couldn't make up for five years of hell. How did the girl even know how to do this? Henry didn't drink.

"In the spring and summer, I work odd jobs to save for college. Mostly just reading men for infatuated women or vice versa. Healing sick people. Don't tell my parents."

"Why?"

"It upsets them. Then my mother shrinks my prison."

"No, why college?" Daughter to a duke and gifted with enchantment, the girl would never need to work. Kings would shower her with wealth for as long as she chose to live.

"I'm not just a body," she spat. "I'm more than that. I want to make things, beautiful things. Monuments. Works of art that will last millennia, like the palaces in Gildon. I would be halfway through Biston University if you had let me."

Was that why she hated him? No that was only two years ago.

She wouldn't look at him, gaze fixed on the floor, blue arms wrapped tight around her knees. Spoiled brat.

"My disagreement doesn't warrant your temper tantrum," he said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I supposed to be okay with your decision to whore me out? I'm supposed to just accept that I'll have to live off my body to stay here in Biston?"

"A married woman isn't a whore."

"She is when her only duty is to spread her legs. What do you think Reiley expects from his wife? Do you think he's going to ask her opinion, let her run any portion of his kingdom, share any decisions? No. He expects a baby maker. That's it. She's just supposed to wait for him until the end of each day. After the sun goes down, her duties begin. Her worth is measured only by his want. Not by her mind, not by her drive, not by her skills or abilities. She's nothing."

"Sex isn't a chore. After the first time, you might like it." The brat had no idea how good she had it. To be so free from responsibility.

Something like a snort came from her throat. "Then you marry him. Don't you see women as anything more? Before I was this, what was I to you? Didn't I mean anything?"

She'd been just a kid, her imagination an escape. She'd followed him around, spouting hopes and dreams. Nothing like now.

"I'm the same person. Everything is still there. There's just more. Is it this?" She swirled darkness in a ball above her open palm. "Is this why? I can't make enough energy to live here in the winter and I don't have someone to borrow energy from. This is the only way for me to keep from freezing to death."

She hadn't needed dark magic before the war.

"You used to share your energy with me in the winters the way my father shares with my mother." Her lip and chin trembled before she rolled her lower lip in and turned away.

Erick sat up uncomfortably. It had been innocent then. Just holding her hand for the tickling sparks. They'd both been so young, it didn't mean anything. "What are you asking me to do? What do you want?" He couldn't hold her hand now without his mind turning to mush.

Her gaze flicked back to him, brow wrinkled. "If all you see when you look at me is a whore or a demon, then let me go."

"You aren't mine to give away."

"Then tell my father you don't want me. Tell him to set me free," she choked out, eyes watering.

Did Henry expect him to marry Eleanor? Was that why Henry had dropped the little demon off here? Earth, this was no good.

A soft rap sounded at the door.

"You don't have to knock, Phil," she yelled, as if she knew the old man normally burst in unannounced.

Phil entered tentatively, seemingly afraid of interrupting something. He was in on it, wasn't he? For years, the two brothers had demanded Erick marry for an heir. But never before had they proposed Eleanor.

She seemed their unwilling pawn, glowering on the floor, avoiding his gaze.

You should make her a fire, Phil suggested as he set a tray on the chest at the foot of the bed.

"No, I'm going." Eleanor rose unsteadily, blue hand on the nightstand. "For payment, I don't want to see him again. Send my meals to my room."

"Eleanor..." Phil started.

"You asked for a service which I performed. I don't work for free," she snapped, eyes aglow. "The next time he poisons himself, let him die. I won't come."

The brat staggered out of the room, using furniture along the way to keep from falling. Phil tried to help her but she pushed his hands away. The door slammed shut behind her but didn't block her sobs.

The sound of a woman crying usually made his gut clench up with guilt, but he'd done nothing wrong. They both hated each other. It was Henry and Phil who pushed for something horribly more.

"What did you say to her?"

"I proposed." Erick barely forced the grating words out.

Phil's face lit up like a child's when gifted a lollipop.

"Is that what you expected?"

The old man cursed, happiness gone, face creased. "Did you at least thank her?"

"For what?" For torturing him? His penis still burned and his head felt as if she'd bludgeoned him with a spiked mace.

Phil quietly poured water into a glass, seeming to weigh his words.

"Does Henry expect me to... marry her?" Was that the trade? Was that why Henry had saved Erick's life and won him the throne? Erick rubbed his eyes. Earth, how could he have been so blind? No one risks their life for nothing, out of the goodness of their hearts. No one works for free, as Eleanor had said.

Phil handed him a glass of water and dropped a letter on the bed. Half a broken seal marked its seam. A dragon's head and wings-Henry's mark. It must have come by falcon.

Glass pressed to his lips, Erick couldn't drink, gaze fixed on the letter. "What does it say?"

"It says no. Eleanor is a daughter of Biston and she will remain in Biston. I told you. She's Henry's treasure. He won't let her past Biston's borders, not for any king."

"You wrote him about Reiley's offer, right?" Phil's voice lowered an octave. "Yes."

That couldn't be right. Henry had to see logic-he always did. Erick snatched the letter up and unrolled it. He scanned Henry's sloppy writing. Shit.

Erick gulped the cold water that stung his throat. "What now?" He couldn't win a trade agreement with Porter. Not without Henry's approval to give the girl to the lovelorn Reiley. Where was he supposed to get the money to haul Biston out of recession?

"You have two options-either marry for money or ask for Eleanor's help." "Does she have a spell that can turn dirt into gold?"

"She told you how she can help. Make nice and ask her."

"What? Indoor plumbing?"

"She has contacts in the Western River and in Gildon. She can use them to get your loan."

"No. Ask the Western River's king to lift his sanctions." If Erick had any gift for magic, he could cast the spells himself, maybe find his lover. Oh he needed her now. There had to be a spell to find her. Maybe a spell to lift the curse that had fallen over Biston. How long would it take to learn? "Post a reward for the girl, also."