"They told me it was an enchantment," I say, frowning down at the ring, but my heart beats faster at the prospect of answers. 

"It is, certainly. A goblin spell of binding, to be specific. A marriage spell. By the act of having this on your hand, you are bound—both magically and legally—in marriage."

"I'm married to a...goblin?" 

Lady Foxglove releases my hand, lips pursed. "Oh, would that be so bad?" When I sputter, she shakes her head, chuckling. "Not necessarily a goblin, though, no. It is our custom, but it's not unheard of for others to adopt it. And sometimes to corrupt it." 

"Do you know who he is? How he did this? I have no idea ho—"

But she's shaking her head. "I'm sorry, dear. Whoever this bone came from, he has very powerful warding. I can't see him at all."

"Wait, the bone came from—" 

"Yes. It's part of the spell. A goblin wedding ring is made of the finger of the one who gives it, and afterwards that finger cannot be regrown."

"So we're looking for someone incredibly powerful, with knowledge of goblin magic, who's missing a finger," summarizes Theo, frowning.

"The ring finger of the left hand in particular, but glamour can hide that easily enough." 

"How do I undo the marriage?" I ask, catching Lady Foxglove's gaze. "How do I fix this?"

"Normally, you'd take off the ring," she answers, and the sympathy in her eyes tells me she already knows that I can't. 

"So, if all else fails, we just cut off the finger then," says Nicholai, sounding relieved. I glare at him, but he just shrugs. "We could get it grown back." 

But the seer is already shaking her head. "That won't work. Her finger would still be in the ring. And even if you gouged all the flesh and bone out of it, it wouldn't matter, because it hadn't been removed in the one way that counts."

Nicholai huffs, looking thoughtful. "But what abou—"

"If you burn the finger and the ring together, you seal the spell completely. There would be no undoing it then." 

His gray eyes go wide. "Fuck."

Theo meets his eyes. "Fuck indeed."

"You'll need to find the one whose bone this is, and get him to undo the spell. Or kill him."

"But how did he do this at all?" Grates Theo. "To have transferred the ring to her through a dream, he must have already had a deep connection to her. And a physical link, too."

"Erin," says Lady Foxglove. "Your mother is a selkie, is she not?"

My eyes go wide. "She was. But my father is human." 

"You were told you had no pelt." 

I just stare at her. It's not a question, so I don't bother to answer.

"You had one. Many half-selkin are born with one. Your mother sold that pelt to someone on this side of the portal to gain her way back through."

I take a step back from her, shaking my head.

"No. She's dead. She died when I was a baby."

"Oh, sweet girl. She is dead, yes. But that didn't happen until she'd already crossed to this realm." 

Padraig pads up to my side, placing a comforting hand to my shoulder as my face drains of blood. 

"No." 

But Lady Foxglove just smiles gently. "Another customer will be coming in soon, and I've told you everything I can."

~*~

The moment we've got all my bags loaded up in the trunk, Theo turns on Padraig. 

"Get Erin home and then come back. Nicholai and I are getting answers."

"From Foxglove? No you aren't," growls Padraig. Not out of anger, it's just how his voice sounds right now. "She's on our side. If there's something she can't tell us, she can't tell us. Force won't make a difference."

Snarling in frustration, Theo spins away from him. One of his fists whips outward in a blur, then stops suddenly a fraction of an inch away from the windshield. The veins in his arms bulge, and one on his brow twitches. 

For a while, he stops breathing entirely. Then his chest swells and his eyes close as he breaths in long and deep. They flash open again as he exhales. 

"Fine. The explanation you promised me earlier. It starts now.

"The future is infinite" explains Padraig a while later as we speed back the way we'd come. I feel bad for him. It's obviously difficult to talk in this condition. "Lady Fox can see endless possibilities for it. Nothing's decided until it happens. There can only be two reasons she's not telling us about Gaius and Prisha—she's bound against it, or else telling us would create such a negative outcome that she's bound herself against it."

"Of course. More damned bindings," hisses Theo under his breath. 

For a while we sit in stony silence as Theo scowls at the road and Nicholai stares out the window, hardly moving. 

"I'm sorry," says Padraig finally. "You both knew they were involved in things they couldn't fully share with you yet. Important things. Foxglove's a part of that. Integral to it."

"Gaius and Prisha trust me," Padraig adds when the silence stretches on. "They trust Foxglove. If you respect them, if you trust them, please honor that." 

Nicholai turns to look at the other vampire. "He's not wrong." 

A heartbeat passes, then Theo huffs something that sounds like "fine."

About halfway home, my appetite returns with a vengeance. Thinking longingly of the delicious smells wafting out of the goblin restaurant back at the River Market, I beg Theo to let us stop at a drive-through. There's a thump-thump-thump from the seat beside me and I turn to look at Padraig, who flushes…avoiding my gaze as he presses a hand to his newly-sprouted tail. The thumping stops. 

"I could go for some food, too," he says, clearing his throat. 

We pull into the garage, and when I step out of the car with my arms full of goblin food, surrounded by supernatural men loaded up with bags of treasure, I can almost forget for a moment how terribly wrong everything is. Almost.

"Oh my god," I groan a few minutes later, hopping onto one of the kitchen bar stools as I chew my first bite of deep-fried bog pepper stuffed with crawfish and green onions. 

"Wait till you try these," says Padraig, canines bared in a wolfish grin as he holds another bag out to me. Digging in, I pull out what looks like a flaky black rock. Hot grease drips down my fingers, but it smells good. Really good. Shrugging, I take a bite and trigger an explosion of heat and flavor. 

"What...what is this? It's godly!" 

"They call it, uh, black rock" he shifts from speaking Elvari to Goblin as he says the last two words. "It's like—well, like what you'd get if you crossed a mushroom and a turtle." 

Inside the charred shell—which is glazed in a rich, spicy-sweet sauce—the "flesh" is tender, moist, creamy, flavorful. Unlike anything I've ever had. 

"God damn."

"Right?" Padraig tosses another "rock" into his toothy maw, groaning with pleasure as he chews. 

"Are you weirdos about done?" Drawls Cash, and I look up, surprised, to see him leaning in the entrance to the kitchen and dining area. Padraig doesn't bat an eye. A few seconds later, Theo and Nicholai return from dropping my bags off in my room. 

Sometimes, it's annoying being the only one around with relatively average senses. 

"Any sign of—"

But Cash's expression cuts off Theo's line of questioning before it can begin. 

"Ah."

"I've looked everywhere that made sense. Everywhere I could think of and get to. I swear it, T." They shake their head, coming over to sit on the stool beside me, leaning on their elbows as both hands go to their hair. "I talked to everyone I could without giving away that they're missing. But nothing. No sign or sight of them."

Butler drifts quietly in and begins making coffee and tea as Theo sighs through his teeth and rubs his temples. Within minutes the spectre's pressing a mug into each of the vampires' hands. 

"Thank you, friend," says Nicholai, inhaling the vapors of his chai appreciatively. 

"Anyway," says Cash, looking pointedly at me. "We've got about an hour before we'll need to head out for the Esbat. You might want to start getting ready soon."

A thrill of anxiety bolts through my core at the reminder of the night ahead. 

"Just how fancy is this event, anyway? How formally should I dress?" 

"You need to wear a gown. You got one, right?" They throw a panicked glance at the others.

"Y-yes. I got...one."

They put a hand to their chest and let out a breath. "Good. Do you need any help with your hair or makeup?" 

"Er," I hesitate, considering. "Actually yes, I really do." 

"Alright. You heard her, Nicholai," Cash calls over to the pale-haired vampire, waving a hand. "You can handle that without giving in to your baser instincts by now, I hope?"

I feel my eyes go wide. "Nicholai? But—"

Cash purses their lips at me for a moment. "Oh, you assumed I'd be doing it? No, Nick's the one who's got a touch for that sort of thing. I'm hopeless beyond eyeliner and an occasional bit of shadow."

"Oh. Um, alright."

"Don't worry, Butler'll chaperone. Just in case," they smirk. 

As the three of us vacate the kitchen, Cash turns to Theo and and Padraig, leaning on the countertop. "How'd the shopping trip go?"

Butler and Nicholai wait outside my room while I change into a dressing robe and lay the gown out across my bed. When I open the door to let them in, Nicholai hesitates before stepping over the threshold, Butler immediately behind him.

While I take a seat in front of the vanity, the vampire strides over to my bed to look at the dress. Then, darting over to me, he rifles through my make-up bag, lips turning down at the corners. "I'll do what I can," he says dubiously, before selecting a brush and kneeling on the ground before me. 

I take a deep breath as he leans in, hoping he doesn't notice the way it trembles. He smells of pine trees and snow and spiced tea. His elongated pupils expand and contract as he examines my face, considering. 

Then he takes a shallow breath in and, holding it, sets to work. Even after he's done with the shadow, I keep my eyes shut. His face is so close to mine that I can feel the intensity of his gaze as he concentrates. Could feel his breath on my skin...if he were breathing. 

His heartbeat is so slow that for a while I think it's stopped. The nearness of him and the soft caress of the brush across my skin lulls me into a sort of trance. A gentle tingling sensation starts up in my scalp, spreading down my spine. When he stops and steps back to examine his work, I startle. But then, seeming satisfied, he disappears behind me. A moment later his fingers are twining in my hair as he grumbles something about the inadequacy of my brush.

My eyes flutter closed, and it's like the Bliss all over again. 

"It’s done," he says after entirely too short a time. Finally turning to look in the mirror, my lips drop open.

"Oh my god, Nicholai. Thank you so much."

He actually meets my eyes for a moment. "You like it, then?"

"It's perfect. So much better than I could do." 

He grunts something that might be "good," and then something else I can't quite make out, and in a blur he's gone. Claws twisting together in trepidation, Butler follows after him. 

Suddenly by myself, I'm forced to face something I hadn't had much of a chance to realize before. When I'm alone, I feel his presence more acutely. Like an axe hanging over my head. Rushing out of the room, I head back to the kitchen in search of someone to distract me.   

~*~

"Why don't you just teleport there?" grumbles Nicholai from his cramped spot between Cash and the back passenger's side door. I cross my legs and squish myself closer to my own door, trying to make more room for the two vampires. 

"I always feel left out, never getting to ride anywhere with the rest of you. I want the full experience for once."

"The full experience of being crammed together in the back seat of a hot car for too long?" 

"Don't make me come back there," jokes Padraig from the front passenger's seat. His growling bark of a voice is impressively intelligible, considering the fangs, snout, and lack of lips. 

Outside, the lights around us multiply, blurring past as we head into the city. In spite of everything, excitement begins to build in me as the towers loom closer. We drive under a series of greenery-draped underpasses and then they’re directly overhead. I lean forward in my seat, twisting about for a better view. 

Every building here is a wonder not only of architecture, but of enchantment—no mundane structure of wood or stone could ever reach so high or last as long as I know many of these have. My face is practically pressed against the window now as I take everything in. This place...it's both like and completely unlike any Uther-realm city I've every been to. "Magical" doesn't even begin to describe it. 

Sculptures and totems of wood and stone look out from every street and building corner, every wall decorated with reliefs, mosaics, murals, or clinging ivy. There's greenery everywhere. On the the rooftops, along the streets, on the balconies, in the many, many parks and gardens. Stained glass windows glow in every color and style imaginable, painting the streets in a wash of dancing color.

A diverse array of Aetheri crowd the sidewalks and raised walkways. This deep into Moon Court territory, though, the majority are vampires, werewolves, and nocturnal varieties of fae. For a while, I almost forget about the ring of bone locked around my finger as I lose myself in the sights. 

Then we're in the shadow of one of the city's most imposing structures. Made of both midnight-black and moon-pale stone, with windows tinted in melting shades of blue and violet, it's topped by an enormous sphere of glass panes and wooden beams. The Tower of the Moon. 

We turn left, dipping down into its parking structure. There a pair of doonie valets waits to take the car off our hands, even opening the doors for us and inclining their horse-like heads as we step out. When I wobble a little bit on my narrow heels, Cash offers me a steadying arm and I accept it. I imagine the two of us actually look quite good together. My silvery-green dress echoes the colors and details of their streamlined suit. But where I've got gem-chip studded embroidery cascading from my hips to the hem of my dress's flowing skirts, they've got theirs on their shoulders like a pair of delicate shimmering pauldrons. 

As Theo walks out ahead and Nicholai and Padraig fall in around us, I can't help but break into a smug grin. Wow. We're all just...really, really hot. In fact, I can't decide who looks best. Theo's wearing what I've come to recognize as his signature whites and dark, stormy grays, but with a few jewel-toned accents. Nicholai's broad, muscular form is clothed in knee-high boots and strips of dark leather stitched elaborately together into tunic, breeches and sleeves. 

Padraig wears earth-toned trousers, suspenders, and an off-white button-down under a vest. A classic werewolf look that suits him well—especially now with his sleeves rolled up to expose the faded knot-work style tattoos decorating his forearms. 

A pair of werewolves in middling form bow us over the threshold of the interior entrance, where moss carpets the floor and a chandelier dripping with moonstones and vines hangs above a stone pool. Inside, pearly-white fish speckled with bits of black drift lazily among the water plants and chunks of glimmering crystal. Beyond that, yet another black-suited fae attendant waits within the enormous elevator. The dimmed light travels over the translucent layer of scales that covers their skin as they bow us through the door. 

We ride all the way to the top. The elevator opens, spilling us out into the dancing golden glow of the Moon Chamber. A thousand voices crowd the air, interspersed with peals of laughter from all directions. Countless eyes turn to us as we make our entrance, stepping down the grand stair of black stone into the main space. A magically-magnified voice booms out from one of the polished gargoyle-like sculptures that stand to either side of it, announcing the name of each person who passes. 

"Cassius and Erin Blackwood," booms the gargoyle to my right as we step past it onto the main floor. The crowd goes briefly silent before erupting once more into chatter. A path of white stone tile is left open for us, splitting the floor and crowd alike in two halves. At its end, the King and Queen of the Moon Court await my presentation upon high-backed thrones on a raised dais.