Page 4 of Their Wicked Cage

“I’ve heard enough.” Carver stalks around the bar, eyes fury-lit. “I don’t know where your little friend went, but you both need to leave.”

“I will be out of here in a few minutes, but first let me explain⁠—”

“Explain why you’re searching for a witch from a storybook?” Carver interrupts—again—shaking his head. “When your brother finds out about this…”

“Leave him out of it,” I snap. My jaw clenches as I steel myself. I cannot lose my temper around this imbecile. Avaline would be far less likely to help me if I do. “This business is between me and Avaline.” I turn my attention back to the nymph. “Do you know where Gwyn is?”

She presses her lips together.

She’s hiding something.

She knows something about the witch.

Elation battles for dominance over my vexation.

“You do, don’t you?” I ask, assessing her heart-shaped face. “Where is she?”

“I don’t⁠—”

I take a step toward her. “You do. Tell me where she is.”

Her lips pull back in a dangerous snarl as challenge sparks in her gaze. “You cannot come into my brother’s tavern and demand things from me, Supreme Riven,” she hisses. “My answer is no.”

Perhaps I’ve misjudged the nymph. Maybe she isn’t all bark.

The Heart of the Forest has an unexpected bite to her.

She turns away from me, and I blurt out, “Avaline, please.”

I regret the words the moment they burst from my lips.

Begging.

Shame pierces me sharper than any blade.

“Fine. You have five minutes,” she says quietly, so quiet I nearly can’t hear her over the terrible music. “But we can’t talk about this here. Follow me.”

Avaline breezes past me as she maneuvers around patrons. I follow her, with Carver on my heels, as she leads us down a hallway and into a darkened room. Witchlights illuminate most of the cramped space, save for a patch of shadows in the corner.

Carver shuts the door behind us, and the sound of music and laughter is immediately muted. Some kind of charm, I’m sure. My ears ring, then adjust to the silence, and I fix my focus on Avaline as she moves a basket of fruit from a crate so she can perch atop it.

“Tell me what you know, Avaline,” I prompt.

“Tell me why you have reason to believe this witch you speak of is real?” she counters, bolder now that we’re in private.

“Because I spent the last six months going through a book of fables and proving that almost every one of its stories is rooted in some truth,” I say honestly. She opens her mouth to speak, but I don’t give her the chance. “The only story I couldn’t trace its origins back to was hers. Don’t you find that odd?”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “Okay, then,” she says, picking up a lemon and tossing it from hand to hand. “Let’s pretend she is real. What do you want with her?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It is when it involves my friends,” she says adamantly.

Even as surprise rattles through me, I keep my facial expression neutral.

Carver, however, does not. His jaw slackens. “What? How? I know all your friends, and I’ve never heard you mention Gwyn before.”

She sets the lemon back in the basket and pats him on the cheek. “That’s because she’s Winny to me.”