Raquelle stared dully at the mirror, and she tossed it into a corner of the tent and rolled over in bed with a huff. What did Mother know, anyway? Who did she think she was, to give orders from so far away, to assume she knew what was going on? Sure, Narissa was powerful -- and sure she'd manipulated a lot of important people -- but she didn't [i]understand[/i]. And she'd called Raquelle [i]stupid[/i], even after the princess had divulged her brilliant plan. [i]Nobody[/i] who calls her stupid can expect her cooperation. In teenage defiance, the princess seethed and muttered to herself, and she pretended to sleep, determined to do things the way [i]she[/i] wanted to do them, to hell with her controlling mother. She would win Liam's heart, her way, whatever it takes.

---

August breathed through his teeth. His shoulders rose and fell. His fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword, but he dared not swing it; Sam was the thread that trembled delicate and in pain between them. The blue orbs cast a haunting glow on his furious face.

Images flashed through his mind. He could threaten the fairy -- he could strike -- and risk losing Sam forever. He could threaten the fairy's sister, hold her hostage at the edge of his blade -- but that would achieve little but to add to Sam's agony. The Marshal snarled and shifted a foot forward, a stance reserved for the duel, but still he stayed his hand. Sam's tears dripped from her chin, glimmering in the lights. So many lives lost. [i]So many lives.[/i] Not hers.

"I will give you my weapon," he barked, and even before he'd finished speaking the fairy was laughing at him. He had to bargain so much higher -- but what did he have to give? What did he have that could possibly be worth Sam's life? He watched her vacant face -- not long ago it had been smiling, a brightness in the dark. Now, and forever more it would be empty. He wouldn't let that happen.

"I will give you knowledge," he growled, and he raised his voice above the fairy's renewed laughter. "My memories! Everything I've ever known, my past, you'll have it."

The fairy prince only smiled at him, smug.

August studied him. He stood straight, his expression like stone. "My future, then." His smirk was cruel and bitter. "Everything I will do, everything I will become, will be yours. Experience in this world is the one thing you can't have, isn't it? You're tethered to the fairy roads and the moonlight, forced to wait for what you want to wander into your traps. Live through me. I'll trade you my right eye -- its sight will be yours."