And yet, despite that, every move he made was also somehow natural. Like he knew this kitchen by heart, like he’d cooked in here before even though he clearly had staff to do it for him. He wiped up a small spill on the counter, and I stared, dumbstruck at the fact that this alien god would ever deign to clean up a mess he’d made.

But he did. And then, frowning as if he’d just thought of something, he levitated the knives from the counter up to a high, high shelf. One I wouldn’t be able to reach even if I stood on this stool.

“As my wife, you will have free range of the castle,” he said, returning to my side and grabbing the pot. “But I’d still prefer you didn’t stab anyone.”

“Your wife,” I said woodenly. I looked down at my hands. When he passed a stone cup into them, I took it on instinct, my fingers closing over the curve. Delicious warmth heated my palms, but I found I couldn’t lift the drink. I just peered downwards at the steaming, milky surface, as if it could give me some magic answer, like something spelled out in tea leaves.

“Do I have to make you drink it?” Wylfrael asked bluntly.

“No,” I said, already picturing the mess it would make if he grabbed my hair and brought the cup to my lips the way he had the first night when he’d shoved that spoon in my mouth.

I managed to do it by simultaneously lowering my head and raising my hands. I took a small sip, shuddered, then sighed. Luscious heat bloomed down my throat, warming me from the inside out. It was the sweetened milk drink that accompanied so many of the meals here, but there was something distinctive about it. It seemed that Wylfrael had a different recipe than the Sionnachans who I assumed normally prepared my meals. It still had that honey-like sweetness, but there was a biting spice, too. Not quite like ginger, but close. I took another sip, already feeling better than before.

Wylfrael watched me drink, leaning back against the crystal counter, his arms crossed, his eyes focused slits. As I worked my way through the drink, he began to speak.

“The only ones who can locate your friends are the stone sky gods at Heofonraed. They are called the Council of the Gods. I also require their assistance in another matter. But they will not hear petitions. In order for either of us to gain access to them and their resources, I will have to join the council and put forth both our cases.”

I lowered my cup, needing all my focus to follow the influx of information.

“In order to join the council,” he continued, speaking with a mundane, matter-of-fact style that made everything all the more surreal, “I require a bride.”

“Why?” I asked.

Wylfrael sighed tightly, as if already trying to determine how much effort to spend on explaining what was likely a long and convoluted story.

“Every stone sky god has one true mate. The one he starburns for and binds his life to. The one he’s meant to marry.”

“And... I’m yours?”

Wylfrael’s mouth flattened harshly, his response cold and cutting.

“No.”

“Then... What? Why? Go find your soulmate or whatever and marry her! Just let me go! I want nothing to do with this!” My head ached, and I took another sip of the fortifying drink.

“I cannot claim my true mate for my own reasons,” he said icily. “But as long as you play your part correctly, no one will know that you are not her.”

“So... it would be a sham marriage?”

Wylfrael’s wings twitched. He rose from where he’d been leaning against the counter and went to the door that led into the entrance hall, as if making sure no one was near. Apparently satisfied, he came back and crouched so that his face was at my eye level.

“Yes.”

The firelight played over the left side of his face while shadow painted the other. In that moment, he had two faces, one warm and distinct, one dark and lit only by the cold blue glow that came from within him. I wondered, sitting across from him, if I had two faces, too.

“So, I’ll pretend to be your wife so you can get into this council, and then you’ll help me track down the other women on the ship? And I’ll be free?”

The two split sides of Wylfrael’s face answered in unison.

“Precisely.”

The effect of the light was strange, making him slide in and out of my reality. I wanted to ask him to turn one way or the other, to either be fully in the shadow or fully in the light.

But instead, I asked him something I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking about until it was out of my mouth.

“And you won’t require anything else of me? The things one would expect in a marriage. You won’t-”

“Love you?” He gave a mirthless, scraping laugh. But there was a discordant note in the sound. Like something in my question had unnerved him.

“I’m not asking about love,” I said archly. “That’s obviously not even part of the equation. I’m asking about physical relations.”

His nostrils flared slightly, but otherwise he went very still.

“I require only that you behave in such a way as to convince anyone around us that the bond is true between us. No one, not even the Sionnachans who are loyal to me, must know that this is false. This will mean some displays of affection, some touching, but likely nothing close to what you would deem relations.”

I tried to imagine it. Wylfrael touching me to imitate affection instead of power or control. What disturbed me was that I didn’t have to try very hard to picture it. I only had to call back to some of the odd, still moments we’d shared, when he’d stroked me tenderly, as if searching for something, sliding his thumb along my cheek or down my bruised arm.

Well, if more of that sort of touching was required, I supposed that wouldn’t be too terrible. He was already doing that. And it beat getting ordered around and grabbed.

A smile unfurled on my face as I realized just how much control a bargain like this could give me.

“You won’t be able to tell me what to do anymore,” I said. “You won’t be able to bark orders at me or confine me to my room. You can’t do anything that would make the Sionnachans think something is wrong between us. You’re supposed to – what is it? Starburn? So, you have to act like you’re in love with me.”

An elated lightness expanded in my chest. I wasn’t the only one who had to play a part in this ruse – so did he. And in doing so, he stripped himself of so much of his hold on me.

A muscle feathered in his cheek.

“I am aware.”

I decided not to get too smug, not to revel in this fact too obviously. I figured there was a good chance that if I annoyed him too much, he could just send the Sionnachans away and then he’d be able to treat me however he wanted all over this castle without a care for who saw.

“What kind of timeline are we working with? Can we go see this council tomorrow?” Now that I knew freedom, and my friends, were within reach, I couldn’t stand to stay here. But Wylfrael brought my hopes back down to the ground quickly.

“Tomorrow? Certainly not,” he scoffed. “I have to be sure you can succeed in your role before we attempt to go before the council at Heofonraed. Your first real test will be seventeen days hence, at the gathering of the gods.”

“Seventeen days? That long?” I asked, deflated. Almost three weeks as his fake wife, and we wouldn’t even see the council until after that.

Wylfrael gave me an odd look.

“You mortals always astound me with how you perceive time.”

“Yeah, well, when you don’t have much of it, you don’t want to waste it. Especially not with the wrong person.” I glared meaningfully back at him, but he merely smoothed a hand over his hair, unruffled.

“There are many things you do not understand that I must weigh in this,” Wylfrael said, lowering his hand. “Many things that I must balance. I cannot rush this – we must both be ready. But I also cannot wait too long. There are certain signs that could eventually appear and prove that I am not truly mated.” He looked down at his glowing arms and then back at me. “I also do not want to give Rúnwebbe too much of a chance to gather whispers about our plans.”