All Chapters of TWO CAN PLAY THE FAE GAME : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Victoria Hale learned to smile when she was six.Not a real smile. The other kind. The kind that made adults think you were sweet while you were stealing.She smiled when her mother put the iron necklace on baby Elira. She smiled when her mother bled out on the floor of their apartment because Elara of Starlight refused to share her light. She smiled when the social worker placed Elira — now Elena, with iron on her neck and no memory — in her arms and said, "This is your new sister."She had smiled for twenty-two years.Now, in her loft in Tribeca, surrounded by salt that wouldn't stop melting, Victoria couldn't smile.The circle in Room 412 was gone. Elena had broken it with bare hands. Victoria had felt it like teeth being ripped out. Her nose had bled for hours. Her glamour had flickered. Her human face — the beautiful one — had slipped, showing the black veins underneath.And worse: the bonding. She had felt it at 3:47 AM. A searing gold-white flare across the city, from Brooklyn

Sophia Reyes was not a girl who didn't know things.She knew how to pick a lock with a bobby pin. She knew how to make a portal from a duffel bag. She knew how to turn into a raven and not get shot by humans.And she knew Elena Sinclair since Elena was a baby with iron on her neck."Say it," Elena said. They were in the library of the Ice Palace, a place made of frozen books that whispered when you touched them. Adrian had been called to the war council by his father. Sophia and Elena were alone, except for a thousand watching ice books.Sophia, in her human form, perched on a ladder, black hair with a single white streak — the mark of a familiar who had lost her witch."You already know," Sophia said quietly. "You felt it when I said 'Your Majesty' on the bridge. You knew I knew your mother."Elena's hands glowed, unsteady. Since Julian had been turned into a compass, her light had been flickering — scared, guilty."Elara," Elena whispered. "My mother. You knew her."Sophia dropped d

"Again," Adrian said. Elena cupped her hands. The small star she had made was still floating above the frozen lake, steady, gold. "Smaller," Adrian instructed, walking around her, hands behind back, teacher mode, but his eyes kept dropping to her mouth. "The size of a snowflake. Can you do that?" Elena tried. She thought of Brooklyn snow. Of garden snow. Of Adrian's snow. The star in her hands shrank, but then flared — too much. "Too much love," Adrian murmured, too close again. "You think of me too much." "I am thinking of snow," Elena said, blushing. "Same thing," Adrian said, and Sophia groaned loudly from bench. "Can you two train without flirting? Blood Moon in two days!" Adrian ignored her. "Control, Elira. You control starlight, not the other way. Tell it what to be." Elena took a breath, focused on the spot on Adrian's chest, just under his collarbone, where she knew the black ice curse lived. She had seen it that night in the Ice Palace bedroom, when his leathers w

The Winter Court did not do charity galas.It did Trials.Elena learned this when two ice knights woke her at 5 AM, armor clanking, and said, "The King requests Starlight for judgment. Dress in white. No glow."Adrian was gone. Bed cold. Bond faint — he was blocking her, to protect her, which meant whatever was happening was bad.Sophia burst in, raven feathers in hair, holding a dress that was not the training tunic — it was a gown, white, sheer, made of snow-spider silk that didn't melt, but showed everything."He's doing it early," Sophia hissed. "The Trial. He was supposed to wait until Blood Moon, but Victoria's blood on ice — he says Winter must judge you now, before she comes, to see if you dim."Elena dressed, shaking. The gown glowed faintly when she touched it — Starlight clothes responded.They walked to the Throne Room — not the war council room, but the true throne room, a cavern of ice with a ceiling that was aurora, floor that was black ice, and in center, two thrones:

Almost is worse than never.Elena learned this the night before Blood Moon, when Winter Palace locked its gates, when every fae sharpened ice swords, when King Moros said, "No one sleeps tonight. She comes tomorrow."Adrian hadn't slept in two days. Not because of fear. Because of her.After Kael's test, after Elena healed rot, Adrian had not let go of her hand. Not at dinner, not in council, not in hallway where court stared. Possessive, yes, but also — terrified. Through bond, Elena felt it: tomorrow, Victoria would bring army, hollow ones, blood witches, maybe even Julian's body as battering ram. And soul-bond meant if Elena died, Adrian died.He couldn't endure that.So at midnight, he came to her bedroom — not his, hers, the Starlight Tower that had been empty 500 years but now glowed because she slept there — and stood in doorway, armor off, in black shirt and pants, hair wet, silver eyes tired."You should sleep," he said."I can't," Elena said. She was in white sleep silk, too