by Ryan Graudin
“Shame,” he says. Something in the depths of his voice tells me he’s suppressing a smile too. “Guess I’ll just have to bear it.”
He walks out of the kitchen, leaving the lights on and the open whiskey bottle on the counter. I follow a few steps behind, trailing him into the hallway. Richard doesn’t get ten paces before he glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m still there.
The prince’s bedroom feels different now that I’m unveiled. Like I’m more aware of the humanness of it. The mess. No maids are allowed to clean here and it shows. T-shirts, both dirty and not, carpet the floor. A vintage turntable sits in one corner, the shelf beneath it piled with stacks of vinyl records. Their covers match the posters of classic rock bands which deck the walls alongside original oil paintings. One corner of the room even houses an electric guitar. Its surface is a shiny candy-apple red, made irreplaceably valuable by some guitarist’s silver Sharpie signature.
“Sorry,” the prince apologizes as he wades through the chaos of cotton, cashmere, and wool. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I’m not company.” I step through the piles of dirty laundry to get to the window ledge and the armchair placed so conveniently beneath it. “Don’t clean on my account.”
“Right.” Richard drops the pile of T-shirts he’s been collecting and undoes the final row of buttons on his shirt. “I’m going to, uh, clean myself up a bit.”
I wave him forward. “Go on then. I won’t go into the bathroom. Just leave the door open so I can hear.”
“I sing in the shower,” he calls back as he disappears behind the door. “You might not like it.”
Lulling sounds of water hitting marble rise into the air. I close my eyes and listen—my mind drifts back to the moors and the light patter of raindrops against clumps of grass.
It’s all out. My name, my existence, everything. This thought is enough to bring back the nausea I’d almost forgotten about while I spoke with Richard. What am I doing? Just a few days ago I was telling Breena how much I wanted to go back to the Highlands . . . but I know if this failure to hold a simple veiling spell gets out, then all the progress I’ve made in Mab’s court will vanish.
But if any Fae found out about what I’ve done tonight, of the taboo I’ve broken . . . I swallow and my heart rattles like hail against a tin roof. If anyone became suspicious—if word managed to get back to Breena—or even worse, Mab—then my career in the Guard would be finished. I could be banished to the Isle of Man, or worse, exiled altogether. To be cut off from Mab’s court meant a life alone, unprotected by alliances and order. Not many outcasts last long in the world of free magic and scavengers.
I’ll keep it to myself for now. Wait until the threat the raven warned us about passes. Whatever it is. Then I’ll tell Breena.
It’s a thin line I’m walking, here with Richard. I just have to make sure I don’t fall.
But why him? After so many years in the Guard, after so many different kings, queens, princes, and princesses . . . why is Richard the one who makes my veiling spell fail?
I don’t know, and this fact scares me.
Richard emerges like some mythical figure from a billowing steam cloud, a towel hanging from his waist. I divert my eyes as he changes and yawns.
“Good night, Richard,” I murmur, and settle deeper into the armchair. Although I’m comfortable, I’m far from relaxed. My mind and senses are on high alert for the dangers night brings.
“Good night, Embers.”
“It’s Emrys,” I correct him.
“I know.” His words grow weak under another yawn and he collapses onto his bed. “But your hair, it looks like embers.”
I tug a strand flat between two fingers. Embers. I’d never thought of that before. I wind it around my knuckles, tighter and tighter until no more blood can reach my nails.
It’s only when I’m certain he’s asleep that I smile.
Five
Sunlight is just barely cracking through the curtains, bathing small sections of the room in blazing light, when Richard’s eyes finally open. I sit as I have much of the night, the frozen watcher. He rises slowly, peeling the fabric off of his bare chest and sliding his feet onto the lavish rug of Persian warriors and orchards.
He catches sight of me mid-step. He stops, limbs suspended and pupils grown wide: black holes preparing to swallow the infinite.
“You’re still here,” he says finally.
I nod, my first movement since he woke.
The prince wipes his eyes. His knuckles dig deep into the softness of his lids, like he’s trying to fling off the remainders of a dream. When I don’t disappear, he blinks. “So, I didn’t imagine you. . . .”
“You’re awake,” I reply. “And I’m here.”
“So all that stuff about soul feeders is still true?”
“More than ever.”
He cocks his head, those honey-warm eyes still glazed over with the otherness of sleep. “And you’re here to stay?”
As I nod, I feel something freeze inside my chest. I’d spent all the moonlit hours thinking, debating, stretching the facts. There’s too much swirling through my head: the words of the Tower raven, the great taboo Mab put in place so long ago that forbids any interaction with mortalkind, my fizzled spell, and the prince’s role in it all. This path I’ve chosen isn’t the best or the easiest, but it’s the only one left to me.
For now I have to let Richard see.
“Good,” he mumbles.
The word hangs in my mind like an unsaid spell. Good? What does that mean? But Richard offers no clarification. Instead he moves across the room and collects some clothes from an overflowing drawer.
Once he’s dressed, he turns and looks at me. “Since you’re stuck with me all day, I thought maybe we could have some fun with it. Do you eat food?”
“Sometimes. I don’t really need it.”
“Why don’t we have breakfast in the gardens?” Richard squints out the window. The sky between the drapes is a clear and cloudless blue, the kind used in china patterns. “Have a little get-to-know-you chat.”
“I thought that’s what happened last night.” The idea of breakfast with Richard isn’t so bad. As much as I don’t like to admit it, it’s nice having someone looking at me. Talking to me.
But there are eyes everywhere, of younglings and mortals alike. It would be easy, so easy, for us to get caught.
“Are you kidding? There’s no end to my questions.” Richard makes a vain, mirrorless attempt at flattening his bedhead. “What do you say? Is it a date?”
My breath catches. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. . . .”
“Why not?”
“The other Fae don’t know I’ve shown myself to you.” Guilt writhes in my stomach, like a bundle of earthworms struggling to find soil. “It would be a bad thing if they found out.”
“Really?” It takes the prince a moment to register the information. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Fine.” A small sigh escapes me, marking my relief. I’d been waiting for Richard to pursue the matter.
“Great. I’ll tell the staff to set up.”
I remain in my chair as Richard calls a maid and makes arrangements. The rational, Fae part of me is numbed, amazed that I’ve allowed the situation to go this far. At this point, any memory spell I’d have to use on the prince to cover up the past day would be incredibly potent. Noticeable. Breena would know exactly what I’ve done. I can’t back out now.
A petite linen-cloaked table waits for us on the lawn, covered with plates of freshly sliced fruits, eggs, sausage, and toast. An elegant china teapot sits to one side, steam rising from its spout like the breath of a sleeping dragon. Hundreds of roses, in every hue, seduce me with their scent.
Richard jumps a few steps ahead of me and pulls out one of the quaint wooden chairs. “I asked them to set the table for two. . . . I hope that’s okay for your secret keeping.”
“Your staff is quick.” I admire the set
up and take a seat.
“They’re used to my last-minute requests,” Richard admits. “The food always seems to be top-notch anyway.”
He’s right of course. For the first time in a long time, the sight of human food is making my mouth water. The sickness seems lighter this morning, almost forgettable. It lets me pick at the fruit, which is as good as I remember from my last banquet at Kensington—back when Queen Victoria lived here with her widowed mother.
“Where did you come from?” Richard asks as he cuts into a well-cooked sausage link. Its scent, spicy and savory, rolls over the table.
I pluck the leaves off a strawberry, watching them drift down onto the lawn. “In what sense?”
“How were you born? Where do Faeries come from?”
“Do you remember the day you were born?” I ask with a slight smirk. Richard’s birthday stands out in my mind with perfect clarity. I’d been visiting Breena the day his mother’s water broke.
“Of course not.”
“Well, neither can I. My earliest memories are of flying. Over the hills, drinking in the sky, the plains. We don’t look like this when we first appear.” I run a hand down my side to demonstrate. Richard’s eyes follow, tracing every curve. “We’re nothing. Pure spirit form. The older ones find us and teach us how to look like you. Inhibiting, but much more practical.”
The prince leans forward in his chair, meal temporarily forgotten. “How old are you exactly?”
“I appeared a few decades before the treaty of Camelot,” I say, even though I know the date means nothing to him. It feels wrong to cram my age into a number. “But I’m really not so old in the terms of the Fae—I’m not a child, but I’m not old either . . . I’m in between, like you and Anabelle. It’ll be at least another millennia before Mab and her courtiers consider me an adult. But that’s nothing. . . . Some of the oldest Fae took form back when the very roots of the earth were knit.”
Richard stares at me, his fork turning over and over in his hands. There’s still a bit of sausage speared on its tines. “You’ve seen a lot, haven’t you?”
“I suppose. It doesn’t feel like that to me.”
“And magic—you can do it all the time?”
I nod, slow. The garden, everything around us, is so green and full of life, so perfect in this moment. The cool morning light spilling over the prince’s silhouette onto the table. The blue willow teacup at Richard’s wrist. The pair of scarlet-breasted robins rooting for food through the rose bed’s tangled thorns and mulch.
And I realize, for the first time in a long time, that I’m content. Not fighting. Not striving. Not worried. Just content.
“I like you, Embers. You’re . . . how do I put this? I feel like I’ve known you a long time. Like we were meant to meet.”
I look down at my half-eaten strawberry. Some of its tangy, irresistible juice has stained ruby on my fingertips. Something about the way he says “Embers” causes my stomach to seize.
“Maybe we were . . .” The prince trails off, a crooked half smile colors his face.
Before I can answer, I feel another non-magical presence edge into my conscience. I throw a sloppy veiling spell over myself and my plate just in time. A sharply dressed man rounds the nearest flower bed, holding some sort of glowing electronic device.
The assistant taps the hand computer; his fingers dart around at the same frenzied pace as his voice. “Prince Richard, your polo match is in half an hour. The car’s waiting out front.”
“Blast. I’d forgotten all about that. Thanks, Lawton.”
Richard jumps up, his eyes flicker over my seat. From the pinched creases of his brow, I know he can’t see me. It seems that this sudden spell is enough to keep the prince in the dark, though it shouldn’t last long. My piles of skirts, flaming hair, and jade eyes—all of them are hidden.
“You’re still here, aren’t you?” he whispers in my direction.
“What was that, Prince Richard?” Lawton glances up from the glowing screen, his pupils constricted to the size of pinheads.
Richard straightens. “Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.”
Once Lawton is turned away from us, I reach out and pinch Richard’s arm. He jerks away, squealing like a ten-year-old schoolgirl.
Spells are malleable things, like clay on the bottom of a riverbed. It takes only a few words to alter my veiling spell. Richard sucks in his breath when I reappear.
“Try not to talk to me when we’re around others,” I say. “People will think you’re crazy.”
“Can you blame them?” Richard mutters before he takes my advice to heart. He doesn’t say another word to me as he follows Lawton to the car. This doesn’t stop him from glancing. He looks over his shoulder every few seconds and catches my eyes.
He sits close in the car, only inches from me. Heat from his body fringes into mine, making it hard to ignore his presence. I watch out the window for soul feeders and Fae alike, my shoulders tense as we turn onto London’s knot of busy streets.
Richard’s long fingers brush against my hand—a sudden, unexpected touch. Their warmth and the magic of his blood rush up my arm, sending an eerie tingle across my scalp. When I look over I find his hand splayed across the leather, invading the no-man’s-land of the middle seat. His fingers show no sign of movement. No sign that only seconds before they’d hovered over mine.
I cross my arms and wait for the prickle beneath my skin to die. It stays much longer than I’d like, all linger and burn, reminding me of that empty space between us.
Six
The day is hot, with the promise of rain swelling the air. It’s not long before beads of sweat gather on spectators’ faces, dripping past designer sunglasses despite the constant waving of programs. The Ham Polo Club is crowded, its bleachers spilling over with girls clad in the runway’s finest. Most of them giggle when Richard rides onto the field on a striking, all-muscled bay. Their whispers slither and curl to the sidelines, where I’m standing guard.
I keep them at my back, leaning against the white picket fence that lines parts of the field. The air tastes of freshly mown grass and horse—scents that remind me of the countryside. I take them in slowly, allowing the smells to soothe the sickness in my gut, and watch the prince’s game play out.
Richard is a gifted rider and player. His horse bears him well. They flow across the field as a single, fused creature, weaving in and out of the other players with effortless grace. In the hour-long game, the prince scores several goals—summoning large bursts of applause from the female spectators. Some of these mortal girls are quite pretty, revealing even more leg and bigger smiles every time Richard looks toward the crowd.
But his eyes find me every time.
The game ends without interference—both mortal and not. I follow Richard and his team to the stables. They’re flushed with sweat and smiles as they hand their horses off. I hang back at the entrance, half hidden by the door while Richard dismounts and unclips his helmet. His eyes rove through the swarm of glistening horses and busy grooms, searching.
“That game was bloody brilliant, mate!” One of Richard’s teammates—a pale young man with sharp shoe-polish black hair—claps the prince on the back. “Definitely worthy of a celebration. Eh?”
The hit seems to jolt Richard out of his private world. “What was that, Edmund?”
His friend frowns. “I was saying we need to round up some of the gang and celebrate. You know, get a few pints. And a few girls.” Edmund winks and jabs his elbow into Richard’s arm. “The old game. I know London’s not as fun as Eton—but we’ll make do.”
The prince wipes the sweat off of his brow, adding another stain to the sleeve of his polo uniform.
“The old game?” The words fumble in his mouth, sludgy and slow, like he’s saying them for the first time.
“Yeah,” Edmund goes on. His thick charcoal eyebrows rise almost to his hairline. “Did you take a mallet to the head? You’re acting a bit slow.”
“I’m fine. Jus
t thinking.” Richard isn’t looking at his teammate. He’s still searching, eyes wandering the smooth concrete floors of the stables, where flecks of hay and dirt clods wait to be swept by the grooms. “Mind if I bring a friend along?”
“S’long as it’s not that prat McCrady.” Edmund’s nose scrunches into the rest of his painfully white face. “God, I can’t stand him.”
“Not McCrady.” He finds me. It was only a matter of time before Richard rooted out my hiding place, tearing back the shadows by the door. I don’t know if he’s relieved or terrified at the sight. “Someone . . . else.”
“You can bring whoever the hell you want, Mr. Four Goals. Nine o’clock. The Blind Tiger.” Edmund’s hand falls on the prince’s back with another smack. “Be there.”
I stay still by the door, waiting for the prince to make his way to me.
“I guess you heard all of that.” Richard’s long arm waves to where the scene played out. Edmund is on to the next cluster of teammates. His cursing and jostling echoes off the arched ceiling, making every soul in the stable acutely aware of his presence.
“It was a bit hard to miss,” I admit. It’s all I can do to keep the dread out of my face, my sentence. Another night out. More drinks, more dancing, more soul feeders. More awful, pounding machines.
But I can’t say no. Whether I’m visible or not, this is still Richard’s life. I’m just an accessory, part of the backdrop. Where he goes, I go. That’s the way it works.
“You can come,” he offers as if there was some possible scenario in which I might leave him behind. “As your real self, I mean. So Edmund and the others can see you. It would be nice to have a little more solid proof for my sanity.”
My real self. These words slide a knowing smirk across my lips. My real self, my core. The Emrys before mortals. The Emrys without body, without name. She’s a feral thing. All power, magic, and fierceness. Richard and his friends don’t want to see her. They can’t. The creature I used to be—that deep, deep down inside I still am—might kill them.