by Ryan Graudin
The girl in the bathroom mirror glares at me, eyes burning emerald, like Saint Elmo’s fire. Copper hair sweeps elegant around her neck, like a foxtail, curling just past her shoulders. Her face is a contradiction: soft, murmuring angles, ready to become a snarl at a moment’s notice.
The longer I stare at this reflection, the harder it is to see the difference between human and Fae. I look so very much like one of them.
And now I feel like one too.
He’s in the room behind me. Asleep under a mound of downy covers. I’m so aware of every breath that cycles through his body, the presence at my back.
I look hard at my lips. Both fragile and full, like the blooming, spidery letters of Edwardian script. A piece of him is still there, smoldering with memories of that kiss. The kiss that collapsed all the air from my lungs, took me up to the nest of the stars and down to the molten core of the earth. The kiss that changed everything.
I should have seen it coming, in the hand-holding, the occasional tingle of his touch. The laughter. Any human girl would have seen the signs, read them for what they were. But there was too much sickness, too much danger for me to even notice what’s now undeniably obvious.
I’ve become attached. What I thought of as protection, as being a guardian companion, was all along something else entirely. . . .
I bite my bottom lip hard, teeth piercing rose-quartz skin.
It’s not the kiss that scares me. It’s the fact that I want more. I want to kiss him back.
My duty as a Frithemaeg, my existence, is to keep the blood magic safe. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s who I am: this pledge I made at Mab’s feet so long ago. Anything beyond that is an affront to my magic, my essence.
And yet . . . I see the reflection of the door; the room beyond is a charcoal sketch, revealed in shades of gray. Through the dim shapes I can make out the lump in the bed that is Richard.
What if Mab was wrong about the taboo; staying hidden and apart? What if things are supposed to be different?
And maybe, probably, he didn’t even mean the kiss. I’ve seen it so often, humans with heightened emotions, doing things they don’t mean. Things they regret. It could be that Richard was drunk on grief. That our lips touching was nothing more than a way out, his escape.
It doesn’t matter what he meant. Or how these feelings carve like a riptide through me. It doesn’t matter because nothing else will happen. It can’t.
Blood wells, staining the edge of my teeth, running red through the shallow crevices in my lip. I stand straight, dab the hollyberry stain from my mouth.
I’ll keep guarding Richard. We won’t kiss again—no matter how badly I might desire it.
Eleven
“We’ve arranged for a press conference at the end of the week. Your speech is being written as we speak, but you’ll have to be prepared to answer the press without a teleprompter. Can you handle it?” the prime minister asks from his seat across the wide oak table.
The prince is ringed on every side with important figures of British politics. Parliament members, the prince regent, and his narrow-eyed mother all wait for an answer.
“I’ve given speeches before.” Despite the steadiness in Richard’s voice, his hands don’t stop twisting under the table.
The past hour has been a painful session of details. What Richard has to wear, what he has to learn, who he has to learn it from. Letters, banquets, charity events. How to deal with Parliament. How to handle foreign diplomats. Richard has taken in all of the information with never-ending nods.
I’ve watched it all from the far side of the conference room, seated just out of the prince’s view. This action is just as much for my sake as it is to keep Richard from glancing my way, being distracted. All morning I’ve caught him staring: those hazel irises darting away with intentional quickness.
I’ve done a good bit of staring myself. Richard’s appearance is the same: sculpted cheekbones; tousled, wet-sand hair; eyes like almonds; phantom traces of freckles over the bridge of his nose. But something is very, very different.
It’s like a gear inside me has shifted. I can’t look in Richard’s direction without thinking of the burn on my lips. And when that memory comes over me, the fire spreads, a flush comes to life over my arms, the top of my chest.
I’ve spent the whole day with my arms crossed and my hair fanned out, trying to hide it.
“It’s different now.” His mother breaks her tight-lipped grimace to speak for the first time. Her hands are in front of her, wrapped around a teacup. Her grip is so tense, with tendons and bone bulging through drawn skin, that I’m afraid the blue-willow china might shatter. “This speech is unlike any of the others you’ve given.”
“You mean now that I have something to say?” Richard cuts her off. “Now that Dad’s dead and I have to take his place?”
The regent, Richard’s uncle, clears his throat. “I think what your mother is trying to say is that a lot of people will be watching you, Richard. You should keep that in mind while you prepare.”
The prince’s answer is short, tart. “I can handle it.”
“Then that answers that,” the prime minister says. “We’ll send some trainers to Kensington to help coach you before Friday.”
“Buckingham. I live in Buckingham now.”
A cloud of confusion wisps through the old politician’s eyes as he processes Richard’s correction. “Ah yes. Forgive me. Things have changed so quickly.”
I look over at the prince, letting the truth of the prime minister’s words color my view. Yes. Things—and Richard—have changed quickly. The prince is morphing, in that strange stage between caterpillar and butterfly.
Only time will tell what he will truly become.
Richard spends much of the week getting trained, groomed for the public like a prime show dog. When Friday arrives, he’s more than ready. He’s rehearsed his speech so many times that he’s memorized its eloquent, carefully penned words. He recites it with a convincing, earnest air. One that will make the kingdom fall in love with him.
But he looks sick as he stares into the gilded floor-length mirror. He fumbles with the top button of his collar. It slips through his fingers and a swearword escapes his lips, all syllable and punch.
“Need some help?”
He seeks out the echoes of my face in the glass, eyes weighed down with pleading. I walk up behind him and grab his arm. He doesn’t protest as I turn him toward me and secure the button with one swift movement. This is the closest I’ve been to him since that evening in Hyde Park. In many ways I feel like a mouse dancing on the edge of a trap, trying to catch just a taste of cheese. Tempting fate.
Being this close, I can feel his terror. It pulses off of him in shocking, uneven strikes.
“Are you okay?” His face is unusually pale. Sallow, even. Before I really know what I’m doing, my fingers leave the buttons and move up to stroke his cheek.
He shakes his head. “I’m not ready. I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this.”
“I’m not.” It’s so nice to be touching him again. I let my hand linger against his cheek, soaking in the warmth of his skin. The ghost of my reflection, the snarling, dutiful beast, is screaming. Reminding me of the promise I made, the blood on my lips. Reminding me that I’m a Fae, and Richard is mortal. That this is wrong.
You are a Frithemaeg, the Fae inside me growls. You have to let go.
I’ll let go. I’ll stop touching him. Just not yet.
“Let’s go somewhere. Somewhere else.”
I should tell him no. I should force him to walk out those doors and face the room full of cameras and reporters. But I know, deep down, that this isn’t what he needs. Bullying him to the edge of his fears won’t make him any stronger. It won’t mold him into the perfect king.
“Where?” I know, even as I voice the question, that it’s wrong. I shouldn’t be helping him.
There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. I look at my hand, so vivid and ligh
t against Richard’s sun-kissed skin. My pulse starts to gallop. I feel it in my fingertips, beating against the tenderness of the prince’s cheek.
“Anywhere. Just not here,” he says.
Footsteps, faint in the hall, reach my ears. My hand pulls away, lashing back like a bullwhip. My fingers become a fist, curling deep into the unworn skin of my palm. Nails dig, forming bright pink crescent moons in unseen flesh.
We both look over at the door, listening as the muted thuds in the rug grow closer, closer, closer. Finally they’re here. And then the footsteps pass, their tempo fading, growing silent. My fist remains, a bundle of knuckles, joints, and guilt.
No more touching.
Richard looks back at me. Light from the window pulls a rare green-blue sheen into his eyes. They remind me of the ocean, how it looks just after a storm: weathered, eternal.
This is going to be hard.
Twelve
It takes a miracle and a little bit of magic to escape the palace unnoticed. We walk down London’s streets, together but distinctly apart. My hands are tucked into my elbows, and Richard has his shoved into the pockets of his trousers. It took me a few minutes to decide where I should walk. In front of him? Behind? How close? I settle for two feet from his right side, farther from the steely cars that rip past the sidewalk, leaving behind the stench of peeling rubber and exhaust.
The afternoon is gray, overcast. The smell of almost rain swells through the air. Even so, Richard soon starts sweating in his dress shirt. He rolls up his carefully pressed sleeves and loosens his collar.
“I hate this bloody getup,” he mutters, and undoes the button I just fastened. “It makes me feel like a mannequin.”
“It used to be a lot worse,” I tell him. “Fur cloaks and chain mail. You’ve got it good.”
“I think I’d cut a rather dashing figure in chain mail, don’t you?” He laughs. It’s strange how quickly his mood has lightened, away from the palace. The storm clouds that dampened his spirits and lurked behind his eyes are gone. The weight of his father’s death is only a shadow.
“You’d be dashing no matter what you wore.”
“You think so?”
“Stop fishing for compliments. You know you’re sickeningly handsome.” I mean for these words to be teasing, but they betray me. Come out earnest.
“So you’re saying I make you sick?” Richard pulls a wry face and teases back. I don’t know what’s behind his verbal parry. Unlike most humans, he isn’t very easy to read. Even his aura is murky and muddled. It’s difficult to pick out his feelings from my interpretations of them.
“You flatter yourself.” I skirt the subject, like a mouse that’s decided it’s had enough cheese. “The machines do that well enough.”
We turn off of the street, into an abundance of trees and grass. All of the breath abandons my body in a single gust when I realize where we are. Without meaning to, I’ve followed Richard back here: Hyde Park.
“You’re okay, though, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Yes, I’m not old enough to be seriously affected. For now.” I can’t help but shudder. Such talk only serves to remind me of the Old One. Of the threat that looms, far more heavy and devastating than a group of rain clouds.
“Does being here help?” He nods at the collage of trees, all bursting into the shades of early summer: mint, jade, emerald, olive, celadon.
So much green. It reminds me of the wilderness. Of the feelings of wholeness and health. It makes the constant nausea at the base of my throat all the more awful.
“As much as it can,” I tell him. “I haven’t thrown up since The Blind Tiger. I’m getting used to the city, I think.”
“That’s why I brought you here, you know. Last time. Figured it would be better than a pub.”
“Much.” All at once I see where this conversation is going. Just like our physical steps, crunching hard on beige gravel, getting closer and closer to that bench.
“Look, I just want to know.” He stops and scuffs the ground, calling up clouds of chalky dust. “Why did you stop?”
“Stop what?”
“You know . . . our kiss.”
I try to keep walking, but Richard stays anchored. Soon there’s a haze of gravel particles roiling through the distance between us. We’re up to our knees in it.
He goes on, trying his hardest to kill the silence I’ve settled into. “There was something there. I know you felt it too. Why did you stop?”
There’s an ache. An emptiness inside me I didn’t really know about until now. Has it always been here, waiting for this one moment to show me how much I don’t have? My mouth falls open, hoping to let it out.
But all that escapes me is more wordlessness.
Richard watches, relentless. “You’re different from all the other girls. . . .”
“That’s because I’m not a girl!” The words explode out of me like some triggered land mine. Hot and piercing. They rain on the prince like shrapnel. “I’m your Frithemaeg, Richard! My job is to protect you . . . nothing else!”
“But you felt it, didn’t you?” He doesn’t give up. Doesn’t flinch. “Just tell me you felt it too!”
Those eyes, I feel them on me, staring through darkened lashes. And I’m sure he knows the truth, sees it rising in the blood just under my skin.
Stupid human face. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“It doesn’t matter what I felt,” I say.
Richard looks on the verge of a smile, ready to chase the matter with the complete dedication of a hound pursuing a fox. But his mouth stays straight, set. “Damn.”
He’s not talking to me. I know this because his gaze has shifted, its arrows no longer cracking my breastbone. “What?”
The prince nods over my shoulder, and I immediately understand. Just a few yards away, lurking by a wildly untrimmed hedge, are men with cameras. Their shutters click with bursts as rapid as machine-gun fire. I’d been so caught up in the heat of the moment, the tangle of emotions cocooning me in, that I hadn’t felt them coming.
Richard stiffens. “They can’t see you, can they?”
I check my veiling spells. They’re altered so only Richard knows my presence. All the camera lenses see is the prince, walking through the trees, talking to himself.
“I’ll take care of it.” I face the paparazzi, trying to work out the spells I’ll need to erase the memories in their minds and on their cameras.
Before I can weave the spells, every single photographer stands straight, turns, and jogs away.
“Nice work,” Richard says. “Wish that would happen every time.”
“I—I didn’t do that—” The air thrums with magic: a banishing cast that isn’t my own.
I don’t fully sense the other immortal’s presence until it’s too late. The bushes at Richard’s side shudder, and a long arm, pale as larvae, bursts through the leaves. A knife-edged cry leaves the prince’s throat as the attacker drags him back into the towering hedge.
I waste no time. A wordless spell rips through my arm into the bushes. There’s a shudder and a high, grating wail. The hand retreats into the flaming leaves. Richard stumbles forward, eyes wide.
The unearthly keen stops; the only sounds are the light snaps and hisses from the fire. The bush is a torch, blazing, its leaves curling into tiny black scrolls.
A Green Woman bursts out, gold-strung hair radiant with a halo of my fire. She lunges, a terrifying beauty wreathed in flame, fingers gnarled and teeth bared.
The rush of magic is magnificent when we collide. The Green Woman’s power, so foreign, yet familiar at the same time, jolts through my bones. It buzzes between my joints and behind my teeth, leaving a slight burning taste on my tongue.
“Blodes geweald!” I manage to shout just before her hands find my throat.
The soul feeder’s grip is strong, trapping air inside my windpipe—stopping any spells from being spoken. The white burn of my own magic wraps around my neck, eating away at my skin. My failing arms rise to cl
aw her face, only to be singed by the flames there. The Green Woman doesn’t seem affected by the fire that swallows her. There’s a shield between her and my spells—its magic tastes different from the Green Woman’s. It’s far older and richer, like a honey-gold mead poured over vinegar. It reams through my senses, brimming power and shock: the protection of the Old One.
A sharp kick loosens my opponent’s grip, if only for the slightest second, and I scream a well-chosen word: “Adwæsce!”
The flames wither into nothing. My neck no longer feels like pins and needles are being jammed through my veins. I twist, thrash, flail. Try to get away from the Green Woman before she can speak again. Her face is clear now, unmarred by flames, her lips managing a grim smile.
“I see you did not take our warning, sister. I’m sorry!” As the words leave her lips, the mirage of supple flesh melts away. Beauty becomes a beast, peels back into vein-riddled, charred-parchment skin. Teeth like a shark’s. Bared and ready to tear.
I feel the spell building up inside her. It’s powerful—not meant to hinder or disable but extinguish. She means to end me.
My mind scrambles to find an effective defensive spell. The words, treacherously hidden within the many layers of my memory, don’t come. I’m going to die, and Richard with me.
Shouting, growling fury fills my fading ears. There’s a flash of charcoal suit and human skin; the Green Woman’s withered hands are wrenched from my throat. I cough, sit up. The Green Woman lays only an arm’s length away, paralyzed by shock and the fact that a lanky-limbed man is on top of her. Richard has her pinned to the ground, his face a war mask. The prince just saved our lives.
“Hold her throat!” I scream at him, my voice hoarse under bruising skin. “Don’t let her speak!”
He responds quickly; his long fingers wrap harsh around the creature’s strung, knotty neck. She’s effectively gagged.
I pick myself up off the ground, wasting no time with sore joints as I move over the helpless predator. A spell as horrible as the one locked up inside her cannot be released without a word, so it stays, corroding her soul instead of mine.