by Ryan Graudin
“Go on! Leave again! I know you want to! Why don’t you just let them take me and be done with it? At least they’ll put me out of my bloody misery!”
Richard’s words are like punches in my gut. Pointed and perfectly aimed.
“It wasn’t my choice to leave you! I was called away! It’s no excuse for you to get wasted.”
“That’s just what I need. One more person in my life telling me what to do! Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?” Richard aims a stern kick into the base of the pool table. The force of his foot causes the pool cue to shudder and fall to the carpet.
Silence, terrible and great, engulfs us both as we stare at the solitary stick.
“You didn’t mean that.” I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice. It stains everything inside me. “You don’t want me to leave . . . do you?”
For a terrible second, I think his answer will be yes. That Richard will banish me from his life. I hadn’t realized, until now, just how much such a rejection might hurt.
“Would you leave me?” He turns the question back on me. Under the greenish light above the pool table, his eyes have no color. They’re black as dead coal. “Wipe my mind clean so I never knew you?”
“If . . . if that’s what you want.” It feels like someone else is saying this. Someone who isn’t unsteady. Ready to collapse.
“No,” he says. The word is solid and sure. “I want you to stay.”
Richard looks around the room, as if seeing it fully for the first time. An ashtray of half-finished cigars smolders in the corner, spitting out secret, smoky messages. Hollowed pints, scattered on every available surface, seem so many they could make an army of blunted glass. Most of them are congregated in Edmund’s corner of the room.
“You’re right. This is stupid. It’s always been stupid, just like Dad said.” Richard avoids my eyes. “It’s just another way to get lost. It’s easy to hide in here.
“I’m trying. I really am.” He goes on, trying to swim his way out of this reeking, ash-filled cave. “But it’s too much. It’s all just been too much. Dad’s death. The expectations. Everyone wanting something. I didn’t ask to be the oldest! I didn’t ask to be made king!”
No king does. I want to tell him this, but my lips stay shut.
“And I don’t want to think about it. I don’t. All I want is to run and be somewhere else. But it doesn’t help. Even when I’m here doing all this . . . something’s still missing.”
Richard’s words wrap tight around me, carry me elsewhere. And I’m back in the castle ruins, face to the stars, wondering how I’ll ever be whole again.
“It’s just that, the only thing that’s been keeping me sane since Dad’s death is having you around. And when you were just gone . . . I—I don’t know. I just kind of lost it. I made an arse of myself.”
Something behind his words causes me to flinch. I know it’s the memory: the last exchange between father and son, the challenge that he’ll never be good enough. My accusations can only remind him of that awful, last morning with Edward.
Yet as terrible as he surely feels, I feel worse. There’s a sickness inside me separate from the machines. It writhes with a life of its own. I want, more than anything, to get rid of it.
“We have something.” My words are uncontainable, like vomit. “Do you know what I’ve risked showing myself to you? To get close to you? If Mab knew about you, about us . . .” I’m unable to finish. My chest feels raw and bleeding, as if someone has battered it with a mallet.
“I’m sorry,” Richard says softly. “Please believe that I’m sorry.”
Just like that, the fight is gone, drained out of me. Richard takes slow steps around the pool table, draws closer, until he’s only inches from me. I feel the heat rolling off his body, carrying spices of cologne and that faint earthiness. I close my eyes, but the darkness only makes his scent stronger. My heart claws hard against my ribs.
I know where this is going. How it will end. Lips will touch, carrying me away from the wildness of hill and moor, stitching my fate so much closer to the mortals. If things go wrong I can always erase it, say the simple spell that will make the prince’s memory of me fuzzy at best. The one thing I won’t be able to fix is myself.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Embers. Your being gone was . . . agony. I never stopped seeing your face. That’s my truth.”
Richard’s fingers brush a strand of hair from my face. I open my eyes to find him staring down at me. “You’re like no one I’ve ever known. When you left—I felt it.”
My heart becomes a lion, roaring and beating against its fibrous, fleshy cage. Yearning to be free.
“You’re right. There’s some connection—something between us. I felt it that first time I saw you, your eyes.”
Richard leans down, closing the gap between us, drawing me into him. Our lips meet, smooth and seamless. There’s a nameless desire in the way he kisses me. I feel it rising in me as well, swelling like clear, triumphant notes. He pulls me close, his kiss growing deeper, a never-ending crescendo.
This—this is something else. It reaches deep inside me. Sparks my soul.
We come up for air. Faces flushed, hair disheveled. He’s looking at me, his mouth quirked into a crooked, bass-clef smile. I’m alight under his eyes. Someone breathtaking.
Want surges through me, searing static, burning away all thoughts of Mab and the taboo and who I was before.
I stand on tiptoes and pull his feather-boned cheeks to mine. Freckles press into white-board skin, becoming one. This time our kiss is even fiercer, desperate—raw energy fuels our lips. My fingers tangle, swim wrist deep through Richard’s damp straw hair as I tug him closer. Something inside me rises, builds. Wanting to consume.
His breath is a razor, cutting and quick as he pulls away.
My thoughts are everywhere, a herd of deer startled by gunshot. They take several seconds to gather as Richard steps back. His fingers are close to his mouth; they come away with a tinge of red. Blood.
Dread, heavy and sick, floods my stomach as dozens of memories return. Memories of Fae who’d fallen in love with mortals: of the choice, the sacrifice they had to make to be with their beloveds. Memories I didn’t need, didn’t want, until now. Because Richard was never an option.
Was. My lips still prickle with magic and something else entirely. Does that mean I think he is an option now?
No. Magic and mortals don’t mix. Breena’s right. I’m playing with fire.
But the hole is there, howling. Begging to be filled. Calling out for more of Richard’s touch.
“What the hell was that?” Richard pulls a small handkerchief out of his pocket, cleans his fingers.
“It’s my magic.” My voice trembles under this earthquake of emotions. They rock me back and forth, thrashing between elation and sorrow. “I’m sorry.”
“Your magic?” He looks at me with an eyebrow raised. The handkerchief is crumpled in his right hand; crimson splashes peek through gaps in his fingers.
“I think I got too excited. . . . I don’t know. I’ve never lost control of my magic before.” I cast him a second glance. “Are you okay?”
“You still taste like strawberries.” Pure joy lights his face, melting away all lines of weariness and grief. He leans back into me, warm breath diving down into mine. Our lips connect before I can stop them. His mouth is soft, like down and velvet. It makes all of me unwind.
It isn’t long before my magic strikes again. I feel its wicked, wanting rush and pull away. But not quickly enough.
Richard swears and grabs his mouth.
I back away, hit the edge of the pool table.
When Richard’s hand falls down, I gasp. His bottom lip is fat and shining, as though someone punched it. There’s a thin split down the middle, filled with blood. He pokes it with a tentative finger.
“Don’t.” I hold up my hand. “It’s bleeding.”
“So I take it that wasn’t a one-time thing?” He winces and his fin
ger drops away.
The memories are clearer now, coming into harsh, unmistakable focus. Before the taboo, it wasn’t uncommon for Fae to fall in love with men of flesh and bone. One by one they came to Mab, handing over their magic for the sake of being with a mortal. I never understood why they joined the ranks of such helpless, short-lived beings. Why they handed their bodies over to the rot of the grave, all for the sake of someone else.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s not.”
“Why didn’t it happen the first time we kissed?”
“The magic escalates with the excitement. I guess a single kiss isn’t enough to trigger it. . . .”
“So . . . we can’t . . .” He looks down at the floor. It’s hardwood, polished. My feet are over a board’s length from his.
“If a Fae wants to be with a mortal, she has to become human.”
Magic and my immortality are what I would have to pay in order to really be with Richard. A single, happy lifetime against all the ages and power of the world. The choice should be obvious to any Fae. It should be easy to make.
But it isn’t. Which is why I’m still here.
Richard walks over to the edge of the room and sits on a padded bench. I stay against the pool table, my thoughts consumed by what I’ve just said.
“So if you wanted to be with me, you—you’d have to become human for good?” Richard asks.
“Yes. I would die.” I would pass on into the unknown, just as the other love-stricken spirits gave themselves over to death. Guinevere, Alene, Isidore, Kaelee . . . all faded into the growing sea of mortals, becoming as transient as spring’s first flowers. One burst of glory and then gone.
“That’s not much of a choice, is it?” The prince tries to laugh, but the sound comes out wrong, more like a choke. Sad, gray shadow dampens his face. It hoods his lashes and glazes his eyes.
And I wonder what he’s mourning. Me? The kiss? Being scared and running, always running, away from it?
No, it’s not much of a choice. I shouldn’t have to think twice about it. There’s so much to lose.
Staring at Richard now—curled over himself like a question mark, fist digging into his chin, all of him pensive and full of promise—I can’t help but wonder what’s on the other side. What it would look like to rest and really be in his arms. Wanting nothing.
Just thinking about it makes the jagged missingness inside me echo. It feels wide and forever, like the empty space between stars.
I try to shake off the moment by bringing up another, less tender subject. “I’m sorry I left without saying anything. I didn’t have a choice. I was called away by other Frithemaeg.”
“Where did you go?”
“North. To Queen Mab’s court. When she summons me, I have to leave. Don’t worry, there are other Fae protecting you when I’m gone,” I assure him.
“Will you have to leave again?”
“Probably.” Definitely. “But I’ll return to you as long as it’s in my power.”
Richard walks over to the table and grabs the abandoned stick. He knows that conversation is over. “Are you any good at pool?”
“I’m good at everything,” I tell him.
“Excellent.” He smiles, tosses me an extra pool cue. “I’ve been searching everywhere for some decent competition.”
“Here I am,” I say.
Seventeen
Every word of his new speech is memorized. It rolls off of his tongue, sometimes even in his sleep. But he keeps reading it. Over and over. I’m always close. Listening as the words bore into me, weaving and slow like a river carving through bedrock. I too know them by heart.
“Don’t you think you’ve studied enough?” I ask, looking at the paper in his hands. There are holes, minuscule tears, where the speech has been folded too many times.
“I don’t want to mess it up.” His eyes dart across the neat type, manic.
I reach for the sheet. Its paper is supple and worn, almost leatherlike. I can feel it about to tear under my fingertips. “You won’t.”
“How do you know that?” Richard holds his end of the paper with equal strength.
“It’s not the words that are the problem,” I say, and give the paper a sharp tug. Richard doesn’t yield. It seems that neither of us is letting go.
He looks across the crowd of letters and blank white at me, mouth tight with things unsaid. So many times he’s stared at me like this, since the poolroom. It’s a gaze that makes me want to put up the veiling spell, become invisible to his eyes.
There’s a shiver and buzz somewhere in the prince’s clothing. Mobile phone. The bubble of burn in my throat tells me this before Richard fishes it out of his pocket. I let go of the paper, edge far enough away so the nausea isn’t so sharp.
“Sorry,” Richard says when he realizes what the phone has done. He holds it far in the opposite direction. With the screen facing me I can make out a wan, pixilated version of Edmund.
Richard stares at the picture as it shudders, electric in his palm. It’s not hard to guess what the call is for. Past the yawning windows of the study, the sun is beginning its long dive into darkness. The time when pubs spring to life.
His thumb hovers, then lands decidedly on the crimson button. The screen goes black.
“No more of that then?” I ask, watching carefully as Richard shoves the machine back into his pocket.
“He’s a prat. Always has been. Just took you for me to realize how much of one he is.”
“Really?”
“Well, maybe I always knew. But it’s not the easiest thing making friends when you’re born with a pedigree. When I first went to school, it seemed like I had heaps of pals. But so many of them were just looking for a way in. Muckraking stuff for the tabloids. Every single time. Eventually you just give up looking for real connections . . . because just when you think you’ve made one, a new story appears in the front of The Sun and you get hurt. It’s easier not to care. To get pissed in the corner of a pub.” He echoes his father’s words. “The only person I could ever trust in my life was my sister.”
I try and imagine what life would be like without Breena. Without anyone to talk to or trust. Being the only island in a sea of your own kind. How lonely the waters are when you’re surrounded by them, trapped.
“But now I have you.”
“You trust me?” I ask.
“I used to have a nanny, her name was Louisa. Back when I was very young. I was in her charge. She was supposed to watch every single thing I did. Louisa was usually very good at her job—kept me out of lots of trouble. But there were a few times when she failed.” He holds out his left thumb, where a pearly scar arches just over the knuckle. Then he pulls up the leg of his jeans to show a shiny patch of old hurt on his shin. “The first one was a little thing. I was trying to open a can of Coke and sliced up my finger. I think Louisa was even more upset than I was. She even started crying. Begged me not to tell Mum and Dad about it because she’d lose her job. I still don’t think they know about it.”
“What about the other one?” I look at the mess of scar on his leg, hairless and raised. The remains of awful pain.
“After the Coke can, Louisa watched me like a hawk. I was getting older, nine, and I started really hating it. Mum was having a garden party one night and she let us kids come. I managed to run away from Louisa and get off on my own. It was great fun for a while, until the dog came.” Richard gives the scar a slight prod. “Mum used to have a sheepdog. A big thing, all silver and white. Something got into it that night. Maybe it thought I was about to kick it. I don’t know. . . . Whatever happened, it got hold of my leg and didn’t want to let go. It was bad.”
“What happened?”
“I had fifteen stitches. Louisa got fired and then she went to the media and did some huge tell-all. I never saw her after that.”
“That’s . . .” I try and think of what to say. “Not a happy story.”
“You’re not like Louisa, Embers. You’ve saved me every time.�
�� Richard lets his trouser leg drop. “That’s why I trust you.”
“How do I look?” Richard stands in front of the mirror again, tall and ramrod straight, like all those portraits of his predecessors.
I take in the picture of him, immaculate in his Turnbull & Asser suit. “Very mature. Very pre-kingly.”
“That’s what I’m going for.” He tugs down the front of his suit, fixing it just so on his shoulders. His stare slips to the door, eyes flooding with apprehension.
“You’re not thinking of running, are you?”
“I can’t.” He shakes his head, his hair spilling over the edges of his face. “The crown’s coming to me whether I want it or not. I’ve always known that—from the first day I went to Wetherby, and the other children treated me differently.” He takes my hand. His palm feels so warm and right in mine. Reminding us both of the impossibilities, the worlds between us. “Stay close please. I need you close.”
“I’ll be with you the whole time. Someone has to block you from the exits,” I tease.
“Ha-ha!” His fingers squeeze my hand. “The least you can do is give me a good-luck kiss.”
The memory of blood on his lips and my awful, unlifting guilt flash back through my mind. I know that if I kiss him, if I allow myself to get caught up in the tenderness of his touch, the consequences could be even worse.
“Just one kiss,” Richard urges. “For me.”
“What . . . what if I get blood on your nice suit?” It’s a stupid defense. The only one I can fumble up in such short, breathless seconds.
“So be it,” he whispers, and bends down.
It’s so easy to lose myself in the feel of him. His tongue just barely grazes the edge of my lips. My hands slide up around his neck, anchor in his shaggy hair, pull him closer. With a single finger he traces the ridged pathway of my spine all the way down to the small of my back. The touch discovers shudders I cannot control.
It’s like being in another universe, a time apart. Nothing else in the world matters but how he’s touching me, making me move.
Just as it’s Richard who begins the kiss, so he ends it. He pulls away and I gasp, fighting the intense need to bring him back to me. But I feel traces of magic stirring like a lioness at a zoo, pacing just behind the glass, waiting for it to shatter. This feeling is enough to bind me back, to keep me from consuming him whole.