Ryn shakes his head and pushes his hands into his pockets.
I turn around. “Why not?”
He lets out a long breath before answering. “Think about it, V. Does any monarch have the right to live forever? They already get to rule for hundreds of years; isn’t that enough? It doesn’t seem right to have the same queen forever. It doesn’t seem right for anyone to live forever.”
I look down at my hands, considering his words. I’ve never really thought about it before, but I suppose he’s right. “Well, what are you going to do with the necklace?”
“I don’t know. Destroy it, I guess.”
“And what,” I say gently, “makes you think you have the right to destroy it?”
He looks away, rubbing his thumb against the door frame. When his gaze returns to me, there’s humor in his eyes. “Has anyone ever asked if the pants you wear cut off the circulation of blood to the lower half of your body?”
The sudden change in subject throws me. I stare at him, wondering if his ridiculous question is a joke. He stares back. Apparently not. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever been asked that.”
“Oh.” His eyes move down, brushing over my body before moving up again. “It’s just that I’ve always thought they seemed a little tight.”
My face heats up at the thought of Ryn examining my legs. I grab my sparkly dress from the bed and turn away from him to hang it over the back of the chaise longue. “They’re not tight, Ryn, they’re super stretchy. That’s why I wear them all the time; they’re great for training and fighting.” I turn back to him with arms crossed over my chest. “And how exactly is this important?”
“It’s not.” He pushes away from the door frame. “Shall we get started with Mission: Exploration?”
“Yes, please, let’s get started.” I head past him into the corridor while he closes my door. I’ve been desperate to search the palace all day, and I’m not going to bed until I’ve found my mother’s hiding place. “If anyone asks, we’re just taking an evening stroll.”
“Right,” Ryn says, “because no one said we weren’t allowed to do that.”
“Exactly.”
“So, do you have even the faintest idea where to start looking?”
“Yes, sort of.” We head down the stairs. “My father remembered my mother saying something about a lake or pool that has a stone structure built near it. He said she learned an architecture spell and created a small room concealed in the stone. You know, like how our homes are concealed within trees? And she left some kind of sign or symbol nearby that would help a person open it.”
“Okay, that information would be helpful if it weren’t for the fact that we passed about five hundred pools on our tour of the grounds today.”
“Is that all? I’m sure I counted six hundred.” I laugh and dodge out of the way as Ryn catches water spilling down from the mermaids’ hands and tries to splash me a second time.
“Fine, perhaps I exaggerated just a tiny bit.” He shakes his hands dry as his eyes slide over my shoulder and widen. I turn to see what he’s looking at. A male faerie, his head bowed as if deep in thought, comes toward us through one of the many arches on the open side of the vast room. He looks up, catches my gaze, and freezes. All color drains from his face.
If I could see my own face, I’d probably find a similar look of shock. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t even think properly. Because the man standing beneath the archway, the man with yellow-gold eyes and streaks of the same color running through his chestnut hair, is my father.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A beat of frozen silence passes between us. Then he turns and runs back out to the grounds, disappearing into the darkness of the night.
“Wait!” I shout. I take off after him, but Ryn grabs onto my shirt and pulls me back.
“What are you—let go of me!”
“Stop, Violet. Just think about this for a second.”
“What’s there to think about? That’s my father!” I scream. “Let me go!”
“How?” Ryn shouts, shaking me. “How can that be your father? You saw his body. You watched him float away under the Infinity Falls. So did I.”
I sag against Ryn in defeat as I realize the truth. Of course it isn’t my father. It isn’t possible. But for one tiny moment I wanted so badly to believe that it was. “Shapeshifter,” I whisper. That’s the only explanation. Some shapeshifter has taken on my father’s form.
“It must be,” Ryn says quietly. “I’m sorry, V. I didn’t want you running off after him and having your heart broken all over again.” He squeezes my arms in a comforting gesture, then rubs his hands up and down them.
Ryn is right. The man isn’t my father. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know who the hell he is and why he can’t use his own damn form to get around in. I take a deep breath, bring my heel down hard on Ryn’s foot, and tear out of his grasp.
“Violet, stop!”
But I’m already sprinting across the grass after the shadowy figure of the man. He runs down a hill, leaps over the cushioned chairs in the small blossom-laden pavilion we had tea beneath earlier, and heads into a copse of trees. I rush after him, but I realize once I’m surrounded by trees that there’s no path to follow, and I can’t see him anymore.
“Where are you?” I shout. “What are you afraid of? Come out and face me, you two-faced shapeshifter!” I search the darkness, twisting around as I weave through the trees to make sure I don’t miss a single shadow or movement. But when I reach the other side of the copse, I’ve found no one. The grounds spread out around me, still and quiet. He can’t have disappeared through the faerie paths because doorways can’t be opened here at the Seelie Court. So he must be really good at hiding. And running.
My hands seem to be shaking. I ball them into fists as I stomp back through the trees, across the grass, and up the hill. I wish I’d never seen him. Yes, it’s suspicious that there’s a guy running around pretending to be my father, but if I hadn’t seen him, I wouldn’t have all these memories swimming painfully to the front of my mind. I’d be happy and ignorant on my own little exploration mission instead of feeling like—oh hell—like I just lost him all over again.
I find myself standing in front of my bedroom door blinking tears away. I place my hand against the wall and take a deep, shuddering breath. All the pain I felt when he died is threatening to resurface, and I do not want that. I didn’t want to feel it then, and I don’t want to feel it now.
I open the door and see Ryn sitting on the edge of my bed. I cross my arms over my chest as he stands. “He got away because you wouldn’t let me go.” My voice is quiet, but I can hear the anger simmering beneath the surface. Half an hour ago I wanted to do stupid things like run my finger over Ryn’s lips; now I don’t even want to look at him.
“I was just trying to get you to think sensibly for a moment.”
“I hate you right now.”
“No, you don’t.”
I don’t, but I hate that he’s so sure of himself. I hate that he’s right. I look down at the floor as I say, “I’d like you to leave now.”
He comes toward me. “Please don’t shut me out, V. I want to be here for you.”
I hold my hand up to stop him from coming closer. “There’s no need for you to be here. Okay, so there’s some random guy out there pretending to be my father, and I don’t know why. But that’s all it is. No big deal. It’s not like someone just died.” Oh hell, oh hell, it is like he just died all over again. A sharp pain stabs the core of my being and threatens to make me double over.
“Stop lying, Violet. I know that’s not what you’re feeling, so why don’t you just say what’s really going on in your head.”
“What are you, my freaking counselor?” I back away from him, tightening my arms around my middle. “I won’t talk to Tora about my feelings, and I sure as hell won’t talk to you either.”
“Fine, don’t talk to anyone, but at least admit you’re feeling something inst
ead of going on about how it’s no big deal.”
“I am feeling something! I’m pissed off at you!”
“And?”
“And get out!” I point to the open door.
“No.”
“GET OUT!”
He walks over and slams the door shut. “No. I won’t leave you alone like this.”
“Yes, you will! Don’t you get it? Everyone leaves. My mother, Reed, Cecy, you, my father—and you will leave me again! I’ve been stupid enough to allow myself to care about Tora, but that is it. So you need to leave now. Go!”
He shakes his head.
“I said GET OUT, Ryn!” I shove him hard toward the door, and when he still makes no move to leave, I start pummeling his chest with my fists.
He grabs my wrists and holds my arms away from his body while I do my best to hit him some more. Why isn’t he fighting back, dammit? “That’s more like it,” he says, as though this is the kind of reaction he was hoping for all along.
Furious, I tear my arms out of his grasp. After one last shove at his chest, I cross the room to the en-suite bathing room and shut myself inside. The tears are already falling as I drop down onto the enchanted grass beside the pool and bury my head in my hands. A tremor passes through me. My throat burns. Sobs begin to shake my body.
My father. It looked just like him. He was standing right in front of me, so close he could have enveloped me in his warm, strong embrace, the way he used to when I was afraid of a storm or the children at school had been mean to me.
But it wasn’t him. He’s still dead.
And right now I miss him so much.
“Violet?”
Ugh, why is Ryn still here? Why didn’t I lock the door? I curl further into myself, wrapping my arms around my waist and hoping Ryn will be scared away by the tears. Boys don’t like crying girls, right? This should be his cue to leave.
Instead, I feel him kneel down beside me. “I wasn’t there for you when it actually happened,” he says quietly. “Why can’t you let me be here for you now?”
I don’t cry in front of people. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. Yet here I am, violating my own rules.
“Okay, well, you’re not hitting me anymore, so I’ll take that as a good sign.”
No. No more hitting. But I can’t stop crying, and I can’t see anything except for the blurry outline of my fingers in front of my face. What exactly does Ryn plan to do? Sit here until I cry myself out? If he’s still hoping I’ll open up and spill every thought and feeling torturing me, he’s going to be waiting a really long time.
“I’m sorry, V,” Ryn says. “When the Unseelie Queen locked us up inside my head and I came face-to-face with Reed, it really messed with my head. I can imagine seeing your dad must be doing the same thing to you.”
Messed with my head. That’s one way of putting it.
I feel Ryn’s body shift closer to mine. His arm slides around my shoulders. I suppose he’s waiting to see whether I’ll jerk away and punch him in the face because after a few moments of sitting frozen in the same position, he wraps his other arm around me and pulls me gently against his chest.
I don’t fight him.
No one held me like this when my father died. I suppose Tora would have if I’d let her, but I didn’t. When I slammed the door and yelled at her to leave me alone, she listened. Not like Ryn, who refuses to let me shut my pain away like I’ve always done.
I lean into him and make a decision to stop fighting this losing battle against the tears. Instead, just like when I stumbled away from the Harts’ blazing house feeling sick, dizzy, and in pain, I let go and trust Ryn to catch me.
*
A fluffy white cloud of bed covers envelops me. Deliciously soft. I stretch out beneath the covers and roll onto my back. Morning light filters through the sheer curtain draped over the four-poster bed and wraps everything in a soft golden glow. I remember tears drying on my cheeks as I fell asleep last night, but morning has brought a kind of stillness within me.
I turn onto my other side—and freeze.
Ryn, in all his perfect, sleeping glory, is lying just inches from my face. Beneath my covers. In my bed. Dark strands of hair fall across his forehead, and his lips are parted ever so slightly. He looks as peaceful as I felt a second ago. His eyelids flutter, and I scoot away from him. By the time his blinking gaze comes to rest on me, I’m lying right on the edge of the bed. “Um, what are you still doing here?”
He blinks once more and says, “Well, I said I wouldn’t leave, didn’t I? Then you told me I would leave and, well, I had to prove you wrong.”
He removes one arm from beneath the covers and gives me the kind of grin that melts my insides. Ugh, how does he always manage to look so damn hot, even first thing in the morning? Especially first thing in the morning. I should ask him to leave now, but I can’t tear my eyes from his penetrating blue gaze. Without warning, I’m flooded once again with everything I feel for him. I can’t stamp it down. It’s so much more than I ever thought I’d feel for anyone that it threatens to overwhelm me. I can’t understand why these feelings aren’t exploding from every pore of my body and showering the room with warmth, joy and giddiness.
“Violet,” Ryn says quietly, his expression changing to one I can’t read. His eyes search my face as he moves a little closer to me. My heart starts jumping erratically. “I need to tell you s—”
“VioletVioletVioletVioletViolet!”
I jerk upright in fright and look around. Dashing across the bedroom floor is my little purple mirror. It stands on the floor below me, shrieking my name and jumping up and down on legs so tiny that it has absolutely no hope of ever getting onto the bed.
“What the flip?” Ryn says.
I reach down and grab the mirror; Tora’s face is visible in the shiny surface. I touch the glass. “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” she says. “Did I wake you?”
“Um, sort of.” Not exactly.
Tora pushes hair off her forehead. “I convinced Raven to go for an early morning run through Creepy Hollow with me. She can barely speak now, so I thought I’d check in with you instead.”
From somewhere behind Tora, Raven says, “Just . . . catching my . . . breath.”
Beside me, Ryn flops back down onto his pillow. “Flip, that thing nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Tora gives me a curious look. “Was that Ryn I just heard?”
“No.” I angle the mirror away from Ryn to make sure he can’t be seen.
Raven, her face sweaty and her cheeks flushed, pokes her head over Tora’s shoulder. “What is Ryn doing in your bedroom this early in the morning?”
“It was nobody,” I say while I push Ryn toward the edge of the bed with my foot. “And I thought you were supposed to be catching your breath.”
“All caught.”
“I hate to have to be the parental figure here,” Tora says, “but I don’t think it’s appropriate for you and Ryn to be sharing a bed.”
Ryn snorts. I give him a kick. Raven pulls back and looks at Tora. “Right, like you really have a leg to stand on in that department.”
An awkward pause passes before I say, “What are you talking about, Raven?”
“Oh, hasn’t Tora told you about the guy at the London Guild? The guy she spent so much time with when—”
“Okay, that is really not important right now, Raven,” Tora interrupts. But clearly it is because her cheeks are turning pink and she won’t look at me.
“Tora, are you serious?” I ask. “You’ve been hanging out with a guy? That’s great. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to—”
“Okay, like I’ve already said, it’s really no big deal, and we don’t need to talk about it right now. I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing at the Seelie Court, and obviously you’re fine, so Raven—” she glares at Raven before looking back at me “—and I are going to go now. Okay? Have fun.”
“Wait, I wanted to ask you about—”
“Bye!”
“—the Guild,” I finish. But she’s gone. Her image vanishes from the mirror, and I see myself instead, complete with bed hair and a confused expression. The mirror folds its tiny arms over its glass surface and lies still in my palm. Well, I’m not quite sure what that was all about, but Tora is definitely getting the third degree when I get home.
“So,” Ryn says. “A mirror that stalks you until you answer it. And here I thought the only faerie technology you were interested in was Stone Age amber.”
I give him a withering look. “It was a gift, Ryn.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but a knock on the door silences him. “Miss Fairdale?” the person outside the door calls. It sounds like the serving woman who read out my schedule yesterday. “I’m just checking that you’re awake and ready for breakfast.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I call back. To Ryn I say, “Hurry up and get out of here. We’re going to be late.”
“Do you need any help, Miss Fairdale?” The doorknob moves.
“No, no, I’m fine, thanks,” I shout hurriedly. I doubt the Seelie Court would approve of Ryn being in my bed any more than Tora would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Breakfast is a picnic beneath a bower of trees that sprinkle us with the occasional handful of star-shaped yellow flowers. Very pretty, until they begin landing in the food. Afterward, we’re sent to observe the Royal Guard running through a few training exercises, which is when Ryn and I manage to escape to do some more exploring. I’m still a little high on all the not-just-friends feelings coursing through me, and it seems to be resulting in some reckless behavior. Like happily wandering around the palace grounds when we’re clearly not supposed to be doing that right now.
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