Ruby let Jack place her arm over his shoulder and help her to her feet. He took her weight and we followed her directions to the bedroom. There was a jar of medicine on her bedside table. I pulled out the stopper and the scent of Fae herbs wafted out. I filled the little wooden measure and after Jack lay her on the bed, I supported her head with one hand and held the liquid to her lips. I pulled off her shoes and tucked the covers around her. ‘Can I call someone for you, Ruby? Your doctor? Or family?’
‘I don’t have family,’ she said drowsily. ‘But there’s a neighbour.’
‘Should we get her?’
‘No, she has a key. She’ll be in soon.’ She closed her eyes but her brow remained furrowed.
I made a picture in my head—Ruby asleep, pain free and dreaming of forests and flowers and sunshine. I pushed the image towards her, felt the power leach from my skin. I dropped to the edge of the bed, my eyes squeezing shut and my hand flying to my forehead as pain shot through my head. Immediately Jack was there, asking if I was all right. I nodded and when the feeling had subsided to a dizzy ache, I opened my eyes, expecting to see Ruby at peace. But she looked just as miserable as before.
A terrible thought occurred to me.
I held my breath as I reached out and tucked Ruby’s feathery silver-white curls behind one ear, releasing the breath in a relieved sigh.
‘You tried to confuse her,’ Jack said, as soon as we left Ruby alone.
‘Tried,’ I said as I trod softly down the shadowy hallway. ‘It didn’t work.’
Jack opened the door—a burst of dazzling sun. ‘Why not?’ he asked, closing it behind us.
‘I don’t know.’
Suddenly Jack stopped, grabbing my arm, his eyes round as full moons. ‘You don’t think Ruby’s Fae do you?’ He knew as well as I did that one faery couldn’t confuse another—unless you were a king of course, or a prince.
‘I checked. Her ears are as human as yours.’
It was late by the time we arrived back in Telophy, and as much as I wanted to go to Olette and tell her Ruby was sick, I knew I’d never get back before dark. Besides, how would I broach the subject? If Melody, Olette’s own daughter, didn’t know about her mother’s friendship with a human, my great-grandmother didn’t want it known.
At dinner that night I couldn’t eat, pushing food from one side of my plate to the other. And when King Telophy stopped me as I left the table, I knew my mood hadn’t been missed. He waited for the others to go, telling Atara he would join her soon.
‘What concerns you?’ he said when she’d left. ‘Is it what passed between us today?’
‘Not that,’ I said, watching my feet.
He lifted my chin with his fingers. ‘Is it your brother? You can tell me.’
I took a breath, hyper aware that my birth parents had gone to great lengths to conceal my whereabouts, and therefore Ruby’s, from the King. But there was kindness in his voice, and I wanted to prove I was prepared to trust him. ‘I’m worried about a friend.’
‘Something I might help with?’
I was about to tell him I didn’t see how when the most wonderful thought occurred to me—I couldn’t help Ruby, but maybe he could. ‘She’s an old lady—a human. A friend of Hilary’s too.’ It wasn’t a lie. ‘She’s sick and … could you go to Earth and help her?’
His eyes widened. ‘I wonder has any king ever had such a request?’
‘It wouldn’t take long, and I’d go with you.’ I’d have to go with him to make sure he didn’t discover who Ruby was to me.
‘And what would you have me do once I get there?’
‘Heal her?’ I said hopefully.
Gently he said, ‘My power is not a cure for human illness, Marla. Nor can it reverse the aging process. If it is her time …’
‘You healed me,’ I said, then more quietly, ‘You tried to heal Hilary.’
‘I gave you my blood, which gave your body the strength it needed to heal itself.’ He continued, his voice filled with regret. ‘I tried to do the same for Hilary … It would have worked had her injury not broken her so.’
I closed my eyes as the nightmarish memories returned.
‘And Hilary was not worn out with age, nor wracked with disease,’ King Telophy said.
My eyes opened. ‘So there’s nothing you can do?’
‘There are things in nature which might ease her pain. And an infusion of my blood might give her strength. But if this human’s body is ready to let go, any interference on my part would only prolong her suffering—which would be cruel.’
I was filled with disappointment. ‘Can you at least take her away from the pain? I tried but it didn’t work.’ Before he could tell me off, I said, ‘I know you said not to, but I couldn’t help it.’
‘This is important to you?’
I nodded. Ruby had been so excited the first time I’d made contact with her, eager to assist in any way she could. In a way, she was the link between my two worlds.
‘I’ll go to her, Marla.’
Somehow I refrained from throwing my arms around him. ‘Thank you, My King.’
‘We will leave after breakfast tomorrow.’
‘Oh, but … tomorrow’s Sunday.’
King Telophy knew my routine—leave Faera soon after sunrise, arrive on Earth in time for breakfast and spend the day with my family. I was about to suggest meeting him somewhere after I’d checked in with Mum and Dad when he said, ‘I will go with you.’
‘Really?’
I couldn’t quite get my head around the suggestion. King Telophy had made a few brief visits to the human world, and he had of course attended Hilary’s funeral. But there’d been so many people at the service, his path hadn’t crossed that of my parents—a fact my father especially wasn’t comfortable with. He had no memory of the worst of King Telophy’s behaviour, but he did recall plenty of suspicion around him. My parents had been wanting to speak with the man whose roof I lived under. I was just thinking it could be a perfect opportunity when King Telophy said, ‘After we breakfast with your human family, we will go on to see this elderly female.’
I could hardly believe it. Was it possible the great King Telophy wanted to know my human parents as much as they wanted to know him?
Chapter Eleven
Dad had a niggling feeling he’d met the King before, but couldn’t say when or where or under what circumstances. Mum pulled me into the kitchen to help with breakfast, laughing as she told me that Dad must be crazy because, my goodness, how could you forget such a meeting? I smiled at how much it reminded me of the day she’d met Leif.
‘Watch out, they’re hot,’ I said as I placed two steaming cups on the bench before us.
‘Like father, like son,’ she said, taking milk from the fridge. ‘But he looks more serious than Leif, don’t you think?’
‘He is more serious than Leif.’ I refilled the kettle and put it on to boil again, popping bread into the toaster before lining the bench with breakfast things for five.
Mum flipped the eggs and the kettle grew noisy as it came to the boil then clicked off, plunging the kitchen into silence. From the living room I could hear the deep rumble of male voices. I crept over to the kitchen’s entry.
‘Don’t eavesdrop,’ my mother said, coming up beside me and tilting her head as she strained to hear the conversation.
‘… won’t be around forever, Telophy, and our oldest girl will live on.’
‘Worry not, Lewis, Marla will be well cared for.’
‘But how can I be sure? I know she came to us because of some problem between you and her birth parents. And I’m aware she’s had some issues with you too. I need guarantees all those troubles are in the past.’
‘If you knew my feelings, you would not be concerned.’ King Telophy’s voice was so quiet I could only just make out his words.
‘What did he say?’ Mum whispered. I put my finger to my lips.
‘Your feelings?’ my father said, his voice hard. ‘Perhaps you sho
uld explain them to me.’
My mother mumbled something about needing hearing aids and returned to the eggs, leaving me to pry in peace. ‘It is difficult,’ King Telophy said.
‘It can’t be more difficult than living on when every person you loved has gone. That is my daughter’s reality.’
There was silence and I could picture my father watching the King over the top of his glasses, waiting. When King Telophy didn’t speak, Dad said, ‘Marla has mentioned a faery vow is unbreakable. It would ease my mind to hear you make one to ensure her safety.’
The King sighed. ‘Then take my vow, Lewis. For as long as I live, I will do everything in my power to ensure Marla is well cared for—and not only as her king. When you are no longer able, as the betrothed of my son, I will call her daughter in your place.’
A surge of warmth filled my chest and cheeks at the same time. Mum nudged me with an elbow full of surprise. I hadn’t even realised she’d returned.
‘That’s the reassurance I was looking for,’ Dad said.
The King and I stood at Ruby’s front door. I lifted my hand to ring the bell, but stopped and turned to him. ‘Maybe I should speak to her first. You know, so she doesn’t get scared.’
‘Am I really so frightening?’
His dark eyes twinkled like sparklers. Here on Earth, wearing nothing but a pair of fine silk cotton pants, he looked about as terrifying as any movie star in his mid-twenties. ‘Maybe not right this minute, My King.’
One corner of his mouth lifted as he retreated back down the stairs.
I rang the tiny brass bell. When it went unanswered, I knocked.
From the bottom of the stairs, the King said, ‘Perhaps she has gone out?’
A horrible thought occurred to me—what if she was in there, but too sick to come to the door? Or worse? I took a deep breath. ‘There’s a neighbour who checks on her.’ I hurried back down the stairs. An old brick building similar to hers on the left, one half of a revamped duplex on the right. Betting on the brick, I went up to the door and knocked. A teenage girl answered, a toddler clinging to her leg and watching me suspiciously through the screen door.
‘My name’s Marla, I’m a friend of Ruby’s. Do you know if she’s home?’
‘She was last night when Mum went to check on her.’ She opened the screen door. ‘I’m Jess by the way and this is my sister, Chloe. Mum’s not home but I know she keeps the keys in here.’ She rummaged in a drawer in the hall, holding up the keys when she found them.
We walked back down the garden path to Ruby’s front gate, Jess stopping with a gasp and leaning close when she spied King Telophy. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ she whispered.
Inside I laughed at the idea of being the girlfriend of a seventy-five-year-old king. ‘Not even close.’
Jess grinned, put Chloe down to walk and straightened her top. ‘Hi,’ she said when we reached the King, her voice more sweetly pitched than before. She held out a hand. ‘I’m Jess, and you are?’
‘I am Telophy.’ He could hardly use his title, but it seemed odd to hear him refer to himself so. He shook Jess’s hand, her fingers smoothing her hair the second they were released.
I held my hand out for the key. ‘Jess, you can wait here with … Telophy if you want.’ I looked at my king to see if I’d gone too far. His eyebrows were halfway up his forehead, but one side of his mouth was hitched up, softening the expression. I took the keys and jogged up the stairs, knowing my king’s eyes were following me all the way to the front door.
I rang the bell and knocked once more before using the key. Pushing the door open, I peered inside, calling Ruby’s name. No response. Taking a deep breath, I went in, the world outside quickly vanishing. I went to the kitchen. Except for a cup waiting to be washed, there was no sign of life. Maybe Ruby’s condition had worsened and she’d been taken to hospital. But then wouldn’t Jess have known? Goosebumps prickled my skin as I crept towards her bedroom, praying she was all right. Twice more I called her name as I tiptoed along, the floorboards warm and creaky under my feet. And then I stopped. Faint sounds were coming from Ruby’s bedroom—soft whimpers. I ran to her.
My heart jumped into my throat. Ruby was on the floor, pale as a ghost and wearing the same dress Jack and I had put her to bed in the day before. Her leg was at a strange angle to the rest of her body and a glass lay shattered beside her, water pooled around the pieces. As loud as I could, I yelled out to King Telophy, then dropped to the floor.
I brushed hair back from Ruby’s face. Pain was etched into her features, her skin sticky and way too cold. Tears had left salt tracks down her cheeks, dried to a crust at the edges of the deepest lines. I looked up at my king as he came through the door. ‘She’s hurt. I think something’s broken.’
King Telophy frowned as he shifted his attention from me to Ruby. And that’s when his eyes darkened and the colour slid from his face. ‘No.’ His voice was deep and ragged, his breath rushing out. He was across the room in a heartbeat, falling to his knees, glass cutting him deep. Blood blossomed red in the water. ‘Please, no.’ His words came as a groan, as though he were in the worst kind of agony. His hands closed gently around the sides of Ruby’s face as he leaned over her. His thumbs brushed her lips. He pressed his forehead to hers. Silvery white light shimmered from his hands, vanishing into her. Her features relaxed as she began drifting away, lost in the bliss he was gifting her. And then King Telophy was lifting her so tenderly, her body old and pale and broken in his strong, young arms. He lay her on the bed. Blood spilled down his leg, drenching the fine white fabric of his pants. But he didn’t seem to notice.
Big hands trailed silvery white light over Ruby’s body, over fragile bones. His fingers, soft as feathers, stopped at her hip, prodding gently. He poured light into the injury, then lay down beside her, his body moulding to hers, limbs curving around limbs. A haze of golden sun streamed from him to her. She turned into him as if she had no injury—withered flesh against young; weak against strong. ‘My love, my love,’ he murmured, the words on repeat, muffled by his tears.
Her eyes fluttered open. ‘Telophy,’ she whispered, her voice frail. ‘Telophy, you’ve come.’
She tried to lift a hand to his face, but she was too weak. He caught it as it fell. ‘Yes beloved,’ he said, holding her fingers to his face. ‘Yes, Leinori, I have come.’
The truth hit me like a sledgehammer—Ruby was Leinori— my king’s betrothed.
I left them, feeling like an intruder now I knew the truth. I sat in Ruby’s kitchen, getting up a moment later to make tea, wondering how I’d only just noticed it was Fae. I’d thought it was just some exotic organic blend. Questions ran rampant in my head. How was a human woman betrothed to a faery king? Not only that, but Ruby was old—decades older than King Telophy. She had to be in her late nineties at least. It didn’t make sense. Even though I didn’t know how it was possible, Ruby had to be Fae—and much younger than she appeared.
The tea was long gone and I was sitting outside in the sun. The two girls from next door had returned home and questions were still spinning in my head when a shadow fell across my eyes. King Telophy loomed over me, Ruby in his arms. He held her tenderly, her head on his shoulder, her tired body utterly still.
‘My betrothed has passed. My Leinori … I couldn’t save her.’ With a sob, he dropped to his knees, burying his face in her chest, the sound of his grief muffled against his dead betrothed’s flesh.
Sorrow washed over me. Ruby was gone, and I didn’t understand how it was possible, but my king had just found and lost the person he was supposed to spend his eternity with—the woman he’d never known and believed long dead. I knelt beside him, gently placing a hand on his heaving shoulder. He allowed it, his head eventually coming to rest against my neck. I slid my arm around him and when I could speak, I told him I was sorry, so very sorry.
Eventually King Telophy stood once more, Ruby’s body cradled against his chest. I’d never seen him so haunted, his eyes hollow with gri
ef. ‘Everything has changed,’ he said softly, as though to himself. Then he released his wings. ‘Come, Marla, we need to take her home.’
Chapter Twelve
King Telophy left me in his garden. He was taking Leinori to the passing chamber and said he would call upon me later. I was relieved he didn’t ask me to go with him. The memory of Hilary on that bed of willa was too raw—the pale stone shimmering through the white gossamer of her dress. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to go to that room again. What I did want was to go to Leif. Everything I’d just witnessed was a bitter reminder of the strength of the betrothal connection. I’d long since realised I’d disregarded Leif’s feelings in my haste to have the King confuse me into not caring for his son, but the exact cost to my betrothed was now blindingly, achingly clear.
Leif’s carers were preparing to bathe him when I arrived. He lay on his belly, ever sleeping, a sheet draped across his hips as the carers stole back and forth from the ensuite, bringing bowls of warm water. I told them that I would wash the Prince today.
I waited for them to go then picked up the soap, swirled it through the first of the bowls, the scent of lavender and herbs rising with the steam as the water turned milky. I set the soap back down and wet a cloth, squeezing away the excess. I washed his face and neck, then wet the cloth again, moving to his shoulders and back, taking special care around his injured wing. As I worked my way to his hips, I told him every detail of the harrowing visit to Ruby’s, lifting the sheet away as I continued down his body. After patting him dry and massaging oil of juniver into his muscles, I rolled him carefully to his side. ‘It made me realise just how selfish I was,’ I said as I drowned a fresh washcloth. ‘And how right you were too.’ I squeezed the washcloth, then drew it across his chest. ‘If you hadn’t come for me when I turned eighteen, I would be destined for the same life as Ruby.’ I paused as the horrible truth hit me once more. ‘Leif, she couldn’t have been more than seventy-four … She looked a hundred.’ I drew a deep breath, letting it go in a long sigh. ‘I know when you wake up you’ll be with Haigen. And I know you’ll be just fine with that. I expect nothing, Leif. But one sign from you—just one—and I’ll jump right into your arms.’ I looked into his sleeping face. ‘Only hold them open for me.’
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