“Where is your foundling tonight?”
“Sleeping outside my bedroom door, as she always does.”
He stared out at the ocean. Magdalena could read nothing in his expression. “How did you get past her?”
“I climbed down from my balcony.”
Her jaw dropped. The prince’s balcony overlooked the ocean, with a sheer descent into churning waters.
He spared her a sidelong grin. “It’s not the climbing down that’s a problem, but the getting back up. Are you worried I might break my neck and drown, Malena?” He bumped her shoulder with his own.
The shadows hid her instinctive blush. “Anyone would worry that.”
Finnian laughed and shrugged. “It was a risk I had to take. She stirs if I open my door. I thought if I showed her all the fascinating things our world has to see that she might find something worthwhile to explore. But she refuses to leave my side except when I shut that door between us.” He must have felt Magdalena’s wide-eyed stare, for he added, quietly, “I know what she is.”
“For how long?”
“Since the start, I think. There was something about her expression, about her touch upon my arm, that triggered my memory. I owe my life to the creature that saved me.”
He did not directly connect his Lili with the creature. Nor did he speak as though he resented her undivided attention. Perhaps the prince actually would take a fairy for his queen, as the girls used to whisper in days of yore.
“She is the prettiest little thing,” Magdalena said, sorrow weighing heavy on her.
An amused grunt sounded in the back of his throat, confirmation that he recognized the telltale phrase for what it was. “She really is. You don’t mind?”
Her breath hitched. She forced a calm response. “Mind what?”
“Such a pretty little thing hanging on my arm wherever I go.”
She bucked her head and looked away, the better to hide the tears that insisted on welling in her eyes. “What has it to do with me?”
He leaned in close, near enough that she could smell the soap he bathed with. “Malena.”
She met his gaze and froze. How could he look at her like that—as though he cherished every last particle of her—when only seconds before he had spoken of another woman hanging on his arm? His breath mingled with hers. He was going to kiss her, and she, mesmerized, was going to let him, until—
Pain shot up her legs, a blade driven from her heel to her kneecap. She hissed and wrenched away from the ocean stairs. Instinct hurtled her toward the double doors to the hall, but she collapsed in a heap after only three steps, as though her very bones had shattered.
Finnian was at her side. “What’s wrong?”
Magdalena spoke through clenched teeth, her face tight. “She’s coming.”
He looked to the closed doors. With a muttered curse, he scooped her from the marble tile and bolted across the pavilion, sidling up to the wall. The heavy door beside them swung inward to hide them from view. The prince’s arms tightened around Magdalena, who bit her lower lip as the phantom stabbing pulsed up her legs.
The graceful foundling appeared, her attention fixed upon the ocean stairs. She glided from the entry to the open air, her every dainty step an agony. Magdalena, so focused on staying silent, barely registered when the girl descended the steps. She vanished from sight. The pain ebbed, and then it disappeared completely.
In the throes of her episode, Magdalena had tightened her arms around the prince’s neck, his shirt clenched in her fists, her every muscle taut. The relief that flooded through her returned her senses with it. Self-consciously she pulled away, but though he lowered her feet to the ground, he kept tight hold upon her waist.
“Stay here,” he whispered in her ear, his voice barely above the sound of his breath. His shadowed shape, visible against the night sky, moved away. She felt strangely abandoned. On impulse, she followed, careful to tread with stealth. Finnian peered over the balcony and drew his head back. Magdalena, as she joined him, hazarded a glance.
At the base of the stairs, where the water swirled and eddied, the foundling dipped her feet into the ocean waves. She gleamed a ghostly silver in the moonlight. The wind curled around her, picking up strands of her hair and swirling them.
From afar, a chittering sound carried through the night.
Magdalena clenched a hand upon Finnian’s sleeve. He looked to her in alarm and then followed the line of her gaze.
Halfway to the open sea, a slick head rose from the waves. Moonlight glinted off sharp teeth and marbled eyes.
The prince drew Magdalena back into the shadows of the pavilion. Silently he pointed. Two more creatures had surfaced a stone’s throw from the first. Another appeared, closer to the stairs, and she discerned two more further out.
The sea-fay observed the foundling. Lili only watched them in return, her legs in the water.
The otherworldly scene invoked a creeping terror up Magdalena’s spine. There were more of them out there. Had they sent the first? Would they, too, acquire destructive glamours to leave the sea for dry land? And to what end?
Abruptly, Finnian interlaced her fingers with his and pulled her toward the door. The movement broke whatever trance had come over her. She fell in silent step beside him as they stole across the pavilion, with only the murmur of the ocean to fill her ears.
Their return through the palace halls passed in a blur. At her door, Finnian tightened his grip upon her hand. “I have to hurry. It’ll be easiest to get back into my room while she’s away from it.” Disappointment laced through her, but he didn’t immediately depart. Instead, fervently, he asked, “What happened, Malena? How did you know she was coming? Why did it cause you so much pain?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”
His brows drew together. “Why not?”
She took a halting breath and plunged ahead. “Because she’s the prettiest little thing.”
Confusion danced across his face, chased by vague understanding. He glanced up and down the hallway. Then, as if on impulse, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, close to her ear. The intimate touch swept a shiver through her.
“Stay safe,” he whispered. He squeezed her hand again and was gone.
Her heart went with him. She tumbled into her room and collapsed on her bed, exhausted, hardly caring how the corners of Master Asturias’s book dug into her side.
Chapter 9
She awoke bathed in sunlight, curled around the heavy book and still dressed in her clothes from the night before. When she loosed her hair from its tight bun, her scalp ached. She ran her fingers through the long, brown waves.
Her eyes strayed to the leather-bound volume as she washed and dressed for the day. Reluctant to put her hair back up so soon after its release, she sat down on her bed and flipped open the faded cover. The book was old enough that it had no table of contents and no index. Magdalena skimmed several paragraphs, her gaze lingering on sketches of the various fay that once lived—and perhaps yet lived—throughout the world.
An ink-and-shadow sea-fay with its fishy face and long arms stared up at her from the page. Whoever had written this book had illuminated the creature with strokes of silver that caught the morning sun. The description beside it gave only a basic explanation of appearance and habitat, information which Magdalena had already acquired from Master Asturias’s first book. She fanned through several more pages and stopped midway through the text.
This chapter discussed fay interactions with humans: how they longed for human pets, occurrences of changelings, and so forth. She turned the page to a new section: Matrimony between Fay and Humankind.
Fairies and humans, the book said, had incompatible bloodlines. Marriage between a fay and a human marked the end of that human’s lineage, as any children born would be sterile, like a mule.
“There’s reason enough for the king and queen to worry,” Magdalena murmured under her breath. She curled up with the book in her lap and read on.
Curiously, they do not disintegrate in the manner that unbound fairies do upon death. Instead, their body remains intact and must be handled as though it were a human corpse, through fire or burial. For this reason, many believe that a fairy who weds a human gains an immortal soul in the transaction.
She muddled over this passage. It didn’t make sense for a marriage bond to create an immortal soul where none existed. The fay, according to Master Asturias, already had a scrap of soul from nature’s greater collective, but could something as simple as matrimony develop that scrap into its own entity? And, if it could, wouldn’t fairies scramble for such a precious prize instead of largely declining the union that could grant it?
The book had no answers. Instead, it changed subjects to discuss the rare, half-fay children and their attributes. She flipped ahead to where it delineated types of fay magic: glamours, charms, and thralls.
She might have believed the prince subject to a thrall were it not for his visit the previous night. If Lili had such an ability, she either had not yet applied it or could not maintain it for long. According to the book’s descriptions, an enthralled Finnian would have never left his master’s side.
She turned the page to the next heading: Blood Magic.
A chill raced up her arms.
Fairy law prohibits the use of blood magic. This powerful medium, when invoked, becomes self-sustaining. It feeds off of pain and destruction in an endless cycle that tortures its victims even as it grants them their heart’s desire. Covenants made through blood magic cannot be broken except through the shedding of more blood. Humans or fay who seek this magic will pay a steep price for any spell it creates.
A dark image flashed across Magdalena’s memory: the potion that glittered like bottled starlight, and the quick, cutting motion that had torn tongue from throat. The trail of blood hadn’t floated in the air, she realized with sickening dread. It had seeped into surrounding waters, like drops of ink would spread in a pool.
The foundling had given her tongue for a pair of mock legs and a glamour to hide the deformity.
A knock sounded against her door. Startled, she tumbled from her mattress and tossed the book aside to answer the summons.
Captain Byrne stood in the hall. He regarded her with concern. “Are you ill?”
“No,” said Magdalena, self-consciously combing her hair to one side with nervous fingers.
“The morning is almost gone. Master Asturias says you never showed up at the infirmary.”
“I was—” She glanced back at the book where it lay upon the floor. “I was reading.”
His brows shot up. “All morning?”
“Does Master Asturias need me?” she asked, annoyed. “It’s surely not time to go up to the banquet hall.”
“You have another hour yet before that. He only worried that you never appeared, which made me worry, and I thought I ought to check before the king and queen had a chance to worry.”
She dismissed the implication with a huff. “I was only reading and lost track of the time.”
“Must be an interesting book.”
“Fascinating,” she said. She pocketed the handful of hairpins and the ribbon she had earlier discarded, and she pulled the door shut behind her.
The captain glanced dubiously at her unbound hair. Magdalena swept past him up the corridor, working it into a braid as she went.
“Most ladies have a servant to help them with that.”
“Most ladies didn’t live six years at a sage’s seminary. No servants allowed.” She tied off the end and wound it up into itself, lower on her head than the usual knot.
“That’s more the fashion nowadays,” he said.
She spared him a sour glance but otherwise ignored the remark. Her scalp still ached where the higher bun had pulled at it through the night. “You don’t actually need to follow me to the infirmary, you know.”
“I’ve come this far, so I might as well see the task through to the end.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with the prince?”
“He’s in the garden with his foundling and all the nobles of the court. I can escort you there if you’d prefer.”
She dismissed the suggestion with a grunt.
“I thought not,” said Captain Byrne.
True to his word, he didn’t leave her side until she had passed through to Master Asturias’s watchful care. The healer, far from inquiring her whereabouts that morning, handed her a stack of concoctions to mix and left her to her own devices.
She was halfway through the stack when the captain reappeared. Someone had informed Master Asturias of the king’s desires. He bid her set her work aside and be on her way.
Dread pooled within her as she fell in step with the captain. Would the prince and his foundling arrive in the banquet hall before or after her? She steeled her senses, hoping to keep her magic close, to keep it from reacting to the glamour that encompassed the mute sea-fay.
Only a few nobles had arrived yet. The ladies whispered to one another behind their hands as they observed her. Magdalena, stiff-backed, followed Captain Byrne to her assigned seat near the head of the table.
“The daughter of the Grand Duke must receive the honor her position dictates,” he said as he held her chair for her. She gingerly sat, her gaze fixed upon her hands in her lap. The sooner this charade ended, the better.
Nobles arrived in clusters. Magdalena, sick of their knowing glances, closed her eyes and concentrated on the simple breathing exercises meant to keep her empathy in check.
“How lovely to see you among us again, milady.”
She looked across the table into the blue eyes of one of the female courtiers. A hint of a smirk turned the girl’s lips upward.
Magdalena coolly inclined her head. “And you.”
“They’ve seated you next to the prince. What an honor.”
She glanced at the empty chair beside her, and her dread amplified. Of course the king would seat her and his son together. The prince’s foundling, with no pedigree to speak of, would have no place at the table itself, but a pillow against the wall testified that she would not be far from him. Magdalena gripped her hands together.
“High birth has its privileges,” the lady said. Unbridled jealousy danced in her eyes, but she would speak nothing more cutting. Magdalena outranked her and they both knew it.
It went unspoken that high birth also had its drawbacks. The lady, in the throes of her contempt, could not understand that this lunch would prove more painful than pleasurable to the woman she scorned.
Pain pulsed into Magdalena’s heels. She angled her feet away from the floor in hopes that it would alleviate the stabbing sensations, but the phantom blades formed in thin air as easily as they formed from wood or stone. She clamped her fingers around the ornate table apron, her knuckles white as she fought to contain her magic. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
At the entry, a herald announced the arrival of the king and queen. The assembled nobles rose to their feet. Magdalena swallowed and did the same, daggers jutting from the ground beneath her.
King Ronan and Queen Orla appeared on the threshold. They observed her presence and spared an indulgent smile to one another. Prince Finnian came directly behind, with his foundling hanging upon his arm. The creature bounced along with a tranquil smile, as though her pain was nothing to bear.
Magdalena bit the inside of her cheek and silently begged her legs not to buckle.
Across the room, Finnian met her gaze and went white as a sheet. In an instant, before the eyes of the court, he swept his foundling off her feet into his arms to carry her. Gasps echoed across the room. The girl stared up at him with worshipful eyes.
Magdalena looked down at the go
ld-rimmed charger. As blissful relief swept through her, she couldn’t stop the tears that slipped down her cheeks. Quickly she wiped them with her sleeve, but not before watchful eyes—the lady across the table included—had observed them fall.
The king and queen exchanged fretful glances as they took their respective seats. Finnian, with his usual charm, deposited Lili upon her pillow by the wall. She caught at him as though pleading for him to stay with her, but he gently withdrew. He settled in the chair beside Magdalena, signal for the rest of the company to sit.
She dropped all too readily. Servants converged on the table to start the meal.
Queen Orla, directly across from her son, leaned forward with a contrived smile. “We finally coaxed the Grand Duke’s daughter to join us for lunch, Finnian.”
His customary charm sprang to his face. “Coaxed? Or threatened?”
The queen puffed. Her husband scowled. “What do you mean, threatened?”
“Only joking, Father,” said Finnian with a gleam to his eyes that belied his words. “In my experience, Magdalena’s not so easily coaxed, is all. But of course it’s nice to have her here.” He favored her with a glance, more concern than pleasure on his face.
Magdalena allowed him a wan, apologetic smile and fixed her attention on her plate.
The meal passed at an awkward pace. Conversation buzzed around them, but Finnian acted as though she wasn’t even there, and with each passing second she wished to be anywhere else. When his parents asked her questions, she answered as succinctly as possible, her voice low. Thankfully, lunch was not the multi-course affair that supper would be.
As the servants cleared away plates, a phantom blade stabbed into her heel. She hissed and crushed the napkin in her lap.
The prince whirled and with utmost charm said, “Lili, wait. Let me carry you.” He excused himself to his parents. As he edged his chair backward, he met Magdalena’s astonished gaze with a regretful, compassionate smile. She sat frozen in place, listening to the shuffle as he lifted the glamoured sea-fay from her cushion by the wall.
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