Sunlight is just barely cracking through the curtains, bathing small sections of the room in blazing light, when Richard’s eyes finally open. I sit as I have much of the night, the frozen watcher. He rises slowly, peeling the fabric off of his bare chest and sliding his feet onto the lavish rug of Persian warriors and orchards.
He catches sight of me mid-step. He stops, limbs suspended and pupils grown wide: black holes preparing to swallow the infinite.
“You’re still here,” he says finally.
I nod, my first movement since he woke.
The prince wipes his eyes. His knuckles dig deep into the softness of his lids, like he’s trying to fling off the remainders of a dream. When I don’t disappear, he blinks. “So, I didn’t imagine you. . . .”
“You’re awake,” I reply. “And I’m here.”
“So all that stuff about soul feeders is still true?”
“More than ever.”
He cocks his head, those honey-warm eyes still glazed over with the otherness of sleep. “And you’re here to stay?”
As I nod, I feel something freeze inside my chest. I’d spent all the moonlit hours thinking, debating, stretching the facts. There’s too much swirling through my head: the words of the Tower raven, the great taboo Mab put in place so long ago that forbids any interaction with mortalkind, my fizzled spell, and the prince’s role in it all. This path I’ve chosen isn’t the best or the easiest, but it’s the only one left to me.
For now I have to let Richard see.
“Good,” he mumbles.
The word hangs in my mind like an unsaid spell. Good? What does that mean? But Richard offers no clarification. Instead he moves across the room and collects some clothes from an overflowing drawer.
Once he’s dressed, he turns and looks at me. “Since you’re stuck with me all day, I thought maybe we could have some fun with it. Do you eat food?”
“Sometimes. I don’t really need it.”
“Why don’t we have breakfast in the gardens?” Richard squints out the window. The sky between the drapes is a clear and cloudless blue, the kind used in china patterns. “Have a little get-to-know-you chat.”
“I thought that’s what happened last night.” The idea of breakfast with Richard isn’t so bad. As much as I don’t like to admit it, it’s nice having someone looking at me. Talking to me.
But there are eyes everywhere, of younglings and mortals alike. It would be easy, so easy, for us to get caught.
“Are you kidding? There’s no end to my questions.” Richard makes a vain, mirrorless attempt at flattening his bedhead. “What do you say? Is it a date?”
My breath catches. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. . . .”
“Why not?”
“The other Fae don’t know I’ve shown myself to you.” Guilt writhes in my stomach, like a bundle of earthworms struggling to find soil. “It would be a bad thing if they found out.”
“Really?” It takes the prince a moment to register the information. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Fine.” A small sigh escapes me, marking my relief. I’d been waiting for Richard to pursue the matter.
“Great. I’ll tell the staff to set up.”
I remain in my chair as Richard calls a maid and makes arrangements. The rational, Fae part of me is numbed, amazed that I’ve allowed the situation to go this far. At this point, any memory spell I’d have to use on the prince to cover up the past day would be incredibly potent. Noticeable. Breena would know exactly what I’ve done. I can’t back out now.
A petite linen-cloaked table waits for us on the lawn, covered with plates of freshly sliced fruits, eggs, sausage, and toast. An elegant china teapot sits to one side, steam rising from its spout like the breath of a sleeping dragon. Hundreds of roses, in every hue, seduce me with their scent.
Richard jumps a few steps ahead of me and pulls out one of the quaint wooden chairs. “I asked them to set the table for two. . . . I hope that’s okay for your secret keeping.”
“Your staff is quick.” I admire the setup and take a seat.
“They’re used to my last-minute requests,” Richard admits. “The food always seems to be top-notch anyway.”
He’s right of course. For the first time in a long time, the sight of human food is making my mouth water. The sickness seems lighter this morning, almost forgettable. It lets me pick at the fruit, which is as good as I remember from my last banquet at Kensington—back when Queen Victoria lived here with her widowed mother.
“Where did you come from?” Richard asks as he cuts into a well-cooked sausage link. Its scent, spicy and savory, rolls over the table.
I pluck the leaves off a strawberry, watching them drift down onto the lawn. “In what sense?”
“How were you born? Where do Faeries come from?”
“Do you remember the day you were born?” I ask with a slight smirk. Richard’s birthday stands out in my mind with perfect clarity. I’d been visiting Breena the day his mother’s water broke.
“Of course not.”
“Well, neither can I. My earliest memories are of flying. Over the hills, drinking in the sky, the plains. We don’t look like this when we first appear.” I run a hand down my side to demonstrate. Richard’s eyes follow, tracing every curve. “We’re nothing. Pure spirit form. The older ones find us and teach us how to look like you. Inhibiting, but much more practical.”
The prince leans forward in his chair, meal temporarily forgotten. “How old are you exactly?”
“I appeared a few decades before the treaty of Camelot,” I say, even though I know the date means nothing to him. It feels wrong to cram my age into a number. “But I’m really not so old in the terms of the Fae—I’m not a child, but I’m not old either . . . I’m in between, like you and Anabelle. It’ll be at least another millennia before Mab and her courtiers consider me an adult. But that’s nothing. . . . Some of the oldest Fae took form back when the very roots of the earth were knit.”
Richard stares at me, his fork turning over and over in his hands. There’s still a bit of sausage speared on its tines. “You’ve seen a lot, haven’t you?”
“I suppose. It doesn’t feel like that to me.”
“And magic—you can do it all the time?”
I nod, slow. The garden, everything around us, is so green and full of life, so perfect in this moment. The cool morning light spilling over the prince’s silhouette onto the table. The blue willow teacup at Richard’s wrist. The pair of scarlet-breasted robins rooting for food through the rose bed’s tangled thorns and mulch.
And I realize, for the first time in a long time, that I’m content. Not fighting. Not striving. Not worried. Just content.
“I like you, Embers. You’re . . . how do I put this? I feel like I’ve known you a long time. Like we were meant to meet.”
I look down at my half-eaten strawberry. Some of its tangy, irresistible juice has stained ruby on my fingertips. Something about the way he says “Embers” causes my stomach to seize.
“Maybe we were . . .” The prince trails off, a crooked half smile colors his face.
Before I can answer, I feel another non-magical presence edge into my conscience. I throw a sloppy veiling spell over myself and my plate just in time. A sharply dressed man rounds the nearest flower bed, holding some sort of glowing electronic device.
The assistant taps the hand computer; his fingers dart around at the same frenzied pace as his voice. “Prince Richard, your polo match is in half an hour. The car’s waiting out front.”
“Blast. I’d forgotten all about that. Thanks, Lawton.”
Richard jumps up, his eyes flicker over my seat. From the pinched creases of his brow, I know he can’t see me. It seems that this sudden spell is enough to keep the prince in the dark, though it shouldn’t last long. My piles of skirts, flaming hair, and jade eyes—all of them are hidden.
“You’re still here, aren’t you?” he whispers in my direction.
“What was that, Prince Richard?” Lawton glances up from the glowing screen, his pupils constricted to the size of pinheads.
Richard straightens. “Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.”
Once Lawton is turned away from us, I reach out and pinch Richard’s arm. He jerks away, squealing like a ten-year-old schoolgirl.
Spells are malleable things, like clay on the bottom of a riverbed. It takes only a few words to alter my veiling spell. Richard sucks in his breath when I reappear.
“Try not to talk to me when we’re around others,” I say. “People will think you’re crazy.”
“Can you blame them?” Richard mutters before he takes my advice to heart. He doesn’t say another word to me as he follows Lawton to the car. This doesn’t stop him from glancing. He looks over his shoulder every few seconds and catches my eyes.
He sits close in the car, only inches from me. Heat from his body fringes into mine, making it hard to ignore his presence. I watch out the window for soul feeders and Fae alike, my shoulders tense as we turn onto London’s knot of busy streets.
Richard’s long fingers brush against my hand—a sudden, unexpected touch. Their warmth and the magic of his blood rush up my arm, sending an eerie tingle across my scalp. When I look over I find his hand splayed across the leather, invading the no-man’s-land of the middle seat. His fingers show no sign of movement. No sign that only seconds before they’d hovered over mine.
I cross my arms and wait for the prickle beneath my skin to die. It stays much longer than I’d like, all linger and burn, reminding me of that empty space between us.