All That Glows (6 page)

“If my blood’s so valuable, then why are these other Faeries trying to kill me?” He picks up his drink again, swirling it around.

“Let’s just say it makes you even more appetizing to soul feeders. They don’t need your blood magic anyway. They survive well enough off of death.” With fingers of lightning, I snatch the prince’s glass from his hands before he can protest. It’s still mostly full. “You shouldn’t be drinking this stuff. It dulls your senses. Makes you an easier target, which makes my job harder.”

I dump the rest of the whiskey into the sink. Richard’s lips screw tight, almost frown, as he watches the nut-brown liquid whirlpool down the drain.

“So, now what?” he asks when I place the empty glass on the counter.

Yes. Now what? How long should I keep up this ruse? If Breena finds out what I’ve done. The taboo I’ve broken. . . .

But no one’s been hurt. In fact, I might even be able to protect the prince better. Point out Green Women and Banshees. It’s that or report my failing magic, and the thought of that is even more terrifying than the possibility of getting caught.

“You keep living and I’ll keep guarding,” I tell him.

Richard stares with a length and intensity that makes even me uncomfortable. I don’t think he’s realized how much time has passed between us in silence. “You’re going to follow me everywhere? You never leave?”

“Not unless you want to be Banshee bait,” I say, grim. “You just do whatever you normally do. Pretend I’m not here.”

“Right.” He bites his bottom lip. It goes lopsided, a half-done, pink bow tie. “You’ll have to be a bit less gorgeous if you want me to do that.”

Gorgeous.
I fight the urge to smile at his compliment. “Sorry, it’s part of the deal.”

“Shame,” he says. Something in the depths of his voice tells me he’s suppressing a smile too. “Guess I’ll just have to bear it.”

He walks out of the kitchen, leaving the lights on and the open whiskey bottle on the counter. I follow a few steps behind, trailing him into the hallway. Richard doesn’t get ten paces before he glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m still there.

The prince’s bedroom feels different now that I’m unveiled. Like I’m more aware of the humanness of it. The mess. No maids are allowed to clean here and it shows. T-shirts, both dirty and not, carpet the floor. A vintage turntable sits in one corner, the shelf beneath it piled with stacks of vinyl records. Their covers match the posters of classic rock bands which deck the walls alongside original oil paintings. One corner of the room even houses an electric guitar. Its surface is a shiny candy-apple red, made irreplaceably valuable by some guitarist’s silver Sharpie signature.

“Sorry,” the prince apologizes as he wades through the chaos of cotton, cashmere, and wool. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I’m not company.” I step through the piles of dirty laundry to get to the window ledge and the armchair placed so conveniently beneath it. “Don’t clean on my account.”

“Right.” Richard drops the pile of T-shirts he’s been collecting and undoes the final row of buttons on his shirt. “I’m going to, uh, clean myself up a bit.”

I wave him forward. “Go on then. I won’t go into the bathroom. Just leave the door open so I can hear.”

“I sing in the shower,” he calls back as he disappears behind the door. “You might not like it.”

Lulling sounds of water hitting marble rise into the air. I close my eyes and listen—my mind drifts back to the moors and the light patter of raindrops against clumps of grass.

It’s all out. My name, my existence, everything. This thought is enough to bring back the nausea I’d almost forgotten about while I spoke with Richard. What am I doing? Just a few days ago I was telling Breena how much I wanted to go back to the Highlands . . . but I know if this failure to hold a simple veiling spell gets out, then all the progress I’ve made in Mab’s court will vanish.

But if any Fae found out about what I’ve done tonight, of the taboo I’ve broken . . . I swallow and my heart rattles like hail against a tin roof. If anyone got suspicious—if word managed to get back to Breena—or even worse, Mab—then my career in the Guard would be finished. I could be banished to the Isle of Man, or worse, exiled altogether. To be cut off from Mab’s court meant a life alone, unprotected by alliances and order. Not many outcasts last long in the world of free magic and scavengers.

I’ll keep it to myself for now. Wait until the threat the raven warned us about passes. Whatever it is. Then I’ll tell Breena.

It’s a thin line I’m walking, here with Richard. I just have to make sure I don’t fall.

But why him? After so many years in the Guard, after so many different kings, queens, princes, and princesses . . . why is Richard the one who makes my veiling spell fail?

I don’t know, and this fact scares me.

Richard emerges like some mythical figure from a billowing steam cloud, a towel hanging from his waist. I divert my eyes as he changes and yawns.

“Good night, Richard,” I murmur, and settle farther into the armchair. Although I’m comfortable, I’m far from relaxed. My mind and senses are on high alert for the dangers night brings.

“Good night, Embers.”

“It’s Emrys,” I correct him.

“I know.” His words grow weak under another yawn and he collapses onto his bed. “But your hair, it looks like embers.”

I tug a strand flat between two fingers.
Embers.
I’d never thought of that before. I wind it around my knuckles, tighter and tighter until no more blood can reach my nails.

It’s only when I’m certain he’s asleep that I smile.

Five

S
unlight 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.