I frowned at his back as he leant his forearm on the window frame and looked out. First contracts, then names—fae were full of strange rules.
“Tell no one about your condition. The poison or your need for… me.” His hand clenched into a fist and pressed into the window. “Use the fact you can lie to your advantage. Most fae don’t deal with humans often, and although they know you can lie, theoretically, they won’t be used to watching out for it.”
As if I didn’t already use lies to my advantage.
Softly, he added, “They don’t have experience of dealing with humans and their pretty, lying mouths.”
I shivered at his intimate tone, at the way I wasn’t sure he intended to say it out loud, and at the memory of how he’d dealt with my lying mouth so thoroughly on plenty of occasions.
I had to stand to dispel some of the sudden energy skipping along my nerves and pooling in my belly.
Turned out, it was a lot harder than I’d expected to hate someone who’d opened a part of me I hadn’t even known was there.
Or at least it was hard to only hate them. I could hate Bastian alongside lusting after him very easily indeed.
He straightened as though he’d spotted something interesting outside, and I approached, drawn by the strange beauty of the fae city.
“Most importantly, never—never reveal your heart.” He bowed his head and for a moment, the desire to reach out to him was so intense, I had to grip my hands together. “Who you are. What you want. What you feel. What you love.” His voice lowered, a hoarse, raw quality to it. “You must keep these things close or they will be used against you.”
I laughed. “I thought I didn’t know what I was. Guttered so low, I don’t even know I’m a flame anymore. That’s what you said.”
He spun, then stiffened as though he hadn’t realised I’d drawn so close. “I’m serious, Kat. Deathly serious.” The look he gave me as he closed the distance between us was a physical thing that killed the laughter in my throat. He towered over me, frown so deep it shadowed his eyes and revealed their glow. “If they know your heart, they will tear you apart to feast upon it.”
Mine thudded harder, perhaps at the threat, perhaps at his intensity up this close. But I raised one eyebrow like I was brave enough to face both. “Fae eat hearts?”
“Not literally. But still cruelly.” He leant in like he wanted to take another step.
His warnings were kind. Protective, even. But it wasn’t as if I didn’t already know fae were dangerous. Hadn’t my internal alarm bells clamoured the instant I’d realised what he was? I’d known I was in danger from that moment.
“Don’t worry.” I shrugged and managed a reassuring smile. “I don’t know what I want anymore. How could I possibly tell anyone else?” I tried to laugh, brash and bold like the Wicked Lady on the road at night, pistol in hand. But saying it…
Saying it made it real. And the reality of it was the opposite of funny.
His gaze skipped between my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“For so long, I’ve been clinging to survival. For years.” Oh, gods, the thoughts I’d tried to escape yesterday were spilling out and I couldn’t stop them—as inexorable as a river bursting its banks. “And yet, I let go of that in the grove. I chose to take that poison. I chose to not survive.”
He might’ve paled then. It was hard to say with the window behind him and his face cast in shadow. “Why did you choose that?”
“Because I realised there was something more important than survival.” I found myself studying my poison stained hands as they wrung together. “But… I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know who that makes me now.” It had been at the core of who I was and what I did for so long. Who was I without it? “What do I want, if not to survive? What else is there?”
The terror of that gripped my throat.
There was a long silence before he spoke softly, “Perhaps…” His hands closed over my shoulders, warmth seeping through my gown. “Perhaps there is living.”
Before I could shake my head and tell him that I didn’t know what that meant either, the door opened.
Brynan stood there, mouth open as he eyed the two of us. He blinked at the floor and cleared his throat. “I—uh—sorry. It’s just… your next appointment is here.”
Bastian’s arms snapped to his sides as he backed off. Shadows bubbled at his feet.
I folded my hands and straightened my spine, poised, my feelings shut safely away.
The rules for Elfhame were clear: bargains were currency, lies were weapons, and your heart was your greatest weakness.
8
Bastian
“You didn’t tell me your little friend had woken up.”
Midway through asking Queen Braea a question, I clamped my mouth shut. Her dark, dark eyes stayed on me, level, a glint of amusement in them.
I loved her as my queen. But I also hated how she saw right through me so easily… and raised her findings in the middle of a morning report before removing her earrings like nothing had happened.
Exhaustion dragged on me. I hadn’t slept well after Kat’s debriefing. Any moment of quiet I found, her words gnawed on me, becoming dreams where I cut the changeling down again and again. But each time, he rose, slashed and bloody, and came after Kat, dogging her every step, sinking his fingers into her, ripping her apart while I could do nothing but wade through his blood.
My day had been filled with re-interviewing witnesses to the previous Hydra Ascendant encounters. I’d read and re-read every report from the time and summoned everyone involved to interview them personally. If I’d missed any detail the first time, I’d find it now.
So far, though, nothing.
The frustration of that had made sleep difficult last night. And when I did manage to drift off, instead of nightmares about unCavendish, frustration of a different kind found me, tightening down my spine and low in my belly as I played out how that moment in my office might’ve gone differently.
Except it never would’ve ended with fucking her on my desk until I couldn’t think straight. Not in reality. I’d destroyed any hope I had with Kat when I’d used her.
Listening to her apologise to me had only added fuel to my guilt.
Especially when I couldn’t even bring myself to say it back.
It was too big. There were too many words. An explanation I didn’t know how to give.
Now, I stood before my queen, fresh from those impossible dreams, groggy and grumpy and attempting to put a professional face on it all.
“Didn’t I mention it?” I raised my eyebrows. “It must’ve slipped my mind.”
Sitting at her dressing table, she pulled pins from her elaborate hairstyle, depositing them in a dish. The tight curls eased over her shoulders as they were released. “You ran a stag to death to bring her here. She must be important. Too important to slip your mind.”
“She uncovered the changeling. I would’ve felt bad if she’d died on my account.” Not untrue. Just not the entire truth.
Clicking her tongue, she shook her head. “Really, Bastian. First you don’t report to me as soon as you return, then this? You’ve got me wondering what other secrets you’re keeping.”