“Leave us, Pretha,” Finn says, his voice deadly quiet.
Her gaze hardens as she shifts it to him, still talking to me. “Don’t take his moodiness personally. This one’s been brooding for twenty years.”
As she goes, the smarter, self-preserving part of my brain screams at me that I should follow her. But I don’t. Finn doesn’t scare me. Maybe he should, but . . . it was no coincidence that the darkness in my hand grew when he appeared. I don’t know why or how, but my power responds to him. Even standing here, it hums, begging me to wield it.
I arch a brow when we’re alone and bite out a single word. “What?”
“You’re sloppy with your magic. You lack focus, and if you don’t figure it out, your adoring prince is going to catch you sneaking around his palace.”
I lift my chin, but his words hardly sting. He’s right. Clearly, I’m capable of more than I ever realized in the human world, but I don’t have the faintest idea how to control it. So far, practice is just making me tired. But if I could try with him nearby . . .
“Is that what you want?” he asks. “To be forced to abandon your quest so you can settle into your comfortable new life?”
The nerve. “I don’t see you offering to teach me.”
He cocks his head to the side. “That’s a pretty passive-aggressive way to ask for help.”
“I—” I clench one fist and release it. He is such an arrogant ass. “You’re the one who insisted on helping me, but I come here and you leave me to Pretha.”
“She’s an excellent teacher. You should be grateful for her time, Princess.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I snap. “I’m no princess.”
“You’re a few sweet promises and tender moments away from being that boy’s bride, and everyone knows it.”
I have to bite my tongue to keep from arguing. It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me or my relationship with Sebastian. All that matters is getting the relics for the king so I can get Jas back.
But Finn’s intent on baiting me. “Isn’t life at the luxurious Golden Palace everything your mortal heart imagined?”
I sneer. “Why would you assume my mortal heart imagined anything?”
“Don’t all mortal girls dream of marrying a handsome faerie prince?”
“You are such an arrogant ass!” A ball of shadow forms in my hand, and I curl my fingers around it. “This mortal girl never dreamed of it. I didn’t want to come here. I was forced to come when the king of your court bought my sister.”
“Pretha’s wrong, then? You don’t have feelings for the prince?”
“I . . .” I did. I do. But my complicated feelings for Sebastian are none of Finn’s business. The ball of shadow pulses with my anger. “I have no desire to be a faerie princess. If I’d known Sebastian was fae, we never would have become friends to begin with. He knew that.”
Finn walks slow circles around me, and I feel like a horse at market, being appraised from every angle. “Surely you’ve forgiven him for his lies if you’re hoping to marry him, to enter a bond with him.”
“I’m not hoping to marry him,” I snap. I have to splay my fingers to hold on to the writhing ball of shadow in my palm as it continues to grow. “I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want to bond with a faerie—or with anyone.”
He stops his circling in front of me and meets my eyes. “So you’re not bound to anyone?”
I roll my eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. I wouldn’t allow that.”
Finn’s shoulders drop. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was relieved. But there’s no reason why this Unseelie prince would care that much about me. “Sebastian will eventually ask to bond with you,” he says.
“He knows how I feel about you faeries and your human-controlling bonds. It won’t happen.” I couldn’t even bond with him if I wanted to. I can’t give Sebastian that kind of awareness of me when I need to sneak around to save Jas.
“Mordeus will ask as well. Remember that the only way anyone can have it is if you allow it. If you value your mortal life, you won’t do that—ever.”
“Is that a threat, Finn?”
“It’s a warning, Princess.”
“There is no bond in our deal.”
“There isn’t yet, but beware of Mordeus’s scheming.”
Mordeus’s scheming? What about Finn’s scheming?