“Yes, he . . .”
Finn arches a brow, waiting for me to remember.
But no. He said she, not the queen.
“Then who?”
“You impressed my entire team with what you did tonight,” he says, “the risk you took.”
I should make him answer my question, but I already know it’s futile and I’m too tired for the fight. “You all would have done the same if it had been me in that cell.”
He draws in a breath, and his brows knit together. “I don’t know if that would have been true before tonight, Princess. You may be better than all of us.”
I frown, remembering my night in King Mordeus’s oubliette and my dream of Finn. Did he come to me? Is that his power? The question sits on my tongue, but I swallow it back. The last thing I need to do is reveal what an impact he’s had on me since the first night we met. I think I’ll die with that secret, if for no other reason than to save myself the embarrassment if it turns out it was just a dream.
“Are you ready to go back to the palace?”
I shake my head. “Not yet, if you don’t mind. I just . . .” I pull in a deep breath and blow it out. “I need a few more minutes.”
“By all means.”
I half expect him to get up and go back inside, but he stays, and when I look over to him, he’s toying with the curls at the back of his head and staring at the night sky.
“I used to sit outside with my mother at night,” I say. I don’t know why I’m telling him this, but I want to remember her right now. “She loved the darkness, the moon, the constellations. She’d tell me to pick a star and make a wish.”
Finn doesn’t look at me. He closes his eyes, as if picturing it. “She sounds amazing.”
“Sometimes I wish she hadn’t been. If she hadn’t been so wonderful, maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much when she left.” I blow out a breath. “What about your mother? Is she still living?”
“My mother died birthing my younger brother many, many years ago. I imagine she was like yours in many ways.” His voice goes rough. “She too loved the night, and put her children above all else.”
My mother didn’t, though. She left us. But I don’t correct him.
He takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. Power ripples through me from whatever his connection does to my magic, and the stars seems to glow brighter. “Pick a star,” he says. “Make a wish.”
I shake my head. Even with that surge of power from his touch, I am so damned tired and the tears are too close. I don’t want to cry. “I’m not sure I believe in that anymore.”
“Oh, but you do. I’m fae. We have an instinct for these things.”
“When I was a little girl, I had so many reasons to believe, so many reasons to hope. Then each day, week, year that passed after Mom left . . .” I swallow and pull my hand out of his. This—whatever I feel when he touches me—it’s too confusing. I don’t want to deal with sorting that out along with everything else tonight. “After she left, I could still see the stars, but it seemed that fewer and fewer of them were for me. Wishes were for girls who had parents, for people who weren’t stuck in impossible contracts. If I lose Jas, I don’t think there will be a single star in the sky that feels like mine.” But in this moment, sitting here and looking up at the stars next to this male who helps me tap into a power I don’t even understand, a power that may very well allow me to save my sister, I can understand hope. I can understand wishing on stars. I can almost believe I’ll be doing it for a very long time.
When Finn stands, his gaze locks on the hand I pulled away from him. “Abriella, every star in that sky shines for you.”
It’s not until the door swings closed behind him that I realize he called me by my given name.
* * *
The days after we rescued Jalek from the queen’s dungeons stretch long. Finn makes good on his promise to give me a break from training, but being stuck at the palace all day feels more like a punishment than a reprieve, especially without Sebastian around. When I found Riaan training on the roof, he told me his prince was “away.” Since I haven’t seen Sebastian since Litha, I don’t know what he or the queen thought about their prisoner disappearing—not that Sebastian would tell me anyway.
The second evening after Litha, I’m pacing my room, bored out of my mind and frustrated that I’m at a standstill on the book. I’m wondering how to contact Pretha when I decide to ask the mirror to show me Jas again. My chest goes tight at the sight of my little sister, as it does every time I see her through the mirror.