I gnaw on my bottom lip; I don’t feel guilty about ripping the notebook Rosalina got him for his birthday. Not after he manipulated me, his games with Rosie … And in the past, he’d betrayed Kel. He’d betrayed us, too. There was a time I believed the man before me had been a friend.
I don’t feel guilty about it, but sometimes I remember the look on his face, the noise of anguish as he gathered the ruined papers. Like it had actually mattered to him.
“Admit something else,” I say lowly. “You wavered that night. It was why you were arguing with the Nightingale. You wanted to call off the attack.”
“I was only waiting for the opportune moment,” he says too quickly.
“You still have it.” I reach into the folds of his jacket and snag a tattered book, bound with a single ribbon.
Caspian gasps, and a strange expression flashes in his gaze, something akin to fear. But he relaxes as he realizes I’m not going to destroy it further. This present from my mate.
I nod for him to follow me through the stacks, weaving in and out of the patches of moonlight. I hadn’t lit a fire, as I didn’t want to alert the staff to my return. Finally, I stop at a workstation. It’s where Rosalina and I bind our notes and repair damaged books. Carefully, I untie the ribbon and lay the remains of his birthday gift before me. It was a clean rip right down the middle.
“It seems we may have a mutual goal then,” I say. “But I’ll make no more bargains with you.”
“This doesn’t have to be a bargain,” Caspian replies. “You could trust me.”
With great care, I throw away the tattered pages, keeping only the first one Rosalina wrote on. “Why do you think I’m doing this gesture of good faith? As I hope you did, by telling me the truth about your connection with Rosalina.”
“I didn’t lie to you, Autumn Prince.” His dark gaze tracks my every movement.
I grab a brush and dip it in sticky glue, carefully running a thin line along the torn leather, as well as the ripped pages, and gently smooth them down with my fingers. “Tell me how to break your bargain with Kel and why you can’t do it on your own.”
“It’s not so simple,” Caspian says, then, “And I’m not so scholarly as you. But I assume my bargain with Kel may break as a side effect of what I truly want.”
Heat grows on my palm, and I use it to quickly dry the glue before carefully reassembling the book. Lastly, I grab a thick needle and twine to bind the edges. “And what is that?”
“Something you need to find. Maybe it’s a spell, magic, a damned potion made of frog legs for all I care. As long as it does what I want.”
I close the book. There’s still a scar on the leather, but the notebook functions again. Rosalina’s writing is so clear on the cover: Caspian’s name and holly symbol beneath. Why had she made this for him? Was it simple kindness or something more? I hold the notebook out. “And what is it you truly want, Prince of Thorns?”
“To become a human.”
The notebook falls from my grasp and Caspian quickly grabs it, tucking it into his cloak.
“What?” I stammer.
“You heard me. Find a way to change me. Really change me. Not some illusion. And I suspect all my bargains and bonds will fade with my fae self.”
I can only gape in surprise at him. “You’re one of—if not—the most powerful fae in the Enchanted Vale. You would give that all up to be human? Why?”
Shadows and thorns swirl around him as he descends back to the Below. “Because a human can’t become what she wants.”
46
Dayton
“There he is!” I call, half-leaning out of the flower pod. “Farron!”
Farron stands on the edge of the glen, wandering like an idiot.
“I’ll get him,” Ezryn says. He spreads his palms, and the flower pod we’re in shifts off its projected course. The petals unfurl to a staircase right before Farron. I hold out my hand.
Farron beams, and I pull him up. “Hey.”
The flower petal coils again, trapping us in a haze of pinkish light. It’s intimate inside this, like a secret enclosure. There’s a small pool of nectar at the base of the pod. Stamen sprout forth, the anthers giving off a soft light. The interior of the flower curls up like a bulb, but parts of it push out to form a little seated area.
Currently, Ezryn and Rosie occupy that spot. After I finished my dance with Wrenley earlier, I’d seen their pod swing by and took the chance to escape. Rosie couldn’t yell at me for not trying anymore. Something terrible nags in my chest. Maybe the reason I’d been so resistant to dancing with Wrenley was because Rosie is right. There is something there. Saving her in the river, the seashell necklace… And there’s no way to deny how beautiful she is.