“Once the fight was over, and you were carried out of there unconscious, I immediately began work on your escape. I obtained a blueprint of the passageways and reviewed the routes myself. This eventually led me into the cherubim den, which I decided to use to our advantage. You know the rest. Well, the significant bits, anyway,” Laurie added. “There was a lot of other planning involved, too, like guard shifts and distractions. Turning the cameras off and getting identification for the elevator, that sort of thing. If there were an award for heist planning, I would obviously be a recipient.”

  I made an absent sound. “There’s one thing I don’t understand… well, there are a lot of things I don’t understand, actually, but one thing that’s been bugging me since your mother left. You went to all that effort to hide your part in my escape, Laur. You were willing to endanger our lives to hide it. If it’s that important, why on earth would you go to a ball with me? Sorry to break it you, but no mask is going to hide your identity.”

  “You’re not thinking like a faerie, Sworn. I went to ‘all that effort,’ as you say, because anyone caught helping a prisoner escape is subject to the old laws. I was simply covering my own ass, because it’s quite a nice ass and I’m very fond of it.” I opened my mouth to launch into my next round of questions when Laurie spoke over me. “If it did somehow become public knowledge that a prisoner had gotten free, and it was also learned you were that prisoner, of course it would be natural to see us together at the event and assume I’d played a part in everything. But it can’t be proved, and that is what matters at the Seelie Court. I can’t be linked to Fortuna Sworn, the prisoner. Therefore, I am free to attend as the Seelie Prince, and why shouldn’t I bring a guest? It is a party, after all. We’ll dally for a bit, see and be seen, and then you’ll make your departure. Simple.”

  We both knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “What do you get out of it? Why be there at all?” I asked bluntly.

  Laurie sighed. “There are several reasons. The first of which being that, should my brother make an appearance, he will not be able to claim you while you are on another male’s arm. I could ask one of my associates to be your escort, if you’d prefer, though they probably won’t deter Belanor or any other ambitious courtiers in that room. Lensa may not keep up with current events, but the same cannot be said for the rest of this gossipy bunch—they’ll know about what happened at Viessa’s coup.”

  Meaning everyone knew I’d dumped Collith. Like it or not, my relationship with him had provided a small amount of protection.

  I was still deep in thought when my attention landed on Laurie again. It took longer than it should have to realize he was staring at my cleavage. I felt my mouth part, but nothing came out. He dragged his eyes up to mine, unsmiling. His arm was still raised over his head, lending tension to the rest of his hard body, and as the seconds ticked past, I could see Laurie’s breathing shift in the rise and fall of his sculpted stomach. A sensation went through me, deep and sensual. It left a trail of unrest in its wake.

  “Stay over there, if you know what’s good for you,” I warned finally, grateful that I sounded unaffected by the heat in that long look.

  “I do know what’s good for me, yes,” Laurie agreed.

  The statement felt unfinished, somehow, as if invisible words were floating through the air. I shot him another halfhearted glare, then pulled the covers over me. They were heavenly against my skin, and I let out another sigh, this one made of pure relief. With Laurie next to me, his scent all around, I felt… safe.

  But there was someone important to me who didn’t get to feel that way. Right now he was probably scared and alone. The moment I closed my eyes, I saw Finn’s face.

  Then I thought of Gil, who was becoming something I didn’t fully understand. I could still feel the sensations pulsing from his side of the bond, and they felt like… death.

  “Your story,” I said abruptly, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. Laurie turned onto his side, and I did the same without thinking. It was instinctive. Involuntary. As if Laurie had caught hold of something inside me and held the other end in his grasp, tugging it with his every word and movement. His expression was fathomless, not because of the dimness of the room, but due to the careful blankness he now wore. I stared at the firelight flickering along the edge of his face, thinking for the hundredth time about how beautiful Laurie truly was. I forgot, sometimes, and it would hit me all over again, as it was in this moment.

  He was still waiting for me to finish the question I’d started. Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I knew it would haunt me. “Was it about him?” I made myself say.

  Laurie didn’t ask who I meant. “Actually, the prince in that particular story was me,” he said.

  He didn’t expand upon this, and it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I thought about what he’d told me. It had been a glimpse, however small, of Laurie’s real life. A look behind the velvet curtain. He traded in secrets and strategies. Until, one day, he met someone who reminded him of what he’d forgotten. Of what he had allowed himself to forget.

  Had Laurie been talking about Collith? Or… me?

  It was the only question I left unspoken. Laurie and I lay there, both of us breathing so quietly that I couldn’t hear even the faintest wisps of air. The fire burned low in the hearth. Now and then, it gave a halfhearted crackle.

  “How is my kitten?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure why I suddenly felt the need to lower my voice, but it still felt loud in the stillness. I pictured the small creature I’d been forced to leave behind. I’d barely had any time with her before the cherubim captured me. I hadn’t even gotten to name her.

  “She’s a cheeky bastard,” Laurie muttered back. “Ruined my favorite pair of pants yesterday.”

  The corners of my mouth twitched. “How did you end up owning an animal shelter, anyway?”

  Laurie rolled onto his back, moving his arm so it pillowed his head. His chest moved, as if he were sighing again, but I didn’t hear the sound of an exhale.

  “After…” He fell silent. There was something about Laurie’s pause that told me he was unable, or unwilling, to say Collith’s name in this moment. It was the exact thing I kept doing. There was no logic in our tactics—if I’d learned anything these past few weeks, it was that not acknowledging something didn’t make it fade or weaken. In fact, it was the opposite. Keeping something in the dark only allowed it to fester and swell.

  Avoiding the name only gives it more power. Collith had said that to me once. My life was nothing if not ironic.

  “After Collith left,” Laurie said, speaking more firmly, “I needed a distraction. I wanted to stay busy. I searched for floundering nonprofits and invested in them. Got them running again.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Running a kingdom wasn’t enough?”

  “Not this time.”

  Laurie kept his gaze on the ceiling, his strong, aristocratic profile dark with a solemnity that looked strange on him. I forced my focus away from his beauty and mulled over his words. Distraction. Busy. So that was how Laurie dealt with his pain. For decades, every time he’d encountered conflict or disappointment, he’d focused on his Court. His politics. His position. No wonder he was so good at playing the game. It was his safe place, just as the dreamscape was mine. We all had a way of coping, and I’d just learned Laurie’s.

  “Not to mention it was good for my image,” he added lightly, flashing me a crooked grin. It was as if he’d heard my thoughts again. For the hundredth time, I fortified the wall that protected my mind.

  Once I was certain it was impenetrable, I frowned at Laurie. “Don’t do that. Don’t dismiss the good you’ve done and pretend it didn’t matter.”

  “It matters, Fortuna. I never said it didn’t matter.” His grin was gone now, and I got the feeling that we were talking about something else. Then Laurie added, as if he couldn’t stand to be serious for any extended length of time, “I also like how the humans worship the ground I walk on every time I stop by.”

  Normally I’d say something to cut Laurie down, bring him back to Earth amongst the rest of us lowly creatures, but not tonight. For the past few days, I had done nothing but survive. React. Fight. Iris and Maria may have healed my body, but my mind had to mend on its own. Right now, all I wanted was the sweet oblivion of sleep. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t succumbed to it yet. I suspected it had nothing to do with the strange setting I was in and everything to do with the faerie that rested beside me. Laurie was a being that was ever-moving, always plotting, and never staying. Other than the day we’d spent reading Kindreth’s journals, I hadn’t had a chance to voice the questions rattling around in my head like a box of broken toys.

  “How did it work? When you… stopped being king?” I asked lamely, wincing as I heard the words out loud. I’d been about to say, When you lost your throne. But Laurie hadn’t lost his throne, it had been taken from him. Because of me.

  Just as I’d feared, his brow lowered; Laurie didn’t like talking about this. Surprisingly, though, he didn’t evade the question. “I walked into that tomb, and at first, I felt nothing,” he said, still focusing on the ceiling. I looked up at it, too, as if I could see the scene playing out while he described it. “I was expecting to feel the magic, like a wall or a rush of nausea. But the spell is more subtle than that. There’s nothing stopping anyone from actually entering the passage. Just a… quiet voice in your head, a sense that you don’t want to go any farther. It felt ancient. So ancient that I found myself cowering like a human. It inquired after the thing I treasured most. Loved the most. At that moment, I was powerless, and I pictured my throne. All those years of study, all those years of learning discipline, and a spell overpowered me in seconds.

  “When I got back to Court, the palace was calmer than I thought it would be. I’d braced myself for chaos and panic, but courtiers just scurried past me like little mice. They wouldn’t even look in my direction. There was no great event or huge catastrophe to explain it. It was more of an unspoken understanding. My dethroning was treated like an… embarrassment. Like I’d been fired from a job.” There was still a faint note of bafflement in Laurie’s voice. As if, even now, he couldn’t quite believe it had happened.

  Hearing that sent a ripple of guilt through me. Laurie sighed and concluded, “Mab arrived at the palace soon after that. Until Belanor takes the throne, she is Regent once again.”

  I knew Laurie wasn’t saying any of this to fill me with regret, but it did. I bit my lip, wishing that I’d done things differently the night we’d confronted Gwyn at the tomb. Maybe the spell would’ve taken my powers, which I had gone on to do myself anyway. Once again, I couldn’t think of what to say. After a minute I went with, “I’m sorry, Laurie. I’m so sorry.”

  They were the same words Collith had used when he’d apologized to me. The same tone. The same inadequacy.

  All traces of grief left Laurie’s face, and suddenly my roguish friend was looking back at me. “Don’t be ridiculous, please,” he said lightly. “Now, shall I be the big spoon?”

  So many emotions went through me that they felt like a flock of birds flapping across a wide expanse of sky—fear, gratitude, more guilt. I held the edge of the pillow tighter, and my voice was soft as I said, “Thank you, Laurie. For coming for me.”

  He either heard my sincerity or sensed the shift within me, because his eyes burned like silver fire. He looked over at me, and suddenly the distance I’d put between us felt like nothing. “I will always come for you,” he said.

  I waited, expecting one of his usual endings to a serious statement. But Laurie was silent; his gaze dropped and lingered on my mouth. We were at the edge of something, I thought as my own gaze lowered, looking at his mouth, too. Possibility hovered in the shadows around us. Potential. Heat.

  Then my thoughts began to trickle into the silence.

  A few weeks ago, I’d been in a motel room with Collith, facing him on the bed exactly as Laurie and I were doing now. That night, I had opened a door in my heart to the Unseelie King. I had made a choice, albeit unknowingly, that would lead to blood, death, and pain.

  Laurie didn’t move toward me, but I sensed the tension coiling in that hard, capable body. He lay nestled amongst his cream-colored sheets like a god, his skin and hair gleaming a tarnished gold from the nearby hearth. I wanted him—I couldn’t deny that anymore. Not that I’d been doing a great job of it until now.

  But in our violent, magical world, the things we desired tended to be our undoing.

  “Good night,” I said finally.

  Laurie didn’t say it back. I hesitated, then rolled over onto my other side, turning my back on temptation. I still felt the subtle press of Laurie’s attention; his eyes lingered on the network of scars that covered me like a map. Every mark represented the recklessness and chaos that brought me to this moment, this bed. I may have gotten my powers back, but I wasn’t the person who had asked a dragon to burn them away. I wanted to be someone better. Someone worthy of forgiveness.

  I closed my eyes and saw a flash of the place that was waiting for me. White-tipped waves, rustling green leaves. I hadn’t thought of Oliver all day, but now I filled my mind with him. I didn’t think of anything—or anyone—else.

  It took longer than it should have. By the time I slipped through the crack between worlds, Laurie’s breathing had deepened into sleep. The sound followed me for a second or two.

  Then I heard nothing but the wind.

  * * *

  Oliver’s voice came to me before I’d fully arrived in the dreamscape.

  “We should leave now. We have a hike ahead of us. Lots of hills.”

  I opened my eyes slowly, and discovered that my head was tipped back. I was standing beneath our tree, the sight of it so familiar that it had an instant soothing effect. Through the leaves and branches, a black sky looked back, cold and distant. Strange—it was rarely nighttime when I came here. Sometimes the stars came out as the hours wore on, or if Oliver coaxed them into being, but not when I first opened my eyes.

  Even stranger than the sky, though, was Oliver himself. He stood a few yards away, watching me with an expression I’d never seen before. It was polite, patient, as if we were strangers. His golden hair stirred in a gust of wind. The white T-shirt was gone, and my best friend looked prepared for a camping trip. He wore hardy-looking boots and a thick coat. A backpack rested against his spine, along with a tightly-rolled sleeping bag. A pile of items rested at his feet. I drew closer and saw they were duplicates of everything Oliver had. Boots, coat, backpack, and a sleeping bag.

  “I thought you said you can’t manifest things anymore,” I remarked.

  Oliver bent and picked up the backpack by its top strap. He stepped closer and held it out to me. “Actually, I said I can’t manifest things with a single thought. I can if I have a few hours on my hands.”

  “Exactly how far is this mysterious thing you want to show me?” I asked as I accepted it from him.

  I’d become too accustomed to faeries and their tendency to avoid direct answers, because I blinked when Oliver said, “Ten miles, give or take. We should be able to do it tonight. I got farther than that when I left, but I changed my mind about the direction I’d taken. If I hadn’t, I probably never would’ve found it.”

  “Found what?” I asked, hoping Oliver would answer without thinking. He just quirked an eyebrow at me as if to say, Nice try. Well, it was worth a shot.

  At that moment, the wind strengthened. I looked down at the white sundress I wore. It flapped against me, too feeble against the brisk air. My gaze fell on the pile of supplies Oliver had manifested for me, and there was a set of clothing between the coat and boots. He’d thought of everything.

  I lifted my head to tell him I needed to change, but he’d already turned his back, offering me the guise of privacy. I moved quickly, pulling hiking pants on beneath my dress, then yanking the dress off to replace it with the long-sleeved shirt and coat. Next came the socks and boots, and a stocking cap to complete the transformation.

  “Ready?” Oliver said, turning his head so I’d hear him.

  Hesitating, I wrapped my fingers around the straps against my shoulders. I wanted to comment on the peculiarity of all this—the dark sky, the shifting rules, the fact that we were leaving—but I still wasn’t sure how to act around Oliver. Maybe he liked the differences. He’d been trapped in a place of sameness all these years, and now he was finally breaking free.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I said eventually.

  Oliver turned around. He looked me over and then came closer. Without a word, my best friend reached to adjust the tightness of one of the straps. I found myself looking up at him instead of down at what he was doing. Our faces were inches apart. I studied the faint freckles over the bridge of Oliver’s nose, oddly reassured by them. So much else had changed, but at least there were some constants, however small they may be.

  Once the backpack rested against me more securely, Oliver straightened, thankfully unaware of my scrutiny. “There’s a water bottle in the bag, and some snacks if you get hungry,” he said.

  I just nodded, trying to hide a creeping sense of anxiety. It surrounded my thoughts like strands of ivy. You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. This is all happening inside your own head. There’s nothing to be scared of.

  That wasn’t entirely true, though. I stole a glance toward the statue of Oliver’s doppelgänger, remembering that terrifying night it attacked me. Maybe there was some validity to my worry.

  I didn’t voice any of this to Oliver, though. Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him anything, but in addition to all the other changes, there was a strange distance between us now. Physical distance, too, I realized as I registered that I had fallen behind. I hurried after Oliver, disarmed by the sensation of boots on my feet instead of going barefoot.

  With that, we set off like two characters in a story, leaving behind everything familiar and comfortable. We passed the winged statue, looming in front of the glittering sea like a monster from the deep. Oliver didn’t look at it, and I averted my gaze quickly, suppressing a shudder. We walked by the place where our cottage used to be.

 

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