Page 16 of Court of the Fae Princes

“That’s amazing!” I run over to him and pull him into a hug. He groans, and I help him back to his chair.

Pulling back, I run my hands over his dark hair weaved with just a few strands of gray at his temples and beard. My heart swells. He’s a young man. A handsome man, by all accounts. Even without the use of his legs, I’ve seen the way the neighbor ladies look at him. He deserves so much more than the life he has.

And now, I’ve lost my job. I won’t be able to afford his potions any longer. His progress will be lost, and the light I see in his dark eyes will fade away, along with his healthy color.

I hate that tears catch in my throat as I say, “That was incredible, dad.”

His face widens into the most incredible smile. A smile he so rarely has. “I’m feeling a lot stronger lately. That’s the second time I’ve done that today.”

“You’ll be running by next year,” I say, blinking away tears.

He nods eagerly. “The potion is working, Cassia! It really is!”

I hate that he’s right, because it only makes what I’m facing all the harder.

He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “But I used it all, and I need you to get me more.”

“Of course.” I want to scream into my pillow. Except, I’m pretty sure my scream would end in sobs. How is this happening? With every step into this house, my options seem to be fading away.

“What if I heal all the way? What if I get so well I can work again?”

“That would be wonderful,” I tell him, and for some reason, I can picture it. Him going off to work, healthy and happy, this house flourishing like it never has.

But that only happens if I can afford to get him his potions, and the only way I can do that is if I make money, either as queen or at the whorehouse. The whorehouse would be a gamble too. I might not even make enough to afford more than to keep food on our table.

His dreams would go up in smoke.

“You know,” he begins excitedly, “if I start working, you can quit that job at the palace. You can marry a nice boy and have a family of your own.” His eyes twinkle as he speaks.

My stomach lurches at the thought, and my whole life shifts. I’ve never really thought about any other future except me working to care for my grandmother and father. Sure, if I found some nice boy who would be okay with signing on for this life, I might marry him, maybe even have kids, but those thoughts have never really crossed my mind. I’ve been too wrapped up in being a caretaker that I couldn’t fathom any other life.

“Can you imagine little ones running around here, Mother?”

My grandmother smiles. “I can, and I bet they’d have Cassia’s sweet disposition. Remember what she was like as a baby?”

Father squeezes my hand and lets go. “You were the sweetest creature. Could scream like a banshee when you had to, but the rest of the time, you were impossibly good. Just like you are now.”

This conversation is like a strange dream. Marriage? Kids? It never occurred to me that my father and grandmother had dreams for me, that when I was born, these people, who were so different back then, imagined a beautiful, perfect life for me. I wonder what they wanted for me. I wonder what they wanted for themselves.

What does happiness look like? Before, it looked like heading to the palace with my grandmother to tutor the prince. Happiness was when my dad, the best man alive, would greet me from his chair in the evening and wrap me up in a hug after I got back from tutoring with Grandmother, before his pain made everything a thousand times worse. But a life where my father worked and I got married and had kids… it just didn’t seem possible.

“I have to finish dinner,” Grandmother says, still smiling as she heads back to the kitchen.

“Dinner?” Father grins at me, but he looks exhausted.

“Meat,” I tell him.

He gives a long sigh. “You were worth everything.”

I laugh. It’s something he always says to me. I’m not sure what everything is, but the way he says it makes me believe that he thinks I’m something amazing.

His eyes drift close. “I’m going to rest until dinner.”

“Okay.” I ruffle his hair and then press a kiss to his cheek. “I’m going to go lay down for a bit.”

He makes a little sound of acknowledgement, and I turn away from him, weighed down by thoughts and decisions I never imagined I’d have to make. I head to my bedroom, open the door, and freeze. My eyes are drawn to a glimmering gold dress on my bed.

Moving quickly, I shut the door behind me, then spin back around to the dress. I have one stupid moment when I worry that my father saw the dress, before I remember that if he saw it, he would have said something. But how did the prince get it here?

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