Page 79 of Fae Crown

If those glowing lines of meandering crimson had flared to life a second time across my skin when I was being attacked by all those monsters, I wouldn’t have noticed behind all the blood and startling brightness.

The map was my secret. And my mate’s secret.

Our one unanticipated chance at bringing down Queen Bitch Talisa. At changing the Mirror World into something bearable for everyone and every creature.

“Elowyn,” Dashiell called.

Had he ever bothered to address me by name before today? I couldn’t recall another instance.

“Talisa has Ivar out searching for you right now.”

The windows behind him opened up onto a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds. It seemed an incongruous, idyllic backdrop for mention of someone as dark and ugly as the queen.

“Ivar has Azariah with him, and the pegicorn can sense magic others can’t. He’ll be able to find you … eventually. My king has shielded you from Azariah’smagic for now. But his protections won’t last. We need to be certain Azariah can’t find Odelia when he finds you.”

Noifs.Whens.

“So I’ll ask again,” Dashiell said. “How did you find yourself with Odelia, in the shack only Talisa knew about up until recently? Well, other than Ivar and Braque of course, but that goes without saying. They’d never betray Talisa, though I’ll never guess what she’s done to earn such undying loyalty.”

“What’s the king done to earn yours?”

He tipped his chin upward and stood straight, clasping his hands behind his back. “Everything.”

He waited for me to step up and save royals who’d never done a damn thing to save me—unless it was a coincidental byproduct of saving themselves.

Eventually, I sighed. No matter what, despite everything that had happened, I wouldn’t be the one responsible for the queen getting her nasty-ass hands on my defenseless mother.

“It was during the first event of the Nuptialis Probatio. I went through one of the doors the queen had set up for the challenge. Monsters attacked me from everywhere. I was dying.”

Dashiell nodded as if he already knew all this and didn’t care to hear the information repeated. The man, apparently, wasn’t much bothered by such common decency as sympathy.

Get on with it, his eager eyes said.Get to the relevant part.

“Well, I basically just … pressed my hand to my chest and wished myself away from there.”

Again with the sour-smell scrunch of his nose. “You wished yourself away.”

“Kind of. I didn’t actually wish. I don’t think I believe in wishes coming true. I just … I dunno. I needed to get out of there or I was gonna die. And next thing I knew, I was here. Or, there, anyhow. In the same place as my mother.”

“How very peculiar,” said Dashiell. “I must tell His Majesty.”

“What about the rest of the story? How I came to be?” I asked in what sounded to my own ears a bit too much like panic. My only chance at answers.

But Dashiell was already stalking across the room. “Your questions can wait.”

Without so much as a single assurance, he stalked through the same door Edsel had used and closed it behind him.

“Of coursemyquestions can wait,” I muttered miserably to the open room, empty save for myself. Improved though I was, I wasn’t yet ready to attempt getting out of bed. I doubted my body would hold me upright with how weak I still felt.

“Couldn’t wait a few more minutes?” I asked the spot where Dashiell had stood next to the windows. “How long could it have possibly taken to tell me how my father knocked up my mother? Not long, I’d bet…”

“What a rotten, dirty scoundrel,” a tiny voice piped up.

I yelped and searched the room for its source so fervently I got dizzy. When I recovered, I looked again—more gingerly this time. Still, I spotted no one.

Speaking to someone invisible was one of the least odd occurrences since my initial arrival in Embermere. “Whom do you mean is the scoundrel? Dashiell or my father?” I offered an amiable, inviting chuckle. “Since the qualification readily applies to both of them.”

But before my invisible roommate revealed themselves, the door snicked open … and I was left with far too many questions unanswered.

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