Page 85 of Fae Crown

I didn’t think. I stood and stalked toward the stage.

“No,” the queen commanded.

But I didn’t stop.

“Return to your seat.”

I didn’t.

I climbed onto that stage and took my shaking sister into my arms. Larissa pressed her face to my shoulder and sobbed.

“Fine,” the queen snapped. “Have it your way. I think I’ll enjoy this turn of events quite a lot better, actually.

“Settle in, ladies. This’ll be a show to remember.”

I hugged Larissa to me even harder. But already I knew I’d failed to protect her in the way that mattered most.

20.A LOVABLE PAIN IN THE ASS

ELOWYN

“Y’owe me,” the goblin said in a rough grumble that had become as familiar as the soft footfalls that shuffled beyond my room at all hours of the day and night. Crouched over a mortar and pestle at my bedside, Edsel pounded into dust an herb that smelled a bit like rosemary. The corded muscles of his forearms stood out as he angrily ground in circles, which was, I’d learned, the way he did pretty much everything—angrily.

Edsel didn’t realize it, butheowedme. He’d been the one to return to my room before I’d been able to locate the source of that little agreeable voice—a potential ally. When he’d finally left hours later, whoever I had heard was gone.

“Ye’re healed enough now to make yer way in the world. Ye’ll have to take it easy for a while, sure, and ye might have a limp even after ye’re all good and as fixed as ye get, but ye’ll be fine. Just fine. And that’s ‘cause of me. So, y’owe me.”

“Actually, most of the progress I’ve made is due to my body’s natural healing abilities,” I corrected, mostly to be contrary, which had become our way over the last few weeks, the precise length of which I hadn’t been able to keep track of. “Your tonics and herbs and salves can only do so much. They stimulate my body to do what it’s designed to do all on its own.”

A fact I was so certain of since he himself had told me that shortly after I’d become lucid and found myself in his care.

He ceased his irate grinding to glower at me.

In truth, I did feel like I owed him a fair bit, regardless of his questionable bedside manner. But that wasn’t the pattern he’d set for us.

“Besides,” I said from where I sat up in bed, leaned against a pile of pillows. “The king’s paying you handsomely to help me.”

When Edsel only scowled, I added, “Isn’t he?”

The goblin resumed his furious grinding and grunted an unspecified, “Hmmmph.”

“He’s my father, you know,” I blurted without any reason I could fathom.

At that, Edsel glanced up, his arm stilling. He studied me with those large, dark eyes for so long that I began to wonder what he saw when he looked at me, and why I’d told him about the king when I barely thought of the man in those terms.

Eventually he resumed his task. “Aye,” he pointed at the fully conquered plants in his pestle. “Figured asmuch. Couldn’t see any other reason for him to protect ye like Dashiell says he’s done.”

Exactly how easily the queen had convincedmy fatherof her need to kill me before Rush stabbed me through the heart flashed through my memory. The king had stood by while his freakingdaughterdied.

I looked away so the goblin wouldn’t examine my eyes. A tweak of pain suggested that while my condition had improved nicely thanks to my advanced fae healing and Edsel’s undeniable skills, I wasn’t yet ready for reckless movements.

“He’s not like a real father,” I told the gradually darkening sky outside the window. “If he’s shielded me so the queen can’t find me here, it’s probably ‘cause it suits his purposes for some reason. Not to help me.”

I studied the twilight for so long that I was torn from a melancholic trance when Edsel finally spoke.

“I figured who he was to ye since Dashiell made a point to show ye to him, all cut to pieces like ye were.” His words, so rarely gentle, were soft.

I blinked away the surge of moisture pricking at my eyes before facing him again. “I take it he didn’t give much of a fuck?” I asked, embarrassed to hear my voice thick with disappointment.

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