Page 18 of Prince of Never

ButImogenknew.

Lively music spilled out of the building, mixed with the sound of voices cheering and singing that only grew louder as I pushed open the door.I stood in the doorway for a few moments, scanning the room.It was a boisterous scene, fire-lit and choked with humans and lesser fae, but it took me only a few moments to spot the girl.I felt like I could have found her blindfolded, like a collection of my instincts and senses were now devoted only to seeking her out, picking up tiny clues to her presence that I wasn’t consciously aware of.She was sitting with a handful of servants from my household, and as I scanned them, the bartender serving them spotted me.He froze, mouth hanging open halfway through a sentence, eyes bugging out of his head, until the leprechaun he had been talking to turned to follow his stare and caught sight of me too.

I huffed a sigh, stepping into the tavern as others began to turn, nudging one another and whispering, those closest to me jerking into sharp, stumbling bows.All the joviality drained from the room, replaced by a brittle wariness, like they were all expecting me to erupt at any moment.

Imogen turned, and the colour drained from her face as she took me in.

I crooked a finger.

She managed to look both sheepish and furious at once while she excused herself from her companions—as though they needed an explanation and weren’t already staring at me—and rose to her feet.Conversations slowly began to spawn around the room again as she walked towards me.

‘Have you come to have a drink with the people who wash your clothes and cook your meals and scrub your castle?’she asked, jutting her chin out with a hefty dose of bravado.

‘We’re leaving,’ was the only reply I offered, leaving no room for her to refuse when I latched a hand onto her arm and yanked her towards the door.

‘Hey!’She struggled against my grip as she tripped after me into the cool night.‘You can’t just drag me around like a piece of luggage!’

‘I can do whatever I want with you.’I towed her a few steps further before she managed to twist her arm free and planted herself squarely in the middle of the path, arms folded.

‘You’re an asshole.’

I drew closer to her, looming over her like a tower of anger.I shouldn’t have had to hunt her down in the first place.‘And you are aprisoner.What part of that do you not understand?Because if it’s the part where you are denied the privilege of going on little jaunts around the countryside whenever you feel like it, I can find ways to make it very clear to you.’

‘You don’t scare me,’ she snapped, and then she blinked rapidly, like she’d surprised herself with the words.No more than she’d surprised me, I would have wagered.‘I spent all day working and I wanted to blow off some steam.You should try cleaning your own castle before you go raging at me for that.’There was a slight stagger to her words, like they were getting a little lost on their way out of her mouth.Blowing off steam meant imbibing several mugs of ale, then.

‘Well, now you’ve had your fun.I hope it was worth having me come all the way out here to find you.’I reached out to take her arm again.

‘I can walk,’ she fumed, yanking her arm away and beginning to storm on ahead, like she was heading back to her prison of her own free will.I stared after her for a few moments, torn between anger and amusement, before I followed along behind.

We passed through the village like that, her marching ahead and me following along behind, and a long-eared goblin drinking in the gutter did a double take as we passed him, brows drawn low over his beady eyes as though he wasn’t sure if we were a hallucination.Finally, when we turned down a street and reached a dead end, Imogen stopped, staring for a long moment.

‘Are you expecting a portal to open up?’I asked dryly, leaning against a building.‘Or do you think that the wall will run away if you glare at it for long enough?’

She huffed out an angry sigh before finally turning back to me.‘I don’t know where we are.’

‘Didn’t you pay any attention on your way to the tavern?’

‘I’ve maybe drunk quite a bit of ale since then.’

I gritted my teeth as I stared at her.

‘What?’she snapped.

‘You are in another world,’ I said, annunciating every syllable like I had to say it slowly to get it into her head.‘Don’t you think that maybe it would be a good idea to pay attention to where you’re going in it, and an even better one to try to remain sober while you do it?’

‘First you embarrassed me by dragging me out of that tavern and now you’re trying to make me feel like an idiot,’ she muttered, the colour high in her cheeks.I was strangely provoked by that flush in her skin.It made me want to do something, but whether that was to yell at her or grab her and...well, I wasn’t sure.Something that made me grit my teeth tighter.When she glanced up again, her eyes were sharp.‘Do you know everyone in there is afraid of you?What sort of prince does that make you if your servants and your subjects clam up when you walk into a room?’

‘One you shouldn’t be trying to provoke.’I pushed off the wall and began to walk back the way we’d come.‘The gate is this way.’

She hesitated, and I thought for a moment that I’d have to drag her after all, but then the sound of her footsteps joined mine and she followed me back through the streets to the road that would take us back to Dreadhold.We passed through the village wall and onto the stretch of Shadowmire between one gate and another.It was heavily monitored to keep away anything that might take to picking off travellers stupid enough to be out after dark, but I slowed my pace to let Imogen catch up in any case, my skin prickling with an awareness of danger that I wouldn’t usually feel out here.Her vulnerability to that danger was what made me pay attention.The road before us was a bright slash of silver moonlight between dark trees, packed tightly together and reaching out like they were eager to draw closer.Which they were.But they were cut back alongside the road for a reason.

Imogen seemed to be chewing on something she wanted to say as we walked.She kept scowling down at the ground, taking a breath as though to speak and then pinching her mouth shut, like she was trying to keep the words from coming out.Finally, I grew tired of guessing at what the words were.

‘What?’I demanded.

She started and dragged her gaze from her feet to shoot me a withering look.‘What do you mean, what?’

‘You obviously have something you want to say to me.Either say whatever it is that you’re thinking or stop thinking it before I shake it out of you.’

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