Page 17 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
“Thestaffaren’tpart of youralimony, bookworm,” he said through his teeth with a head shake. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Spectres defend me, I’ll be Marked for this. Clean that up before anyone sees,” he ordered Wrenlock, who pulled a face at him behind his back. “Apparently, the future High Queen and I have a considerable amount of work to do on our communication skills before we’re fit to be seen in public—let alone the privacy of what issupposedto be our own home.”
Hopelessly, I gaped at the sword protruding from the body and found myself barely able to comprehend a single word the High King had said. Wrenlock didn’t look at me again; he simply turned and walked in the opposite direction, although I noticed that his silhouette did an excellent job of blocking my view. I wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but I imagined so.
Lucais roughly pushed a hand through his hair, gesturing to the doorway at the far end of the corridor. His blond locks were mussed, sticking up in places like he’d just risen from a fitful night of sleep. “After you, bookworm.”
I was on fire. My veins were burning with a sensation of soul-deep horror, but I had to force it down. I could not let it rise to the surface where it would very likely consume me.
Oh my god.I’d killed an innocent faerie.Murderer.I killed a faerie. Brynn would be mortified…
No.It was afaerie, for fuck’s sake.
Faeries are cruel and vicious by nature, right?
Besides, I had done much worse things in my short life already thanaccidentallyskewering a faerie on a sword that part of me had thought was a prop when I first picked it up.
I swallowed a painful lump and waited until I felt its leaden weight hit my stomach before I started walking in the directionLucais was pointing. Surprise slackened my mouth when I realised that I was capable of walking at all.
“I don’t think I likebookwormanymore,” I managed to say, as our steps drove the shrapnel of my explosion deeper into the fibres of the pretty hall runner.
Each movement echoed with a crack over shards of glass, grinding them into the bottoms of our shoes. It reminded me of the day that Lucais—masquerading as Wren at the time—had been poisoned by a locust. The way the glass had felt slicing into the soles of my bare feet as I hauled his half-conscious body back to my room only minutes before he told me he loved me and insulted me in the same breath.
I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.
“Fine by me,” he replied curtly. “You really are a nasty little beast.”
A sigh expanded in my chest and rushed out through my nose.
The day with the locust and the love declaration was well and truly behind us indeed.
six
Dungeon
Waiting for the High King’s fury to surface was like waiting for the walls to start talking back.
Aside from the short outburst immediately preceding the manslaughter—or rather, the faerieslaughter, I supposed—Lucais didn’t seem to be upset with me.
As we walked in a bland silence, I began to wonder if maybe he disliked that particular employee and I’d done him a favour. Then I wondered if I’d committed a crime that perhapswouldresult in a noose being placed around my neck, effectively bringing his prophecy to life if I wasn’t more careful.He may be the High King, but is he powerful enough to prevent a witch hunt—or was it a human hunt?—led by an angry mob if he’s been hiding from his own people in the remote, heavily protected House for a century or so?
That train of thought delivered me right back to the station of the original problem, which was the fact that he was a dirty rotten liar, and I was sick of it.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked him plainly.Would you still love me if I were a worm? Would you still love me if I butcheredyour butler?But he hadn’t loved me in the first place—not really, not in a way that was safe for me to accept—so, instead of that, I added, “About the staff member back there.”
Lucais eyed me sideways, continuing to take long strides down the hall. “No,” he said, tone clipped. “I am not mad at you about the staff member back there.”
I grimaced because for some reason that made me feel even worse. “Shouldn’t you be?”
Stopping in his tracks, he whirled on me with a huff, eyes blazing like a summer sun. “I should be a lot of fucking things since I met you,” Lucais snapped. He began listing them off on his fingers. “A neurosurgeon, a coroner, a cauldron-worshipping death-wielder—which would come in handy right about now, ironically—a water faerie, a doctor…” He scowled down at his hand, which had run out of fingers to lift, and then raised his head to narrow his gaze on me like a laser beam from a sniper as he took a step forward. “Have Imissedanything?”
I shook my head. “I…I don’t know.”
“Right,” the High King barked, and in the same breath, he exhaled a humourless laugh. “Of course you don’t.I’mthe one keeping all the tabs. I’m your fucking executive assistant now, too.” He swiped the back of his hand through the air between us, causing a burst of cold to rush over me. “Do you realise that you’ve hardly left me amomentto be the High King since you quite literally crashed into me like some sort of faulty vehicle or wayward bird?”
Heat clouded my head, curling like smoke in my nostrils. Lucais could be right about many things, but he didn’t have to be sorude.
“Like it makes a difference!” I shouted, throwing up my hands. The way my voice echoed against the walls bolstered my confidence. “When you’ve been hiding out in a safe house fromyourownpeoplefor a century, I can’t imagine you’d have manybetterthings to do!”
Lucais’s eyes flashed. He leaned towards me, raising a hand between us with his pointer finger extended, and opened his mouth to speak—but then he shut it, eyes crinkling at the corners, and pressed his lips together in a tight line. Stepping back, he very forcefully pointed towards the end of the hallway and the door to which we had been en route.
