Page 29 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
A nervous relief itched the corners of my mouth, but I was still holding onto my breath until I felt Lucais’s boot nudge mine underneath the table. He winked at me when I glanced towards him, laughing around a mouthful of grapes. The air tumbled outof me in the rhythm of amusement, though it was quiet and partnered with a shameful sting as my nervous system rebooted.
The sound of jokes being made and giggles ensuing joined in with the breakfast dishes and cutlery clanging—and the occasional slurp when Batre took a long sip of tea—to break up the tension in my shoulders as I dined with the group.
Every time they revealed a new fact about themselves to me, the concrete in my veins softened a little more.
I learned that Wrenlock had once proposed marriage to a streetlamp on the way home from a bar crawl in Caeludor’s lower town, and that Lucais had been banned from a tavern in the Court of Light because the owner had been hexed with short-term memory loss by a Witch, so he didn’t realise that he was the High King.
Instead of letting him forget about it and resuming his normal patronage, Lucais started a tradition where the group paid a visit to the tavern and he did the exact same thing that got him banned in the first place—which was to ask the enchanted lute in the corner to play the tune of the song the owner’s ex-girlfriend wrote about him post-breakup, and bespell all of the objects in the tavern to dance while Lucais stood on top of a table in the middle of the room and serenaded the owner.
Batre thought it was a little redundant, but everyone else thought it was hilarious. They did it once a year on the same day of the original incident.
Things took a slightly darker turn when Morgoya and Wrenlock compared how many battles they’d won during the Gift War only for Morgoya’s count to score higher. And Batre revealed that she’d accidentally turned her first girlfriend into a pot plant during an argument—before losing track of her after someone put her out in the garden when it rained—but even that revelation didn’t frighten me like the spilled milk.
I’d asked them where Delia was because I hadn’t seen her. I hoped that she might have been able to join us, but I was informed that she’d returned to her own home. Apparently, she only lived in the House when it was occupied, and never travelled into the city. I tried to bury my feelings about that.
The dining room was small and cosy compared to the rest of the palace, and the High Fae were warm and open.
Walled with bookcases, the room had a low ceiling, and empty space was filled by large stone pots housing exotic plants with deep green leaves. Together, we sat at a modest table neatly garnished with antiques between a plain glass casement window and a blazing hearth. Laughter rebounded off the walls as they told me their stories, encasing me until I had no choice but to join in and laugh until water leaked from my eyes, which made Morgoya laugh even harder.
Eventually, when it seemed that everyone had finished eating and Batre had the hiccups from giggling so hard on a full stomach, Lucais pushed his plate away and drummed his fingers on the white tablecloth.
“On that note,” he began, flicking his golden gaze towards mine. My eyes shuttered, bracing myself for his next words as the collective mood stalled and then began a slow, inevitable downwards spiral. “I have to address the Court this afternoon, which gives me only a few hours to visit the Map. I’ll need a statement printed for distribution in the lower town,” he advised Wrenlock, before shifting his gaze to the High Lady. “And I’ll need you to make arrangements for the carousal tomorrow.”
Both his High Lady and his Hand nodded in complicity.
I flicked an eyebrow up and asked, “What about me?”
“You were so curious about the Map when I first mentioned it,” Lucais replied smoothly, brushing a crumb of biscuit from the tablecloth before smiling up at me with his lethal brand of innocence. “I thought you might like to see it.”
“So I’ll go with you?” I tripped over my own voice, clearing my throat. “Alone?”
The High King of Faerie swept his smouldering gaze around the room before turning it back onto me like the barrel of a gun. “Is that a problem, little beast?”
I was already shaking my head in response to everyone’s eyes falling on me.Play it cool.“No. Why should that be a problem?”
Brushing a hand through the air between us in what I hoped was a nonchalant gesture, I rose from the table with very little grace right as the blond fiend began to send images into my mind of our kiss the night before from his point of view.
They assaulted me like repeated flashes of lightning striking my cerebral cortex. My temperature spiked, heat pouring out beneath my skin, dripping down my middle and pooling between my legs. I tripped on my chair leg, and Wrenlock’s arms came out to steady me, wrapping around my waist with a fluidity honed by practice.
The images abruptly ceased.
“We’ll reconvene at the assembly,” Lucais announced, standing so quickly his chair nearly toppled over behind him. He straightened the lapels of his long coat—black velvet with elaborate stitching in golden thread—and glided across the room with the grace of a bird soaring through the air.
When his hand came out to rest on my lower back—a gesture no doubt intended to guide me out of the dining room with the faintest semblance of ease—he wiped the invisible traces of Wrenlock’s touch from my clothing first. And I felt four pairs of eyes burning into our backs as we left the room without another word or backwards glance.
ten
How Do You Turn You Off?
The Map of Faerie was kept in the very heart of Caeludor.
That was all Lucais would divulge as he escorted me down the hallowed halls of his palace to the same foyer I’d walked through the previous day. Above us, the obsidian chandelier hung from the ceiling like a guillotine over mypretty little neck. My throat tightened in response, and I didn’t take a breath until we had crossed from one side of the room to the other.
The High King and I had not seen another soul. I couldn’t decide if they were hiding from us, glamoured, or simply non-existent. We must have travelled through at least four empty floors by the time we made it back to the entrance, but the only signs of life were stationed outside the palace doors.
Lucais waved a hand in a very forceful and elaborate motion as he strode towards them without missing a beat, and they swung open to reveal the same pair of sentries from the day before. I stared back at them quizzically as I descended the steps, holding hands with the High King for balance, but they gave none of his secrets away in their eyes.
Repressing a sigh, I glanced away.
