Page 38 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
He frowned quizzically and turned to me. “I know everyone that well, little beast. It’s myjob.”
“Pity for everyone, then,” I muttered, rolling my eyes skyward.
“In the end,” he continued, speaking those three words through his teeth, “I had to make a decision. I had more pressing matters to attend to, which required most of my power to be conserved and nottaintedby whatever was in there. So, instead of holding the wards closed on both sides, keeping thethingaway from whatever might be left in the Court of Darkness and the rest of Faerie at the same time…” He took a deep breath. “I dropped the inner ward. I used a fraction of that power to further reinforce the outer ward, ensuring that it couldn’t be broken through and endanger the rest of Faerie…”
A tense, lengthy pause.
“And effectively trapping thatthinginside of the Court of Darkness, along with any of Blythe’s surviving faeries and any Malum who had actually infiltrated their Court.” The atmosphere grew dark and heavy. His voice became a rasp. “They were alive, Aura. The whole time… I’d ignored them for two years. Protected them in exile for five. And then, one day, I just stopped…”
His irises were sparking like fireflies trapped in a dark jar.
“I didn’t let the monster out.I sealed it in with them.”
No.My mind was an echo chamber of desolation and disbelief.
Lucais heard it. His own reply was grim.Yes.
Burying my face in my hands, I took a deep breath and spoke directly into my palms, cupped over my mouth to muffle the sound. “How long ago did you drop the inner ward?”
One. Two. Three seconds. Four.
“Lucais.” I parted my fingers so I could glare at him. He was already shaking his head at me softly, eyes crinkling, lower lip caught between his teeth. “How. Long. Ago.”
The High King exhaled in a long, melodramatic sigh. “When. I. Met.You.”
Oh, High Mother.
Hands falling from my face like boulders from a volcanic mountainside, I leaned back as far as I could go without tipping over and made an incoherent shouting noise at the roof. A thick, hot lump of saliva caught in my throat and burned when I clarified, “Becauseof me?”
Lucais wore an expression of great offence on his face, though I was beginning to memorise the cracks in his mask. “I could not concentrate when I was with you, thank you very much,” he snapped, sitting upright with his elbows braced on his knees. He stared me down, the steady smoulder returning to his eyes. “I was too distracted. And you can wipe that lookoffyour face, you blasphemous vixen, because I told you to go away, but you simply had to come back, didn’t you?” He waggled his finger at me angrily.
I rolled my eyes, biting the inside of my cheek to hide an incredibly inappropriate smile triggered by the memory of that day.
He had been so obnoxiously confident—and unsavoury—as he waited for gratitude that would never come after he’d torn apart my bookstore while saving my life.
“Well, thanks to you,” he pressed on, swapping his eyes on my face for the kitchen window again, “thethingin the lapsus caught onto the fact that I was preoccupied—saving the life of the fucking bane of my existence—and doubled its efforts.” Lucais scoffed. “You probably made it jealous. It was like it could sense you through my thoughts, like my power reacted to you and gave everything away. Sofine.” He whipped his head backto look at me, his golden eyes searing with determination and desire.
Innately, I wanted to shy away from the conviction in his gaze, but there was a part of me emerging from the shadows around my heart that wanted to lean forward to greet it.
“You can win this one, Auralie. Maybe I wasn’tdesperateto reclaim the extra power I was using to hold thethingin the lapsus at bay. Maybe I didn’tneedto forsake the hope for all of those faeries,” he said, his voice rising in volume. “Maybe Ishouldn’thave condemned Blythe and her Court simply for being thenuisancesthat were taking my attention away fromyou.”
Me.My heart balked.
Lucais paused to drag a ragged breath into his lungs, eyes flaring wildly as they drilled into mine. His voice was scathing in the most romantic way when he spoke again, the tension in his shoulders buckling and collapsing.
“But I couldn’t take any chances with you, now, could I?” he said. “Not with you. Never with you. You just had to be the one thing I can never risk, and you had to fall straight into my lap, glaring up at me with those perfect blue eyes like I was the one who put you there.”
I was falling, spiralling, sinking.
I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.
Aura, my love.
Will you please pick up the dagger at your feet andkillit?
You’re going to be the death of me, bookworm.
I wish it was different, bookworm. I really do.
