Page 82 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
“Batre?”
“Seelie.”
“And you?” I probed, my brow creasing as I turned my head towards Morgoya.
There was hesitation etched into the High Lady’s face. She bit her lip, and I knew. “Unseelie.”
My surprise arrived with bags fully packed, ready for a long stay. I tried not to let it show, but something shifted inside of her emerald-green eyes, and I knew she had marked the emotions swirling through me.
“It’s a belief system,” she mumbled beseechingly, wringing her hands. “It’s merely a religion like any other. You don’t always know someone’s alignment, especially if they don’t practice all the elements of their faith. I would like to be part of the Unseelie Court in my afterlife, but I don’t throw humans away, Aura. I never did.”
That was somewhat reassuring, but I was ashamed to admit that I could suddenly picture it if she had done such things.
Her razor-sharp features, dark hair and feline eyes, the flawless alabaster skin that stretched without a single blemish from her hairline to her long, pointed, crimson nails beneath silky gowns—all the marks of an ethereal being, enchanting and deadly, depicted in history books and fairytales as the unassuming and fatal temptress over the ages. She could probably convince me to step into a portal, if she so desired.
I could have sworn that I’d seen her before, and I was appalled at myself for not noticing the darkness around her sooner. But that was the point. In the fairytales, the humans seldom see it coming.
“The point is”—Lucais quite literally snapped my attention back to him with the click of his fingers in front of my face, and I wanted to bite them—“that Morgoya and Gregor are Unseelie, but everyone else is Seelie except for Blythe. If we don’t hold the majority favour with the Unseelie Court, we risk a huge disadvantage if the Seelie Court decides to vote for neutrality against the Malum—or worse.”
I fought back the cold, sinking feeling in my stomach at his last words. Surely no faerie in their right mind would vote to allow the Malum back into the High King’s inner circle, but the way that Lucais was glowering at Morgoya made me less confident in my assumption with every second that passed.
“Couldn’t you just make a choice?” I questioned. “And throw it to the Unseelie Court?”
He shook his head. “No, that would piss them off because they’d know I was being disingenuous. It’s part of the reason I haven’t been pestered to make a choice already. They can tell if you’re not truly of that belief in your heart, and they know that I’m on the fence. I’d tell the whole lot of them to sink to the bottom of the Underworld if I didn’t think Maraja would send them all right back up.”
“Maraja is Queen of the Underworld,” Wrenlock advised me, before I had to pose the question myself. He looked between the High King and the High Lady wearily. “This little history lesson is wonderful, but can we refocus on the urgent projects before we delve further into the flow chart of faerie politics?”
Lucais nodded fervently and, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, closed his eyes and waved everyone ahead of him.
Batre, Morgoya, and Wrenlock continued their walk through the palace towards some unspecified destination and the High King waited for me to spur back into motion before he fell into step beside me. I bristled at the warmth emanating from him, at the way my heart stuttered like a stupid little school girl at the notion that he wanted to walk with me.
The feeling was short-lived.
“You didn’t know about the Seelie and the Unseelie?” he asked, screwing his face up as he lifted his elbow to peer at me below his arm. He dropped his hand from where it was holding his nose. “Really?”
“Oh my God.” I came to a sudden stop, rolling my eyes skyward.
He copied me, and I spun to face him head-on, narrowing my gaze. The High King cocked an eyebrow expectantly, looking down at me exactly like he had when we first met in Dante’s Bookstore before I’d slapped him across the face.
“How many times since we met have you told me I need to read more fantasy books?” I demanded. I held my hands up with air quotes, lowering the decibels of my voice in a mocking and admittedly poor attempt at imitating him. “Aura,” I growled, pushing the corners of my mouth down into a scowl. “You work in a bookstore and read too many books.Wait, no.Aura,” I tried again, bobbing my head from side to side. “You don’t read enough books because you don’t know anything about magic and portals and demon creatures with funny eyes. Read more books about faeries, Aura. Read more bookswrittenby faeries, Aura. Brush up on your faerie history and put the hockey porn down.”I threw my hands up, rolling my eyes again.
The High King had folded his arms over his chest at some point during my rant and was watching me with amusement glittering across his eyes, his mouth turned up at the corners in the most exquisitely attractive smirk.
I dragged a deep, ragged breath into my lungs as he waited patiently for me to deliver my closing argument.
“Look, I’m sorry that I’d rather sit down and read a smutty sports romance with a cup of tea at the end of a long day, Lucais. But some of us are just more comfortable relaxing into the idea of cheering your athlete boyfriend on from the bleachers, before he takes you over the rooftop balcony at the grand final afterparty, than we are with the idea of balancing on top of a unicorn bareback with our fated mate after just having fought afuckingBanshee off with our bare hands two kilometres out from a settlement of Goblins!” I finished, my lungs tight and screaming for breath.
The High King stared at me, nostrils flaring, for a long moment before he reached out to swipe the pads of his fore and middle fingers down the side of my face.
The touch was so gentle that the thought behind the gesture itself made more of an impact upon me than the physical caress. I wanted to lean into it, into him.
“I am not this athlete you speak of,” he murmured, “but if you wish to be taken over the side of a rooftop balcony, bookworm, then you need only ask.”
I ground my teeth together as a pulse of heat and desire throbbed between my legs. “In my head,” I grit out. My defiance was waning beneath a strong flood of blush colouring my cheeks. “I want to do these things in my head.”
“Perfect,” he purred, flashing a devastating smile at me. “Because I want to do them in mine, too. Let’s practice in our minds and then get together to compare notes.”
I could have swatted him over the head with the nearest object, but we were standing in the middle of a very large and open walkway, and I suddenly remembered that three of our companions were hovering at the end of it, observing us from afar. Lucais seemed to realise, too. He inhaled deeply throughhis nose, seeming to weigh up his options, and then eventually sighed, resuming his long strides to join his friends.
