Page 46 of The Devil In Blue
“I am king, Elanor. I can do as I please. And if she truly does interfere, I will close the wall.”
“Then the bad ones will stop wandering out and there will be no hunts. No justice.”
“There will always be hunts. Souls have been escaping all along. I only made it easier for them.”
“But—”
“If you cannot handle it, I will make another who can,” I hissed, growing tired of her defiance already.
She glared and then took a deep, centering breath and nodded. I created her when I had a thirst for the hunts. I knew why she was unwilling to see me stray from them, but she would learn to focus on other things. I knew she would.
“Of course, my king. Whatever you want,” she finally said.
The Past
Briar’s laughter was infectious. If she was laughing, then eventually, so was I. What did her in was Gordon’s face when he bit into her undercooked, oversalted sweet buns. His cakes were the best and Briar would never deny it, but she was always so eager to try things she’d never done before. That day, she chose to make sweet buns and I sat back to watch, anxious to see how she would mess up the entire recipe.
Epically. She messed it upepically.
Gordon was in the process of trying to swallow down what he’d bitten off. The old man was polite if nothing else. He choked down the bit of bun, dissatisfaction deepening in the wrinkles of his face. Briar was doubled over against the table in the kitchen, hands covering her face as she guffawed over Gordon’s effort.
“Don’t swallow, old man,” I finally laughed. “I saw her put the eggs in. I swear to the heavens half of it was the shells.”
“I fished them out!” Briar defended.
“And…” Gordon wheezed, finally getting the chewy bite down. “Did you use a pinch of salt?”
“Yes.”
“She spilled it in.”
Our simultaneous answers made Gordon’s face pale. Kind as he was, it wasn’t easy for him to see other people cooking. Especially when their cooking wasn’t up to par.
Briar smacked my shoulder with the back of her hand, her cheeks bright red with amused embarrassment. Biting her lip, she chucked one of the rolls at me. I shifted casually out of its way and grinned.
“If you’d have tasted it before Gordon got here, you could have warned me!”
I cocked a brow. “Me? Tastethat? I’m a king. I only eat the best. And my refusing to eat it should have told you enough.”
She grumbled, taking one of the buns and biting off a good portion. The way she pretended to like it made me chew my lip, waiting for the moment she would realize her mistake. To her credit, she choked it down just as Gordon had… but almost immediately afterward, she dumped the rest into the waste bucket with a sigh.
“Don’t fret,” Gordon said, waving a hand and retreating toward the door. “I’ve made fresh ones with the missus. I’ll fetch them if that’s what you’re craving, girl.”
Briar’s smile remained, but she hung her head low, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Cooking is not your strong suit,” I said.
“Whatismy strong suit?”
“Ahh, this again.” I stepped around the table toward her. She suppressed a giggle as I placed my fists on either side of her. “You’ll figure it out eventually, little bird.”
“How many years will it take for me to figure it out?” She huffed out a sigh. “I wonder what I was good at in life.”
“Don’t wonder that,” I said, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. “That’s not you anymore.”
Briar had always been fascinated with mortality. Being in the Glyn, she was no longer quite mortal. No longer quite dead. No longer quite alive. But she never ceased to keep wondering what and who she was before she died. Perhaps I would show her one day. Memories remained in the Labyrinth even when souls left it, but I wasn’t sure it would be best for her to find them. I could lose her. Or worse, she could lose herself.
She was with me in my world and every day that passed made her more beautiful in my eyes, with or without the memories of her human existence. She was so full of life. So full of curiosity. She was too trusting for her own good, which made it so easy to play pranks on her, which Elanor took full advantage of.
