Page 63 of A Fae in Finance
“Could we be less dramatic next time?” I whispered.
She smiled a smile that saidAbsolutely notand steered me back to the breakfast table.
Lene, who’d apparently lost interest sometime during the confrontation, had finished her breakfast. “Sahir will be angry he missed this,” she said, and sounded positively delighted at the thought.
I was also wondering why Sahir hadn’t come running. Surely finding poison in my food and stepping in front of an actual weapon was more dangerous than almost being kissed by a lying human?
“Do you think the bond only activates whenIthink I’m in danger?” I asked, trying to understand. I looked at the toast again. Oh man. I wanted toast so badly.
Maybe someone would make me a new piece of toast.
“A knight’s bond is shaped by his liege,” the Gray Knight said, watching me stare at my plate. “It is based on the liege’s emotions. We cannot sense your environment, and we cannot tell threats real from imagined, nor fear from shock.” She flicked her fingers and the toast disappeared from my tray. “Perhaps he will learn to manage his response.”
“Poor Sahir,” I muttered. “Can it be undone?”
She shook her head. “He did an unusual thing, Lady of the True Dreams, but a brave one. Now, I believe you have a meeting to attend.”
I ate a few bites of the fruit bowl from Lene’s plate—which lacked any spiky bits—and then stood up. “Coming with me?” I asked.
Lene frowned. “I scheduled a nap with a few friends on the river side of the Court,” she said. “I can visit your chambers later, though.”
I felt disappointed, almost afraid at the thought of working alone in my room.
“Your room is on the way to my office,” the Gray Knight said. “I can walk you there.”
We left the dining hall in silence, with a small crowd of other Fae. “I think you saved my life,” I said, when we’d turned away from the group. “Or at least my morning. Thank you.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “I regret that there was a threat to you in our Court.” The tip of her pointed ear poked up through her silver hair. It looked soft, so light it shouldn’t have lain flat. But maybe faeries didn’t get frizzy hair.
“There will always be threats,” I said softly, not thinking about the Court.
She looked at me, a little furrow in her brow. “You are a bit odd, I believe. Though I have not met many humans,” she said. “And neither has the Princeling.”
“But don’t the Courts trap us, for sport?” I wondered if that was why Milo’s eyes sometimes looked like cracked shards of sky, if he’d been tortured once—he was definitely not being tortured now. We stopped in front of my door, two upright pillars in the long hallway. She stood closer than she needed to, her toes nearly touching mine.
“Our Court does not.” She glanced down and touched my ring, almost absent-mindedly. Her fingertips skimmed along my knuckle. “Except for the Queen’s Court, most have not, for a long time.”
Thoughtlessly, I flipped my hand so our palms touched. “So humans aren’t amusing anymore?” We looked together at the press of palm to palm, watched the dry brush of her fingers across my wrist as she pulled away.
I followed her hand as it slid up my arm, mesmerized by the warm walnut brown of her fingers against my waffle-knit Henley. Then she smiled and squeezed my shoulder. “You are still amusing. But our tastes have evolved.”
I touched the bottom of my name, carved into the wood. “You knew you trapped me,” I said. “You gave me the food.”
She met my gaze, her silver eyes hard. “I knew.”
I realized I didn’t actually have another thought. I had expected her to apologize. But of course she wouldn’t; it had been a direct order from her lord.
We looked at each other for another minute, and then she nodded and walked away.
My next human class was scheduled for that night. I picked Lene up on my way down the hall to the cafeteria. The route had become so familiar it was automatic.
When I pushed the doors open, I stopped in shock. The room was completely full. Crammed to the point where people stood along the walls.
My usual seat at the head of the center table was occupied by the Princeling. Behind him stood the Gray Knight, who jerked her head toward the front of the room—the serving area where she’d stood with Kamare that morning.
The Gray Knight was a budding dramaturg.
Lene split off from me to stand next to Gaheris. Sahir stood up when I walked past him, and stalked three steps behind me on my left flank.
