Page 78 of A Fae in Finance
“Milo, how am I supposed to know something that you know without you telling me?”
Chad looked up at this, grunted in what might have been assent, and attacked his porridge with ferocity. Chad had even broader shoulders than Milo, and the most adorable snub nose I’d ever seen.
Milo shrugged. “I thought the faeries said you could read minds, or something. Don’t they call you Lady of the Mind Reading?”
I put my spoon down. “Lady of the True Dreams,” I corrected automatically. Then winced, even more embarrassed. “But Milo, I can’t know something if you don’t tell me.”
“Well,nowI know that!” he said cheerfully. “Honestly, what good is a true dream? Mind reading would be much more useful.”
He wasn’twrongbut he was definitely irking me.
He added as an afterthought, “Chad is human, too.”
I looked at Chad. “Okay, then,” I said. So apparently there were at least a few of us.
Sahir had intimated that Milo knew something about my imprisonment. Maybe Milo knew a way for me to get out.
Gritting my teeth, I tried to decide what to do: Should I let it be, trusting the Princeling to uphold our bargain (and Jeff not to fire me)? Or should I ask Milo what he knew?
As if my mother were reading my mind, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at her text.Any progress on coming home?
We sat awkwardly at the table, Milo’s sun-faded blue eyes on my face. Chad had finished eating and looked at me, too, his eyes even madder than Milo’s: so blue they were almost white, and irises shattered by those darker veins, like panes of leaded glass held together by iron filaments.
“Do you want some of my food?” I asked him because he kept looking at me.
He started, and then blinked. “Did you just offer me your food? Off yourplate?” He had a surprisingly sweet voice, like the aftertaste from a Double-Stuffed Creme cookie. “You must be the nicest woman I’ve ever met.”
I couldn’t tell if this was a bit. I opened my mouth, but he kept talking.
“You must be an angel.”
I shrugged and shoved the tray toward Chad, who pulled it to himself with fervor.
“This might be because I haven’t seen a human woman in five years,” Chad began—an auspicious start—
At this, Milo seemed to remember himself. “Chad,” he said, putting a hand on the other guy’s shoulder to cut him off, “stop while you’re ahead.”
Milo met my eye, as if to saySee? I helped.
“Do you know how to get me out of Faerie?” I asked, having given up on conversational segues.
Milo shrugged. “Once you eat faerie food, you’re stuck,” he said. “Unless you want to be rearranged into nothingness.”
“Have you evertriedthe portal?” I asked.
Chad and Milo exchanged a look. “No—” Chad started.
“Is that a threat—” Milo said simultaneously.
“Are you so keen to leave our realm?” the Gray Knight asked, sliding into the seat next to me. She wore loose pants and a low-cut blouse today and had silver flowers threaded through her hair. A small, silly part of me wondered if she’d dressed up for me. “But things were just getting interesting here.”
Milo looked from her to me. “Gray Knight,” he said.
Chad, having said everything he’d needed to, looked back down at my erstwhile tray of food.
She smiled and took my hand, on the table, where anybody could see. I pulled away, not wanting the attention. “Hello, Milo,” she said. “Your conversation sounded intriguing, so I wanted to join.”
“I cannot take credit for that,” he demurred.
