Page 123 of Across an Endless Sea

I look back at the gathered fae behind me. Like before, there’s a hesitance in their gazes, as if they think this power is something bad. Something to be feared.

“So, what is it?” I turn to Drystan, knowing he won’t dance around the topic.

“Charm.” He delivers the word like a death sentence. “You’ve been using it without knowing since you arrived in Faerie.”

“Charm?” I repeat, confused. “Like those little trinkets we bought at the seamstress’s?”

“No, those are charms. Enchanted objects,” Jaro explains. “The power of charm is much more subtle.”

“When you asked Caed, Jaro, and I not to hurt each other, you used it,” Drystan growls. “Now I can’t even give him a papercut. Every single punch glances right off.”

“Every time you politely ask for something, while making eye contact, your magic has been helping you get your own way,” Kitarni confirms.

“You did it to me too!” Lore is grinning as if he’s won a prize. “I thought you had sparkly eyes!”

I frown, because that makes no sense. “So my power is… controlling people?”

In a startling instant of clarity, I think back to the tree, where Lore made me beg to suck his cock. Was he testing me? Or testing himself?

The redcap—unable to stay still—blinks up into a nearby tree, and my gaze falls on Bree, who was standing behind him. The púca’s posture is rigid with tension. He’s standing farther away from me than everyone else, and he must have been using Lore as a shield.

He doesn’t look afraid, but there’s an underlying tension there…

Wait.

Hecan’tbe afraid. I asked him not to be the day we met.

Something somewhere deep in my gut sinks, and my mouth fills with the taste of ash as the implications sink in. How many times have I done that? I barely gave it a thought. Eye contact and asking nicely were drilled into me as a child.

Goddess, was I manipulating my mortal family, too?

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’ve been manipulating you—all of you—all this time?”

My shoulders shrink, and I wrap my arms around my middle as I try to process. Without meaning to, my eyes meet Kitarni’s wise black ones.

“How do I undo it?” I ask. “All of it? I’ll never use it again.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” the high priestess counsels. “No one is angry at you. You had no idea what you were doing.”

I can’t help the way my eyes stray back to Bree. It’s clear he’s not angry, but it’s equally obvious that he’s not exactly happy about this new development.

He won’t meet my eyes, and that makes it worse.

“I don’t want it undone,” he says, shuffling his weight to his other foot as his hands trace the lines of his cat-sìth tattoo. “I’m… at peace with it, but…”

“But?” I prompt, when the silence becomes unbearable.

His expression is locked down, green gaze fixed on his feet. “I don’t deserve to ask this, after everything you’ve done for me, but I’ll beg if you need me to. Just… don’t use it on me again.”

“Never,” I vow. “I swear to Danu I won’t. I didn’t know—”

He holds up a tattooed hand. “I know, dragonfly. This is my issue to deal with, not yours.”

That doesn’t make it any better. I can feel him pulling away, and part of me reaches for him along our bond. Shut off. Quiet. Not even a hint of the mournful birdsong I’ve come to associate with him.

Focusing on it might just make me cry, so I turn to Lore to distract myself. “You can ignore it?”

Maybe he can teach the others how to defend themselves against me.

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