All That Glows

Eleven

“We’ve arranged for a press conference at the end of the week. Your speech is being written as we speak, but you’ll have to be prepared to answer the press without a teleprompter. Can you handle it?” the prime minister asks from his seat across the wide oak table.

The prince is ringed on every side with important figures of British politics. Parliament members, the prince regent, and his narrow-eyed mother all wait for an answer.

“I’ve given speeches before.” Despite the steadiness in Richard’s voice, his hands don’t stop twisting under the table.

The past hour has been a painful session of details. What Richard has to wear, what he has to learn, who he has to learn it from. Letters, banquets, charity events. How to deal with Parliament. How to handle foreign diplomats. Richard has taken in all of the information with never-ending nods.

I’ve watched it all from the far side of the conference room, seated just out of the prince’s view. This action is just as much for my sake as it is to keep Richard from glancing my way, being distracted. All morning I’ve caught him staring: those hazel irises darting away with intentional quickness.

I’ve done a good bit of staring myself. Richard’s appearance is the same: sculpted cheekbones, tousled, wet-sand hair, eyes like almonds, phantom traces of freckles over the bridge of his nose. But something is very, very different.

It’s like a gear inside me has shifted. I can’t look in Richard’s direction without thinking of the burn on my lips. And when that memory comes over me, the fire spreads, a flush comes to life over my arms, the top of my chest.

I’ve spent the whole day with my arms crossed and my hair fanned out, trying to hide it.

“It’s different now.” His mother breaks her tight-lipped grimace to speak for the first time. Her hands are in front of her, wrapped around a teacup. Her grip is so tense, with tendons and bone bulging through drawn skin, that I’m afraid the blue-willow china might shatter. “This speech is unlike any of the others you’ve given.”

“You mean now that I have something to say?” Richard cuts her off. “Now that Dad’s dead and I have to take his place?”

The regent, Richard’s uncle, clears his throat. “I think what your mother is trying to say is that a lot of people will be watching you, Richard. You should keep that in mind while you prepare.”

The prince’s answer is short, tart. “I can handle it.”

“Then that answers that,” the prime minister says. “We’ll send some trainers to Kensington to help coach you before Friday.”

“Buckingham. I live in Buckingham now.”

A cloud of confusion wisps through the old politician’s eyes as he processes Richard’s correction. “Ah yes. Forgive me. Things have changed so quickly.”

I look over at the prince, letting the truth of the prime minister’s words color my view. Yes. Things—and Richard—have changed quickly. The prince is morphing, in that strange stage between caterpillar and butterfly.

Only time will tell what he will truly become.

Richard spends much of the week getting trained, groomed for the public like a prime show dog. When Friday arrives, he’s more than ready. He’s rehearsed his speech so many times that he’s memorized its eloquent, carefully penned words. He recites it with a convicting, earnest air. One that will make the kingdom fall in love with him.

But he looks sick as he stares into the gilded, floor-length mirror. He fumbles with the top button of his collar. It slips through his fingers and a swearword escapes his lips, all syllable and punch.

“Need some help?”

He seeks out the echoes of my face in the glass, eyes weighed down with pleading. I walk up behind him and grab his arm. He doesn’t protest as I turn him toward me and secure the button with one swift movement. This is the closest I’ve been to him since that evening in Hyde Park. In many ways I feel like a mouse dancing on the edge of a trap, trying to catch just a taste of cheese. Tempting fate.

Being this close, I can feel his terror. It pulses off of him in shocking, uneven strikes.

“Are you okay?” His face is unusually pale. Sallow even. Before I really know what I’m doing, my fingers leave the buttons and move up to stroke his cheek.

He shakes his head. “I’m not ready. I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not.” It’s so nice to be touching him again. I let my hand linger against his cheek, soaking in the warmth of his skin. The ghost of my reflection, the snarling, dutiful beast, is screaming. Reminding me of the promise I made, the blood on my lips. Reminding me that I’m a Fae, and Richard is mortal. That this is wrong.

You are a Frithemaeg, the Fae inside me growls. You have to let go.

I’ll let go. I’ll stop touching him. Just not yet.

“Let’s go somewhere. Somewhere else.”

I should tell him no. I should force him to walk out those doors and face the room full of cameras and reporters. But I know, deep down, that this isn’t what he needs. Bullying him to the edge of his fears won’t make him any stronger. It won’t mold him into the perfect king.

“Where?” I know, even as I voice the question, that it’s wrong. I shouldn’t be helping him.

There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. I look at my hand, so vivid and light against Richard’s sun-kissed skin. My pulse starts to gallop. I feel it in my fingertips, beating against the tenderness of the prince’s cheek.

“Anywhere. Just not here,” he says.

Footsteps, faint in the hall, reach my ears. My hand pulls away, lashing back like a bullwhip. My fingers become a fist, curling deep into the unworn skin of my palm. Nails dig, forming bright pink crescent moons in unseen flesh.

We both look over at the door, listening as the muted thuds in the rug grow closer, closer, closer. Finally they’re here. And then the footsteps pass, their tempo fading, growing silent. My fist remains, a bundle of knuckles, joints, and guilt.

No more touching.

Richard looks back at me. Light from the window pulls a rare green-blue sheen into his eyes. They remind me of the ocean, how it looks just after a storm: weathered, eternal.

This is going to be hard.