All That Glows

Thirteen

Richard’s sleep is still deep and dream-soaked when his sister arrives. In the nights he’s slept since his father’s death he’s kicked the sheets, twisting them into inextricable knots with his long legs. The fight with the Green Woman drained this restlessness out of him. He’s as still as a body laid out for a viewing; the sheets draped over him flat and unwrinkled.

“Richard! You’re not still sleeping, are you?” Anabelle’s knocks grow louder with each passing second.

I glance over at the bed, wondering if I should wake him. But Breena is on the other side of that door. If she catches sight of Richard and me, all is finished.

After another minute of pounding her fist against the wood, the princess finally shoves the door open. Everything—her hair, her makeup, and her wardrobe—is as coordinated and flawless as always. The princess is a jigsaw puzzle without the cracks. It’s only when you look straight into her eyes, between mascara-coated lashes, that you can tell something’s wrong.

Anabelle strides over to the bed, her high heels sinking into the plush rug. She makes a face at the mountain of laundry on the floor before she leans over and shakes her brother’s shoulders.

“Wake up, Richard! It’s almost noon!”

He starts at his sister’s touch. The headboard—a piece of birch hand-carved by long-dead woodworkers—shudders from the movement. Beating against the rust-red walls like an incoming telegraph. I take a sharp breath when his gaze glimmers by me and shake my head as barely as I dare.

Fortunately Richard seems to receive my less-than-subtle message. He blinks up at his sister.

Anabelle puts one hand on her hip. No amount of powder or paste can hide the glower she’s aiming at her older brother. “I take it, since you’re still asleep, that you haven’t read the papers today.”

A copy of the morning post dangles from her free hand. A picture of Richard swallows the front page. My stomach turns to see it—he’s walking down the gravel path, mouth open in what’s clearly mid-word. I know that the empty space beside him is where my image is supposed to be.

“‘Prince Richard Abandons Speech and Converses with Imaginary Beings: Has Britain’s Future King Cracked?’” Anabelle doesn’t even get halfway through reading the headline aloud before Richard falls back into the bed; his face completely engulfed in the goose-down pillow. “What is this?”

“Yes. What is that?” Breena glides up next to me. “What happened in the park yesterday, Emrys?”

My mouth dries as I stare at the paper. I’d forgotten all about the paparazzi and their intrusive cameras.

Richard rolls back over, bleary eyes inspecting the wad of paper and ink. “They’re exaggerating, Belle. You know how they are.”

“This isn’t The Sun, Richard. This is a reputable news source. I can’t help but worry about your sanity when you go AWOL from a press conference and have intricate conversations with the air in Hyde Park.” Anabelle tosses the paper aside and looks down at her brother in earnest. “Are you okay? I mean, really?”

Richard pushes himself up. The sheets slide slowly down his chest and I try my hardest not to stare. Seeing him half naked under the buttery slants of morning light, I can truly understand why Mab was so captivated by the human form. Why she wanted us to imitate it. The sculpt and dive of his muscles against summer-singed skin is like a masterpiece rendered by the Renaissance artists.

“Are you asking me if I’ve gone mental? Did Mum put you up to this?”

“Mum actually left for Bath this morning. She’s checked herself into a spa.” Anabelle sighs. “I’m asking out of the concern of my sisterly heart.”

“Mum went to Bath? She left London?” A storm cloud of worry rises, builds behind Richard’s face.

His sister scowls. “You’re going off topic. Answer my question.”

“No, Belle. I’m not crazy. I was talking to Edmund through an earpiece. The reporters took it out of context like they always do.”

“Emrys!” Breena’s fingers snap just by the slope of my nose, and I remember that I’m not supposed to be looking or listening to the royals’ drama. Richard’s on his own. “What happened in the park?”

My mind scrambles. Richard’s excuse is better than any I could’ve dredged up. I decide to elaborate on it.

“He got cold feet and ran off to the park. He called one of his Eton friends to talk. That’s when the press found him.”

In the fringes of my attention, I hear Richard speaking, low and serious. “Listen, sis. Promise me you won’t leave London any time soon.”

I grit my teeth. If anything would arouse Breena’s suspicions it would be this. . . . If only there was a way to keep him silent without my friend catching wind of it.

Fortunately all of the other Fae’s attentions are focused on me. She doesn’t see Anabelle frown. She doesn’t hear Richard’s feeble explanation as to why the princess should stay in the confines of the city.

“There’s something I should tell you. . . .” I begin, thinking of the best way to keep Breena’s attention on me. “There was an attack last evening. Just after the press saw him.”

My friend’s face freezes at the news. Her expression tells me this incident was something I should have reported hours ago. “An attack? By whom?”

“It was a Green Woman. She had some sort of protection over her. I was barely able to break it. She almost finished me.” And Richard. I glance over Breena’s shoulder to see that the prince is out of bed now, throwing on a navy V-neck.

“But you unmade her? Why didn’t you report it right away?”

“There was too much to deal with. I had to track down the press and wipe their memories. Then I had to handle the prince. The incident was rather traumatic, he didn’t forget it that easily.” I breathe in and out solely through my nose. The exercise keeps my voice and aura steady—makes it easier to lie.

The only thing it doesn’t ease is my conscience. I didn’t know what I expected when I first showed myself to the prince, but it certainly wasn’t this. Not lying to my closest friend and jeopardizing all of our lives for the sake of secrecy.

But maybe, just maybe, the truth doesn’t have to stay hidden.

This is bigger than me now. Bigger than my rank or Breena’s worries. If I mess up again, if I keep letting these feelings get in the way, then Richard will be six feet beneath the earth, in a wooden box just like his father’s.

My fingers fidget over the many different fabrics of my skirts. If I don’t tell Breena now, I don’t think I’ll find the courage for it later.

“There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

One of Breena’s flawless eyebrows disappears under her fringe of tangled curls. A question. “What’s wrong?”

“Remember the night we walked to the Tower of London? The night of the ravens?”

“Of course.”

“Do you remember what we discussed?” I ask.

Breena blinks, her eyes rolling back as she tries to remember.

“The emotions. They’re not stopping, Bree. I tried to push past them like you said, but they’ve just gotten worse.” My throat begins to swell under the pressure of my confession.

The other Fae’s lips pull paper thin. “What exactly are you saying?”

“It’s—” I take a deep breath. “It’s not frustration or anger. I think . . . I think it’s something else.”

My friend stares, her blue eyes becoming hard, glacial. It’s in moments like these I can feel the years that lie between us.

“I feel drawn to him. It’s hard to explain. . . .” I falter. Breena’s glare hasn’t flinched. I know, just from this one look, that telling her the truth won’t bring me freedom.

“You’re playing with fire, Emrys,” she says so softly even I have trouble hearing. “You know how this will end if you keep going. You know the sacrifice that must be made if you choose him. . . .”

I fail the courage to go on. I swallow Breena’s words and steal another look at Richard. He’s raking absent fingers through his hair as he talks to his sister. There’s something about the way he looks when he first awakes—disheveled and wild—that makes my chest throb.

None of the other Frithemaeg can guard him any better. In the end, Richard is better off with me.

Isn’t he?

“You’re going to have to report this to Queen Mab.”

“What?” My throat collapses into a choke.

“Mab needs to know about the attack,” Breena says. “Perhaps she can spare more scouts to see if they can trace how the Old One is directing the assassins.”

Relief tingles over me when I realize what Breena’s referring to. “I’ll send a sparrow this afternoon.”

“Make it sooner.” Breena glances back over her shoulder at the royals. “We might not have much time left.”

We sit alone in the yard. Richard rolls up his sleeves and works beneath the harsh energy of the sun. There’s a new speech in his hands—one thrust upon him as soon as he approached the prime minister and the regent with a half-mumbled apology. I stretch out in the grass as he memorizes his chance at redemption, savoring the time outdoors, yet never taking my eyes off Richard. It’s not so bad, having a constant excuse to watch him.

But every time I watch him—take in his movement, smile, and sun-salting of freckles—I fight. Those feelings that started that night in Hyde Park as a slight powder of snow keep falling, sliding. A never-stopping avalanche. There’s nothing between us except my rapidly fading common sense.

“Three weeks,” Richard says, and lets the sheets of paper he’s poring over drift into the grass.

“Hm?”

“In twenty-one days, I turn eighteen. I’ll become king.” The prince bites his lip and stares down at the scattered papers. He hasn’t had them for more than four hours, but they’re already worn through with numerous creases and folds.

“Yes. You will.”

“I used to do my homework out here when I was in primary school. My tutors hated it. Too much sunburn and grass stains.”

Try as I might, I can’t imagine ever hating the sun. “And you still made them come out?”

He shrugs. “I was . . . strong willed as a child.”

“Some things never change.”

“I did my multiplication tables under that tree over there.” He points, his finger arrow straight, to a distant sprawling Indian chestnut. “French conjugations I saved for the pond. I liked to shout them and scare the swans.”

“Sounds like you were positively rotten.” I say this with a smile, thinking of the pair of swans I’d startled so many weeks ago. How their feathers fanned, all cream and knifelike thought the mist.

“It’s funny, how cyclical life can be,” he muses. “Though I much prefer you to any of those stuffy old tutors.”

He flops back into the grass, arms and legs spreadeagled like he’s about to create a snow angel in the lawn clippings. The flail of his limbs sends his right hand far. Tips of fingers, blunted and tough with callous, brush just against my arm.

Even after so many days apart, his touch, the barest pressure of his fingers, still sends a thrill across my skin. The desire, the lure to draw even closer to him, builds, rattling me. I try to shove it into the back of my thoughts. This time with Richard, lazing under noonday sun and clouds spread like lacework, should be enough. It has to be.

His hand doesn’t move. I don’t pull away. The place where our flesh meets feels frantically alive, like the glint and thrum of jeweled hummingbird wings.

He’s looking at me. Really looking. Like a man who’s stood in front of the same painting for hours, memorizing every hue and brushstroke. Richard is doing this with my face, my eyes . . . and what lies beneath it all.

“Emrys?” My name rolls off his lips with the syrupy grace of a foreign language. I barely recognize it.

I’m too scattered, too paralyzed by the war swirling black and white inside me, to answer.

“Why do you let me see you?”

“I—It makes my job easier if you’re aware.” There’s a staleness to my words. They’re translucent. I know Richard can see through them.

“I was wondering if there might be another reason,” he says, careful and deliberate.

Was there another reason? Besides the failed magic and fear of Mab’s retribution? Besides it being the only way out?

I open my mouth to speak when I feel it. Another immortal presence in the air, rapidly approaching. I know, just from the briefest taste, that this aura belongs to another Frithemaeg.

“Don’t talk to me,” I hiss in Richard’s direction, a fast jerk severing the connection between us. I throw up the veiling spell, vanish from his eyes.

Breena appears in the yard: a burst of golden curls and flight. The hasty flare of her magic tells me she rushed here.

“Emrys, you’ve been summoned to Mab’s court. She wants you to leave immediately.”

I frown and pick at some longer blades of grass, rubbing their fleshy lengths between my fingers.

“But I sent the sparrow. . . .” I begin weakly.

The older Fae shrugs. “The message she sent me seemed urgent—she’s granted you a three-day leave from your duties. You should go now. I’ll watch Richard until some younglings can relieve me.”

A sudden fear digs its long, ice claws into my shoulder blades. If Breena mentioned anything . . . If Mab has found out about my lenience with Richard—or worse, my emotions for him . . . I squirm in the plush layer of lawn, tossing the shredded grass away. It drifts to the earth like confetti.

There’s no choice left to me. I can’t drop the veiling spell; I can’t explain to Richard why I’ve vanished. I can only leave things like this. . . . Unsettled.

I allow myself one last glance at the prince. His eyebrows are drawn together in a concerned V as he pretends to study the strewn papers. I can only hope he won’t call for me. That he won’t betray our secret to Breena or the younglings guarding him.

“Right. I’ll be back soon,” I say, more for Richard’s unhearing ears than for Breena.

“You know Mab,” she chides. “I wouldn’t promise anything.”