10. How Do You Turn You Off? #2
“You keep putting glamours over me,” I whispered, blinking dubiously at his boots. He didn’t want me to be spotted—he was making sure there were no witnesses. “So why wouldn’t you just let me leave when I tried? You know I would have laid low. Why pick me up and chain me to yourself again?”
A sharp intake of breath, and then the High King said, “You really want them to see you, little beast?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
But I did . I wanted them to see me, and I wanted them to see what he was doing to me.
The hot and cold torture, the trickery and deceit, the spells that cloaked me in their streets while I grappled with the fate he’d sealed for them during a war before I was even born.
I wanted them to know me so they might understand why I didn’t want to be their High Queen and live out the remainder of my sentence of eternal servitude at his side.
I wanted them to see so that, one day, they might forgive me.
Lucais’s voice cut into my thoughts like a steak knife into a fillet. “I want what is best for the people of this realm,” he told me plainly. “I hope that, as their intended High Queen, you would want the same.”
“And I am not what is best for them,” I mused. On that, the High King and I might agree. “So your solution is to stow me away inside of your spells like some kind of fucking mistress.”
Lucais’s head swung from side to side. “Nope. Try again, you maniacal woman. That is not what I said.”
“Okay.” I sat forward, feeling a pleasant shift in the atmosphere between us as the carriage moved smoothly around a bend. “Then what’s the problem? Why the glamour, Lucais? It can’t be the Malum or the caenim. You said the city was secure—”
“It is secure.”
“Is it Blythe and the Court of Darkness? Do you think I am indispensable in your quest to find her and figure out what went wrong, and you don’t want anyone to know you’ve brought in reinforcements?”
“I don’t care about finding her.”
“Then what is it?” I threw my hands up, and they landed with a slap on my thighs as I leaned back again. “Is there something about me you find so utterly atrocious you cannot bear to reveal it to your people?”
He blinked at me. The High King just stared at me, blinking like an idiot for long minutes.
“Nothing,” he answered at last. “In fact, if you’re so ready for them to meet you, let’s get it over and done with. I am not here to stand in your way, Your Future Highness.”
“I don’t understand—”
With a wave of his hand, Lucais cut me off, and the top of the carriage opened up like a sunroof.
He was on his feet in seconds, his arms reaching for me and hauling me to mine.
Eagerly, I scrambled to find footing to hoist myself up high enough to see below the tree line.
Lucais scooped me up with one arm around my waist, the other laid flat upon the carriage rooftop, and held me with my back flush against his chest and his chin resting against my ear.
The city was absolutely beautiful and filled with—
That’s a lot of people.
Everyone crowding together on the street stopped, turned, and looked at us.
Every. Single. Person.
There were so many faeries out in the gloomy light of day, meandering about their mornings, and I drew in a sharp gasp of air as they simultaneously stopped what they were doing and every last one of them bowed.
They bowed .
Faeries dropped to their knees or hung their heads low in a startling display of deference.
As far as my mortal eyes could see, there were faeries offering respect to us in a way they had not even attempted to replicate when it had been Lucais in the carriage alone.
I wanted to turn to the High King and ask him why it was happening, but I was acutely aware that they were listening.
I knew they could hear us since the glamour had been lifted for possibly the last time, and they would be curious.
I spoke to him in my mind instead. What is this for?
His answer was simple. Fast. For you.
The idea was absurd, but my eyes were not playing tricks on me.
The pathway through Caeludor became marked by faeries of different races, colours, shapes, and sizes, all bowing their heads or entire bodies.
Lucais did not elaborate on his thought, but he remained a steady presence holding me upright as the carriage continued its journey to the city’s heart.
They had seen the Oracle’s prediction. They recognised me—or at least remembered enough about me to make the connection. Lucais said the Oracle didn’t show faces, but he caught a glimpse of flame-red hair in the vision.
My curls were freed by the wind, the strands pulled loose and teased in the air as the carriage picked up speed down a long, straight stretch of road.
The High King’s heart beat into my chest in an unsteady rhythm, his lungs expanding with even breaths, caressing me with each inhale.
I felt like I was on a float in a parade, but there was no music, and nobody was making eye contact with anyone else.
They were simply watching, processing, and…
Wiping away tears?
Finally, Lucais loosened his grip.
I practically collapsed back into my seat, breathless and exhilarated.
“Happy now?” he demanded, sounding anything but overjoyed himself. “You wanted them to see you and know that you’re here, and now everyone who’s ever set foot in this place before in their whole immortal life will get the message—including the Malum, probably. But what the hell, right?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I sniped. The experience was strange and thrilling at the same time, but I had low hopes where he was concerned because the High King had a track record of ruining everything for me. “That display was all you. I only wanted you to stop hiding me.”
“Really?” he sneered. “Who’s hiding who again?”
I scrunched up my nose, shaking my head. “If you’re talking about Wrenlock and the bond—”
The High King cut me off with a lethal look as the carriage lurched to a halt. “We’re here.”
“Lucais—”
He held up a hand. “Enough, Auralie. There are people out there watching us. For once, I am going to need you to fucking behave yourself, or I’ll not only glamour you again, but I’ll see you back in those chains on both your hands and your feet, and I’ll let the whole of fucking Faerie see it too.”
I recoiled from him like he was a venomous snake. Lucais didn’t react or give me time to think; he simply straightened his clothes as the door opened by itself, and then deftly stepped down from the carriage, avoiding my eyes when he held his hand out to help me down after him.
The people in the vicinity pretended not to stop what they were doing to watch, but everything moved in slow motion. The way that hands swung, feet stepped, heads turned, and mouths opened for words…
All of it was delayed as they kept one eye trained on us. I didn’t feel any malice or distrust, even though I was sure I’d seen some of them crying. The air was charged with raw inquisitiveness and a tinge of shocked relief.
Lucais snatched my hand and pulled me into a small, unmarked building.
It was different from most of the grotesque structures in the city; a tiny, textured flat with a white picket fence and flower garden wedged between two towering multi-storey buildings on a street lined with weeping willows and crawling wisteria vines.
A black signpost shaped like a wilting rose stood out the front with a wooden sign, but the paint had been sanded away.
The bell above the door jangled on entry, and I had a momentary flashback to Dante’s Bookstore. Homesickness grabbed for me with hands of desperation as the smell of mothballs and fresh ink rushed to greet my nose.
A rainbow of spines lined the walls from the ceiling to the floor on shelves of golden timber and long-stemmed plants with drooping leaves were suspended in midair above our heads, some tethered from macrame hangers on ceiling hooks and others seemingly bespelled to levitate.
Obsidian jars housed long quills, glittering like a starry night, and a large, gliding wooden library ladder was in the corner of the room beside a stack of half-opened book cartons.
We had entered a faerie bookstore.
Something in my chest pulled, and my lungs constricted, remembering the last time we had been inside an establishment like it.
I’m sorry, lassie, but ye must go.
A short, portly man with a large, crooked snout and two elongated ears like those belonging to a horse stood behind the counter.
His head was mostly bald save for some tufts of white hair at the top, and his skin was a speckled tangerine.
Huge round eyes, rimmed with tight creases, were raised to welcome us, and he smiled with a wide mouthful of slightly discoloured teeth.
After disappearing beneath the countertop for a moment, he rounded the corner half his height, walking with a slight limp that had him leaning heavily on a gnarled tree branch serving as a cane.
“Your Majesty,” he greeted Lucais pleasantly. The small man’s voice was a smooth rasp, and I buried my unreasonable shock at hearing an unfamiliar person referring to the arrogant bastard at my side as royalty. His dark, eager eyes moved to my face, and he licked his plump lips. “This is she?”
Lucais both looked and sounded less than impressed when he glanced down at me and confirmed it flatly. “This is she.”
“And so she is found.” The short man reached for my hand, nodding his head enthusiastically.
Not knowing what else to do, I gave it to him, and he held it snugly in his thick-fingered grasp, bending his head with reverence.
“It’s an honour to finally meet you, milady,” he said, his voice filled with conviction. “A real honour.”
My face paled. Milady? “Than—”
Lucais clamped a hand over my mouth. “Uh-uh. Zip it, you. Never give thanks to a malevolent faerie or they will take it as a debt owed.”
I licked his palm to get rid of his hand, and his eyes flared before he pulled it back. “Malevolent faeries?” I repeated. Are they not all a little bit malevolent?
“Eyes on the prize, bookworm. This is Eldrick,” Lucais said by way of introduction.
He suddenly sounded bored. “He’s the only Hobgoblin in town I trust with my precious artefacts—” The High King broke off with a small choking noise, noticing that Eldrick had taken advantage of our distraction and started to lick my hand with small strokes of his purple, catlike tongue.
The Hobgoblin’s eyes were closed, and he moaned softly as if he were licking chocolate from my fingers.
I tried to conceal the cringe, but I was exceedingly glad his eyes were closed because I could not keep the expression from flitting across my face.
The rest of my body was tense, frozen in place by the stupefaction and unfamiliarity of local customs. My track record with the Goblin race was indigent at best, and I still had the taste of Lucais’s skin on my own tongue.
With a quiet groan, Lucais tugged me firmly against his side and reached across me like he was brushing away a cobweb, effectively snatching my hand back from the storekeeper.
“ You are obviously not included in that,” he muttered, eyes darting to mine.
He sighed wearily. “Eldrick, please. We’re here to see the Map. ”
“My deepest apologies,” the Hobgoblin said, bowing repeatedly as he backed away. He gave me one last, longing look as his tongue swiped over his mouth again. “It has been so long since we have had a High Queen, and such a treasure is she.”
Lucais had the nerve to roll his eyes. “Indeed.”
“A Hobgoblin?” I hissed at him when Eldrick shuffled back behind the counter and started opening and slamming drawers with a ferocity that put John Dante to shame.
I wiped his saliva off on my clothing as discreetly as I could manage.
“I thought you said they hate to be observed. Didn’t one of them try to attack us on the road into Sthiara? ”
Lucais gave me a scornful look. “Not us ,” he replied.
“ You . Besides, that was a Goblin . They’re quite different.
” He paused, thoughtful. “Do you learn anything when you read, or do you just like to look at all the pretty words? All those books you ransacked in the House’s library—and for what? ” he muttered.
I shook my head, too dazed to bite back, and watched as Eldrick returned carrying a large key on a periwinkle ribbon. Lucais followed him as he hobbled into the back room, dragging me along behind him, and looked on as Eldrick carefully placed the key on the floor.
Using his free hand, the High King clicked his fingers, and blinding light exploded from within the key in a circle, opening a portal out of thin air in front of us.
Before my mouth could finish falling open, the High King stepped through it, his figure becoming veiled by a thick coat of magic—almost like a sheer blanket woven with luminescent golden threads—and then he used the hand still wrapped around mine to yank me inside too.