Chapter 18
I TRY TO sleep before my teacher arrives, but I can’t stop thinking about the singer and the king’s cruel “justice.” I struggle to eat lunch, and instead wrap some in a napkin and pack it away ready for the labyrinth.
When there’s a short rap at the door, I almost leap out of my seat. I’m still catching my breath when the king enters with his three ravens and a fae who’s only a little taller than me.
He wears the customary unseelie half-smile, but there’s a warmth in his dark eyes that reminds me of Annem. His long hair is bound in fine braids, each capped with silver, which tinkles as he approaches. “I am Kishel.” His voice is smooth and low, soothing.
But the king has to spoil it by speaking. “Kishel will be your guide as you learn Fatework.”
Avoiding looking at the king, I fight to keep my face impassive, while inside irritation coils and hisses.
He has his hair knotted at the back of his head again and there’s something more casual about his clothing than usual, all of which serves to remind me of how he looked earlier…
shirtless… a little sweaty… focused… agile.
There’s even a damp tendril of hair brushing his cheek, like he came here directly from bathing.
I hate him. And I hate him all the more for looking so damn good.
I even hate myself a little for thinking it.
With a tight smile, I force my attention to Kishel, finding some relief in his deep-set eyes.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m looking forward to learning from you—perhaps even more than I’m looking forward to becoming His Majesty’s queen.
” I flash the king a smirk. After all, I’m not breaking the terms of our bargain—if anything, I’m speaking just like the fae. No lies, but not the whole truth.
The king gives me a narrow smile back, irritation flaring in his eyes. “I’ll leave you two to your lesson.” He turns and stalks to the exit, the two black ravens following. “Bran,” he calls from the door, glancing back.
Expecting to find the white bird perched by the window, I look over my shoulder. A pair of pale lilac eyes peer back above a thick beak that’s inches from my face. Bran cocks her head, looking from me to Drystan, then nestles on to her haunches with a soft croak.
The king’s lips purse as he gestures at the open door that the other two have already flown through.
When the white raven doesn’t move, he sighs.
“Really? Have you forgotten where your loyalties lie?” A pause where the bird simply watches him.
“Very well. Stay.” With that, he sweeps away, leaving the door to clunk shut.
Kishel watches me as he take a seat opposite.
“I’m sure Drystan has told you Fatework is part of the consort’s duties.
” He tilts his head to one side, reminding me for a moment of the raven.
There’s the edge of a smirk on his lips, and it isn’t lost on me that he refers to Drystan by name rather than title.
I file that detail away for later. “But knowing Drystan, he probably hasn’t told you why. ” His raised eyebrow is a question.
I bite back a sarcastic reply that probably would go against my bargain with the king and simply shake my head.
“Of course not.” He shares a soft chuckle with me, and my shoulders ease.
I think I like him. At least my lessons will be spent in good company.
“Then I’ll start at the beginning.” He sits back, steepling his fingers.
“The kings of the Underworld draw power from the land. They’re like most unseelie in that respect—we pull from the magic around us.
But as our kings and as the sons of The Morrigan, they are linked to the land more intimately.
They can draw from its deepest reserves and their capacity for magic is far greater. ”
Their capacity for ego, more like. But I smile and nod, showing I’m listening.
“Yet there are depths to the land that aren’t accessible to them. Hidden places, hidden streams of magic—underground rivers if you will—that can only be reached by a consort, once they are bound by the wedding rituals.”
My nodding pauses. If I fail to escape, this will be more than just a marriage.
Maybe it was foolish of me, but I had it in my head that it would be a wedding much like a human one. Some pretty words, the symbolic binding of hands, the sharing of honey and a blessing from a druid, then everyone feasts and drinks and dances until they can’t any longer.
But this? Rituals and hidden power that I’ll have access to?
Some humans are gifted with magic. Those who do only have it thanks to the fae.
Some have fae ancestry, so they carry that gift in their blood—the fae-blooded.
The fae-touched, on the other hand, are given the gift, though it’s not as potent.
The old tales are full of stories of humans who helped an old woman on the road or saved a child from wolves or drowning, only to find the victim was a glamoured fae who then gifted them or their children—or future children—with some form of magic.
I’m not fae-blooded or -gifted. So how would accessing this hidden magic even work? Would it work?
And what would the cruel, uncaring king want me to do with it?
“Is everything all right?”
I suck in a breath, jolting from my spiraling thoughts. “Yes. Fine! I was just… I hadn’t realized there was a magical element to the marriage.”
None of this matters, anyway. I’ll get home through the labyrinth and Drystan will have to find himself another consort. Phaedra seems much more suited to the role. I’m sure she’s already powerful—she’ll be able to handle these hidden streams of magic.
Kishel gives an understanding nod, but there’s a spark to his eyes that belies his kindly demeanor, like his gaze is skewering through my smiles and soft flesh and reaching the very marrow of my bones.
“I suspect it’s rather different to the surface, but I have an inkling you’re up to the task. Part of the consort’s magic is about seeing the kingdom’s fate and working to nudge it into a more desirable direction. I get the sense you want to keep others safe and see them prosperous and happy.”
Min instantly comes to mind. I may not really know anyone else here but I’ll do my best to master whatever Fatework requires for her. No one deserves to melt away at the edge of court because of something as inconsequential as a scar.
I see her face as she stared at Astrid, the longing that still speaks to my own heart.
“Does Fatework tell you about… love? Can you find out how someone feels? Or, uh, nudge them into feeling? No, that wouldn’t be fair. But finding out how they feel—that would be all right. How does it work?”
“So many questions.” There’s a gently teasing undercurrent to his tone, but it isn’t cruel and sharp like the king’s. “Perhaps we should start at that beginning I mentioned, rather than jumping ahead.”
My curiosity has run away with me again. My face grows warm, and I barely stop myself apologizing.
“Do you have what I believe humans call a ‘fae mark?’”
The sign of a human with magic. Some have elongated canines like fae, others have unusual hair or eye colors or an unnaturally shaped birthmark.
Not me.
With an apologetic smile, I shake my head.
“And did you have an awakening?” He raises his eyebrows hopefully.
I hate to disappoint him, but I had no magical outburst in my teens or early twenties that revealed some latent power. “I’m afraid not. No mark. No awakening. No magic. I’m entirely ordinary.”
He laughs, but not in a way that makes me the butt of his joke—his eyes are too soft for that, inviting me in rather than shutting me out. “You may not have magic, but that doesn’t make you ordinary. See? Bran believes in you.” He indicates something behind me.
The bird is still perched on the back of my chair, a ghostly presence peering over my shoulder.
“Is the king out in the cold tonight and you’d rather be inside with us?” I ask as I smooth the feathers of her chest. She lifts her head as if she wants me to do it again, so I oblige before returning to my lesson.
Kishel gives me an odd look but after a second it’s gone and he places a shallow bowl on the table. He fills it from a bottle that’s labeled “Moonwater,” then he sits back and invites me to peer into it. “Tell me what you see.”
I crane over and look into the water rippling under my breath. I see my warped reflection. I see the ceiling decorated in a gray and white gradient. I see… nothing else.
When I report my findings to Kishel, he nods, then rummages in his bag. “Try this.” He produces a mirror that sits flat on the table. Its frame is much simpler than the one Lowen gave me, with organic swirls and faintly leafy shapes, but its surface reminds me of that mirror.
In it, my reflection is broken, an eye appearing on my cheek, my nose skewed to one side, sliced by the ceiling paint.
Perhaps if I look hard enough, I’ll be able to see something among the chaos. I lean forward, brow tight, eyes burning as I resist the urge to blink.
I don’t realize I’m bent right over the mirror, reaching out, until my fingertips brush its surface. It’s as cold as ice and ripples from my touch, like I’ve dropped a pebble into a pond’s still surface.
My gaze darts across the scattered reflections, searching.
But there are no great secrets, no profound prophecies. Just myself and the ceiling.
With a sigh, I sink back in my chair and shake my head.
To his credit, Kishel’s hopeful expression doesn’t dissolve. He just nods and rubs his lower lip, turning over his thoughts.
Movement whispers over my scalp, and when I tilt my head and peer out the corner of my eye, I find Bran playing with my hair. It’s oddly comforting.
Kishel clearly isn’t one to be put off easily, as he takes me outside next, a Twylth guard in tow.
He has me search the movement of the strange stars in this inky sky and the flight of a flock of birds he scares from their sleep in the wintry trees.
He even goes to fetch a chicken from one of the coops near the kitchens, but I beg him not to cut the bird open so I can read its entrails, and not only because I’m sure it would be a fruitless endeavor.
Because I don’t see anything other than stars in constellations I don’t recognize, the flapping wings of alarmed birds and the unerring but doomed hope in Kishel’s face.
He leads me to the burbling fountain in the glasshouse. The results are the same. But he squeezes my shoulder. “Patience, my young apprentice. Perhaps we just need to open the way. Let me scry for you.”
He’s waiting, eyebrows raised, as though he needs my permission. I’m not sure what he means exactly, but I nod and gesture for him to go ahead.
Craning over the fountain’s surface, he takes my hand.
His gaze goes distant, darting side to side as though desperate to quickly take in a scene I cannot see.
“You break this block.” His voice has an odd quality to it, distant and echoing, like he’s deep inside a cave and I’m at its entrance.
“You see the horse that’s to come. You venture far, toward the great gates and the narrow bridge beyond, but you won’t like what you find among the yellow flowers. ”
The breath catches in my throat. The gates—they must be the exit from the labyrinth, and the narrow bridge…
Could that be the stone bridge that leads to our cottage? The yellow flowers—they have to be gorse bushes, right?
So I will beat the labyrinth. I will escape.
My eyes burn with tears of relief. I’ve held on to determination, and I’ve kept hope locked in my heart, but to hear him say I will succeed feels like the universe has confirmed it.
I just need to keep going, and I will get home.
“Try not to worry.” He pats my hand, mistaking my unshed tears for frustration at my failure to scry anything but my own reflection. “We’ll try different methods until we try one that works for you. After all, we have nothing but time.”