Chapter 12
IT TOOK ME a second to process.
He knows where they are?
I took off after him back through the court, weaving through the crowd, hot on his heels.
This might be my only real lead.
I couldn’t risk losing it.
Glancing around, I tried to figure out where I’d last seen Soren. I couldn’t spot him anywhere.
Maybe that was for the best. I wouldn’t have to fulfill any more odd requests between now and nine o’clock if he couldn’t find me.
I pressed my lips together and hurried after Caius.
He drew a lot of eyes, which put the weight of a few dozen gazes on me as well as he led us to the tunnel the king and queen had used to enter court.
My brows rose.
This tunnel said “royal” in every way.
Bright lighting made the previous tunnels seem gloomy. But it was the high ceilings, wide halls, and gold-inlaid patterns that made it feel like stepping into a castle. I supposed, in all the ways that mattered, it was.
There wasn’t a speck of dirt.
If I hadn’t known better, I’d never have guessed it was underground at all.
I hesitated at the entrance. Caius hadn’t given me any reason not to trust him. He was helping me. But he’s still fae.
Holding my breath, hoping it wasn’t a trap, I stepped through.
The prince’s boots echoed on the marble floor, accompanied by the slap of my sandals.
“Welcome to my home,” Caius offered with a wave of his hands and a lopsided smile. “Does it compare with where you’re from?”
Though he meant the Shadow Court, I instantly pictured Selmo and shook my head. “We don’t have anything like this. It’s . . . impressive.”
That clearly pleased him, because he launched into a long-winded story about how his father’s father had commissioned the greatest stonemason in all the courts to build out the tunnels here.
I tried to nod in all the right places, but my entire focus was on not getting lost.
Two left turns.
I tapped my left leg twice.
Down a set of stairs that curves around.
I curled my finger downward. Two taps, curl. Two taps, curl.
Not the best memorization technique, but I didn’t have any flash cards, so it’d have to do.
We took a right this time, then another staircase.
My subtle dance turned into two left taps, curl, one right tap, point down.
I shivered in my borrowed dress. This deep underground, the tunnels clearly weren’t heated anymore. The air had noticeably chilled.
To take my mind off of it, I picked out little details from our surroundings to help me remember as well.
This staircase didn’t have softly padded carpet like the previous one or marble flooring like the tunnels above.
It was simple gray stone. Less artwork too.
It occurred to me then that Caius had fallen silent.
Had he noticed I was distracted? I’d never been good at small talk.
He was probably used to people bowing and scraping around him, but even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have known where to start.
I tried to shake the tension from my shoulders as we approached a large wooden door.
Caius paused in front of it, turning to face me, which put him much closer than I expected.
“You’re different,” he said decisively, just inches away, staring down at me.
When my eyes flew wide, he grinned and clarified, “You don’t try to impress me like most folk would.
” Turning to open the door, he waved me in first, still smiling. “It’s refreshing.”
I had no idea what to say to that. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to expect a response. For a split second, I’d thought he’d seen through Soren’s glamour, and my heart rate had jumped to double time.
We entered a room that looked like a hotel lobby. Or maybe more like a doctor’s office. A dozen or so chairs filled the space in rows, all empty. On the far side, a fae girl sat at a tall desk, lazily picking at her nails.
When she saw Caius, she leapt to her feet, smoothing the feathers on her dress. “Your Highness.” She bowed slightly. “How can I help you this evening?”
Her nose came to a sharp point, her lips were tiny, and she had round yellow eyes like an owl. Blinking rapidly, she glanced between us.
“If mortals are in my court, you can often find them here,” Caius told me, as if she hadn’t spoken. Then he turned to her, adding, “And this is . . .?”
“Oriel, Your Highness.” She blinked those huge eyes again, eyelashes fluttering. Was she trying to be coy?
“Oriel,” the prince repeated with a friendly smile, leaning one elbow on the tall desk. He turned to me.
When they both stared, waiting, I realized he wanted me to take over.
“Oh, um, okay. One of them is an older man, around forty-five. He has these big round glasses, and his hair is turning white, even though—” I almost said, “He won’t admit it,” but that sounded too familiar.
I stalled, struggling to think of a better way to describe him.
“That’s all right if you don’t remember much,” Caius reassured me, misunderstanding. “We can look through all the elder mortals if need be.”
“If I may, Your Highness,” Oriel said softly, leaning toward him with a flirtatious smile. “I believe I know which one she’s referring to.”
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed with a slap on the desk that made both of us jump. “We’ll wait here while you fetch him.”
She flitted through a door to her right.
Are they on the other side? I sucked in a breath. What if Mom’s here too? I couldn’t seem to let the air out, lungs frozen. What’ll I do if they’re here? Will he let me take them? Could it be that easy?
Caius turned his gaze toward me, not trying to hide his stare. It didn’t help my breathing issues, but I pretended not to notice. Eyes glued to the door where Oriel had disappeared, I clutched my skirts.
“You really don’t seem Unseelie.” His voice broke the quiet like a cell phone ringing during class: shocking, uncomfortable, unwanted.
I tried not to wince, but my acting hadn’t improved in the last hour, and Caius noticed right away.
“No, no, it’s a compliment,” he assured me. “Why would you want to be like them?”
I’d heard this sentiment twice now in a single night, though Caius’s delivery landed differently.
Footsteps sounded behind the door before I had to come up with an answer.
I leaned forward on the desk.
The owl girl swept through the door and stepped aside to reveal . . . a strange old man.
He looked nothing like my dad, not that I’d really given her much to go on, but I knew for a fact that I’d said around forty-five, and this gentleman could’ve easily been eighty years old.
Shuffling forward, he had a vacant expression and barely seemed to notice me or the prince at all as he stared into space.
“There you go,” Oriel said, never sparing me a glance as she smiled at the prince.
Caius turned to me with raised brows. “Did I deliver?” he asked with a hopeful grin.
“No. That’s not him,” I told the girl once I found my voice. It sounded harsh. I tried to think of a way to soften my reaction but came up completely blank. “He’s not what I described to you at all.”
“Oh, sorry. They all look the same to me.” Oriel blinked those strange eyes at the old man as if he might somehow morph into the person I wanted, then sighed.
“Let me try again.” She disappeared before I could point out the age difference or that he didn’t even have glasses on.
The elderly gentleman shuffled after her.
This whole thing felt off somehow. I thought of the deal my dad had signed. I’d blamed Soren and his friends. But what if Caius was part of it too?
“How many . . . humans are here?” I asked him as the door swung shut, trying—and failing—to fully hide my suspicions.
“My apologies, Brynn. I hate to disappoint such a lovely female, but I can’t reveal the inner workings of our court to a member of another.
I hope you can understand.” He smiled. “I can say, however, that they’re under our protection, of course.
Some of them had nowhere else to go. We give them shelter and food. ”
I nodded, staring at my hands so I wouldn’t give away the swirling, conflicting emotions.
Caius can’t lie, right?
Soren had accidentally confirmed that. So, if the prince said these people were here by choice, I could trust that information.
It didn’t sound like a bad deal. Whatever this was, it seemed different from the fae who’d taken my family. Maybe the elderly man’s behavior was just old age.
Behind us, the hallway door opened. A small, rotund man with vivid red hair came through.
I swallowed hard, averting my eyes. A toddy wobble.
I hadn’t lied recently—had I? I had to resist the urge to wave a hand through the air to get rid of any potential stink.
That’d probably be just as much of a giveaway as a lingering odor, though, so I settled for pretending not to notice him.
“Your Highness.” The toddy strode toward us, out of breath. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.” He tipped his head in a nod to me but didn’t have any visible reactions as he motioned Caius away.
I’d never asked Soren for details. How long did the “smell” linger? Was it attached to a specific lie? They could probably track it like a bloodhound. Why else would it be here?
“Of course. I’ll return momentarily,” Caius told me, already halfway to the door.
Heart pumping, I waited for them to burst back in after the toddy revealed I was a liar.
But they didn’t.
Glancing over my shoulder at the other closed door, I took the opportunity to pull out my phone. Still no signal. I tucked it back into the waistband of the dress.
Oriel burst through the door, startling me, followed by a teenage boy.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He wore all black and had greasy long hair that looked as unwashed as his clothes. When Caius had mentioned some had nowhere else to go, he’d probably meant people like him. The kid looked high.
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.