Chapter 6
Lars was there and tapping his foot when I arrived back at the castle. “Boy, what are you doing alone again?”
I stomped past him and into the foyer. I wasn’t going to shy away from the fact that he looked like he was about to scold me. “Oh, shut your pie hole, old man. I know what I’m doing.”
He barked a laugh. “Do you now?”
“Yeah, and you could’ve mentioned that I’m not here to do anything except fall in love.”
That sobered him up. He even gulped.
“Zalman,” he said before clearing his throat.
“No, don’t.” I held up a hand to stop whatever he was about to say. “I don’t want any more lies or jokes or whatever it is you think you’re doing. People in the village think I’m here to love their prince, that it’s baked into the curse, and I better get to it.”
Lars nodded. “Worst kept secret.”
“Oh, you bet it is. Which makes me wonder if the prince knows it, too.”
It was several heartbeats of us staring at each other before he said, “He knows.”
Well, there it was. I didn’t have any reason not to believe Lars, and the way Incendis kept acting made a little more sense.
That everyone was so focused on sex was a bit disturbing, but I could admit that a physical attraction was as important to me as emotional, intellectual, and political alignment.
And if love was the goal, we should probably spend a hell of a lot more time talking to each other.
I took a calming breath and blew it out slowly. “Where is he now?”
“His chambers.”
I had a vague recollection of where that was and so headed up the staircase. As soon as I got to the top, I realized, nope, this was the wrong way. Landon/Sherman had led me by the bottom of the stairs when he’d—
“Down the hall. Two rights and a left,” Lars said. “There will be someone standing outside his door.”
I wasn’t about to thank him, so I just started walking.
Seriously, all of this was ridiculous. A curse no one knew how to break, but oh, the way to break it has something to do with love and learning lessons?
Their rumors were awfully specific and spot-on.
Maybe the person who’d cast the curse hadn’t meant to drop so many breadcrumbs, but they sure had anyway if everyone and their baker knew what to do to fix things.
Feeling like I might’ve missed a turn, I came around a corner and found someone standing in the hallway. She straightened up like she thought I might get snippy if she wasn’t standing at attention.
“Relax,” I said. “I wouldn’t even make you stand here, so don’t worry about me.”
She smiled a little and did relax. “Yes, sir.”
“Is this the prince’s room?”
“It is.”
“Can I go in?”
She looked between the door and me. “I’d knock first, sir. And you should know that he’s been rather loud in there for some time.”
As if to prove her right, something crashed inside.
I squared my shoulders and went right on in there. What greeted me was a great big mess of a grownup temper tantrum. Furniture was tipped over or shoved away from the walls. The curtains on the bed were torn down. Paintings hung cockeyed or were on the floor. Glass was broken in several places.
In the center of the room sat a cranky prince on a gilded chair, while making everything look like it was on fire, including himself.
“Before the curse,” I said, “did you literally burn things when you got mad?”
The flames flared higher for a moment. Incendis said nothing, just glared at me from where he sat.
I put my hands on my hips and glared back at him. “I don’t know what you have to be so pissed about when I’m the one being manipulated. Plucked from my whole world? Dropped here? Having to find out from the villagers that I’m supposed to break the curse by making you fall in love with me?”
He stopped glaring and looked away. The flames sputtered and went out.
“And you knew that, didn’t you?” I continued. “That’s why you were so relieved when I got here. You didn’t just know why I was here, you know what I’m supposed to do.”
Incendis nodded.
I marched over to him, glad to see that worried him. Pressing a hand against his shoulder, I got in his face. “So when I asked how you thought I was supposed to save us all, why didn’t you tell me then?”
He gulped. “Because you said I didn’t have to tell if I wasn’t ready.”
I blinked at him. Fuck me, I had said that.
“Okay, well,” I said, scrambling a bit, “when it involves me and you getting together, then you don’t get to hold back.” Yeah, that was it. “We have to be on the same page, so you have to tell me everything.”
My breath caught when he looked at me then because there was such sadness in his eyes. Huge, golden brown, and filling with tears, those eyes of his had me cupping his cheek as something cracked inside me to see him so devastated.
“Talk to me,” I whispered. “I’m literally here to help.”
And I didn’t mind that. I really didn’t. Someone once told me I had a crusader’s personality, and I loved that description. I was fully on board with swooping in and doing the work to make things right. To save the day. I was in, ready to go, every time.
His bottom lip quivered just before he said, “It’s my fault we’re cursed.”
I flinched back, blinking down at him. “You’re… What?”
“It’s all my fault,” he whispered and sort of sank into the chair.
“You’re the one who cast the spell?”
That didn’t seem right. Sure, I was relying on all those super helpful rumors, but even Lars had said the curse came from someone who’d been impulsive. Incendis was so not that. Not even a little. No one who micromanaged people like this guy was spontaneous. Our failed outing was proof of that.
“I helped him.”
Okay, I was right, but also… “You helped who?”
“My father.”
“The king.”
He nodded.
“Well, everyone knows everything then because even Lars said the king did it.”
Incendis seemed to snap out of his despair as he said, “Who is this Lars person?”
“I told you. He’s one of your butlers or something like that.”
He popped up out of his chair and stomped over to the door. I heard a gasp from outside before Incendis said, “Fetch everyone named Lars who works in the castle. Put them in one of the parlors, and then come get me.” He shut the door before I could hear that poor woman’s response.
“Would it kill you to say please? And why does someone have to stand out there when you have that cord thing you used last night?” I pointed at it over by the table he’d toppled. “You know they’ll run up here for you.”
The way he stared and blinked told me he’d never considered any of that.
“It’s more efficient to have someone wait—”
“Oh, bullshit. You’ve got someone ignoring every other aspect of their job—which means someone else has to pick up the slack—to stand out there with their legs going numb and their back aching on the off chance you have a need.”
Yeah, he never thought of any of that.
“See,” he said, holding a hand out to me, “this is why you’re here. I need someone to tell—”
“Dude, I am not going to be your Jiminy Cricket. I swear to god that if you—”
“My cricket?” He squinted at me.
“Your conscience. The right and wrong bits in your brain. If you can’t manage that by yourself already, we’re never getting together.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not interested in training you to be a decent person.”
Now I was glad I hadn’t slept with him. Too often the sex was great, and then the guy’s personality ruined any possibility of dating him.
And here was a prince who cursed everyone in his entire world with his dad, and I had a feeling some of that was because neither of them had given a single thought to the little guy.
“I’m a decent person!” he said with full affront. “I admit that I didn’t see having an attendant waiting out there was an issue, but I see it now and I can change. When she returns, I’ll let her know she doesn’t have to stay there.”
Begrudgingly, I gave him that. “Okay, good. For the change, I mean, not that someone else had to point it out to you.”
“I am a decent person,” he said again but with less heat. “I’ve been working very hard these past several years to make sure my people are—”
“After you cursed them.”
Whatever he’d been about to say fizzled out and he just sighed.
The door was still open, but the woman returned and knocked anyway. “Sirs,” she said when we looked at her, “Mister Danbury will assemble everyone named Lars in the back parlor as soon as two of them return from errands. That could be a couple of hours from now.”
“That’s fine,” Incendis said. “Thank you.”
“Who’s Mister Danbury?” I had to ask.
“My butler.”
“Do you only have one of those?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Who the hell was Lars then?
Incendis returned his attention to the woman and said, “Neither you nor anyone else needs to continue standing in the hall. Please return to your normal duties.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” She bobbed a curtsy and made to leave.
I rushed over and said, “Could you do one more thing before you get back to your real work now that he’s done wasting your time making you hold up the wall out here?”
Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile. “Of course, sir. How can I help you?”
“We need a broom, a dust pan, and some trash bags or bins that can hold broken glass.”
“Oh! Yes, sir. I can have a crew come up and—”
“No, no.” I smiled at her and it was probably a little evil. “Someone else is going to do it all by himself now that he’s done throwing his tantrum. We just need the supplies to facilitate the cleanup.”
Her startled gaze flicked between my face and somewhere behind me. No doubt Incendis was looking all befuddled and shocked back there. A blush hit her cheeks and she nodded. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
“Thank you so much.”
Incendis was glaring at me when I turned around. I had a feeling I was going to see that expression on his face a lot.
“Dial down the pissiness there, Sport. You might have wings and be a little fancier than everyone else, but you’re not better than them.
You can clean up your own mess.” I carried on when he tried to protest. “And while you do, you’re going to explain every little thing about the curse from the moment you learned about it to five minutes ago. ”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times before it clicked for him that I wasn’t going to budge on any of this. I could out-stubborn just about anyone when I put my mind to it. He nodded and went over to pick up one of the paintings face-down on the floor.
“Father first came to me when Hydris and Flurris went to war for the second time in a year.” Incendis hung up the painting and took a moment to straighten it.
“Little to the left.”
He adjusted.
“Perfect. Now who are Hydris and Flurris?”
“My brothers. The princes of Spring and Winter, respectively.”
I pointed at another painting. “Okay, and why were they fighting?”
He went and picked up that painting. “It’s just something they did from time to time.”
Oh, boy. The family drama was thick with these fae.
I sat down in the chair he’d been in when I got here and shooed at him. “Keep going, Your Princeliness. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”