Chapter 4
His face gives so little away. Long gone are the days when he’d let me see his true reactions. He’s even still wearing his Unseelie features, as if I’m back to being someone he doesn’t trust with his real self.
“Destan told you about our conversation,” I say.
“He told me you put the poor man in an impossible position. Invoking the life debt? Such ruthlessness, Eleanor.”
I hate the way my name sounds from his lips. Hate even more how part of me still wants to hear another, sweeter name. The one he calls me only in our closest moments.
“I did what I had to—just like I learned from you.”
He bristles and a thrill of satisfaction runs through me. I’ve underestimated myself. I’ve been so worried about seeing him again that I’ve overlooked this opportunity. Finally, I can look him in the face and spit all the venom I’ve been holding onto. I know it’s petty, but it’s like all the feelings I had for him have grown stagnant and toxic inside me. Just for a moment, I want to—have to—let that poison out.
He knew my mother, and he kept that from me. He knew that I had magic, and yet he made me think I was wrong. Confirmation of these ugly truths won’t change anything—but I want it all the same.
“Here’s the other thing I’ve learned—you hold no power over me. So whatever you want is going to have to wait until you answer my question. How did you know my mother?”
He closes his eyes briefly, and something crosses his features, tightening them.
Pain,I realize, to my surprise. The very real, physical kind. My anticipation vanishes, replaced with an odd sort of dread. I’m hurting him, and I don’t even know how.
“It’s complicated,” he says through gritted teeth.
My heart thuds, but I can’t let this go, and he hasn’t actually told me to stop asking…yet.
“So you don’t deny you met her, then?”
That look again, like he’s preparing himself for torture. He grunts with exertion when he speaks.
“No, I don’t deny it.”
My uneasiness grows. This pain really doesn’t seem to be for show, though I don’t know why he’d react like this to simple questions. The fae can’t lie, but I’ve never heard about the truth hurting them. Still, he hasn’t protested—hasn’t tried to dance around my questions or misdirect me. If he’s going to keep answering, then I’m going to keep asking.
“And you knew who I was, that I was her daughter, when we made our deal?”
“Yes,” he says, the single word bitten out harshly.
Hearing this confirmed hits me harder than I expected. It’s like the ground’s suddenly spinning beneath me. But one force is enough to counter this unsteadiness: my desire for the truth. It will set both of us free, won’t it? Me from my questions and him from his pain.
“When? When did you meet her?”
He tenses his jaw and then shakes his head, releasing a tormented sigh.
“I can’t tell you,” he says. “Not without suffering a great deal.”
He means it. I have no reason to doubt that. And of course I can’t keep pushing for answers, not if it hurts him this much. I feel scooped out, hollow, as I realize what this means. I’m never going to be able to get answers. Without answers, I’ll never be able to trust him again. And without trust…our relationship is over. This, I walked away for. This, I shattered my heart for, and I won’t ever even get to know what it was.
“So that’s it, then,” I say, my voice dull and flat, my shoulders slumping. I feel utterly defeated.
Ruskin takes a step towards me and I see his palm open, then ball into a fist.
“All I can say, Eleanor, is that it’s not what you think.”
“You don’t know what I think,” I say, my voice hard as stone. “You don’t know me.”
I don’t say the rest: that if he truly knew me, he would know that this, of all things, is a line in the sand that can’t be crossed. I can’t be with someone who would keep this from me.
For a second, a wild thought comes to me. He joked once about compelling me to give him answers. Yet I have his true name. Does that mean I could compel him? Then he wouldn’t be able to resist the question, no matter how much it cost him.
Even as I think it, I am repulsed by the notion. No matter how much I want to know an answer, I would never torture it out of someone. I am not like Cebba or Albrecht.
I’m not like Ruskin.
My mother took the healer’s oath to do no harm, and I wouldn’t be her daughter if I chose to cause someone pain just to satisfy my own needs. I want answers, but not at any cost.
I meet his piercing gaze, and when he speaks, his voice is quietly cutting.
“You’re right, Eleanor. When I discovered you were gone, it became evident that I didn’t know you at all.”
I’m not sure what he means by that, but I’m tired of asking him questions. I didn’t realize until this moment how hard I’ve been holding on to the idea that maybe he’d explain everything, and then we’d be happy again. What a fool I’ve been. That was never how this story was going to go.
He didn’t come to Styrland as some sort of grand gesture to win me back. He came because he wants something from me. All that’s left now is for me to tell him no, send him on his way…and then start figuring out how to put my broken life and shattered heart back together again.
“Tell me why you’re here, Ruskin. Stop wasting my time.”
He straightens, as if only now remembering himself, that his visit has a purpose—other than trading barbs with me. He clears his throat.
“I need your help, Eleanor.”
I scoff, even as I hide a sting of pain. He really isn’t interested in what’s been lost between us.
“Yes, obviously. But why should I care?”
“Lives are on the line. Might I remind you that I just saved yours?”
“Except we’re in Styrland, which means there’s no magically binding life debt to be repaid. So what’s your point?”
“The only point I should need is that you could help someone live, Eleanor.” His voice softens. “You, and only you. I thought that would be enough.”
I have to admit, he has me there. But then he knows just how to persuade me, doesn’t he? He’s done it many times before. I turn my back, pretending to look over the cottage, but really I’m just trying to escape his eyes. I need to clear my head, and I can’t do that when he’s staring at me.
“All right, I’ll bite,” I say. “Who is it I’d be saving?”
“My mother, Evanthe.”
I turn on my heel, too surprised to remember I’m trying to avoid his gaze.
“The High Queen? What happened?”
“Nothing—and nothing will happen.” For the first time, I see a glimmer of fear on his face. “I thought my High King powers would be enough to revive her once I was well again—once you broke the curse and cured me.”
He falls silent and I wonder if we’re both remembering the moment when I said those fateful words and Cebba’s dark spell lifted. The memory is like a hot coal at my core. I don’t want to get too close or touch it, knowing how much it will burn.
“Your power isn’t enough?” I prompt.
“To cure her, no. It’s strong enough now to learn more about her condition, but the iron damage runs deep, and I can’t do anything against it. No fae can. But you? You saved Destan when iron littered his body.”
I shake my head, even though I’m already drawn into the problem he’s presenting, studying the angles of it. “That was different. They were fresh wounds, and none of them penetrated all that deeply. It wasn’t like I magicked the iron away, I just removed the foreign objects with science. This isn’t a case of just taking pieces of iron out—not after two hundred years—even if I were a surgeon.”
“But perhaps you could do it with magic now.”
I start to see the shape of his plan and how much it expects of me.
“I can manipulate gold, Ruskin. That’s it. I can’t help you or your mother.” I try to ignore my nagging memory of being able to read the captain’s sword just an hour ago, not to mention the way I altered the manganese in Cebba’s chains. Ruskin looks at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“You’ve only manipulated gold so far, but fae magic often starts like that: working first on just one thing, but then another, and another, until their power takes full shape.”
“Except I’m not fae,” I say coldly. “Why do I again feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“When it comes to your magic, I know very little for certain, Eleanor. I only suspect you can do more. And wouldn’t you like to find out if that’s true?”
His voice is soft as velvet, and it’s clear he hopes I’ll be too intrigued to resist the offer. He’s using my weaknesses against me. But some knowledge isn’t worth the pain.
“Whatever I can do, Ruskin, I can work it out myself.”
I’m admittedly a little curious as to what ploy he’ll try next, but I’m not ready for it when he strides towards me, his Unseelie features retreating, his sweet scent filling my nostrils.
“Then do it simply knowing that you’ll be giving someone their mother back,” he says, looking down at me with a deep, genuine sadness. We haven’t been this close since the night I left him. My treacherous heart speeds up.
“I don’t see how she will ever wake up if you don’t help me,” he says. “Two hundred years I’ve waited to get her back, and now…” He allows himself an unhappy smile. “I find that once again all my hopes rest on you, Gold Weaver, Iron Tamer. I will beg, Eleanor, if you want it.”
But I don’t want it. I have no desire to see Ruskin on his knees just because I’m withholding something that I myself would fight desperately for: a chance to revive my mother, to talk to her again, to feel her warm arms around me. Maybe she could tell me what to do right now, as his words tug at my bruised heart.
But then, I know what she’d say, don’t I? If there’s any chance that I’ll be able to help someone, save someone, then I can’t say no.
“I can try,” I say. “But I have some conditions.”
Triumph briefly shows on his face, then disappears. He must know that any sign he’s gloating risks changing my mind.
“Name your terms.”
“Protection,” I say.
He goes still.
“Eleanor, I would not let any harm come to you in Faerie.”
His eyes drop to my left hand, where my ring finger ends abruptly in a stump. I feel his power pulsate around me, agitated, like an animal champing to be let loose.
“Not again,” he adds.
“I didn’t mean in Faerie,” I correct him. “And I’m not just talking about me. You’ve seen that Dad and I aren’t safe. Albrecht is hunting me. I know you can take memories from people, which means you can solve my problem.”
“What are you proposing?” He crosses his arms.
“Take the king’s memories of me. Make him forget that he ever heard of a woman named Eleanor Thorn who can make gold.”
“I don’t enchant humans I’ve not made deals with,” Ruskin says.
“You’re making a deal with me,” I stress.
His brows furrow. “It would be in violation of the treaty.”
“You’re really telling me you’d deny me this on a matter of principle?” I scoff at the idea. “You made the treaty; I know you’re above its rules—how else would you be popping over to Styrland whenever you feel like it?”
Ruskin tightens his lips, but he doesn’t argue. Can’t—because he knows I’m right.
“And his servants? His guards? Don’t you think they’ll notice when their king suddenly seems to have no memory of the woman he once meant to marry?”
“I think you underestimate how terrified they all are of drawing his attention. They wouldn’t tell him if he was on fire for fear that he’d blame them. The moment he says he doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about, trust me, they won’t press the issue.”
“And then you plan to live peacefully here?” he asks. The coldness is back in his voice.
“Yes, where else would I be? This is my home.”
Ruskin’s face betrays nothing, he simply nods.
“Very well. I agree.”
“You’ll do it, then? I’ll need you to give me your word.” We can’t make a deal, not in the typical way. The fact that I know his true name means he can’t bind me. So his promise will have to do.
“You really trust me so little?” he says icily.
Yes. But saying that out loud won’t help anything, so I just shrug, my thoughts already pressing forward to what this new agreement between us will mean. I’ll be back in Faerie—and maybe while I’m there, I’ll be able to find out more about this strange link between what our true names mean. Then I can put to rest whatever nagging feeling pulls at me whenever I think about the strange connection between them.
“Wait there,” I say, going to the door. I pause for a moment in the doorframe to prepare myself. “I’m about to tell my father something he definitely doesn’t want to hear.”