Chapter Thirty-One
Upon returning to the castle, Lydia retires to bed without speaking to a single one of us. That night, no revels rage in the
castle, but from down in the valley below, flickering torches light a celebration among the faeries who live outside of court.
It’s past midnight and Emmett is sleeping soundly beside me, but I can’t settle. Every time I close my eyes I see Lydia falling
to the ground, the knife stuck in the center of her chest, blood blooming around it.
On quiet feet, I pad out of bed and down the staircase to her room.
I knock softly and wait.
The door creaks open a minute later, revealing Lydia, in her robe with her hands covered in paint, a streak of white along
her cheekbone.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asks, and opens the door wider.
I plop down on the edge of her bed and she returns to her painting in the corner, a field of flowers so dense, it’s nearly
abstract in all its colors.
“Have you come to ask me if heaven is real? Rhion beat you to it.”
“I didn’t think faeries believed in heaven.” The whole immortality thing makes the entire concept baffling to them.
Lydia adds a streak of orange across the sky of her painting. “They don’t, but Rhion heard all about it from humans and finds
it a fascinating concept.”
“What did you tell him?”
She shrugs. “The truth, I suppose—that I’m still not sure.”
“Did Rhion tell you anything else?” I prod.
Lydia turns to face me, her brows knitted together in confusion. “Like what?”
I sigh against her pillows. “Come on, you can’t really be that dense.”
Lydia flicks her paintbrush at me. “Don’t do that. I hate talking around things. If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Did he also tell you that he’s hopelessly in love with you?” I say only somewhat sarcastically. It’s glaringly obviously
by now.
Lydia’s cheeks go pink and she glances at the floor. “I don’t have time to think about those things. Not yet, at least.”
“I don’t think he has any problem with waiting for you.”
I watch her paint for a few minutes, then break the comfortable silence. “I’m sorry about Bram.”
Her back is to me, but she goes still and her shoulders fall. “Don’t be. He brought it upon himself.” He did, but it doesn’t
lessen the rope of guilt, pulling like a noose around my heart.
“I’m still sorry. I know you loved him.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she paints a patch of pink flowers with the tip of her brush. “I loved who I believed him to be,
but I don’t think that’s the same thing. What about you?”
I sigh. “It was only ever Emmett for me, that was part of the problem.”
After another long beat, I continue. “I have something else to tell you.”
She nods, her back to me. “Anything.” There are no more secrets between us now, there can’t be.
In the dark of her room, I confess what Bram said to me. “He saw me first on the edge of the woods. I was six and you were
eight,” I begin.
Lydia listens carefully as she paints clouds over her canvas. Her back is to me, but her breath hitches like she might be
holding back tears.
“He timed his arrival at court to my coming-out in society. He spent a decade watching me, planning this.” I’m crying too,
but I don’t stop to wipe the tears until my story is done.
When I’m finished talking, I feel as if I’ve been wrung out. “I’m so sorry. I brought this upon us. It’s all my fault.”
Lydia turns to me, her eyes puffy with tears. “If I told you to forgive yourself, would it make a difference?”
I let out a sad laugh. I’m so sick of crying. “Probably not,” I confess.
Lydia turns back to her painting. “I’ll say it anyway. It wasn’t your fault. I do not blame you. If it wasn’t us, it would
have been some other poor pair of girls and—” She swallows hard. “I’m glad it was us, Ivy. I’ve grown to love this place.
It’s given me a purpose.”
It’s plain to see. She’s got a glow about her, like she’s more at home here than she ever was in London. I might have been
the one who longed for magic, but it’s come to Lydia like it was always meant to be hers.
“You will come home, though, won’t you?” I ask the question a shade quieter, suddenly terrified of her answer. I’ve never
considered a life in which we might be apart.
Lydia sets down her brush and turns to me. Her jaw is clenched, her brows furrowed.
“I don’t think so.” She presses her lips together until they go white. “That is, I mean, I don’t think I’m able to.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I respond, but the panic from earlier returns, crawling up my throat.
“I think something . . . changed in me,” Lydia says.
My first instinct is to comfort her. “You—” It takes everything in me to say “died” without sobbing again. “I think anyone would be changed by that.”
“No,” Lydia whispers. “I think I came back different. Not wrong—” She searches for the words. “But not . . . what I once was.”
My blood turns to ice. I force myself to look at Lydia more closely than I have been. Her back has been to me for most of
our conversation, but now I truly see her.
Her skin glows so dimly, it would be easy to convince myself I was imagining it, and in her eyes, there’s a spark of light,
as if from the Otherworld’s double moons.
She is still my sister, but I can also sense that she’s more than that somehow.
“What do you mean?” I ask in a whisper.
“This place brought me back to life. I can feel its magic flow through me now, like blood in my veins. We’re tied together.”
“No, you and I are tied together.” My voice breaks.
Lydia’s face crumples. “Not like this.”
The joy at seeing my sister alive is swallowed by a wave of sadness.
“You don’t know that,” I argue, my voice sharp. “Don’t make assumptions with no evidence. Go on, open the door. Just try.”
Lydia sighs like she’s placating me and waves her hand in an arc.
A portal to Kensington Park opens in the middle of the room, showcasing a great oak tree, ablaze with orange leaves that flutter
to the ground. The gentle breeze floats into Lydia’s room and scatters the stack of sketches on her desk.
I stand and thrust one foot through the door to England, so I’m straddling our two worlds. I offer Lydia my outstretched hand
and she sighs, but takes it obligingly.
Cool autumn air envelops me as I step through completely, but the pressure of Lydia’s hand in mine disappears, floating away
in a wisp of white smoke. When I turn back, she’s staring at me sadly through the portal, feet firmly in her room in the Otherworld.
“No,” I rasp.
Lydia offers me a sad smile. “You can always come visit me.”
“But Mama and Papa—” I hiccup as a cry I can’t stop escapes my lips. We’ll never again drink tea in our family’s drawing room
together, or snicker behind our fans at a bad pantomime, or walk through Belgrave Square arm in arm.
It feels as if I’ve lost her twice in one day.
Lydia’s eyes shine with tears. “Mama and Papa can come visit, as can you, any time you wish. In fact, I insist upon it.”
I step back through, into the warmth of her room, and seal the door behind me. “But I’m going to miss you so much.”
Lydia wraps me in a tight hug. “It was always going to be this way, whether I married Percival Chapwick or became queen. Life
was always going to force us away from each other. But it’ll be better this way, won’t it? Knowing that I’m exactly where
I’m meant to be.”
I sleep next to Lydia that night, but by the time I’m awoken at dawn, the space next to me is cold.
Eloree nudges me gently awake and dresses me in one of Lydia’s gowns, something pale pink and gauzy. “Is everything all right?”
I ask blearily.
Eloree nods. “Your sister requests an audience.”
In the great hall, I join a crowd of equally exhausted-looking courtiers, in various states of dress.
Emmett finds me quickly and pulls me into a crushing embrace, then plants a kiss on top of my head. “I missed you. Do you
know what this is about?”
“I thought you might,” I reply, and he shakes his head.
“Oh, there you two are!” Rhion’s voice pierces the crowd. Emmett and I walk over to him and are joined by Marion and Faith
in quick succession.
“Any idea why we’ve been dragged from our beds?” Faith asks.
The double doors to the throne room swing open.
Lydia sits on her throne, a candy-pink sky behind her as the sun rises in the Otherworld, on the first day without Bram and
Mor.
She looks settled, so herself, that the sight of her nearly brings me to tears. She’s wearing a simple gown of pale purple
with a golden circlet laid on her head. She needs no other jewels to communicate that she is queen; the look in her eye is
enough.
The throne room is soon filled with most of court, including the staff.
“Thank you for joining me.” Lydia’s voice rings out true and clear. “I apologize for the early wake-up call, but there was
no time to waste.”
The crowd settles into a reverent hush.
“I wanted to make my intentions clear as quickly as possible, and so I saw no reason to delay. The cruelty of Bram’s reign
is over. The use of humans for sport is now forbidden. The door to England will remain locked, save for a few carefully selected
ambassadors. The small folk are to be treated with the same respect as any citizen. Any grievances will be dealt with directly
by me.”
As if to echo her statement, a mighty gust of wind shakes the castle walls. The first light of the day beams through the stained
glass window high above Lydia’s throne, casting her in a halo.
“If you have any objection to these new rules, you are welcome to leave my court. In fact, I insist upon it.”
There’s a scoff of indignation from the back of the throne room, but Lydia’s steely face does not waver.
“Those who have been participants or complicit in the torture of humans will have letters delivered to you today, outlining
your upcoming trial dates.”
“You can’t do this!” Lady Thalia shouts. Two guards flank her and direct her toward the door. “Emmett!” she yells.
Emmett doesn’t even turn around. I reach across the space between us and squeeze his hand. There are some wounds that you
feel for a lifetime, and I’m sure Emmett and I will forever bear the scars of our disastrous first marriages, but what a relief
it is to be rid of them.
Lydia sinks back onto her throne and folds her hands neatly in her lap. “Any questions?”
The crowd bursts out into riotous applause. Someone magicks flower petals to fall in a shower from the ceiling.
Rhion is the first to sink to his knees to bow to her, followed quickly by Emmett, and then everyone else, until all of the court of the Otherworld is kneeling at Lydia’s feet.
I look up at my sister, both our eyes glimmering with tears, and I have never loved her more.