Chapter 33
Lem
“But you still don’t want to be prince?” The godmother tips her head to one side.
“I’ll do what I have to do.” I curl my fingers tighter around Agatha’s.
“That’s not an answer.” The godmother waves her fingers and my broken guitar starts reforming itself slowly. I watch, mesmerized by the way the splinters fasten themselves together and the tangled strings unwind.
“No,” I say quietly. “No, I don’t.” I try to keep the longing from my voice. I don’t want Agatha knowing how terrible it is to give this up, after tasting freedom for a while. She’s worth it—oh, she’s worth it—but regret still bites.
“That’s good,” the godmother says, “because it’s too late, anyhow.”
My eyebrows draw together. “What?”
The godmother scoffs. “Certainly you heard the news! The previous heir is lost—not sure where the ducks came from, but rumors will do as they do—and the wolpertingers already came. You’ve been replaced, and it would make it so awkward sending you back now.”
“How did they know to come?”
“I sent them,” Melusine says impatiently.
Oh. Of course. I never thought about it before.
It’s just how it’s always been in Rhylorria.
“The godmothers started it a long time ago, you know. It was an old king who asked for a boon—wanted an heir. He didn’t specify that the heir had to be by blood!
” She giggles, her violet eyes flashing. “So much more interesting this way!”
I realize my mouth is hanging open. I knew there was a reason Rhylorrians didn’t like the idea of godmother magic, but I wasn’t expecting that.
“I already sent a new wave of them,” she continues. “When I took your identity. One’s probably been slain by now, so the new heir will be identified, and you shall be free.”
My mouth is still open. “You—you already did that?” Agatha looks as surprised as I am. “Why?”
The godmother gives me a cat-like smile.
“I wanted to annoy your king. I have my own reasons for that, and you don’t need to bother asking what they are, because I’m not going to tell you.
” Her smile turns more affectionate as she looks at Agatha.
“But mostly, because I’m quite fond of my goddaughter—in my own way, of course, which you humans never really understand—and I do want her to be happy. ”
“You didn’t know that we’d—”
“Didn’t I?” Melusine twinkles. “You really think it was coincidence that sent a beggar to Montberger’s door before that fool Mansfield could don his disguise?”
My mind is reeling. All the time we cursed our bad luck, and it was the godmother’s interference? I keep my gaze on the fairy. “Maybe she’d be happier as a duchess. Or a princess.”
“Maybe she’d be happier,” the godmother mocks. “And maybe she’d be happier with someone less dense, but as she’s been kissing you, I doubt that. But you can ask her, if you really care.”
Slowly, I turn back to Agatha. I don’t want to ask her, because part of me is still afraid of her answer.
What if she does want a prince instead of an untalented minstrel?
What if she decides she’d prefer the comfort of a palace?
Or—worse—what if she refuses to answer honestly, and one of us gets locked into a life we regret?
“I really do care,” I say, uncomfortably vulnerable. “I want you to be happy.”
“I want you to be happy,” Agatha answers.
“You deserve a palace and fresh tea every day.” I gulp, lost in Agatha’s eyes.
“You deserve a very beautiful wife.”
“Then marry me.”
She smiles at me, radiant and stunning—lovelier than she ever was when her true face was obscured by a fairy’s idea of what beauty is. And I don’t even care that the godmother is watching. I bend my head to press a gentle, wondering kiss to Agatha’s lips.
“I suppose we’ll be very poor,” I say. “I wish I could buy you as much tea as you want.”
“I won’t be able to sing so well,” Agatha adds. “I’m not sure what I can offer you now, actually.”
“But you’ll be with me, to figure it out?”
“If you think you can put up with me.”
“Oh, I do,” I say fervently. “I do.”
Agatha
For the first time in my life, I feel both seen and free. Lem’s made me feel seen before, but it was when I was restrained by the close chains of my fairy gifts.
And now, here I sit in a breezy evening courtyard with the scent of tea and violets mingling in the air while Lem holds my hand and looks at me with so much feeling that I’m tingling all the way to my toes from the fervency of it all.
He sees me, outward and inward, from the new lines of my face and figure to the thoughts of my mind, and he likes me for all of it. And he gives me a choice, and promises to walk with me as we figure things out together, and I’m overcome.
A tear squeezes out of the corner of my eye. Lem uses the pad of his thumb to brush it away.
“It’s like you’ve forgotten all about me,” Melusine complains. I blush, realizing I’d been leaning in toward Lem.
It’s just that I’ve discovered that kissing him is very enjoyable.
Melusine shoves the half-repaired guitar into the soft soil of the flowerbed, then takes a bottle of something green and sludgy from a pocket hidden somewhere in the flowing folds of her diaphanous skirt. “There,” she says, pouring the sludge over the instrument. “That should do … something.”
I blink. It is doing something, in fact.
I could have sworn nothing changes, and yet all at once, I’m not looking at a guitar, but at a young tree with strange, curling tendrils.
Melusine ruffles them with her breeze, and they make a noise that is guitar-ish, if a guitar were a wild plant plucked by an invisible hand.
Which, I suppose, it is now.
“Sounds better,” I say, which makes Melusine laugh.
“You always knew I wouldn’t be able to play it,” Lem grumbles, and she twinkles at him, mischievous confirmation in her eyes.
She wipes a bit of green sludge off her hand and claps.
“I shall give you both a wedding gift. Oh, where did I put it—?” She turns, scuffing her toe through the flowerbed until she finds a violet that’s slightly larger than the others and nudges it.
It pops up, expanding so she can reach her arm into the center of the petals and withdraw a china canister.
The painted pattern matches my now-broken teapot. Melusine thrusts it into my hands.
“I saved the best for last, you know.”
I’m half-afraid that it’s a trap, but pry the lid off the canister anyhow. It’s filled to the brim with fragrant tea leaves.
“Bottomless,” she says happily. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you!” I inhale the delightful scent, not needing to feign gratitude.
“And for you …” Melusine turns to Lem. “Hold out your hand.”
He does, suspicion on his face. Melusine drops a heavy key onto his palm. I have no idea where she got it from.
“You’re not musical,” she says, “but I think your hands might be right for pottery.”
“Pottery?” Lem echoes blankly, turning the key over.
“There’s a shop waiting for you in—oh, where did I put that, now?” Melusine scratches her chin. “It was somewhere around here—or, no, it’s northwards—that’s it. It’s in Honey Fork. I think.”
“You think? How are we supposed to find it if you don’t even remember?” I splutter, but Melusine only bestows another indulgent smile.
“Isn’t it nice, hearing her speak her mind!
” she says to Lem. The last rays of the sinking sun cut across her face as she rises slowly into the air.
“I must be off now,” she calls down. “But I’ll visit you in—where did I say?
Honey Rock? Forked Bridge?—well, I’ll find you, wherever it is, when you have your firstborn! I prophesy a girl!”
And with that, she flickers out of sight and leaves us staring open-mouthed at the empty air.
We sit, awkward and unsure for another moment, before Lem does his throat-clearing thing. He toys with the shiny key Melusine left him. “Well,” he finally says, voice husky.
“Well.”
My gaze snags on his, and warmth tingles through me. Now that Melusine is gone, I think perhaps he’s going to kiss me again.
In fact, I’m sure he is. I lean closer, face lifted in invitation. His gaze drops to my lips while he slides a hand into my hair.
“You’re messing it all up,” I say, not stopping him.
“Oh dear.” Then his face is only an inch from mine and I can hardly breathe as I wait for—
“Oh dear indeed,” another voice says, far too loudly. We stand and jump apart. “I thought you weren’t married after all.” Henry, scowling, clomps into the courtyard.
“Well, no. But we will be.” Lem’s face turns even more red.
Henry crosses his arms. His expression is very Lem-like. “Here?”
“I am, technically, out of my usual jurisdiction,” another voice says.
Count Chrestowine strolls into view. I wonder how long he’s been out here and how much he overheard.
“But I can perform weddings, though I would have assumed Your Highness would require a more formal affair, and though I’m a bit surprised that you still want to tie yourself permanently to her, before she is restored to her, ahem, previous splendor … ” He trails off delicately.
I glare at him, but Lem glares fiercer. “Tie myself permanently!” he repeats. “As if permanence could begin to be long enough! There is no tie on earth that could bind me too tightly, if it’s to Agatha!”
I sidle closer and lay a tentative hand on his upper arm. The way he looks at me nearly causes my knees to buckle. I clear my throat. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to tell me those things, if that’s how you feel.”
“If that’s how I feel,” he says in a low voice. “Agatha, don’t you already know?”
Chrestowine coughs twice, loudly. “I seem to have … misjudged the situation. Played my cards incorrectly, I fear.”
“Indeed,” Lem says.
“So you want to marry her,” Henry huffs. “And then what? You expect the Rhylorrian court to accept her as a princess?”
“Er, no.” Lem shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. His gaze flicks to Chrestowine. “The fairy said the wolpertingers are back already.”
Henry freezes. “So you’re really—”