Chapter Twelve #2
“We need to be more careful than that,” Lark says to Grant, who is standing in the centre of the room, looking at it just like I am.
“What do you mean?”
“You lied to her.”
Grant shrugs. “Of course I did.”
“And when she finds out the truth?”
Grant’s gaze cuts to me. “What, about Dante? Why would she? Besides, it won’t occur to her. It never does.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean, the fae in London are pretty good at it, but most of them can’t tell when we’re telling a lie. I guess if it were completely obvious… They don’t have to. You saw her earlier. They don’t always tell the truth, but they can’t tell a lie.”
“No, I know that,” I say. “But what if she does find out that I—” I glance at the doors, then back at him. “Who I am?”
“She’ll assume I said something else. That I agreed with what she was saying, more than anything else. We should be long gone by then, though, right?”
“Right,” I say. The word sounds hollow, and Grant raises his eyebrows like he hears it.
“Regardless,” Lark says, “you need to be careful.”
Grant studies him for a moment. “Yeah. So do you.”
Grant’s only my age—maybe a little older—and as far as I know, Vlad kept him pretty sheltered, and I think that means we underestimate him sometimes.
I’m kind of glad Cassian sent him here. He knows a lot more about the fae than I do, and he’s clearly not afraid to push things too far if that’s what we need.
Lark nods sharply and then heads over to the balcony, where he steps out in silence. I don’t follow. I let out a sigh and drop down on the sofa in the centre of the room. It’s not at all comfortable. It faces the door and even if it looks like a fancy chaise lounge, the cushions feel flat and hard.
Grant wanders around the room. There’s nothing in this part, really, that gives away anything of Lark’s personality. It’s like these rooms belong to someone else.
“I know he’s right,” Grant says, and I tip my head back, looking up at him. Doesn’t matter how uncomfortable this sofa is; now that I’ve stopped, all the walking and stressing is catching up to me.
“About what?”
“About being careful.” Grant gives me a fleeting smile. “I know I rush into things sometimes.”
I shake my head. That’s not really the impression I have of him, I think. Grant sighs and drops down next to me, then pulls a face.
“Fuck, this is awful.”
“Court fae are not known for their comforts,” Lark says. I blink slowly up at him. I didn’t hear him come back into the room. “Remain in here. I wish to check the other rooms.”
“Okay,” Grant says, but Lark stares at me intently for a moment before he turns on his heel and slips into another room. It isn’t the bedroom. I can see that from here, what with the door being partly ajar.
He closes the door behind him. Grant sighs and slides over until our shoulders are touching.
“What are you gonna do about that?” he asks.
“About what?”
“About him.”
I huff. “What’s to be done?” Truth is, I don’t know. What future is there for us? Not that I believe we’ve ever really had one. Not when he wouldn’t tell me the truth.
“You’re just going to let him take the throne here and leave you to go home alone?”
“He didn’t give me much of a choice. He doesn’t have much of a choice.”
“Can we fix that?”
“Grant…”
He shrugs, jostling my shoulders. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a yawn. “Okay, fine. I won’t bother you about it now. But I’m not going to be the most annoying one with the questions, am I?”
“What do you mean?”
“You think your pack are just going to leave it all alone when we get back?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. The looming headache is truly beginning to descend now, pulsing just behind my eyes. “One thing at a time.”
My eyes close. Grant is silent for a while, then he leans a little heavier against me. “Rest,” he murmurs, so I decide to do just that.
Grant gently shakes me awake some time later. It could be hours, but the gritty feeling when I open my eyes tells me it’s probably been less than thirty minutes.
“What’s going on?” I ask. The words come out all jumbled together.
“I’ve got the rooms next door,” Grant says just as quietly. “I’m going to go check them out. They said some fae will be by later to help us with our clothes.”
“Hmm, okay.”
“Lark hasn’t come out of that room since he went in there. Maybe you should go take a nap on the bed?”
That wakes me up a little more and I blink blearily before I rub at my eyes. “No, I—I’m awake. Sorry. That all sounds good. You’ll be safe in there?”
“Pretty sure,” Grant says, giving me a reassuring smile. He pats me on the shoulder. “Seriously, rest. We’ve got a ball to attend tonight, remember?”
I grimace, and he smiles again before he slips out the door, then closes it quietly behind him.
I rest my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands.
It still hurts, but less than before. Lark’s still in that room?
He needs to rest, too. As far as I know, most fae don’t need as much sleep as humans, but it’s been a long day, and he just got all his magic back.
It might be selfish of me, too, but I want to be sure he’s well-rested before we find Ophelia tonight.
If we’re all alert, we might think of a way out of this for him.
I get up with a sigh and walk over to the door, where I knock quietly. “Lark?” I call out. He doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s not in there at all. Maybe he’s gone to some other room somewhere else.
I push down the handle and the door swings gently open.
Lark is in here. He’s standing in the centre of the room, still and silent, and the look of utter despair on his face breaks my heart.
It’s a greenhouse, I think, or at least was once a semblance of one. The walls are hewn stone, like the rest of the castle, but the ceiling is made of glass, and the sun—no, suns—beat down upon it.
And there were plants here. Hundreds of them, except now they’re all withered where they haven’t rotted away, and Lark is standing in the centre of their quiet, unvisited tomb.
“Lark?” I murmur.
He blinks, as though coming back to himself, and it’s only then that I notice his glamour is gone. His eyes are black from corner to corner, features stretched and sharp in a way they aren’t when he’s pretending to be human.
“Dante?” He looks at me then, for a second, before he turns his face away. “Apologies. I did not mean—”
“This was all yours?” I interrupt. I don’t want him to push me away again. I don’t—