Chapter 21
Reid
“Why are we going to the Academy?” Emmrich hisses as I drag him toward the girls’ dormitory, gravel crunching beneath our feet. Even though it’s dark out, it’d be too conspicuous to have him bound by incantation. I definitely did not want his arm in my hand.
Wait a minute…
“Your name isn’t really Emmrich, is it?” It sounds too normal.
“Ancients, no. It’s Emlyn.”
Emlyn. That’s much nicer.
“But you said—”
“No, I said, ‘Call me Emmrich.’ Stop trying to catch me in a lie. I’m physically incapable of it.”
I sigh. “Whatever. We’re going to the Academy to tell Alexis what’s going on.”
“You can’t possibly think that’ll go well.”
“Her roommate and best friend are about to disappear. She deserves to know.”
My arm jerks me back as Emmrich—Emlyn—stops walking. “Come on,” I urge.
He doesn’t budge. “Understand that you’re taking me into a very dangerous situation. Everyone in that building is being trained to kill me and mine. I’m putting my life in your hands.”
Dammit. He’s right. I look from where my hand holds his arm to his honey-colored eyes. Worry leeches out of them, softening my resolve.
“Alright. I promise I’ll keep you safe. Is that enough?”
He groans but slowly trudges forward. I haul him the rest of the way until I’m banging on Alexis’s door.
“Not so loud,” she says when she opens it. “You’ll wake the entire building.” Her face lights up when she notices Emlyn behind me. “Oh! Are we finally doing this?”
“What? No!” I push past her as my face burns, pulling Emlyn with me so the three of us stand in a triangle in the entryway. “Aren’t you with Oliver?”
“Sure, but it’s nothing serious yet, and I’m always ready to help a friend.” She winks at me, and if I could collapse into a void, I would. “So what’s going on?”
After giving her a quick rundown of how Ellie and Caeo have been kidnapped by fae, she frowns. “Why would you possibly think that?”
I gesture to Emlyn. “Because he’s fae, and he told me.”
The temperature in the room drops about twenty degrees.
“What?” she asks, her voice cold as ice.
Emlyn takes a step behind me.
“He’s fae,” I repeat.
Alexis’s nostrils flare, and I belatedly remember the entire reason I was furious with Emlyn to begin with: because he fucked her.
She lunges at him. “I’ll kill you!”
I jump back, knocking into Emlyn, sandwiching him between me and the wall. Alexis claws at him, and I force her hands away.
“Alexis, stop!”
“Water from air, blades of ice—”
An incantation.
She can’t do that without a focal, can she?
Icicles as sharp as knives crystalize above Emlyn as she finishes. I release a counter-incantation as they fly toward him, barely melting them in time. Cold water splashes against us.
Emlyn squeezes out from behind me and bolts to the other side of the room. I throw my arms around Alexis as she lunges after him.
“Stop defending him, Reid,” she yells as I struggle to restrain her without hurting her.
“I need his help! I can’t have you murdering him.”
“Did you get some kind of sick pleasure out of it?” She snarls at Emlyn, her face twisted with rage and pain. “Were you laughing at me the entire time?”
“Of course not! You’re a person, I don’t hold your ignorance against you.”
“You murdered my parents!”
“I haven’t killed anyone from your realm,” Emlyn snaps. “I’m trying to prevent another war with mortals.”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffs, still pulling against my grip.
“Fae can’t lie, Lexi,” I say softly.
“No, but they twist the truth so much, they might as well.”
“What’s everyone yelling about?” Sophie’s door opens, her typical scowl marring her face as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.
“He brought a fae here!” Alexis shouts.
“What?” Sophie’s eyes snap open, all drowsiness gone.
My stomach drops.
Alexis gestures wildly at Emlyn. “He’s a fae!”
Oh no.
The sleeve of Emlyn’s shirt bursts into flames.
“Fuck!” He jumps back.
I instantly extinguish it, but Alexis uses the distraction to break past me and lunge for him. Emlyn barely evades her grasp and clambers onto the settee behind me.
“ENOUGH!”
I blanket the room in a thin layer of ice, startling everyone—including myself, frankly. But nobody moves, and that’s all I need.
“Look, I brought him here because Ellie’s in trouble, and he’s the only one with answers.” I look to Alexis. “You have every reason to hate him, but I need you to put that aside for now. For Ellie. Please.”
“What exactly happened?” she asks, wrapping her bare arms tightly around herself.
“His friend kidnapped her.”
“Oh, come on, Reid. Seriously? And you think you can trust a word he says?”
“He can’t lie!”
“Stop it, you two!” Sophie yells. We both shut our mouths. “Get rid of the ice, please.” Her eyes move to Emlyn, who I suddenly realize has his hand resting on my back as he hides behind me. “I won’t attack. I promise.” She looks at Alexis, her teeth chattering from the cold.
“Fine,” Alexis sighs. “I’ll hear what he has to say.”
Keeping a watchful eye on Sophie—I don’t trust her one lick—I get to work on the ice. It takes some effort to get it all to dissipate, leaving a decently dry room behind. Alexis tests one of the armchairs for dampness before plopping down on it, crossing her arms and staring expectantly at me.
Where to begin?
I start with introducing the idea of Caeo and Ellie’s memory loss. Sure enough, she doesn’t believe me.
“That’s impossible. How could I not have noticed something like that?”
“Fae magic,” Sophie says, still standing next to me and Emlyn.
He nods to her. “Told you.”
“Wait, how’d you figure that out?” I turn from Sophie to him. “You said there was something on Caeo that kept anyone from noticing.”
“There is.”
“I haven’t actually met Caeo,” Sophie offers. “He’s in my classes, but we’ve never spoken. I doubt he knows who I am. Maybe that’s why?”
It’s so weird to have a normal conversation with her. Not that this conversation’s normal. Not at all.
Emlyn shrugs. “It’s possible. I don’t know the details.”
“Why are there fae spells on Ellie and Caeo?” Alexis demands.
All eyes turn to Emlyn. He sighs.
“Caeo’s the half mortal son of the exiled queen of my realm. He wears a charm that prevents anyone from connecting him to anything fae.”
The floor slips out from under me. I drop a curse as I collapse onto the settee, and Sophie slowly lowers into the remaining chair.
What has my life turned into? Caeo can’t have known this—he’d never have been able to keep it from me. He’s a terrible liar.
Oh. That makes sense now.
“You’ll need to explain that,” Alexis says.
Emlyn paces the room, the only one still standing. “The Border Wars ended twenty-one years ago, yeah? That’s when Queen Esyllt was overthrown by her husband. She was exiled to your realm, and Aedys’s new king ordered an end to hostilities. That’s why you’ve known peace all these years.”
“So Caeo’s mom is the one responsible for my parents’ deaths?”
Emlyn winces. “Thaaat’s oversimplifying a complicated situation.”
“Then explain it.”
“Sure.” Emlyn drops forcefully onto the settee next to me, way closer than necessary.
Not that I’m paying attention. “A long time ago, all the realms were fae, until those living in the western realm—Lyndir—betrayed the Land by trying to control Her. The Land abandoned them, and they lost their ability to wield Her gifts freely, including their long lifespans. Those were your ancestors, the Fallen.”
The three of us exchange confused glances. I’ve never heard anything that would even suggest that’s true; there must’ve been some kind of trick in how he worded that.
Alexis opens her mouth, but Emlyn cuts her off.
“Thus began the war between the remaining fae realms and yours. Many saw it as our duty to restore your realm to what it was, but the Land requires balance—our realms must always be the same size as one another. So the southern realm, Ystyr, couldn’t claim your land unless we took the same amount.
Every time we took ground from you, we ceded some to the east.
“When our new king called off the invasion twenty-one years ago, that angered Ystyr’s king. He’s been violently encouraging us to reengage with you ever since.”
“And we’re supposed to thank you for that?” Alexis’s voice drips with sarcasm as she sits back in her chair.
Kind of sounds like we should…
“I’m telling you this so you can understand that I am not your enemy.
About a week ago, our king was assassinated.
And our exiled queen—your friend Caeo’s mother—has now crossed the border back into our lands with her son in tow.
That’s why you can’t find Caeo. He has a half-brother, our prince, who survived the assassination plot. He’s the one who took Ellie.”
My brow furrows. “Why?”
“If the queen’s returned, she’ll name Caeo the new Crown Prince when the realm belongs to Taran. And from everything I’ve seen, Caeo would do anything for Ellie.”
While probably true—he’s never been as happy with any of his other girlfriends as he is with her—there’s one glaring problem.
“If he remembers her,” I grumble.
Emlyn waves his hand. “Details.”
Uh huh. Even without Ellie, I can’t imagine it’d take much to convince Caeo to turn away from his mom. It almost seems like this Taran took Ellie on impulse rather than thinking things through.
“Wait—who cursed Caeo and Ellie to forget each other?” Alexis asks.
Emlyn’s shoulder bumps mine as he leans back. “I can’t say definitively because I wasn’t there when it happened, but I assume it was the queen.”
“Caeo’s mom? Why would she curse her own son?”
He rolls his head in her direction, his voice exuding impatience. “She’s an exiled queen who wants to take back her kingdom and renew the war with the mortals. What reason could she possibly have to curse her son to forget he loves a mortal?”
Sophie stands, staring down Emlyn from across the tea table. “So what’s your role in all of this?”
His muscles tense where they press against me. “I’m a spy for Prince Taran. I’ve been watching the queen and informed him when she disappeared.”