Page 29 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
But that was before I knew him, who he was,whathe was.
And that was the only thing that stopped me this time, however reluctant my body might have been to respond to the words I forced out between gritted teeth.
“How am I to know this isn’t just another one of your visions?”
A soft, low laugh erupted from the back of Icarus’ throat. His finger curled a bit and he traced the line of my jaw slowly, carefully, until he came to the point of my chin. He tilted my face up slightly then and looked me deep in the eyes.
It was a difficult gaze to hold, looking straight into the deep, black eyes of this fae lord. Even I, with my limited access the glamour inside me, couldn’t help but tremble at the power that swirled within him.
“You’re too smart for your own good, My Storm,” he said, at last, before dropping my chin. The arm around me vanished, sending me falling back into the actual pile of pillows as Icarus appeared in smoke and shadow at the foot of my bed instead.
Was that it? The sign that he was a vision, and not the real thing?
I reached out, trying to use the one lesson I’d gotten from Icarus to see if I felt his glamour the way I had that first time we met. But then…then there’d been smoke too. Perhaps there was no way of telling when this lord was a vision or the real thing.
Perhaps it didn’t really matter.
Real or not, he certainlyfeltreal. I felt the absence of his body wrapped around mine as keenly as if he’d really been there. It was a cruel trick Icarus played, but he’d grown as distracted as I was by the time I looked up again, his half-dressed form now pacing at the end of my bed.
Lucky for me, he didn’t see the disappointment on my face.
“I’ve made plans for you in my absence, for you to continue your education,” he said, his body already darkening as the shadows at his feet rose higher, slowly starting to envelop him.
I sat up, my heart racing as I realized what was happening. “Why don’t you just take me to the Oracle?” I asked. “Why go through this charade of trying to get a glamour out of me that clearly doesn’t want to come out?”
If Icarus was leaving for a few days, where did that leave me? We had only a few days together before Shiel was leaving, and at present, that meant I’d be going with him. I didn’t trust the lord of the Western Court for a second, but I also wasn’t about to find myself stuck in the Wildness…which was sure to happen if I let him leave without me.
“I could go to the Oracle and ask about lifting my glamour, get that out of the way,” I said, my mind reeling as I tried to solve this newest predicament. “We’d still have time, after, to find out what kind of glamour that might be.”
The idea seemed the obvious solution to our problems, or at least, it did, until Icarus stopped, finally, hands pressed together as he met my eyes once more before he left. “Don’t give up on me yet, Aurra. You and me, we’re only at the beginning. There’s no need for the Oracle, not yet.”
And just like that, as that first ray of light broke through the panes of glass, Icarus was gone—just as he’d done before.
CHAPTERTWELVE
I didn’t understandwhat Icarus meant.
The Oracle was the reason we were here, in the Wildness’ Court to begin with, so I didn’t see how going to see her was giving up. We’d promised to stay until the ball, so Icarus had no reason to fear that Shiel would whisk me away the moment we saw her.
But with Icarus already gone, it wasn’t like I could exactly ask him.
When the dark fae mentioned homework, he failed to mention the three fae females that would come with it.
My face must have once again betrayed my emotions all too plainly, because the moment I opened the door to my room and saw them standing there, the tallest of the three simply pursed her lips and spoke in a way that told they she felt the same way.
“Icarus left instructions. He thought you might be more comfortable in our care than with the demon.”
That way we all felt? Something stronger than simple reluctance.
The fae introduced herself as Vanya just as reluctantly, and the other two as Nissa and Envi.
There was no point in arguing with them, however, no point in voicing what we all felt. Not because they were wrong, but because I had no desire to find any one of them hanging from the trees outside my door next for the crime of so much as thinking about disobeying their lord’s wishes.
I thought I recognized Vanya, at least, from my short stint in Icarus’ courtroom, but I couldn’t be sure beneath the elaborate hair and makeup. I’d not had many opportunities to look at the fae of this court up close, not after that first day—when the only fae who dared get near enough ended up being one of those dangling at the end of a rope.
One of the other females—Nissa, I thought—passed me a basket containing the implements for whatever it was Icarus had planned for me, while the other, Envi, handed me a stack of steaming buns. The servant assigned to me hadn’t brought dinner last night, since I’d fallen asleep right away, so I tore into it with a ferocity that made all three fae females watch me a little warily.
I didn’t care, though.
