Page 9 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
“If it makes you feel any better, I missed it too,” Finch said, gesturing down at his own precarious perch again.
I paused, halfway through finally standing now that I’d figured out how to wrap the blanket around me so it covered all the sensitive parts of me without too much danger of slipping.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
A slight blush rose in Finch’s cheeks.
“You looked so peaceful…”
I fixed him with a glare. “You tried, didn’t you?”
He let out an exasperated sigh and let his head fall back against the sill.
“No amount of shouting could wake you,” he admitted. “I’m honestly surprised no one came running to your aid. It must have sounded like a madman was in here with you.”
For a second, hope flickered across Finch’s face as I crossed the room toward him, only for it to die again as I snatched the dress from the window and turned away from him, towards the changing screen in the corner.
“Come now, Aurra,” he crooned, that desperation seeping into his voice again. “Let me in. How long are you going to force me to sit here? This sill is slowly splitting me in two, I’ll have you know.”
It was my turn to shoot him an exasperated look. “You know,” I said, “sometimes I wish I had glamour too, just so I could make you behave foronce.”
Finch just waggled his eyebrows. “Lucky for me, then.”
Something about his expression finally got to me. I lost my patience then, wholly.
I returned his ridiculous expression with a glare.
“Well then, hopefully you can shift back into your raven form if you fall,” I said, tossing the dress onto the bed and striding right up to stand before him. “Can’t imagine that web you’re stuck in now reaches all the way to the ground.”
And with that, I let the blankets covering my modesty fall to the ground so I could plant both my arms on Finch’s shoulders and give him a single, firm shove out the window.
A momentary look of bliss flitted across Finch’s face before it was replaced by fear. My own heart seized for a moment as I leaned out the window to watch him fall, until—as I’d suspected—his form almost immediately shifted into a massive, cawing raven.
I made sure to shut and lock the window before he could swoop back up to tap angrily against the glass.
“Good luck getting through now, you bastard!” I called out to him, making sure he met my angry glare one last time before I tugged the curtains closed.
It wasn’t until he was gone, and my own momentary satisfaction began to wane, that the true nature of my situation started to settle in.
A swear dropped from my lips.
I’d slept through most of my entire first day here in Icarus’ court, missing the welcome that was supposed to introduce me to the most important members of the dark fae’s court. Had he sent for me, only for Shiel to send his messengers away? I was sure Shiel wouldn’t have deterred Icarus himself, had the lord been the one to come for me.
But knowing that didn’t make me feel any better.
It only meant that the dark faehadn’tcome for me himself, and though I had no right to expect him to…I found myself unable to shake a feeling of disappointment. Had he cared at all that I’d not been present? Had he even noticed?
Aside from the dress I now slipped over my shoulders, there were other signs that his servants had been attending me in my sleep. The tub was gone, the vines unwound and returned to the main part of the tree from whence they’d sprung. A cold basin of water sat on the vanity, different cosmetics laid out in front of the glass along with so many brushes and combs that their use was less of a suggestion than it was a demand.
Two trays were laid out for me, a breakfast of now-warm fruits and a lunch of now-cold soup, both left at the foot of my bed for the hour I chose to finally wake.
That also meant, I realized with a small sense of satisfaction again, that the servant had been all-too aware of Finch’s predicament stuck in the window and had made no move to free him.
I didn’t trust the creature that I’d been entrusted to, but it was awfully hard for me not to like her—at least a little bit.
Though my stomach rumbled, I had no appetite. I needed to find Icarus, to explain, to apologize. He’d been nothing but welcoming despite my initial reservations, and I’d immediately turned around and showed an utter disregard for his hospitality by sleeping through my own official welcome.
Whatever my thoughts were on the lord of this court, or his Wildness, I needed him now as much as he needed me.
