Page 7 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
I knew, the moment I met Zev’s face, that my face had to have been nearly as grey as Shiel’s before we left.
“Are you alright?” Zev asked, a hand reaching out to me, only to stop a hair’s breadth before actually touching me. Something about the quiet and the stillness seemed to make the space that had grown between us during the days spent travelling between the courts stretch out wider than ever.
I found myself wrapping my own arms around my middle, but it did nothing to stop the shiver that wracked my shoulders when I shook my head.
“Are we safe to stay here?”
“Safer then in Icarus’ Court,” Finch says. “The Lady won’t harm us, though…she will dig for all of our secrets. Not just the ones we know we’re keeping from her, either.”
I found my gaze wandering to the windows, expecting to find curious eyes watching, but once again finding none. Even when my gaze wandered higher to search out the ravens that were not there, I still couldn’t shake that creeping sensation of being watched. I’d spent enough time in Icarus’ court that it had left the mark of those claws it dug into me long after we’d already left.
“Whatever we do, we have to keep her from learning who you really are. She has more reason than most to stop you from returning to the Eastern Court.”
My eyes slid back over to Zev as he spoke.
I hadn’t told anyone what the Oracle had said to me. I hadn’t even told them that I’dbeento the Oracle. I’d assumed Shiel knew, or at least suspected that I made it, but I didn’t know if he’d had time to tell Zev and Finch. We’d not had the opportunity to speak to each other in private until now, and now…
Now, I didn’t know what to say.
How was I supposed to tell them that my mother, the queen and sister of the lady of the court where we currently sought refuge, had not onlywillinglygiven me up, but had done it out of spite? It was no act of mercy that had landed me in the hands of the humans I no longer considered to be parents to me in any right.
Not only that, but the only good thing to come of that had been taken from me, too.
But I couldn’t think about that, more than anything. Not if I wanted to be able to function, if I wanted to keep the gnawing pain in my gut from overwhelming me, and the distant buzzing to grow deafening until I drowned inside my own head.
“And those reasons are?” I asked, hesitantly.
“Because,” Finch said, cutting in with an eyebrow slowly rising, “yourauntis a jealous woman, above all else. It’s no secret that she resents her sister for the role she married into.”
That was…not the answer I was expecting. Perhaps, if Zev and Finch were right, that might make the Lady of the Southern Court more of an ally to me than I’d expected.
“Why’d Shiel tell her I’m from the Eastern Court, then?” I asked, diverting the conversation away from my own secret I was keeping. The two fae standing before me had begun to trulyprove themselves to me in these last days, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to be careful. I knew what Shiel wanted, what they wanted. They wanted me on the Eastern throne. Why else would they be risking all to make sure I returned there?
But what I wanted…I didn’t know.
Zev and Finch shared another one of those looks.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Finch said.
“Probably because he knew the Lady would recognize that glamour over you better than most,” Zev said, his brows knitting together slightly as a new thought flitted through his mind. “Better to keep a secret by telling a smidgeon of the truth. Makes the lie that much harder to detect.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It was my turn to be the subject of the two fae’s glances, but before they could question me further, the sound of the house door opening over my shoulder interrupted us. The healers were waiting inside the frame when I turned back.
The looks on their faces made my stomach drop.
“We’ve done what we can to his fiend bite for now. He will need a few weeks of bed rest to recover before he can start walking once more,” the female standing closest to me said, speaking to Zev and Finch directly. Neither she nor her male companion seemed to even notice me. “I recommend that you don’t move him until then, as it will slow the healing process.”
They left without more than a passing glance in my direction. I didn’t mind. I preferred it that way…it was just strange. I’d grown so used to the glares and stares that had become commonplace from the very moment Shiel appeared in my life, that without them, I felt as if a weight was slowly lifting off of me.
I could get used to this, to being invisible—or if not that, then at least not being constantly watched.
It could come in handy.
Beside me, Finch let out a long, loud sigh, but he was grinning at me when I met his gaze once more. “I suppose we are stuck here for a while then,” he said, that grin growing broader by the second. “Let’s make the most of our time.”
CHAPTER FIVE
