Ever
I shoot to my feet so fast the edges of the room blur as the wasp exits through an archway, bright-red hair streaming behind her.
“Everend,” says Lord Stavros, reaching for my arm. “You must not—”
“Stop.” I seize his wrist, the bones grating together. “Recall who you speak to before you think to dictate my movements.” I bare my teeth at Mother and the rest of her disapproving lords. “And consider what I can do to you in the space of a breath.”
I step off the dais and stride through the crowd, courtiers falling over themselves as they clear a pathway to the exit leading down to the servants’ quarters.
Shifting from the dazzle of the Great Hall into the darkness of the stairwell is a comfort. The girl’s out of sight, but I hear her footsteps on the stone staircase spiraling downward.
I take three steps at a time, round a tight corner, and there she is in the torchlight, flames of orange flickering over the back of her dress.
“Wasp,” I say, my voice rasping off the ancient walls.
She jerks in fright, stumbling as her small hands grapple for purchase. She recovers quickly and backs up against the rough stone, chest pumping. Her eyes are wide.
She smooths her expression into one of distaste, and says, “What’s a prince doing slumming it on the servants’ stairs?”
“What is slumming it?”
“Fraternizing with those beneath you. Although, if we’re speaking about ethics rather than station, I’m probably above you.”
No one speaks to me as this mortal does. I leap down to the landing and loom over her. “Why did you defy me in the Great Hall?”
“You mean your order not to leave the garden?” she asks, her eyes shining in the dark.
“Yes, there’s that of course, but I tried to warn you not to sing for the Merits, and you knew it. You have no idea what you’ve done, the future you doom yourself to. Temnen is one thousand times worse than I am.” A strange feeling kindles in my gut, mixing with cold fury. “What did you hope to achieve?”
“Freedom. If I want to leave the gardens, I will. And I’ll sing whenever I feel like it, too. I don’t care what you want. I never have done, and I never will.”
Velvet whispers as I grip her arm and crush her against the dark quartz wall. “I don’t believe what you said to the queen in the hall. To obtain your wish, you lied again and again. Like all mortals, your words are poison.”
Her breath pants over my lips, untainted by honey mead, yet still sweet and warm. “Was it you who made my dress dance?” she asks. “And my hair?”
It was me. It was her. We did it together.
“Yes.” A half-truth that pounds my temples, the word falls between us like a misfired arrow. By the gleam in her eyes, I can tell she senses its wrongness.
“You were the only one who wasn’t smiling, the only fae not moved by the song, yet the wind—it felt like you. Like you but gentler. It was a… caress.”
I struggle to explain what happened when she sang. Somehow, she took my power and changed it. And that’s the part I don’t want to admit—what she did—because I do not understand it.
“I was affected by your song. My powers are over the air element and, somehow, you made me lose control of them. Something internal became manifest outside my body. I could not stop the wind caressing you to save my life.” And it was she who changed it, turned my icy confusion into a heated embrace. In front of everyone.
“You liked it, then?”
“No, I didn’t. As long as I live, I don’t wish to repeat it. To be frozen, helpless like—”
“No, not your powers misfiring. I mean the song. You enjoyed my singing.”
“Of course I liked the song.” I fix my gaze on a deep fissure in the stone above her head, so she cannot see how greatly it pains me to compliment her.
Her smile is sudden. Wide and happy. And a pleasant warmth blooms behind my ribs, removing the pain of the poison pumping through my veins. I swallow hard. What is happening to me?
“So, you did like it!” She laughs. “And I know you’re telling the truth because you can’t lie.”
And her ability to speak untruthfully fills me with rage as I recall what she said to my mother. “Unlike you, whose every word is false! You lied to the queen and the court only to get the boon because you knew it would anger me.”
Pressing her lips together, her eyes slide toward the shadows. Silence pulses around us.
“You do not desire me,” I whisper. “It was a lie.”
The pulse at her throat quickens, but she stays silent.
“Speak, human. Do you wish for me to touch you?”
“Does a mouse want a cat to stroke it?”
“You are made of lies.” With one hand, I tighten my grip on her shoulder, fingers digging into soft flesh, while the other rises to cup her face. The edge of my thumb trails down her cheek, nail scraping a white line through freckles. As her heartbeat accelerates, her eyes remain defiant. I’m careful not to draw blood.
“Why don’t you fear me?” I ask.
“Because there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Wrong. She’s so wrong.
“What makes you believe that?”
“Well, maybe I’ll fear you when you’re plunging a dagger into my gut or choking my last breath from my lungs. But honestly, Never, I think you’re more talk than action.”
She’s either the bravest girl I’ve ever met or the most foolish. I can’t decide which.
A shaky smile, ripe with challenge, spreads over her face. It’s unpleasant and magnetic, like a red flag to a crazed lycan.
Or a bewitched fae prince.
I lower my head, staring and staring into wide green eyes. My own image is reflected in her dilated pupils. Silver hair, a strange expression, multiplying on forever in the mortal girl’s eyes.
One word claims my mind.
Closer.
Closer.
I inhale the scent of her fear. Another lie before; she is afraid.
Her rosy lips part on a breath.
“You should be careful what you say, Lara, for I shall give you the very thing you claimed to want.”
Her eyes widen as I frame her face with a palm, the fingers of my other hand at her throat, stroking.
My sword hilt against her ribs, I press closer and take her lips, then the soft velvet of her mouth.
Yes.
A wild feeling overtakes me as my gold circlet inches down my brow, slipping along with my control.
The feeling is anger.
This mortal means nothing. She is nothing.
The pounding in my skull says my thoughts are lies. Rotten lies.
Cool fingers glide over my arms and shoulders, and then link behind my neck as she melts like summer honeycomb, molding against me. Soft and sweet.
Then she pushes. “No. Stop.”
“What?”
Tears shine in her eyes. I don’t understand them at all. “Why do you cry?”
“I’m not crying.” Expression fierce, she scrubs her cheek. “I disliked you before, but it’s nothing to what I feel now. I’m not your plaything. I’m a prisoner here. Your cruelty is astonishing.”
Did I hurt her? Did I forget myself and draw air from her lungs without meaning to?
The loathing on her face churns my gut, triggering shame and anger. Always anger.
My usual instincts kick in, and I attack. “And your behavior in front of the Merits was astoundingly stupid. Why do you always seek to undermine me?”
“Because by bringing me here and not helping me to find a way home, you’ve left me helpless. Powerless. And now the only thing I can do, is piss you off.”
Two more tears fall over her skin.
I draw a spiral in the air before her eyes, instantly drying her cheeks with magic. “No more tears. Go to your bed and rest. You’ll feel well again tomorrow.”
Her fists clench. “Stop telling me what to do!” She grips my ears, draws me down, kisses me—breath panting, teeth nipping—then pushes me backward when I groan against her skin.
She has the strength of a sickly changeling, but right now I am even weaker, lost in a storm, and my shoulder hits the wall behind me as I stumble.
Heat, anger, longing, even fear boil beneath my skin.
I spin and bracket her against the wall with my forearms.
Her eyes are wild. “Let me pass.”
“Wait… Before you leave, I wish you would lie to me once again. Please, Lara.”
Her breath catches. Then silence while she considers my meaning. “I don’t… I don’t want you even a little,” she says as I dip my head and taste the salty skin of her neck.
“Again,” I say.
“I don’t want you at all. I never will.”
I kiss her throat, the corner of her lips. My blood simmers, but without pain. My chest no longer aches. Who knew a human’s kisses could hold such power?
“Ever… please let me go now.”
It’s the last thing I want, but her words are a spell. My hands drop to my thighs, and I step backward.
“Goodnight,” she says, already turning away.
I slump against the old stones as a train of velvet slinks down the stairs, merging with the darkness.
For long minutes, I linger there replaying her words like a favorite poem. A song.
With a drawn out sigh, I adjust my scabbard and prepare to return to the feast and deflect questions from the Merits about Lara. As my foot lands on the first step, I remember what I asked her to do. It was a simple request—I wanted her to lie to me.
Which means—perhaps she doesn’t hate me after all.
