“And what payment do you require?”
“Nothing. It’s—it’s not a bargain. Just take it.” I extended my hands further. “Please.”
She frowned at the jewels draping from my hands. “You desire nothing in return?”
“Nothing.” The faeries in the line were now staring unabashedly. “Please, just take them.”
With a final assessing look, her cold, clammy fingers brushed mine, gathering up the jewelry. It glimmered like light on water in her webbed hands.
“Thank you,” she said, and bowed deeply this time. “I will not forget this kindness.” Her voice slithered over the words, and I shivered again as her black eyes threatened to swallow me whole. “Nor will any of my sisters.”
She stalked back toward the manor, the faces of my three sentries tight with reproach.
I sat at the dinner table with Lucien and Tamlin. Neither of them spoke, but Lucien’s gaze kept bouncing from me, to Tamlin, then to his plate.
After ten minutes of silence, I set down my fork and said to Tamlin, “What is it?”
Tamlin didn’t hesitate. “You know what it is.”
I didn’t reply.
“You gave that water-wraith your jewelry. Jewelry I gave you.”
“We have a damned house full of gold and jewels.”
Lucien took a deep breath that sounded a lot like: “Here we go.”
“Why shouldn’t I give them to her?” I demanded. “Those things don’t mean anything to me. I’ve never worn the same piece of jewelry twice! Who cares about any of it?”
Tamlin’s lips thinned. “Because you undermine the laws of this court when you behave like that. Because this is how things are done here, and when you hand that gluttonous faerie the money she needs, it makes me—it makes this entire court—look weak.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” I said, baring my teeth. He slammed his hand on the table, claws poking through his flesh, but I leaned forward, bracing my own hands on the wood. “You still have no idea what it was like for me—to be on the verge of starvation for months at a time. And you can call her a glutton all you like, but I have sisters, too, and I remember what it felt like to return home without any food.” I calmed my heaving chest, and that force beneath my skin stirred, undulating along my bones. “So maybe she’ll spend all that money on stupid things—maybe she and her sisters have no self-control. But I’m not going to take that chance and let them starve, because of some ridiculous rule that your ancestors invented.”
Lucien cleared his throat. “She meant no harm, Tam.”
“I know she meant no harm,” he snapped.
Lucien held his gaze. “Worse things have happened, worse things can happen. Just relax.”
Tamlin’s emerald eyes were feral as he snarled at Lucien, “Did I ask for your opinion?”
Those words, the look he gave Lucien and the way Lucien lowered his head—my temper was a burning river in my veins. Look up, I silently beseeched him. Push back. He’s wrong, and we’re right. Lucien’s jaw tightened. That force thrummed in me again, seeping out, spearing for Lucien. Do not back down—
Then I was gone.
Still there, still seeing through my eyes, but also half looking through another angle in the room, another person’s vantage point—
Thoughts slammed into me, images and memories, a pattern of thinking and feeling that was old, and clever, and sad, so endlessly sad and guilt-ridden, hopeless—
Then I was back, blinking, no more than a heartbeat passing as I gaped at Lucien.
His head. I had been inside his head, had slid through his mental walls—
I stood, chucking my napkin on the table with hands that were unnervingly steady.
I knew who that gift had come from. My dinner rose in my throat, but I willed it down.
“We’re not finished with this meal,” Tamlin growled.
“Oh, get over yourself,” I barked, and left.
I could have sworn I beheld two burned handprints on the wood, peeking out from beneath my napkin. I prayed neither of them noticed.
And that Lucien remained ignorant to the violation I’d just committed.
CHAPTER
9
I paced my room for a good while. Maybe I’d been mistaken when I’d spotted those burns—maybe they’d been there before. Maybe I hadn’t somehow summoned heat and branded the wood. Maybe I hadn’t slid into Lucien’s mind as if I were moving from one room to another.
Just as she always did, Alis appeared to help me change for bed. As I sat before the vanity, letting her comb my hair, I cringed at my reflection. The purple beneath my eyes seemed permanent now—my face wan. Even my lips were a bit pale, and I sighed as I closed my eyes.
“You gave your jewels to a water-wraith,” Alis mused, and I found her reflection in the mirror. Her brown skin looked like crushed leather, and her dark eyes gleamed for a moment before she focused on my hair. “They’re a slippery sort.”
“She said they were starving—that they had no food,” I murmured.
Alis gently coaxed out a tangle. “Not one faerie in that line today would have given her the money. Not one would have dared. Too many have gone to a watery grave because of their hunger. Insatiable appetite—it is their curse. Your jewels won’t last her a week.”
I tapped a foot on the floor.
“But,” Alis went on, setting down the brush to braid my hair into a single plait. Her long, spindly fingers scratched against my scalp. “She will never forget it. So long as she lives, no matter what you said, she is in your debt.” Alis finished the braid and patted my shoulder. “Too many faeries have tasted hunger these past fifty years. Don’t think word of this won’t spread.”