The words dropped between us with devastating weight. It was what I wanted most in the world, but the warning in Ander’s eyes and the heaviness in his voice poisoned my relief.
“She already told me she would,” I reminded him. “How does this hurt Fear?”
Before Ander could answer, the ballroom doors opened.
The glow at the doorway made me blink, and I raised my hand to shield my eyes. Ander pulled me with him into a bow, and I followed, clumsy in this room full of grace as the Fae around me sank into bows and curtseys.
The queen.
I glanced sideways through the crowd at Fieran, looking whereAnder had glanced. He stood taller than the other Fae, his head bent, his face blank.
Another of his masks.
I couldn’t see the queen through the crowd. I felt like a child compared to all of them. But I heard her voice.
“Where is the mortal girl?”
I raised my gaze.
Ander’s jaw tensed, and he moved closer to my side, giving me an encouraging nod. “She’s here, my queen.”
The crowd melted out of our path. Now I could see the queen and not just the supernatural glow that reflected off the crystal columns and chandeliers.
Slowly, the glow faded, until I could see her, pale and looking as if she were lit from within, with Fieran’s golden eyes and an ethereal dress that might have been spun from starlight.
The man at her side came into view.
Short and brown-haired, with ruddy cheeks and bright eyes that found mine.
Tay.
Forty-Four
“Tay!” I broke from the crowd, feeling Ander reach for me, but I was already gone.
I rushed to my brother in a few steps, then slowed; Tay had been so breakable for so long. But he looked better now, no longer knitted out of ashen skin strung between sharp bones. I gripped his arms gently, searching his face, afraid I’d hurt him.
“Cara.” He flashed me a full, bright smile, the one that used to turn heads in our village.
He pulled out of my grip easily, hurt lancing through me, before he clasped me in a hug. His arms were strong, his body solid and comforting. It was as if the last years had never happened, and I was hugging my brother the way I had before.
I wrapped my arms around him, feeling flooded with so much relief it made me want to sob, as if all my buried pain and grief could not be held back now. “You’re real?”
“Definitely. If we were dreaming, I’d make myself taller.”
My laugh shook my chest, or maybe it was a sob. I pulled away so I could see his face and cupped his cheek with my fingers.
“How?” I whispered.
“I keep my promises.” The queen had a smile inher voice.
I turned to her, horror washing through me at the realization I was so close to her and yet had forgotten her presence, and then I stumbled into my clumsy curtsey. “Thank you.”
“One woman to another, how could I deny your request?”
My gaze jumped to hers.
She—ethereally beautiful, a goddess—winked at me. “Now you are free of my son’s manipulations.”
