Then she was gone. No matter how beautiful she was, I couldn’t look at anything but Tay’s face.
He grinned. “I’m starving.”
I looked for Fieran, but the queen had summoned both him and Ander to her side. Fear’s gaze cut away to me, a look in his eyes I couldn’t read—was he frustrated that my brother was healed? The thought carved into my chest like a knife, ripping out any relief.
“Let’s eat, then,” I said, unsure what to do at this moment.
There had been no offer. No cost. Yet.
But I could feel the trap growing up around me.
I’d pay any cost to keep this version of Tay, alive and well.
“Come on,” I told him for now.
A few minutes later, the two of us sat across from each other, the only people at a long table in the banquet room. The shifters were in the ballroom, never as interested in food as we felt.
Tay sat across from me, hale and upright. His steps were sure, his color healthy, his eyes bright with life I hadn’t seen in months. Every time I glanced at him, relief swelled in my chest until it hurt.
“This is…gods, Cara, this is incredible.” He sat and tore into the bread first, closing his eyes like it was a religious experience. “This city, this place…this healing…”
“Do you remember sneaking into Old Berren’s orchard when we were kids?”
“And almost getting bit by his hounds?” Tay grinned, mouth full. “Never saw you run so fast.”
“Not that it mattered, when you were so slow getting the gate open.”
“You’re still mad about that? I was eight years old!”
“I could work a latch when I was eight years old.” I threw a roll athim, because it didn’t matter. There was so much food. “The oldest has to be the cleverest.”
He grinned but picked the roll up from where it had fallen on the table and tucked it back in the basket. It was such a Tay thing to do, quietly cleaning up after me, as he’d always done. He’d tried to smooth things over with our mother—or with Old Berren, for that matter—and dragged me away from a dozen fights.
We were so different, and I sobered, thinking he was too good to stay here in this dark, twisted Fae world.
“And the youngest has to be the sweetest,” he added.
He was thinking of Lidi, but for a long time, he had been the youngest.
I was rotted enough to make my way among the shifters and Fae. He never would be.
“Mother will be so glad to see you,” I said.
“You want us to go home?” His brows arched.
“I can’t leave yet,” I said carefully. The queen must be furious I’d appeared in the Recruits’ Trials after all instead of disappearing.
“Leave without you? No. Someone has to watch your back.” He shook his head.
“I have allies here,” I told him.
“Allies? Not friends.”
Fear’s maddeningly handsome smirking face surfaced in my mind, as it did far too often.Definitely not friends.“This is no place for mortals.”
He propped his chin in his hand. Red fruit stained his lips, and for a terrifying second, I imagined him with a mouth leaking blood, his bright eyes fixed and growing dull.
I could barely handle my anxiety for my own life. I needed him home and safe.
