“Aren’t you?”
“Sometimes. But I was dying at home, Cara. It’s nice to be somewhere that doesn’t hold all those memories.”
Guilt stabbed through me. He must’ve seen it on my face because he softened, smiling faintly. “I know you worry about Lidi and Mother coming here. But we’ll go home eventually. I’ll make new memories, good ones. I’ll forget that I ever thought I was dying.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Maybe we could both forget the taste of dread.
“But I’m not leaving without you,” he added firmly. “We’re in this together, Cara.”
His words touched me—and worried me.
As we turned a corner, the air thickened. The light dimmed, as if the magic itself grew uneasy. Shadows stretched long across the glowing garden floor, the air humming with a strange pressure.
“Maybe we should go back,” I said.
“I want to be at the claiming,” Tay said.
“No.” The only thing worse than burning would be burning while my brother screamed.
He frowned. “Then you don’t need me to stay here with you. You spend all your time worrying about me.”
“I do need you,” I blurted out. Gods, I had wanted for him to go home, and now I needed to convince him to stay. “Just notthen. Not watching.”
“You think I don’t want to be there for you? Or that I’m not strong enough to see it?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” I felt lost in this conversation, unable to find my way well enough to point either of us in the direction of what I meant. “I don’t want you to watch. But it makes me feel better to have you close. You’re my family. My one friend I can trust?—"
“Is that what I am? When I don’t even understand this world? I can’t help you.” His frustration sounded raw. “But I could learn. I could understand the court, the politics—Fieran’s maneuverings, the queen’s plans.”
Alarm curled through my chest like smoke. “What are you talking about?”
“Good evening, Cara. Tay.” The queen’s voice was soft.
Tay’s face lit up as he turned toward her. My heart plummeted.
The realization struck me like a physical blow: he had brought me here for a reason.
Perhaps for a reason he didn’t even understand.
“Are we still on war college grounds?” I asked.
“Barely off them,” Tay said. “We can have you home before Ander misses you.”
What had he done? I’d been betrayed by the brother who loved me, and he didn’t even know it.
I closed my eyes, gathering what strength I could.
Then I turned to face the queen. Tay had bowed, stiffly, like we’d been taught in primary school in the unlikely event we ever met Fae royalty, and she waved him off.
I dropped into my awkward school curtsey, and she watched me with glittering eyes, perhaps in no rush to ease my discomfort.
“Cara,” she said, urging me up with a gesture. “Do you have anything to tell me about my son?”
Her voice was melodic, beautiful, almost transfixing. Her smile was radiant, her face opening. Something about her made me want to confess everything I knew and felt about Fieran.
Tay was watching me with guileless curiosity too, as if he wanted to know the truth. Was my brother enchanted, compelled to do her bidding…and was I as well?
“He’s guarded with me,” I said, letting that truth flow without trying to hide it. “He doesn’t trust me.”
