I heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll make a wish if it will make you happy. And if you will refrain from ever calling melittle mortalagain.”
“It will,” he said, his voice close to my ear.
My emotions were so wild I could barely make sense of them. But there was one wish that was always pounding through me.
Let Tay be healthy and well, and let Lidi have her magic.
For a split second afterward, I felt a sense of peace. As if it would all come true.
The next second, my sense of peace curdled. A wave of superstition swept through me. Nothing good ever happened in the stories from people who stole wishes. It was Fieran’s wish to spend, not mine.
Now that I had voiced what I wanted the most, I had this terrible sense that both would vanish in the light of my stolen wish, like fog melting away under the sun.
“Are you all right?” Fieran’s voice had changed from warm to worried.
The sense that he could read me was so incredibly distressing. I took a step away from him, needing to put space between us.
I needed to be practical. Wishes wouldn’t save my brother and sister, but I could. If I were just smarter, if I just worked harder, if I could just put the last pieces together. I fixed my face and turned to face him.
“Of course.” It felt so humiliating to need him for a favor after his friends had established that morning that mortals were always searching for favors from dragon shifters. As if saving our lives wasn’t enough. But I must. “I have to ask you for a favor.”
“What do you want, Cara? If I can help, I will.”
“Thank you,” I said. Before I could lose my will to ask for something I didn’t really want, I asked, “Can you help me get a job working for the Fae?”
“Why?”
“I want to get out of the village.” I’d rehearsed this answer on my path to the inn, in case he asked, but it sounded less convincing now that he was looking at me the way he was.
“I haven’t known you very long, but I can tell that if you’d wanted to get out of this village, you’d already be gone.” He studied me withthat too-intrusive gaze. “The Fae aren’t kind. What is it you really need? Because I doubt that need will be met serving some cruel Fae.”
“The Fae aren’t kind,” I repeated. With those simple words, it felt as if my plan was wild and unhinged. I prickled, embarrassed by my own stupidity.
I almost told him about Tay, but it would sound like I was spinning a story for pity. I had a feeling hopeful-eyed mortals were forever spilling their sadnesses before the shifters. As terrifying as the dragon shifters were, they were as close as people like me would ever come to the Fae.
I didn’t want him to think that I just wanted to take things from him.
Even though it seems like I had nothing to offer him, so really, what was he supposed to think of me?
While he was choosing his words, obviously carefully, I stewed in my sense of humiliation.
“I need to get out of this village. To have a job. To build a life of my own, instead of waiting for my family to outgrow needing me.”
The words became more true as I spoke, and I winced at hearing the truth voiced aloud that I’d never spoken.
But I wouldn’t abandon my family. I wouldn’t make my own life until theirs was on solid ground. I was only leaving them to protect Tay’s life and Lidi’s magic.
I hoped they would understand.
“Then I can help.” He turned to face me, the two of us coming to a stop. The moonlight trickling through the lattice work of interlaced tree branches above us seemed to cast an ethereal glow on his beautiful face. “It’s a mistake to leave the village. It’s your mistake to make, and I’ll help you. But the life you have here…it’s a beautiful life for a mortal.”
“For a mortal?” I repeated. It sounded so condescending when he said I had a beautiful life for someone who wasmortal.As if this were all I could ever hope for.
“There are so many mortals living and serving the Fae, convinced that they’re going to be the ones chosen to be elevated among the Fae. To gain their magic back, and more. To be powerful.” He was watching me carefully.
I felt myself flush hot. “That’s not what I’m hoping for. I know it’s ridiculous…the Fae almost never raise someone to be like them…”
“Raise?” he repeated pointedly, the word lingering in the air.
