Not that I slept any better. I tossed and turned and only finally snatched a few hours when Selwyn held me tight.
I should have kept vigil here, by Jamie’s side. It would have been the right thing to do. Now last night is yet another mistake to add to my long list.
Loki runs up to Jamie and licks his face. He smiles and pats her. She sits right next to him and leans her entire body weight on him while demanding ear scratches.
He obliges with another weary smile.
“Mabon is in there now,” Jamie says.
A wave of relief washes over me. “That’s good.” He needs his arm seen to if nothing else. And it makes sense that Dyfri would choose his brother over anyone else. Especially as Mabon isn't exactly the type to accept being shut out.
“Did Mabon barge in, or did Dyfri let him in?” I ask wryly.
Jamie chuckles. “A bit of both.”
I sit down beside him and allow my head to thud back against the wall. I can’t think of anything else to say. I don’t even think there is anything else I could possibly say.
Besides, this silence feels companionable and not oppressive. It is fine to let it linger and grow. Loki’s panting is a soothing, rhythmic backdrop to everything we are not saying.
We sit. We wait. We do not dare to hope.
“Dyfri was the first person to be nice to me when I arrived here,” Jamie says dully to the empty hallway.
Memories flash. Dyfri made me drink a truth serum, but then he tucked me up in bed and was kind. He thought I was too young to be wed, so he tried to stop the wedding. Because he cared. For me. A stranger.
“Same,” I reply in the same dull tone.
He was nice to me, and look what I have done to him in return. I am the very worst person in all of the worlds.
Suddenly, the doors to Dyfri’s rooms open. Jamie and I scramble to our feet just as Mabon walks out. The lilac-haired prince stops in his tracks when he sees us, and a look of surprise flashes across his pretty face.
“How is he?” asks Jamie.
Amethyst eyes fix on me for a moment, and my chest tightens. He has every right to blame me for everything, but he doesn’t still believe I really did order Dyfri to my bed? Does he?
“He allowed me to clean and bandage his arm. It will scar, but it is healing well.”
That is a small mercy, at least.
“And emotionally?” Jamie presses insistently.
Mabon puts a hand on his hip. “Those wounds are always the hardest to heal.”
Jamie makes a small, distressed sound before biting his bottom lip.
“He can just stay in his rooms? Nobody can… Nobody can…” I blurt and then trail off pathetically.
I’m not going to say that he was a rhocyn under the old rules before and survived, because that is no consolation to anyone. If anything, it makes everything worse. I can’t imagine being sent back to a hell you thought you had escaped.
But maybe nobody will want him now that they know just how very unseelie he is. Or maybe that will make them want him more? Fucking your enemy seems like a thing the fey would enjoy.
“He’ll be safe in his rooms?” I ask weakly.
Mabon narrows his eyes. “Possibly.”
He doesn’t look at all convinced, so maybe people can knock on Dyfri’s door and demand unspeakable things. And even if not, a life spent locked behind closed doors, is no life at all.
Nevermind that all of court are now even more convinced than they ever were that he is an evil unseelie. They don’t need to be aware of the plot Selwyn suspects, to fear and hate their oldest enemy.
