“The way you see me is …” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but it makes me feel like … like maybe I can be the king I wish to be.”
“So, I’m not in trouble?”
“Trouble?” He runs his fingertips along my forehead and tucks my hair behind my ear.
“The law against changelings or lesser fae painting high fae. I’ve truly broken it now.”
“As I said, think nothing of that.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “There are so many antiquated laws in the realm. I’ve had Tritus going through the rolls and compiling a list of those odious provisions so I can strike them, but there are so many that he’s been working on it for months andstillhasn’t gotten done.”
“So, you’re definitely going to get rid of it?” My tension eases.
“Yes. I’m a new king, and things take time, but it’s my goal to erase every bit of division among the peoples of the day realm. It won’t happen quickly, and I suspect we’ll have plenty of troubles crop up with my nobles, but there is simply no reason why all the races can’t work together on an equal footing.”
I was already worried about falling for this fae, but his words are pushing me over the edge. Swallowing hard, I press my forehead to his throat and just try to breathe.
“Tell me about your life.” He covers my hand with his, keeping my palm against him.
“Don’t you have a kingdom to run?” I smile.
“Not right now. Right now, I have a nightling to seduce.”
“If listening to me drone on about my life is your idea of seduction, then I have no idea how you’ve ever talked a female into your bed.”
He presses his lips to my ear. “I’ve never had to talk a female into anything, nightling.”
A shiver courses through me, this one welcome.
“Now tell me. I want to know everything.”
I lean my head back and meet his gaze. “That’s a lot.”
He nods. “Get to it.”
I smile. Has anyone ever asked me about me before? I mean, I’ve made polite conversation, but no one has wanted to know my details. Maybe my life will bore him, but I’m happy to talk. It relaxes me to sit here in his arms, as if his presence can shake away the dread I felt only hours ago in Caroldon’s clutches.
“Well, I was born in the night realm, not exchanged, so I’m not a true changeling in that sense.”
“Do the changelings differentiate that among themselves?” He seems genuinely curious, as if he’s never thought about changeling life but is interested all the same.
“Sometimes. My mother is an exchange, and some people believe that exchanges bring a little extra magic from the human world with them when they arrive.”
“The human world has magic?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s just what people say. But I was born under a crescent moon, or so my mother always said. It was a difficult birth, and she had to bargain with the witches to keep both of us from dying.”
“What did she bargain?”
“She’s never told me. I must’ve asked her hundreds of times, but she never breathed a word of the bargain’s terms. Maybe that was part of the bargain. So, I lived my whole life in Moonhollow. Darning socks, making candles, learning the ways of fire—”
He smiles at that, and his crown sparks to life. “Fire is my specialty.”
“We could use you in the Nightlands. Flames are everything there—light, warmth, cooking. They teach us how to start fires right after we learn to walk.”
“Sounds … dangerous.”
“Sure. I almost burned down our cottage on more than one occasion. But I can make a fire out of a few rocks and a scrap of just about anything—clothes, sticks, plants, leaves, even dirt can burn.”
“You make me feel spoiled.” He holds out a hand and ball of flaming sun erupts in his palm.
