I shrugged.
“Once or twice when I was a teenager and the whole thing had a Sabrina vibe,” I told him and watched as his brow furrowed at the pop culture reference of a world separate from his. I sighed. “No. I haven’t tried it. Not really.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted no part of this, of you. I didn’t even want to be one of you. So trying to use magic felt like admitting to what I was. And if I tried and failed, then… it would be proof that I wasn’t actually special. That I truly had no connection to my mother. That she had given me nothing at all.”
He nodded, considering.
“Try,” he said then and my gaze snapped back to him.
I blinked.
“Excuse me?” I asked, uncertain if I had heard him correctly.
“Try,” he repeated.
“I—I don’t know how—”
“Do you see the glass on the table here?”
My eyes flicked to the glass, half full of water.
“Move it,” he told me.
I stood, brushing myself off.
“No,” he said, stopping me. “With magic.”
“But I don’t understand how I—”
“You’re thinking too hard. Just move it.”
I sighed, letting my shoulders droop. Then I turned to face the glass and focused. I imagined it moving from one side of the table to the other. I narrowed my gaze and emptied my mind. I thought of nothing but the movement of the glass, the water inside. Nothing.
“Keep trying,” the King said, standing from the sofa and walking toward the door. “Tell me when you manage it.”
When. Not if.
I watched him, lips parted slightly in surprise, as he wrenched open my door and stepped through the threshold to the hallway beyond.
“And Ren,” he added, turning back over his shoulder before he left. “You’re expected to be in the throne room this afternoon when I sentence my son.”
Chapter nineteen
A Royal Mess
Istaredatthatglass of water for hours. I stared at it while sitting, I stared at it while standing, I closed my eyes and envisioned it. I waved my hands around, wiggled my fingers, tried different facial expressions. Nothing. Not even a slight shake enough to stir the water inside. Mentally drained and physically exhausted, I collapsed on the bed, closing my eyes and finally allowing the thoughts I had been fighting against all day to filter in.
Lark was being sentenced today. I had to be at the hearing. Would he be aware of what I knew now? Would his father or Cass have warned him of my fury? Would he even feel guilty for what he had done, for lying to me all this time? Did any of it matter?
My servants arrived not long before the court was to be assembled, before the time that the King had commanded my presence. They washed me and dressed me in a long brown dress. It was plain and unembellished, thick and slightly itchy. The true garb of a prisoner. But I made no complaints as they shrouded me in the uncomfortable fabric and piled my blonde hair atop my head. When they tried to dust me with makeup, however, I turned them down and they merely strode away, leaving me to ruminate in peace until I marched to my kidnapper’s doom.
I didn’t know the woman who came to get me but I recognized the facial features. Dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, the glowing power of a royal Fae, and that insidious black.
“Ursa,” I guessed the moment she appeared on my threshold.
Her lips quirked up into a grin that simultaneously told me I had been right and reminded me of her siblings. I looked away quickly, turning back to shut my door as I stepped out into the hall with a would-be murderer. I couldn’t even summon the energy to fear her as we strode forward together.
