She narrowed her eyes at his blasé tone. “Nightmares,” she repeated. “How did you…?”
“You were flailing around like a fish out of water last night.” He nodded toward her nightstand. “You broke the glass. You ruined the lamp, too.”
She followed his gaze, searching for that lamp, for that glass that had been filled with water.
Both had been replaced.
“I was only trying to help you,” the prince said.
“Well it didn’t feel like help,” she grumbled. “It felt…suffocating. Strange.”
He gave her a curious look. “It’s Sun magic. It shouldn’t have felt strange to you.”
Panic rose in her, sudden and sharp, making her words painful to get out: “It didn’t… I mean—itdidfeel like Sun magic. I recognized it as such,obviously. But it was just more powerful than the Sun magic that I’m used to feeling, that’s all.”
He was so frustratingly good at walling off his expressions that she couldn’t tell whether he was suspicious of her lie or not.
She cautiously extended her hand to take the ring back. He deposited it in her outstretched palm without comment. She tried not to wince as it touched her skin, as she braced for more burning.
“Sun magic is life-sustaining, protective, warming…” he trailed off, watching her in that expectant way of his. “This particular ring is enchanted in such a way that it provides the wearer with clarity and calmness in their mind. I assumed it would settle any nightmares.”
“Yes, of course.” She tried to sound confident. “But is that reallyallthis particular ring does?”
He nodded. “It’s an old family heirloom; my great-grandfather forged it as a gift to his first-born.”
She turned it over and over in her hand. It was still tingling with heat. Was it reacting to the Shadow magic buried inside of her? She half-expected it to burn a hole through her palm and release that magic, to reveal the truth of her right then and there.
Clarity indeed.
After a moment, she caught her breath enough to glance up and ask, “And is it true that fae can’t lie?”
He snorted. “Where did you hear that?”
“My old caretaker—Nana Rosa. She was always telling us stories about such things.”
“Stories can be misleading.”
“Well? Is it true, then?”
“The truth is a tricky thing.”
Sephia fixed him with a glare. “Yes; Nana Rosaalsosaid that fae don’t give true answers whenever they can help it.”
“She sounds like an intelligent woman,” Tarron deadpanned. “Now—did she teach you how to act when people are trying tohelpyou?”
Her heart threatened to do that annoying, fluttering thing once more.
He’d been trying to help her.
Was he telling the truth?
“You slept better than you had on previous nights, did you not?” he asked.
She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. He was right. She had woken up more refreshed than she had in a long time—even in spite of her sleep’s nightmarish ending.
“I’m victorious in one battle, it seems,” said the prince in response to her silence. “Now if only you would eat something, I would consider myself quite the strategist.”
She could still think of nothing to say.
