He rubs a hand along his jaw, then shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
My mouth falls open. “Why? Do you think she should toil away as a lady’s maid the rest of her life? Surely, she’s worth more than that.”
“She is,” he rushes to say. “It isn’t that at all, it’s more…it isn’t a good idea to appoint your friends as your staff. Especially to such powerful positions.”
“Why not?”
“It makes things difficult,” he says. “When your subordinates are your friends, it makes it harder to be firm with them.”
I bristle. “For one, I don’t consider Lorelei my subordinate but my equal, and for another, why should I ever need to be firm with her?”
“See, this is exactly why this is a bad idea. You don’t understand—”
“No,youdon’t understand. I didn’t bring this up because I wanted your opinion. I brought it up simply to inform you of my intention to remove her from your employ and into mine.”
Aspen rolls his eyes. “Why did you even bother asking, then?”
“I thought you might support me,” I say, “but clearly you don’t trust me to make my own choices.”
“Like I trusted you when you said you only needed space? That you promised you’d stay safe?”
I scoff. “Oh, here we go.”
“As soon as I saw you in that human dress, I knew you’d lied. I knew you’d done something reckless. But never could I have imagined you’d do something so stupid as to return to Grenneith. Nyxia was right, wasn’t she? You burned down that brothel, the one Henry Duveau tried to send you to.”
I take an angry step toward him. “I put an end to fae torture. You don’t know what it was like there. They had them cuffed in iron, forced to pleasure whoever came to pay them a visit. Some of the fae had their wings shorn. Worst of all, the brothel’s madame sold half-fae children to be experimented on.” A lump rises in my throat, but I burn it with fire. “I only saved two children.”
His expression softens. “I’m not saying what you did was wrong, but doing it alone was reckless. You should have mentioned this was something you wanted to do. We could have brought it up to the Alpha Alliance. We could have taken the brothel down as a formal demonstration to the humans.”
“I wanted to do it alone,” I say softly. “Ineededto do it alone.”
“I understand you felt like you had to seek vengeance. Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to feel helpless when those who’ve wronged you are free? My own brother is living in my palace and I’ve yet to have the means to move against him.”
My rage returns in a flash. “It’s not the same. My mother died right in front of me.”
“I know, Evie, and I’m so sorry. But what if Mr. Duveau had found you while you were in Grenneith?”
“I wanted him to find me!” I shout. “He was half the reason I went there. I hoped Madame Rose could be glamoured to tell me his location.”
His eyes bulge. “Don’t tell me you tried to glamour someone.”
“I did, Aspen, and it worked. For the dress, at least.” I purposely omit mention of glamouring the man who harassed me in the street. “And it would have worked on Madame Rose too, if she wasn’t wearing rowan.”
He throws his hands in the air. “This is what I’m talking about! That is reckless. That is the opposite of staying safe.”
My fury rises higher and higher, and I let it burn around me. Let it melt my pain and emotions away. “You need to get it through your head that you don’t control me. I am queen of my own court. I am ruler of my own actions. I will make my own decisions in all things, and that includes seeking vengeance where I please and making Lorelei my ambassador. You don’t get to stand over my shoulder and operate me like a puppet.”
His expression falls, wounded like I’ve never seen before. His words come out quiet, strained. “Is that what you think I’m doing here, Evie? Controlling you? I confess, I cannot help but try to keep you safe. I love you more than I can say, and it kills me to watch you run from your grief and instead put yourself in danger. And when it comes to your rule, I only gave you my advice because I thought you respected my opinion. I thought we were ruling together. As mates. Did you not mean what you said to Nyxia? That my household is your household?”
Something breaks inside me, and guilt swarms my heart. Suddenly, I feel the barbs of the words I said to Aspen pricking my chest. That was my fire talking, not me. And yet, I can’t bring myself to reply when every truth I want to say teeters on the brink of the emotions that could destroy me, that could pull me into that black chasm of sorrow.
Aspen misreads my silence, eyes going steely. He takes a step back from me, then another, shaking his head. “No. When it all comes down to it, you’re just a lying human.”
He turns on his heel and stalks toward the door.
Agony, rage, and terror surge through me. “You don’t mean that,” I call after him, painfully aware of how my voice trembles. “Don’t walk away from me.”
He reaches the door without a second glance.
