This was it. The time to test the best of my powers of persuasion. I would have no magical assistance, no help from the mind-influencing magic I’d once studied. Nothing beyond my observations of her desires forconnection and the efforts I’d made to convince her that I would provide some.
Would it be enough?
I tied the horses’ leads to a tree and followed the queen into a frozen sitting room, complete with icy imitations of plush chairs and a comfortable settee. The detail was stunning. I had never attempted to create such a structure from nothing but raw magic and loose water particles, but it would have required a considerable amount of practice for me to come close.
As we settled into ice-made chairs, a concerned expression flitted across her face. “Will you be too cold? You said you knew the summer courts.”
I waved aside her worry. “I am originally from a summer court, but my bond with the lamp removes any discomfort I might feel from temperature.”
“Will you tell me more about your bond to the lamp?”
I nodded. This was what she needed. More trust. More vulnerability from me. Nothing would drag her to my aid faster, and I could keep my emotions separate from the vulnerability she needed. “I once led a simple life. I lived on a farm on an island with my grandmother. My parents had died in a war before I could remember them. But I was happy with my grandmother until our island started dying.”
She straightened. “Dying?”
“Yes.” I tapped my finger on my knee. “An island in Veran should grow food easily, but our crops wilted and died. Our animals weakened and died. It seemedour entire island would die if we did not find a way to fight back. Some fae left, but my grandmother was too old and weak. If I could not save the island, she would die along with it.”
I paused to collect my emotions. They’d surfaced somehow, despite my lack of permission for them. Gran was the only person I had ever loved, and discussing her loss hurt in places I couldn’t bury.
I shook my head and continued. “Everyone knows that fae are born with an ability to use wild magic in our natural world, but my grandmother was older than most, and she knew things—”
My voice caught again, and I swallowed quickly. “She taught me that fae are also born with a well of magic inside ourselves. The size of that well limits how much magic we can harness around us. It’s when we try to use too much that we pass out or hurt ourselves. She also taught me that we can collect additional magic, learn new ways to harness it, and add it to our natural abilities. Nobody studied these things then, and I doubt anyone does now. Everyone just assumes that we have limits, and those with more are noble or royal and those with less are not. But—”
I leaned forward in my seat. “That. Is. Not. The. Case.” Perhaps it was not wise to tell an unbalanced former queen that she could be more powerful than she knew, but it was not likely to make much of a difference. I’d studied and collected magic for decades before I’d gathered more than my king. And much of that had been under my grandmother’s tutelage.
But she tipped her head thoughtfully. “I have seen some of this.”
“Oh?” I leaned toward her. “What do you mean?”
She tapped a finger against the icy arm of her chair. “Many years ago, I discovered a way to harness magic in crystals. I wrapped it into lattices and added it to the magic I normally had access to. It allows me to use more magic in stronger ways than most fae.”
I waited for her to elaborate, but she did not. Apparently that was all the information I was getting from her, so I finished telling the story she’d asked for. “I left the island hoping to discover what had attacked us and a good way to fight back. Instead, I collected enough magic to distract myself, take over the Sun Kingdom, and be tricked into binding myself to a lamp that limited my power to the wishes of others.”
She folded her arms. “I would like to hear more about being tricked to bind yourself to a lamp.”
Of course she would.
“Brintontoven,” I muttered.
She arched an eyebrow.
“The Sun King’s friend,” I explained. “He was far more conniving than I gave him credit for.” At her silence, I elaborated. “He brought me the lamp and—under the guise of conspiring with me to finally take the throne—told me that he’d found a way to collect magic in the lamp’s metal, and anyone who bound himself to the lamp would have access to that power. I felt the magic brimming, ready to burst out of the lamp. He must have colluded with a dozen other fae tobind so much power. I bound myself to the lamp without even asking about the limitations of the bond. His expression when I spoke the binding—”
Fury threatened to overtake my voice. I still remembered his bland smirk when he’d lifted the lamp and waved it tauntingly at me. “He told me the limits after I tied myself to the lamp’s magic—that I would only have access to the magic to answer the wishes of the fae who owned the lamp, and that I would have no choice in exercising the power to grant such wishes. I was a slave, held captive by whoever held the lamp.”
She contemplated my words with a royal expression I could imagine her wearing when petitioners asked her for boons. “And that is why you called me, ‘Master?’”
“Yes.” I clenched my fists to avoid grimacing.
“And now you would like my help in freeing you from the lamp?”
Here was the moment. “I would beg for your help.” I shifted closer to her in my chair, catching her eyes. “It would be no small favor, and I would hold you in the highest regard for the rest of my life.” I had to be careful not to put myself in her debt or promise any favors. I needed freedom and could not promise anything that would limit my ability to use that freedom in the future. I could—and would—hold her in the highest regard without being obligated to do anything further.
She leaned closer to me. “What would you need from me? To be free?”
I dropped her gaze. I could not hold it while I asked for something so big. “I need you to wish me free. To request it from the lamp’s magic. To use your power in holding the lamp to release me from it.”
Silence.
