“I did yesterday.”
“You sweat in your sleep.”
Briar lets out a giggle. I shoot her a look. “Whose side are you on?”
My friend raises her hands. “The side of truth.”
I roll my eyes while Kassandra snorts, turning back to face her reflection in the glass. She scoops out cream from a glass pot and rubs her hands together.
“You invited guests over?” I ask, my mind finally catching up.
“Just for dinner.” She doesn’t look at me. “Are you well enough to walk?”
So she doesn’t want to answer questions, only ask. Perhaps it’s the advisor’s wife again, or another lady of the court. Perhaps Kassandra is finally open to making friends.
“I’ll lean on the railings,” I tell her. “I just can’t sit here and do nothing anymore.”
“Avery, you aren’t doing nothing. You’re Healing.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Perhaps it should be.”
“Before the coronation, you were siphoning from the plane. Even with two broken arms, you were layering its power along your skin.”
There is a pause. Then, quietly, Kassandra says, “I am fae.”
“I know.” I clutch the bedpost. “How could I forget?”
“Avery,” Briar admonishes. “Watch your tongue.”
But my vision wavers, my mind flooding with an unrelenting rage. A moment ago, we were jesting with each other like peers, almost like friends. Yet I am not allowed to challenge Kassandra as one? So the High Fae can indulge in familiarity when they are lonely, but slip back into superiority when uncomfortable? They cannot have both—yet that is what they seek. That is what Maxian sought—to feel the love of friendship without earning it. To have ultimate obedience with the visage of choice.
I am in the library, being cradled by the king.
I am in the lounge, being torn open by Dominik.
Perhaps I am performing complex magic, just as Maxian did that day, splitting my consciousness. Lila would find a way to paper together this collage of memories, and find a greater image, a larger meaning, from this experience. But I can only feel the jagged lines, the pieces of me that remain in Reign, and the longing is stretched far, as if I am a trunk severed from its roots; I exist in both places, I am both the chestnut door and the decaying stump in the meadow.
“Avery!” Kassandra shouts.
I blink, the images dissolving before my eyes. My good hand grips the bedpost, knuckles white. My body leans against it. I reach for my genius, requesting it to seek out the tree that made this furniture. But my genius is depleted, and the bed is not enchanted. The wood is dead.
“Why don’t you sit?” Briar says.
Lifting my head, I take in Briar clutching her duster, Kassandra gripping the back of her chair. The pair watch me as if I am an animal about to bolt. Their attention makes me want to hide.
“You saw me naked,” I say.
Briar furrows her brow. “We had to in order to—”
“It was the only way to save you,” Kassandra says.
“I didn’t want that.”
My mistress cocks her head. “You didn’t want to be saved? Or you didn’t want us to do the saving?”
“Both.” I straighten, releasing the bedpost. “I don’t know.”
