Still, I cannot say. This time, I meet his eye. “When does your shift start?”
“I can do what I want.”
“You can…” I start. “I just don’t want to cause you more trouble.”
“I saw the fire spring from your arms. Remember?”
The day they called me a fae-fucker. “I’m sorry if it scared you.”
“But it didn’t. I just didn’t know you could make fire.”
“Not until recently.”
“Did you do that to the king?”
“What?”
“When you came back covered in blood. Was some of it the king’s?”
I do not speak.
“Remember when…” He looks away. “Remember when I wished for the king to hurt you? I didn’t think the planes would listen—”
“Benji, this is not your fault.”
“I didn’t think the planes would listen after ignoring me every time I begged for Jae-jae back.”
I close my eyes, throat tight. Oh, how he has grieved, how he will keep grieving, and how distraught Jeremee would be to hear how the mind of a child has warped the world’s indiscretions into his own.
“I’m so sorry, Benji, for what you have been through and for the role I have played in it. But you are utterly blameless.”
“I wished for you to be hurt, and then you came back hurt.”
I shake my head. “Those around us can impact our lives more than some unseeable plane.”
“You do not believe in the power of wishing?”
“I believe in our actions.”
“But I saw you in the bed when you wouldn’t wake up. I waited for you to wake up.”
“I’m awake now.”
Quiet, for a moment. “This was you, wasn’t it?” he says, bunching up his pants to reveal two unmarked knobby knees and legs. He is no longer an Unluckie, merely a palace faerie with two arms of dues like the rest of us.
The Illusion debt was forgiven.
“How did you do it?” the boy asks. “I didn’t deposit anything big, but the rings just disappeared when I was eating breakfast.”
Kassandra did.I shake my head—I cannot say.
“I know it was you. Who else—” His lip quivers. “Who else would help me?”
“Glenn,” I say.
“It’s different with him.”
“Has it been okay?”
