“He remade it,” I say.
“More like re-formed it. The Vandornes seem to be the only fae who can do it.”
I bite my lip. “Could you use the plane to lace an Illusion to someone? Not a physical letter but perhaps the appearance of one? Or an auditory message like what…when Lord…”
What the fuck have you done?her brother had seethed right before he did the unthinkable.
Kassandra quirks a brow. “Since when do you think before you speak?”
“Since there is much to think about.”
We fall silent, passing an Illusion guard in silver armor, a bow slung over his shoulder. The arched cloister meets another, and based on the setting sun, we’ve reached the northern side. The temperature drops in the shade. Halfway down the corridor, Kassandra stops in front of a break in the stone, an entryway that leads into a hedge. She strides forward, the air wavering, and melts into the plant.
A mirage. Great.
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to discern the edges of the Illusion, lest I scratch an eye on a real branch. The plant in front of me smells fresh, earthy. It appears detailed. Yet when the wind blows, a cluster of leaves remains stagnant while the surrounding ones tremble. It’s a small, discreet opening. I reach forward, and my hand disappears behind a curtain of cool haze.
I step through the Illusion. Twinkling lights greet me, small glowing orbs that float through a courtyard. Rosebushes encompass the space, complete with stone benches and an empty birdbath in its center, the pedestal dripping with vines.
Kassandra perches on a bench, eyes closed, the fading sunset drenching her in tangerine, her silver hair licked by fire. A second-story stone balcony peeks above the enclosed hedges.
“My lady,” I start. “If you’d like some more privacy, we could choose another courtyard?”
“This is perfect.”
My boots crunch over gravel, finding a shaded spot in thecorner. The courtyard cools in the elongating shadows. Still, a bird chirps, and the plane hums a lovely, low presence. Fresh air expands my lungs.
Jae would have loved this place.
My genius twitches to life. I haven’t felt it in days, too weighed down by grief.
Go away,I tell it, anger rising at the memory of helpless scratching.You’re useless.
The genius spasms. As if I am the one who failed it and not the other way around. As faeries, we’re told that this part of us is simply another tool, like hands for scrubbing and legs for bowing. Yet sometimes, mine acts as a separate entity inside me, with its own needs and wants.
Go. Away.
“Are you arguing with the ants?”
I snap back to the dusky courtyard. My mistress still lounges on the stone bench, not looking my way.
She waves a hand. “Your ire is like peppercorn under the nose.”
“How?How can you sense my emotions?”
Kassandra tenses. I suck in a breath, shocked at my own bluntness. But shock soon fades to apathy. I have spoken out of turn; I will be punished.
Instead, my mistress tilts her head. “Do you remember when I picked you? When all the faeries lined up, the parlor stank. I couldn’t figure it out because the smell was being picked up by my genius first, not my nose. It was a magical marker of some kind. I had never sensed such a thing before. It was…fascinating.”
That day, every breath had been torture, so heavily I missed my mother, who had passed only weeks before. I hated being in that gilded room, watching Kassandra survey our lineup, a Healer tending blisters from her shoes. Not when my mother refused a Healer despite my begging.
I will not put you in such debt,she had rasped toward the end.
Even when I brought one anyway, she tried to bite off theHealer’s finger. Debt or death. She had been determined to die without treatment to spare me a century of repayment. So as Kassandra stomped around her parlor that day with bandages for a blister, the other Scarps had trembled with fear, but I trembled with hate. With fury. For we already cannot afford to live, and still, they ensure that we cannot afford to fucking die.
“There you are,” Kassandra says now. “Stinking of that feeling again.”
“Is this a facet of Illusion magic?” I manage through clenched teeth. “To sense the emotions of others?”
