But I was not the only one laboring through each breath.
Auri clutched the edge of the table, the woven fronds she’d worked at weaving together crushed beneath her hand. She was shaking, or I was. Maybe the distinction did not matter.
“You are not the only one who has struggled under her tutelage,” she said quietly.
I pressed my eyes shut. “I see that now.” Ironic, since my eyes were closed. But the sound of her gasping breaths, the sight of her shaking, were too overwhelming. I had to cut off at least one of my senses. With my eyes closed, I was able to speak. “I am sorry I was not the sister you needed. I have… I have always been a disappointment to my sisters.”
Auri exhaled. I kept my eyes closed.
“Maura did this to us,” she said. “She is at fault. Not you and not me.”
She made it sound simple. I wished that it actually was. “What about Elodie?”
Another exhale, this time a sigh. “She will have to make her choice when the time comes.”
I did not have the energy to try to analyze that cryptic response. If Auri could have given me a clearer one, she would have.
I cracked my eyes open, looking not at my sister witch but at the tulip still on the table. Still perfect. I had managed to keep italive through the ordeal. That must count for something, must be a marker of some amount of progress, however small.
Another three breaths, I decided, and then I would stand. I would walk out of these rooms and plan my next step—hunting the talisman. Garrick knew this place the best. He was my Lifebind. He’d pledged his allegiance. Now was his chance to demonstrate it.
One more breath.
But I did not even get to draw it.
A single word burst into my consciousness. A single syllable that shoved every other thought and priority out of my head.
Help.
I ran from the room, the lovely pink bloom forgotten. It was beautiful and important. But so was my familiar.
CHAPTER 22
GARRICK
“The fae do not knowthe meaning of the wordfamily,” I said as Alize moved around the small, windowless room, lighting candles.
Edmund reclined in a high-backed wooden chair in the corner, looking every bit the fae king’s son despite their lack of physical resemblance. He should have been able to light every candle in the room with another dramatic snap of his fingers, but he didn’t. Either impertinence, or to go give Alize something to do. She’d always had too much energy.
“You are fae,” my sister said, completing her circuit. She scowled at the last candle, then put her hands on her hips before turning that scowl on me. “Half-blood or not. You are as much fae as human.”
“And you have no problem using your fae magic,” Edmund interjected. There was an edge to his jocular tone that I had not sensed before.
This was the Court of Lies. Every emotion, hidden or demonstrated, was suspect. “You two have plenty of magic of your own. You could kill me, dump my body, and claim innocence. You were ready to leave me to die in that crevasse at the Mercy Gate,” I reminded Alize.
“Not everyone is out to get you, Garrick.” She rolled her eyes, the bright gold enhanced by the warm light in the closed room. “The Seven Gates are my birthright. I am the second-born child of the House of Penruddock. It is the duty of every second-born child of the fae to attempt the Seven Gates.”
My father had made that decree centuries ago. It had long fallen out of favor by the time I reached Velora.
Edmund laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “That’s mean.”
Alize cast him a look so long-suffering it could only belong to an elder sibling.
Edmund clucked his tongue and shook his head, his long black hair gliding over his shoulders. “You cannot tell him we are a family one minute and then imply he is illegitimate the next.”
Alize sent a blast of wind that splayed Edmund’s perfect hair right across his perfect face. “He is illegitimate,” she said.
Edmund blew the strands out of his eyes.
