“I haven’t risked nearly enough.”
“How do you see that?”
I leaned forward, placing my hands on the table. “I’ve spent thirty years playing it safe.”
His brows lifted. “That’s your logical reasoning for putting your life on the line?”
Sounded pretty illogical, but whatever. “You know why I must do this, risk or not. Just like you would go after Aric or the Queen even if it meant your death.”
A muscle ticked along his jaw. “As I said before, it’s different.” There was a pause. “I remember,” he said. “I remember the first time I saw you.”
A shiver danced across my shoulders as I lifted my gaze to his.
“You were scared of us—of me and my brother, but mostly me. You stood in the corner of Tanner’s office, not daring to come close,” he continued, and that was true. Both had scared me, but especially him. “And then I saw you the night we fought the Queen. You were still afraid, but you helped my brother. You helped my brother and me even knowing what I’d done while under the Queen’s control.”
The night resurfaced. Prince Fabian had been severely injured by the Queen and he’d needed to get back to Hotel Good Fae. I had offered to help. “I didn’t do much. I just drove you guys back to the hotel.”
He leaned forward, his gaze never leaving mine. “You were afraid of us. You were unsure of us, but you still helped us when it was needed. That is doing everything and that is why I owe you an apology.”
“You do?”
“For what I said about you looking for the younglings and knowing how important it was,” he explained. “I shouldn’t have doubted you, not when I know you will come through when needed.”
While his doubt had been frustrating, it was understandable. “It’s… not a big deal.”
“It is.” The Prince sat back. “In my experience, it is.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing as I stared at my glass of soda, watching the little bubbles race to the surface.
“It would be such a shame for the world to lose someone… someone like you, especially after being given a second chance.”
Air hitched in my throat. That was yet another word of kindness from him that I didn’t know how to process. “That’s nice of you to say, but you… you don’t know me well enough to think that.”
“I am hardly ever wrong about these kinds of things.”
A laugh escaped me. “Okay. Even if that is the case, like I said before, I don’t understand why you care this much to have this conversation again. Remember? I’m just a human woman and I’m already half dead.”
His jaw worked as those lashes lowered again. “I should not have spoken those words.”
“Why? Because they were ignorant?”
“Because what you said about yourself is a lie.”
I stilled. “What do you mean?”
A long moment passed, so much so that I thought he wouldn’t answer, but then those thick lashes lifted and those eyes seemed to see straight through me once more. “You’re not a ghost. You never could be one, not when you burn as brilliant as the sun.”
Chapter 14
It was Friday evening—pizza night in the Jussier household, a tradition carried on for many years and now continued with Tink and me. After eating, I’d gone upstairs and changed into warmer clothes because I planned on heading out tonight to see if I could do some recon on the other two fae I was still looking for and the missing younglings.
I’d checked in with Faye on Wednesday and there’d been no word from any of the missing fae. And with each passing day, I could tell she was losing hope and becoming more convinced that the Order had harmed them, rather intentionally or unintentionally.
Even the Prince hadn’t said as much, but I knew he probably speculated the same.
Then again, the Prince was adept at giving vague answers.
Over the last couple of days, I did everything in my power not to think about what we’d said to each other. What we’d admitted. Or the dinner that had started out awkward and ended rather normally, with me somehow talking about all the TV shows Tink was addicted to. And I definitely wasn’t thinking about how he said I could never be a ghost.
