Emmett often chastises me about the way I follow Bram around the castle like a lost dog, but I can’t help myself. I’ve been here, in the Otherworld, for years, but I only see Bram once every few months. His attention still feels precious, his approval like oxygen. My lungs sting and I get the sense I’m drowning without it.
He leans against my doorframe. “Are you cross with me?”
“No,” I answer honestly. It’s so much more complicated than that. I wish I could be like Ivy, who is brave enough to simply be angry with people. All my emotions are tangled up into a ball so dense, Ihave no hope of making sense of it. Love and hate and longing and resentment are all starting to feel the same.
“Then why did you skip the revel? It makes you look like a bad queen, like you’re not even trying. Maybe I should just pick Ivy.” He’s loose-limbed but not quite drunk.
I flinch as if he’s slapped me.
His face crumples and he steps into the room, shutting the door behind him. He reaches up and cups my cheek with one of his hands. I press into it and close my eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he says softly.
I blink up at him. “I know you didn’t.” He didn’t.Hehas tolove me, at least a little, right?
He flops down into the worn armchair by the fire—Emmett’s chair—and looks so unnatural there that I pause, but then he pulls me onto his lap.
“If you’re not cross, what are you?”
“I’m sad.” My chest aches as I remember all too vividly what it felt like as the unicorn’s horn sank into its flesh. I’m disgusted with myself too, but that doesn’t feel worth explaining.
“Sad about what? Everything is fine.”
Emmett and Bram are so different. Emmett comes to my room when he’s hurting and wants to feel his pain in private. Bram doesn’t want to feel his at all, so he makes the rest of us do it for him.
“Just because it’s immortal doesn’t mean it didn’t suffer!” I snap at him unintentionally, and his eyes darken. All unicorns are ageless creatures, but infants like the one we encountered in the woods today are rare. It was probably around one hundred years old. Its silver blood will clot, its wound will knit itself back together, but the horn will take centuries to grow back. I shouldn’t have snappedit off like I did, but it was the only sure way to make its heart stop beating temporarily. I didn’t want Ivy to have to do it and I knew Bram would never let us rest until the game was finished.
I’ve learned, in my time here, that the Otherworld is a living thing. The land and the creatures alike remember actions like the ones I took today, and I know they will not look kindly on them. I didn’t want Ivy’s first act in the Otherworld to be one of violence; the land would never have forgiven her. I have some goodwill here, but I’ve no doubt burned most of it today.
“Oh, so you’re offended by a game? We can’t have any fun around here?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You don’t get to style yourself as queen and then act all high and mighty, like you’re above us,” Bram says, petulant. “This is what wedo.”
“I know, I know.” I soothe him even as his words sting. I don’t understand how someone I love this much can be so cruel.
“Just because you hold your little visiting hours and sit on a throne doesn’t mean you hold any real power here, Lydia,” Bram says harshly.
Emmett and I reinstated the open hours in the throne room once a week a few months into his time as regent. They existed when Mor and Bram’s father ruled the Otherworld, and it seemed practical for us to have a place to hear from the citizens we’re supposed to be ruling over. We’ve solved petty disputes between Redcaps, taxation among river sprites, property spats for a family of selkies. Bram believes the small folk aren’t worthy of his attention, but listening to them—helping them, if I’m able—is the best part of being queen.
I suspect Bram’s games aren’t just to pit Ivy and me against each other, but to publicly humiliate me in front of the subjects who have grown to respect me.
I don’t even really understand why I care for him the way I do. Sometimes before I drift off to sleep, I lie in the dark and search through my memories, trying to find the one that could have inspired such illogical devotion. Again and again, I come up empty. I’ve settled on only one answer: that Bram has a glow about him, and when he turned that glow on me, I felt special too. I fear I’ll spend forever chasing that feeling.
I grew up thinking boys were dull creatures, but Bram isn’t dull at all. I know there are hidden depths to him. I see glimpses of charity, cleverness, warmth, and some part of me believes he’ll let me see all of him if only I’m good enough. But what if I dig deeper and the only thing there is more cruelty? Emmett has said he fears there’s nothing good left in Bram, but I don’t know if he believes himself.
“How did you even find it so quickly? The party was supposed to last much longer. You ruined it.” He’s pouting again.
“The flowers showed me the way.” They bent and bowed the moment I walked into the forest, as if on a phantom breeze. The soft green grass flattened itself into a winding path until I found the unicorn lying in a spot of sun in that meadow. Even the unicorn seemed to expect my arrival.
Bram huffs out a frustrated breath. “They like you so much better than me.”
I reach up and brush a lock of hair from his forehead. His eyes gently close. “No, darling, that’s impossible. You’re the king.”
I still don’t completely understand the link between the Otherworld and the Crown, but the bond is inexorable. The plants have asentience about them, animated by magic itself. It’s true the gardens seem to bloom more brightly for me than anyone else, but as I’m constantly soothing Bram, it doesn’t mean much. His power to rule is derived from the land; it’s impossible it favors me over him.
His eyes flit to my half-finished painting in the corner and I sense he’s eager to change the subject.
