She kicks open the door to my room and tries to pull me inside. I plant my heels into the carpet and pull away from her. I’m usually the stronger of the two of us, but the potion has left me weak and wrung out. Lydia slings my arm around her shoulders and drags me over the threshold. I claw at the doorframe. “No, please!” I beg, but Lydia pries my fingers off and slams the door behind us.
We’re both panting now, and Lydia brushes a sweaty lock of hair from her forehead. “You were given a love potion,” Lydia explains while helping me out of my gown. There’s a fresh violet bruise blooming up my neck.
“Why would someone do that?” I sob. All the while my mind singsEmmett, Emmett, Emmett. It’s as if there’s a fist squeezing my heart and I’ll die if I don’t get back to him soon.
“Why do faeries do anything?” she says grimly. “For a laugh. I’d bet half the people in that room were dosed the same way you were.”
“My friends—” I gasp, suddenly remembering how worried I should be for them.
“Are much smarter than you,” Lydia answers. “They went to bed ages ago.”
I sigh in relief.
“I was hoping you and Emmett were talking. I should have come looking for you both sooner, but I assumed Emmett knew better.”
“Why would he take it?” I ask.
“Because someone tricked him... or he thought it was something else.”
“You don’t understand. I need him.” A fat tear rolls down my flushed cheek.
Lydia brushes it away. “And you can tell him that in the morning, when the potion wears off.”
“Why does he keep pushing me away?” I sob.
Lydia’s brown eyes soften. We’re only two years apart, but her time here has made her feel so much older than me. “It’s his story to tell.”
“Then why won’t hetellme?”
She shakes her head sadly. “Because he loves you too much to hurt you. It’s misguided but it’s true.”
I lie back on my pillows and watch the ceiling spin. Nothing feels real. “What about you? Don’t you care about hurting me?”
I think of the unicorn, the way Lydia tried to win so viciously.
“You’re my baby sister.” She helps me into a nightdress and leaves me with the curtains drawn and a carafe of water by my bedside.
It’s only as I snuff out the lantern that I realize she didn’t really answer my question.
Prince Emmett De Vere
“Shit!” Lydia exclaims. It’s clear she was trying to shut the door to Ivy’s room as silently as possible but hadn’t expected to find me outside. Her eyes drop to the pillow and blanket I hold in front of my chest. “I won’t let you go in there.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
Lydia raises her brows like she doesn’t believe me.
“I’ve been sleeping on the floor in front of her room every night,” I confess. “I don’t trust anyone in this castle.”
Lydia rolls her eyes. “You’re pathetic.”
“I’m practical.”
“You’re a lovesick fool.”
“I’m protective.”
“Do you really think I trust you to be this close to her after you’ve both been dosed with a love potion?” she shoots back. “I should have you locked up in the dungeons for the night for your own good.”
