“You used your magic.Yours. No one else’s, and certainly not mine since, well, you saw what happened.”
My cheeks burn with embarrassment, and I duck my head. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” He gently hooks his finger under my chin and tilts my face up. “You don’t ever need to apologize for being you.”
The way he’s looking at me makes my tongue thicken and apparently forget to work, which means my only response is to nod dumbly.
He drops his mouth, and without thinking, I’m reaching for him, craving the kiss that’s about to fall on my mouth.
“Feylin!” We jump apart as Ryals runs up. “What was that blast?”
He nods proudly to me. “That was Addison’s magic.”
The little boy’s eyes widen. “You? Way to go, Addie!”
He gives me a high five and a fist bump.
When the cheer dies down, Feylin remarks casually, “Now all we have to do is figure out how to harness your power so that you don’t accidentally kill someone.”
30
Primal emotions, Feylin tells. That’s the key.
The emotions that the joining makes rise to the surface, as well as him pushing my buttons, is what encouraged my power to finally flare to life.
And how he got it to appear? Well, let’s just say I’m still unpacking all of that.
For the next few days he tries to get my magic to come up—not by angering me, but by having me tap into the resource I know sits inside of me.
But we fail.
Over and over.
It’s okay, he tells me; we’ll get there.
In the meantime I settle into life at the castle more and more. Every morning Feylin knocks on my door and escorts me to breakfast. Ryals joins us, often telling me how he beat Feylin at chess the day before.
When our days are done, Feylin walks me to my bedroom and says good night. He lingers more and more, and I wonder, just wonder if he’s waiting for me to break the barrierbetween us, or if he wants me to give him permission to kiss me.
But knowing the scoundrelheis, Feylin’s probably just trying to tie me up into lusty knots.
That’s the most likely answer, I decide.
As the solstice approaches along with the next ceremony, the fire ceremony, I throw myself into planning the solstice ball to keep myself from thinking about another failed ceremony.
The ball’s going to be grand, with fae, witches and wizards alike in attendance. Since I’m pretending to be the woman of the castle, might as well act like it.
That’s what Feylin told me one morning in his office.Go ahead and plan the party however you want,he said.As far as everyone’s concerned,you’re alreadythe woman of this castle. He smiled at me after that, his eyes filling with an emotion that I couldn’t quite place.
Or didn’twantto place.
I imagine that it matched the emotion in my eyes as I wondered when we stopped playing pretend and it all started to become real.
Even though party planning keeps me busy, I do see my family during this time, but we skirt around talking about the bookshop, which is for the best.
So when Ophelia tells me that Zandra’s come to see me, I’m overjoyed. I need a distraction from magic, from the bookshop, from all of it.
“How’s wedding planning treating you?” she asks as she pours iced tea for the both of us.
