I take a deep breath, then try to take smaller bites. It’s difficult. I glance at Reid.
“Your face is back to normal.”
He frowns, touching his cheek with his fingers. “It must be the distance,” he mutters, then focuses on me. “It was only temporary, unlike you, blue-eyes. I guess that charm you wore made them gray?”
It takes my brain a few seconds to make sense of what he said.
Right. ‘My father’s charm.’
I frown. “How do you know about that?”
Reid sighs. “Remember Emmrich?”
I nod as I take another swig from the waterskin.
“He’s fae—his real name’s Emlyn. He told me about it.”
Reid launches into a story about how Emlyn was spying on my mother for my half-brother, Prince Taran. When the two of us disappeared, Taran abducted Ellie because he thought he’d need her to convince me to turn against my mother. Reid persuaded Emlyn to talk, and they followed.
I blink. “Huh.”
Reid tilts his head, eyeing me. “That’s all you have to say?”
Well, my brain is saying a million things, mostly half-formed thoughts about Ellie being kidnapped, Reid going through all that for me, and how I don’t really need any more motivation to put as much distance as physically possible between myself and my mother, but its connection to my mouth is apparently broken.
I sink my teeth into an apple and focus on chewing.
“So… what’s with you and the princess?” Reid asks after a minute.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I spot Owena sitting nearby, eating a handful of berries. If things had gone the way Mother planned, I could be at my wedding right now, with her pressed beneath me, my body thrusting, out of my control…
“But are you together?”
I blink, dropping the apple as I whirl toward Reid.
“No! She’s just a friend! A good friend. As much a prisoner as I was—I wouldn’t have survived without her. But she knows I love Ellie. There’s nothing else there!”
“Alright, I get it!” Reid raises his hands defensively. “Ancients. Calm down.”
He hands me another hunk of cheese. I stare at it in my palm while counting my breaths, trying to bury the images that keep slithering back up.
One… two… three…
I don’t know if this sizzling beneath my skin means I’m about to burst, or shatter into nothing.
Reid groans, dropping his head into his hands. His fingers rake down his skin until they tent over his mouth and nose. A few seconds later, he peeks up at me. “No offense, but you seem a slight breeze away from having a complete mental breakdown.”
A sharp laugh huffs out of me. “Oh, we’re well past that.”
Reid inhales, hesitating. “Maybe we shouldn’t meet up with the others just yet.”
My stomach heaves, almost spewing everything I just ate.
“But Ellie! You said she was here. I have to get to her.” My heart hammers against my ribs.He can’t really mean that, can he? Why would he even suggest that?
Reid pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “I don’t actually know where she is at the moment.”
