He let out a low chuckle. “Soon enough, you’re going to be keeping yourself shadowed for thirty minutes and more. Don’t tell me you’re going to lob thirty questions at me at once.”
I grinned. “Sounds good to me.”
“Surely you don’t even have thirty more things you want to know about me. I know I’d grow tired of listening to someone ramble on about themselves.”
If he were almost anyone else, that might be true. But Rourke was an enigma that was now starting to take shape, a one-of-a-kind shape I’d never seen before. He was a contradiction of sorts. He could be calculating and cruel, but the warmth he felt toward those who truly mattered to him was as soft as a summer’s golden sun. He had a matter-of-fact way of looking at the world, but he was also intensely nostalgic about how things used to be. He was practical, but he was a dreamer. He was all those things and more.
“I want you to tell me everything about you, Rourke. You could go on for hours, and I’d never get bored.”
Rourke’s breath caught. I heard it, despite the way he cleared his throat as a way to cover it up. He strode toward me and stared deeply into my eyes, his golden strands flickering underneath the torchlight. “What is it about me that you find so fascinating? I fear I’m not who you imagine me to be.”
“And yet, the more I learn about you, the more certain I am that you areexactlywho I imagine you to be.”
“And who is that?” he said, his voice insistent.
I shook my head, at a loss for how to put my feelings into words. “It’s hard to explain. It doesn’t even make any sense. But there’s something about you...everything about you, really...it calls to my soul.”
A long pause followed. Roarke cleared his throat. Our gazes locked, and an overwhelming tension rocketed between us.
“I did agree to tell you the complete truth, though when I do I doubt you’ll feel the same.” And then his back stiffened, his expression turning dark and cold. “Before I joined the rebels, I met with them a few times. I wasn’t quite sure yet if it was a group I wanted to join. The rumors about them painted them as chaotic and violent, two things I very much am not. I tried to keep myself shadowed, to hide my movements from view. But Viola found out.”
I gasped and stepped closer, my heartbeat beginning to flicker in my chest. From the look on his face, I knew whatever he said next would be terrible. Something had happened. Something that had changed him. And for some inexplicable reason, he had now decided to share it with me.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever told you about my sister. In fact, I know I haven’t. I don’t speak to anyone about her, not even Alwyn, who knew me way back then.” Rourke’s jaw rippled, and the sorrow in his eyes was so deep that it looked as though he was drowning in it. “Kallee. She was wild and fiery. So different than most Autumn fae I’ve ever met. She loved horses. Ran in the woods with them all day long. She never tired of it, no matter how long she was out there.” A heavy sigh, and then he continued. “My relationship has always been strained with my mother and father but never with her. I’ve never loved anyone more. So, Queen Viola decided to teach me a lesson, to punish me for meeting with the rebels.”
My breath stilled in my lungs.
“She killed her.” The words came out warbled.
“Oh, Rourke.” I reached out a hand, letting it hover just above his shoulder, afraid that if I touched him, he’d flinch away. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’ve never let myself love anyone else ever since. Never let myself even care. Because I knew if I did, Viola would kill that person, too.” His haunted eyes met mine, and then he glanced away. “So, now you know the full truth. My own actions caused my sister’s death.”
I could scarcely believe what I’d heard. It explained so much about Roarke. Why he’d kept his distance far more than my other instructors. Why he’d never truly let me see if he felt the bond between us. He was terrified of allowing himself to get close to someone again. And Viola had done this to him.
“Rourke. You can’t blame yourself. Is that why you left the rebels?”
A pause. “No. If anything, I was more intent on joining them then, and so I did. It wasn’t until much later that I left. They were’t doing anything meaningful, and I grew weary of them. They liked to talk big and prowl their woods, but the most they ever do is keep a close eye on the comings and goings of the Royals.”
“But I don’t understand why teaching changelings has the power to change things. Why not something else?”
“Like what, Norah?” He gave a slight shake of his head. “As an Autumn fae, the Hunters of another Court would never have me. At the Academy, I have the chance to introduce changelings to the possibility that the realm is not at its best in its current state. Plant seeds of doubt. Nurture those seeds and watch them grow. Make those at the Academy who end up joining the Autumn Court think twice about blindly serving a cruel Queen.”
“And do you think it’s helped?” I asked, whispering a step closer to him. “All this seed planting you’ve done.”
He arched an eyebrow and regarded me with a strange expression. “You tell me, Norah. From where I’m sitting, it looks as though your seed has done far more than sprout a tiny bud.”
I stared at him. “You did your seed planting with me.”
“I do it with all the changelings.”
I thought back to the first night on Watch Duty, when he’d swung around to talk wistfully about the old ways. He’d pointed out the clouds; he’d mentioned the storms. All this time, I’d thought he’d sought me out specifically, that he’d wanted to share his thoughts only with me. Instead, it was just something he told all the changelings.
That horrible weary sadness shook me to my very bones.
With a sharp intake of breath, I stood. I was still wobbly on my feet, but I didn’t want to stick around and hear any more. The thought of him climbing into another guard tower and waxing poetic to another changeling...well, it made my heart feel strangely tight and uncomfortably hot.
“That’s satisfied you?” He frowned as he pushed himself up from the ground. “I have to say, I’m surprised. I thought you’d be much more intent on wringing out as many details as you could.”
