“I’ll be back shortly,” he said without explanation, disappearing down the tunnel, where the deep shadows darkened his wings to the point they almost looked real.
I pushed down confusing emotions at his abrupt exit.
What was that?
It almost felt like he’d been avoiding me since I’d signed the contract.
“You don’t need to worry.” Lore misunderstood my expression, coming over to lightly touch my shoulder. “We know what we’re doing. I believe we’ll find your family.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that.” Or at least, I hadn’t been. Now I was...
I glanced in the direction Soren had gone. He’d seemed almost angry. I whispered to Lore, “Did I do something wrong? He seems like he doesn’t want me here.”
Lore pulled her lips into her mouth, and her eyes lit up. “Ah, that’s how you see it? I suppose you’re half right.” She glanced at the tunnels and sighed. “He doesn’t want you here, that’s true, but that’s for your sake. This assignment isn’t safe for a fae, much less for a human. We told him you could handle it, that you’d say no if you couldn’t, but he’s more ornery about it than usual.”
“That’s why he doesn’t want to talk to me or look at me?”
Lore cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t saythat... In fact, I’d guess the opposite.”
Leave it to a fae to confuse me further.
I crossed my arms, self-conscious. “I thought the party wasn’t until later. Why do I need to look fancy now?”
Julian sauntered over. “You’re correct. The Winter Solstice Ball isn’t until later this evening.” He said that like it explained everything.
“What you’re wearing isn’t fancy,” Lore argued, gesturing to her own white dress. “Just because it’s a skirt doesn’t make it fancy.”
“Yes it does,” Gwen chimed in from the couch. She still wore dark leathers, but she’d changed into a top that left her arms bare, revealing that the tattoos on her dark skin weren’t only on her neck and face. They crisscrossed in a detailed pattern. When I looked closer, they almost seemed deeper than tattoos... like they’d been carved or burned into her skin. I shivered at the thought of enduring that. She’d pulled most of her long dark hair back into thick corded braids, which revealed surprisingly dainty hoop earrings. “In this case, though, it’s wise to don finer attire, since you’re going to court. You need to look like you belong there.”
“If I wore pants, I’d have pockets,” I grumbled.
“Pssh, you think we don’t know about pockets?” Lore grinned, reaching out to show me four hidden compartments in the tight leather vest.
“They’re so small.” I couldn’t fit my phone in there. I’d been careful to turn it off whenever I wasn’t checking it now, and it still had 12 percent battery left. I couldn’t leave it behind.
She laughed. “The skirt has a pocket too.”
I shook my head. How had I not seen that? It was placed differently than human pockets, more in the center with a nearly invisible seam for the openings on both sides that led to the same single front pocket. It was deep enough for my phone. My shoulders relaxed.
Peregrin picked up some empty drinks from the table, and on his way to the kitchen, he leaned over to whisper, “You want to bring snacks? They’ll have food there, but if you want to eat on the way, I can pack something.”
“I’m okay, tha—” I cut off before I said “thank you,” glancing over at the tunnels where Soren had disappeared. “I’ll be okay.”
“Just say the word if you change your mind.” He smiled.
***
Two full hours later, instead of the one Lore had predicted, we finally left.
When Soren summoned us, I let out a shaky breath. Nerves sang as we swept down the tunnel in a group. I barely noticed the doors or any passing fae this time, too busy rehearsing my lines. Soren had returned from his strange outburst, acting like nothing had happened, and had gone over the “script” of sorts with me for almost an hour, drilling me until I could say everything without tripping over my words.
If I screwed this up, he didn’t have to fulfill his end of the deal and get me into the party later to find my family, so the pressure weighed heavy—not to mention what might happen if the faeprincefound out I was lying to him.
“Take a deep breath.” Soren’s voice in my ear startled me out of my thoughts. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
He’d let the others get a bit ahead. They didn’t seem to notice, continuing to chatter a few paces in front of us.
“Is this the part where you give me a pep talk and say, ‘You can do this’?” I muttered as we squeezed through the narrow portion of the tunnels.
