“That’s pretty much what I decided, too.”
“What other decisionis thereto make?” Arthur said. “I spent a lot of time with him at Arcanea University, doing research with him. He was my favorite teacher. I knew he liked me, but I never had the thought I might actually be his son… that my dad might still be alive. But I guess that’s on me. Now I havetwoparents who didn’t want me.”
“It’s not like that, Arthur. You know it,” I insisted. “Everything that’s happened is because of my prophecy.”
Arthur closed the book a little too roughly. “I just wish they had tried to solve things another way.”
“Me too. But it’s too late to turn back the clock.”
I gave him a kind smile, which he ignored. Arthur seemed to be isolating himself, which I understood. Lord Lucien’s arrival had been anything but easy.
I wished he wouldn’t push me away. I was his twin. Whatever our parents had done, it didn’t mean it had to change our relationship.
Or did it?
It was then that Lord Lucien strode into the library. He appeared as regal as ever— tall, prideful, strong. Had I really come from him? I couldn’t see the similarities, wasn’t sure yet how we were alike.
Lucien took the bench seat across from us and pulled up to the table. “Thank you both for meeting me here,” he began. “There are some things I think we should go over.”
“Like?” Arthur’s tone was accusing.
“Mainly, Emma’s quest to find the Crystals of Harmony, as well as a bit about your Unseelie heritage,” Lucien began.
My shoulders slackened. Thank the gods he didn’t want to talk about family stuff. The end of the fae world was a much more comfortable topic.
Arthur leaned forward in interest. “What do you know?”
“Lady Magdalina has filled me in that you’ve found four Crystals— well done, by the way— and that you’re currently looking for the island of the Spring Princess, after learning the Seelie stone is within her realm,” Lucien said. “I have knowledge of the Spring Princess, as I have been to her island.”
“You have?” Arthur’s eyes widened in surprise.
“But I thought that once a fae travels to the Spring Princess’s island, they may not return?” I asked.
“I believe I am the only fae to do so,” Lucien confessed. “I have researched, and found none other.”
“What’s it like?” Arthur crossed his arms over his books, and tilted his head.
“It is as the legends say. A place of eternal spring, a land of abundance and joy,” Lucien said.
“How did you get there?” I asked.
“I was a child. I’d been tricked by a changeling fae in the forest, whose companions stole me away and into a portal cast by the Spring Princess herself,” Lucien said.
“What’s a changeling?” I asked.
“A faerie that has been left in place of a human infant or child on Earth, though sometimes, they switch with our kind. Changelings can take the resemblance of any child they replace, and the infants they steal are often taken back to Edinmyre,” Lucien said.
“Are changelings common in the fae world?” I asked.
“They used to be, but they’re not very common now,” Lucien said. “The Spring Princess must’ve sent her changelings to bring me to her island because she wanted me there, for some odd reason or another.”
“The Spring Princess must be very powerful, if she’s able to create portals from Edinmyre to Earth, and vice versa. No other fae have been able to do that since the main connection from Edinmyre to Earth was closed by the gods. Her power must be on par with Emma’s,” Arthur noted.
“Indeed,” Lucien said. “I was taken to the Spring Princess’s island and spent time in her court, although I was very young at the time, and wanted to go home. I did not think the Spring Princess would let me go, but she did, for a bargain— a piece of my life.”
“You gave her a portion of your life?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes. The actual contract was worded that I would give heryears from my lifeif she allowed me to leave the island, and I missed my parents so badly, I agreed. She opened up a portal and sent me home.”
