“Surprising, yes. I feel like I can actually fall asleep.”
His hand turns in mine. Palm to palm. “Then rest.”
The glow in the walls steadies. I pull my legs up on the bed. His hand stays in mine.
I don’t let go.
Chapter
Twelve
The Lithenmere wakes me with light. A slow brightening in the walls that builds until lying still feels like resistance.
Maximus is already up. Standing at the window the mountain carved for him, arms crossed, watching the basin glow. He’s been awake longer than I have. I can tell by the set of his shoulders. He’s been thinking.
“Tell me,” I say from the bed.
He turns. “From what Lanthar told me, the alliance is straightforward,” he says. “Military support from the Court of Stone against Konstantin’s witch forces. The Fae counter witch magic in ways we can’t. The cost is presenting the case to all four courts under their protocols.”
“With all that Konstantin is doing, I don’t think we’ll have a problem presenting our case.”
“On another note, we need to feed.” Quieter. “It’s been days.”
He’s right. I’ve been ignoring the pull, attributing it to the ambient magic, the nausea, the general strangeness of living inside a mountain.
A Fae attendant appears in the doorway.They do that here. Materialize like the stone exhaled them.
“The Rite of Return is this evening,” she says. “A celebration held when the kin of the High King returns to the realm. Arrangements have been made for honored guests. Blood will be provided to you there.”
She looks at me.
“Attendants will arrive to prepare you at the sixth bell.”
She’s gone before I can ask anything.
The sixth bellsounds like the mountain singing a single low note that vibrates in my sternum.
Two Fae attendants enter our chamber. One gestures for Maximus to follow. The other turns to me.
“Wait,” I say. “Where is he going?”
“Separate preparations,” the attendant says. “You will see him at the rite.”
Maximus catches my eye across the room. The corner of his mouth lifts. Then he follows the attendant out, and the stone seals behind him.
The remaining attendant is already moving. She opens a section of wall I didn’t know existed, and behind it is a bathing chamber three times the size of the one I’ve been using. Steam rises from a pool carved directly into the mountain’s heart, the water glowing faintly amber from the mineral veins beneath it.
I bathe. The water does something to my skin that mortal water doesn’t. Softens and brightens at the same time, as if the minerals are polishing me from the outside in.
When I step out, wind spirals up around me. It starts at my feet. Cold and fast, skimming water off in sheets, and I can hear it, a low rush that fills my ears and cuts out everything else. It moves up my calves, my stomach, my arms. Pulls at the roots of my hair. Presses flat against my collarbone. The friction of it raises the hair on my arms.
It spins around me for about thirty seconds. Then it stops.
My skin and hair are dry.
Will wonders never cease?
The attendant approaches me, holding fabric.
