Page 56 of My Fae Lady

“Did you keep it because they’re your feathers . . . ?” Giselle swallowed. “Or did you keep it because . . .”

I tucked the token back into my pocket. “I think . . . I think I’d rather not say.” Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I wanted so badly not to hurt her further.

“You know what?” she said with a watery smile, “I think I’d rather you didn’t too.”

Giselle patted my arm, and she left the room.

I watched her go, feet shuffling uneasily beneath me. I took a step to follow her, and my boots caught on the floorboards.

No, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t go after her. I’d only make it worse. I turned to walk deeper into the room, and the floor opened up under my feet. I let out a surprised yelp as House dropped me through darkness, then back into the lake. My curses were silenced by the splash of icy water as I plunged toward the silty bottom.

I shouted a litany of curses at House once I resurfaced, and I felt a bit better after shouting my fill. Lighter.

I had to kick off my boots and remove my stockings. They were weighing me down and making treading water more difficult. The lake was full of fish. I swam after them, catching what I could and releasing them as a fun distraction.

I swam until the muscles in my chest and arms ached pleasantly. The exercise cleared my thoughts and steadied my beating heart, and I no longer regretted being given the opportunity to work out my worries.

We knew what you needed, the wild magic called to my thoughts. The essence of it had always been contained inside the deepest depths of the house. Being able to hear it so clearly elsewhere made me feel like my heart had risen into my mouth. We always know what you really want. And we give it to you. We are good to you even though you left us.

I paddled my way toward the rocky shore, and I found a smooth boulder to perch upon before I bothered to respond.

“I am good to you,” I said sternly. “You thrive as you do because I gave myself to you for centuries.” Our relationship was a symbiotic one. The wild magic was powerful but it had no way to take shape or make roots without me. It was my innate Unseelie magic that gave it form.

You are not good to us. You aren’t even good to yourself. We give you what you want even when you won’t take it.

“My situation with Giselle is complicated, and you certainly are not making it any better.”

We know what you want, House whispered smugly.

Giselle believed that it was our conflicting magic causing the wild essence powering the house to misbehave. The mixing of Seelie and Unseelie certainly added to its symptoms. But now I knew better. The fault lay entirely with me. I wasn’t able to rid my home of the intruder, because my home knew there were deeply hidden parts of me that didn’t want her gone. I could end the madness if I named her as lady of the manor, but there were also pieces of me I simply could not entrust to another. Even someone as kind and generous as Giselle.

We know how you long for her. You did not have to tell us. Just like we know how you hunger for your wings.

“There’s no point in discussing what’s lost that can’t be returned,” I groused. I picked up a stone and chucked it into the lake. It plopped in the water before vanishing, startling a school of fish into scattering.

But what if they could be returned? House cooed.

Unease settled into my shoulders and sent a prickling sensation down my spine in warning. I shivered. The wild magic had been given too much freedom here. It could very well be dangerous, but it was also quite powerful. If anything could help me heal my wounds and grow back my wings . . .

You be good to us, the magic called to my thoughts, and we’ll be good to you.

“Show me,” I said. Jaw set, I shoved down the pangs of worry trying to turn my stomach into knots.

House fetched the stone archway that usually sat in my sitting room. It rose up out of the earth at the edge of the lake. I crossed into the darkness and exited to the other side, instantly dried from my swim in the water. Cool air raised the fine hairs on my bare chest.

The manor lit the torches and the fires burned green, casting the stone tunnels in an earthy hue. In the open cavern, the stream of wild magic had slowed and thinned right where it forked in front of the marble fountain.

Be good to us, House pleaded. Prove yourself.

I knew what it needed. I flexed my fingers and my claws elongated. I attacked the offensive fountain, ripping through the stone the same way I would the thick hide of a dangerous animal. The marble was dense, but it was no match for the likes of me. I tore at it piece by piece until my brow was damp with sweat and what remained of the Seelie monstrosity was a chaotic heap of metamorphic rock.

A doorway opened in the bedrock. At my feet the flow of magic widened. I followed the steady stream through the narrow passage, the faint sound of a gentle heartbeat growing louder with every step.

But it wasn’t an animal on the cavern floor when I ducked under the archway and moved inside. The man on the floor was fae and dressed in what was once fine clothing, silk cravat turned yellow with grime. Holes had formed in his velvet jacket.

He was still alive. Icy blue Seelie magic encased him in a sleep spell, one he had likely cast on himself the moment House trapped him inside. I maneuvered closer and instantly recognized the rich color of his mahogany hair and the shape of his nose.

His Grace Percival Ashleigh Mortimer Barton, Third Duke of Plantagaia, Marquess of Alswood, Earl of the Hidden Spires.