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My mind swarms with images of yesterday, dissecting every little one of Esme’s whimpers, her accelerated heartbeat, the shifts in her scent. I tossed and turned all night, reprising it all. This morning, my feelings aren’t any clearer for it.
My mouth twists in a scowl like I just tasted something bitter. Feelings. I can’t believe I’m even entertaining that idea.
“Earth to Crown Prince Teizel?” Mei mocks me. I shift my attention from the stone countertop to her face, which is twisted in a half growl half smile. “Where did you go?”
I shake my head, turning with my back against the counter. Mei imitates my posture, her figure leaning but not touching the surface.
“What else happen? Are you worried about something?” she asks.
My eyes narrow. “What is it with the third degree? Do you know something I don’t?”
The shake of her head is too forceful to be natural. “It’s not that at all. We’re just in uncharted territory, you know? Nobody has gotten this far in the game before, and it’s bound to uncover things that maybe aren’t very comfortable. Whatever playbook you’ve been working off, it’s clearly past its—”
The coffee pot hisses, interrupting her rambling. I nail her with a glare before pushing off the counter and reaching for the pot on the stove, pouring myself a cup. With a few feet of distance between us, I take in Mei’s body language, the way she shifts her weight around, jerking like there are ants in her clothes. The ghost has something on her mind that she isn’t saying.
“Whatever you’re thinking, just spit it, Mei.”
For a while, we stand in silence. I sip my coffee, keeping an eye on Mei from the top of my mug, as she continues her nervous motion.
“I think you should tell Esme about her witchcraft,” she finally blurts out so quickly it takes a moment for her words to register. Once she’s said them, her swaying calms.
“I thought we’d closed this subject.”
“And I’m opening it again. You’re basing your assessment off one witch from a lifetime ago. It’s been centuries since you met another one.” Mei leans forward, elbows hovering on the island that separates us, the last remaining trench on our metaphorical battlefield.
“Places you go, witches you find,” I muse, waving a hand in the air. Except that’s not exactly true.
You’re one of a kind, little gem.
I said that to her. Worse even, I meant it.
“Tei.” She says my name like a mother scolding a petulant child. “She figured out the fourth trinket because she spoke to a ghost.”
I shrug one shoulder, but the movement is as weak as my conviction in the words I’m about to say. “We would’ve found another way to get there. In hindsight, the meaning was obvious.”
The way she scoffs tells me my poorly orchestrated charade isn’t fooling her. “Right, that’s exactly why it took you two centuries and a witch coming along to finally put the details together. Let’s be real here — you, like all of us who came before Esme, were seeing a skull. She saw horns because she knew your kind has those. Because —”
“She spoke to a ghost,” I finish for her. “I get it, Mei.”
The scowl she hits me with is nearly feral. “Do you? Because if you did, I don’t think we’d be here debating this.” She rounds the island in a blur, her hands catching mine. Her touch is clammier, colder than usual.
“Think of what else she might be able to do, if she knew what she’s capable of. She could help us.” Her eyes widen and she shakes her head. “Help you.”
Without thinking, I squeeze her hands back. The contact makes her jolt like live wire. “You’re not bound here, Mei. This curse isn’t yours.”
She chews her lip, pressing deep into the flesh with her sharper-than-human incisors, but otherwise ignores my comment. “Tell her, Tei.”
“I want to. But I’m… worried. Scared.” The last word is barely a whisper, but it hangs between us all the same. The weight of the truth lifts from my stomach but isn’t gone; instead, it wraps around my feet, threatening to take me under. In my ear, my mother’s warnings to never succumb to human emotions, never to do so with a witch, of all people, blare like alarm bells.
But the damage is already done. The tight knot in my chest is proof enough.
“If she knew, she could be dangerous.”
“To what, exactly?”
There’s many possible answers to that question.
My throne, my power; acceptable ones I’m sure Mei expects.
