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He strokes a finger across my cheek. “Certainly. Though the magic of Faerie has likely helped bring this out in you. Our powers dull in Styrland, fading with time. We must return to Faerie in order to replenish our magic.”
“What happens if you don’t?”
“So many questions.” He chuckles, and I feel the rumble of it in his chest. “Don’t you want to sleep? Quiet that mind of yours? Especially when I’m here to distract you.”
He kisses me, long and slow and delicious, and it melts me from my fingers to my toes.
“I suppose the questions can wait,” I murmur against his lips. “For now.”
Because when I feel this safe with him, I don’t need all the explanations, do I? Surely everything we’ve been through is enough to give me faith. If I love Ruskin, then I have to believe he has his reasons for the things he holds back, and he’ll tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it.
I have to trust that some answers are worth waiting for.
Chapter 38
I’m in the labyrinth again, running for my life. All I know is that I’m something small and powerless—a prey animal, driven mad with fear. My senses scream and my eyes roll, bounding forward with Cebba just a few steps behind me, her knife lifted to skin me. I can’t catch enough breath to call out or scream for help, I can only sprint on, blind with terror.
My mother appears before me, and she’s not an apparition, she’s a warning.
“Don’t trust him, Eleanor. Don’t be a fool.”
Her words distract me, I trip and fall, my hands reaching out to catch myself, but they meet only empty nothingness, and I’m tumbling forwards, through a darkness without end…
I open my eyes on Ruskin’s bedroom, my heart still racing. Cold sweat dampens the pillow, and I push my sodden hair from my face.
I should’ve expected the nightmares. Cebba’s cruelty is burned into my memory as clearly as the pain she caused. I suspect it will be a long time before I can shake the feeling that she’s waiting for me in the shadows, ready to pounce on me in my dreams.
I turn to Ruskin, who’s still sleeping soundly, his usually sharp features soft with repose. I envy him, and yet also can’t help but remember my mother’s words. I know, like the real apparitions in Cebba’s maze, they’re just my own insecurities and fears echoed back to me. But why do I have that fear in the first place? Especially of the man who’s saved me so many times. Who I love.
It’s because something was wrong about the last time I saw my mother in the labyrinth. That thought won’t leave me. Like a stone in a shoe, it keeps poking at me every time I try to dwell on something else. That apparition wasn’t Leah Thorn as I knew her, I’m sure of that much. And I can’t stifle what I’ve been trying to silence: Her words weren’t for me. That particular illusion wasn’t mine after all.
So, if it wasn’t mine, it must have been Ruskin’s.
Acknowledging this settles like lead in my stomach, because it only raises more questions. Why would she appear to Ruskin? Why wouldn’t he offer me an explanation?
I examine his face, the dread growing. I know he loves me. He said he does, and he can’t lie. But what if his version of love is a dangerous one? One that holds things back, that hides from the object of its affection? One that would keep a secret, knowing it will hurt me?
I could wake him and ply him with questions. Except I know the effect he has on me—persuasive and confusing. He’d find a way to deflect, or he’d try to distract me with kisses and kind words, and I wouldn’t fight it, part of me not wanting to know what dark truths he’s concealing.
I need to talk to someone who doesn’t set my mind whirling every time I look at him. I need a friend.
I rise and slip away from Ruskin’s room, heading to Destan’s quarters. The corridors of the palace are mostly empty, but I nearly jump out of my skin when something shifts at the corner of my eye.
“Halima!” I gasp. “You frightened me!”
“Do you think I was going to leave you and Ruskin unguarded after what happened today?” she shoots back, emerging from the shadows. I’m still not sure how she gets her large frame to blend in like it does.
“I’m just going to see Destan.” I sigh, not having the energy to fight her. “You can drop me off there, but then go back to Ruskin, okay? I can have Des bring me back after.”
Halima knows that even she can’t watch us both at the same time, so she nods in acceptance. We walk in silence, and I wonder how she came to accept that the man she’s sworn her sword to will never be fully honest with her. Perhaps she feels he is. Maybe it’s just me who has this nagging feeling. It seems the closer you are to someone, the worse the secrets, the bigger the betrayal.
Destan blinks at me, bleary eyed, when I appear at his door, but he nods at Halima and ushers me inside, straightening his embroidered robe as he does so.
“You better have a good reason for disrupting my beauty sleep, Eleanor,” he huffs.
“Did Ruskin know my mother?” I blurt out, unable to hold the question back anymore. If I wait, I might not be able to bring myself to ask it all.
Destan freezes at my question, his hand still on his cuff.
