“Because anyone who might have made it here before is dead,” she said, her voice low. A moment passed. Her eyes turned glassy. Then, she made a jerking motion with her head, as if she was trying to shake some thought loose.
Cedric’s brow creased. Had she lost someone to a previous Crucible? He thought back to the argument he’d witnessed between Elyria and Kit in Castle Lumin. Well, the argument he’d inserted himself in.
“I am acting in the best interest of yourremainingfamily,”Elyria had said.
It made sense, he supposed. The desperation Elyria had exuded, trying to convince Kit not to enter the Sanctum. The deep hurt she’d covered up at Kit’s implication that Elyria wasn’t part of that aforementioned family.
“Did you?—”
“Still,” she cut him off, “you might use a little imagination here. Or is that beyond the abilities of the great Sir Cedric Thorne, champion of Kingshelm?”
“Imagination?”
She rolled her eyes, all signs of whatever thought or memory that had trapped her moments before now gone. Her icy, indifferent mask had slid right back into place. “Yes. Imagination. The ability of the mindto be creative or resourceful? Ring any bells?”
“I know what the word means,” he said drily. “Just not my strong suit, I’m afraid.”
“Imaginethat,” she said. “Ah, well. I suppose I’ll just have to be creative enough for the both of us.” She rapped on the surface of the mirror with her staff again, inspecting her reflection.
“Stop doing that,” he chastised. “I thought the Revenant was supposed to be this legendary warrior, not an impulsive fool.”
She tensed. “And I thought you were supposed to be a knight, not some humorless prick.”
“Humorless?” he echoed, affecting the tone of mock offense Tristan so often used around him. “I’ll have you know I’m considered by many to be positively delightful.”
Elyria’s answering laugh rang through the small room like a bell. It was an infuriatingly beautiful sound. “Is that so?” she said, eyes sparkling, smile beaming.
He forced his gaze anywhere but that transformed, beatific face. “When I’m not stuck with reckless fae who think poking strange, magical, golden wall-mirrors out ofcuriosityis a good idea.”
“And here I thought being stuck with me would be the highlight of your day.” She turned back to the mirror with a shrug. “Admit it, Sir Grumpypants. You’d be bored to tears without me.”
A short, incredulous laugh left Cedric’s lips. “Quite the opposite, I assure you. I’d be thrilled not having to babysit someone who treats every challenge like it’s?—”
“You?Babysittingme?” She cut him off with another bout of pealing laughter. “Now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in, well, in a very long time. How old are you, human? You can’t be more than, what, twenty-nine? Thirty years of age?”
Cedric mumbled a response.
She cupped her hand around her ear. “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”
“Twenty-eight,” he said.
“Even better.”
Cedric’s face screwed up in a scowl. “And just how old are you?”
Elyria let out a melodramatic gasp. “How dare you? Don’t you know how rude it is to ask that of a lady?”
“I’m not being rude,” he said with a frown.And I don’t see any ladies around here,he wanted to add. He held his tongue. It was too easy.
Elyria tutted. “I’m two hundred and sixty-one, if you must know.”
Cedric did a quick calculation in his head, based on what he knew of the fae lifecycle. They regularly lived to nine hundred years or more. “Wouldn’t that make you...essentially the same age as me?”
“That’s a bit reductive, but sure. As long as you disregard the extra centuries of life experience entirely.”
Cedric bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from smiling. “If only you directed even a fraction of that worldly experience toward figuring out what we’re supposed to be doing here, rather than toying with me.”
Mischief danced in her emerald eyes. “I’ll make you a deal, then. You loosen up a little when the occasion calls for it, and I’ll do just that.”
