“And who convinced you of that?” he challenged.
“I did,” she replied, more bite in her tone than she intended.
“So what made-up story did you concoct to explain that scar across your chest?” he asked, his cool demeanor cracking slightly.
“An accident. I was told there was an explosion from an experimental potion in Alchemy when I was at Vaukore, and—”
“You were told? You don’t remember?”
Maeve’s mouth opened and then closed.
“And those?” he continued, gesturing to her inky dark veins.
“I don’t remember,” she admitted quietly, realizing that the corners of her eyes were filling with tears.
Mal nodded, not in agreement with her, but as though she had proven him right.
“I thought,” he began, “if I could understand why you were suddenly appearing in my mind, a girl I’d barely brushed shoulders with in school, then maybe I’d understand what it will take to seal my rule over the Elven Lands. But each time I converse with you, the one who understands memories better than any Magical alive, the less I understand anything. What a paradox you are.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t of better service to you,” she said, keeping her voice flat.
Mal shook his head. “You speak in past tense. We are only just beginning.”
Chapter 7
It was foolish.
She was a fool.
Maeve stared at the empty bottles and glass vials of her specially brewed potion. They weren’t empty because she had consumed them all. No. They sat empty in her bathroom because she poured them all out. Every last drop, sunk down the drain.
Now, two days later, as pain sliced across her head like a line of needles and one achingly familiar voice whispered incoherently in her mind, she held each bottle up and begged for even a drop to hit her tongue. The small sliver of parchment on her bathroom vanity lit up green, but she had already turned and left in desperate haste, missing the message:
You don’t need them, Little Viper.
The gates of Castle Morana stood tall before Maeve as they opened in a sinister silence. Her steps felt muddled as she moved through a protective barrier that encapsulated the Prince’s castle, each step against the stone path echoing in a strange void.
“Mrs. Mavros,” said one of the guards as she neared the steps. “Alphard isn’t here, he’s—”
“I know where he is,” she answered swiftly. “I’m here for his sister, the healer.”
The boy straightened. “Of course,” he answered, without any further questioning.
Something shifted in her stomach that made her uneasy. Nauseous. She wasn’t welcomed so easily into the castle through any means of her own. It was Alphard’s station that granted her unvetted access.
She shook off the childish feeling, pressing further against that voice, the things it wanted to show her in her mind. Soon she’d be downing a bottle of silent ecstasy, and it wouldn’t matter anymore. Maeve never visited Astrea at Castle Morana, an unexpected perk of being her sister-in-law, she supposed. Regardless, she knew where the Healing Wing sat in the castle.
She didn’t knock. She pulled open the doors without announcing herself.
Astrea’s head whipped over her shoulder, where she stood healing a young Bellator. He lay shirtless on an exam table, a violent wound across his front.
More whispers flittered across her mind, each word like a claw trying to snag hold of something solid. She pushed her Magic against it, harder this time, silencing the desperate voice.
“Get out,” said Maeve to the boy.
He looked up at her with disgust. “Who do you think you are talking to?”
Astrea placed her hand on his shoulder as the air crackled with Maeve’s unsteady Magic. “We were done here anyway,” she assured him.
