I pinned my thick black hair into a knot on top of my head,adjusting my crown of silver and black branches, and slipped on my black heeled shoes.
I wanted to find my way back to that staircase, investigate the black door, and find the library Arthur had mentioned—all before Piffle came to wake me in two more hours. I’d need to be quick and quiet.
Pressing on the door handle, it opened a crack before hitting something lumped behind it. Not furniture, but something with give. I shut the door, trying again with more force, only to hear a mumbling of curses on the other side.
With enough room to slip through, I frowned at the man lingering on the stone tiles. “Why are you lying outside of my door, Arthur?”
He wore the same clothing as the night before—ripped shirt, bare feet, bites turned to mostly healed bruises by Piffle’s attendance no doubt.
“I meant to leave before you woke,” he grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his face.
“That doesn’t explain why you are here in the first place,” I huffed. “Let me assure you, I am in no hurry to return to the western corridor anytime soon.”
He pushed on the door to stand upright. “It wasn’t that.”
I slipped my hands into the pockets of my gown—its best feature by far. I played with the corset strings and little vials of curses I always carried, my anger at my situation getting the better of me. “What then? Do you lack a bed in these tunnels somewhere?”
Adjusting his shirt and pulling at the tears, he hummed low. “Of course I have a bed.”
Getting nowhere, I changed the subject. “Piffle tells me I am only safe from the Beast if I’m here in the Underrealm. Is that true?”
“Piffle talks too much.”
“At leasthe talks to me at all.”
“Did you get my note?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“Yes.”
“And?”
I shook my head, turning down the hall, already done with him. “I’m not killing you, Arthur.”
His steps echoed behind me. “You’ll find it’s the only way. You have a family. Children. A life. I have nothing but this place. The sooner you choose to end me, the better the outcome for the both of us.”
I spun on my heel. “To take a life would be detrimental to mine. Even I have limits. I will find another way out.”
A muscle ticked across his sharp jaw, flexing the long scar down his face—something I’d been curious about since I first saw him. “The only way you’re leaving here is by killing me. Because we both know you’ll never say the words, ‘I love you’. It will be a maddening next hundred years for you, Reshina.”
“Your father did not live for hundreds of years before the curse was lifted from your mother.”
“My father was not bitten by the Underfae.”
“What does that mean?”
“It changed me,” he added casually. “Now turn around. I’ll string this for you.”
He pulled at the black corset ties hanging out of my pocket, turning my shoulders so my back faced him. I was too surprised by his insinuation to resist as I felt the tug of his fingers pulling the strings through the eyelets.
I looked over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of his bruises again. “You’ve been bitten by the Underfae before last night?”
“Yes. The first night the curse took me, I hunted for Ishtak, same as you. I would have been bled dry by those things if not for the Beast taking over.” With swift hands, he pulled and adjusted the laces, careful not to pinch my wings. “But in the end, their bites changed me. Now I don’t know what I am.”
I glanced at my arms. Not a single mark was left from the frenzy the night before. “I feel no different.”
“I don’t know if faekind are affected in such a way. Or if a Goddess could ever change. I only know that I have ceased to be human for some time now.”
“And what?” I huffed, allowing his hands to turn me again at the waist when he was finished. “You believe you’ll live on with this curse for centuries because you were bitten by those creatures?”
