Page 61 of A Kingdom of Magic and Rain

“Ask me if I still have feelings for her.”

“Can the Fae read minds?” I asked instead.

“No.” He scowled. “But I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking. It’s written on your face.”

I willed the muscles of my face to relax into a neutral expression. Asking if he still had feelings for his mate would let him know that I still cared. That not all was lost when it came to our relationship. But I didn’t know if that was the case. A part of me didn’t want to give him false hope. There was also the part that wanted to hurt him for his betrayal.

“It doesn’t matter.” I delivered the intentional blow that made his features crumple.

A knock sounded on the door, and I tore my gaze away from the look of misery on Adrian’s face as Thea popped her head into the room.

“I’m beyond relieved that you’re not hurt,” she said to me in my language when she entered and closed the door behind her. “Please tell me you have a plan,” she whispered urgently to Adrian.

“I’m working on it. Is Lady May here?”

“Not yet. She hasn’t answered the king’s summons. Tom thinks that’s why Emelin is still alive.”

“I think so, too,” Adrian said with a rough exhale.

“What?” I asked, looking between them.

“Sorin needs Lady May to perform the spell to bring down the wards,” he explained.

“He can’t do it himself?”

“No. Such spells require a different kind of magic. The kind that Lady May possesses. She’s a powerful sorceress, who has been around for almost three hundred years.”

My brows climbed my forehead before I forced them down and schooled my features. “Is she truly your grandaunt?”

“She’s not. We lied about that to erase any suspicion about my stronger magical abilities.”

“So the king won’t kill me until Lady May is here,” I concluded, piecing it all together.

“What are we going to do?” Thea asked, looking between Adrian and me.

“We need to get Emelin out of here,” he said low.

“How do you propose we do that?” The notes of desperation in her voice were unmistakable.

He sighed and shook his head. “I do not know.”

Quiet settled over the room, tense and foreboding. When Lady May showed up, she would help King Sorin bring down the wards, and then he wouldn’t need to keep me alive. As the silence dragged on, trepidation came over me—my kingdom was doomed, and I was the means to its demise.

Thea stayed with Adrian and me for a while as the three of us tried to devise a plan to get me out of Sorin’s clutches. When we weren’t able to come up with a solution, she broke down in tears.

“This is all my fault.” She sobbed. “I shouldn’t have brought Emelin to Aubrielle.”

Adrian held her while she cried. “It’s not your fault. I asked you to take her away from the border, and you did.”

“I made the wrong call,” she lamented through the tears.

I stood nearby in silence, trying not to show how shocked I was by her outburst. It was as if she genuinely cared about me. Even if she did, she had betrayed my trust. Besides, could she truly care about me if she had been actively working against my kingdom?

“How did Sorin know we were going to be on the border?” I asked in a detached voice.

A strange numbness had descended upon me. It was as if I were trapped in a giant hourglass, slowly drowning in the sand as my time was running out.

Adrian and Thea exchanged a look.