Page 60 of A Thief Among Fae

I’m too afraid of what he’ll say to let him go first. If he so much as mentions that sound I made, I’ll never look him in the eyes again. I have to distract him.

“I wasn’t spying on you,” I blurt out. Shit.

His open mouth closes into a smirk. “Of course you weren’t.”

That wasn’t the kind of distraction I was aiming for. We’re both silent. I can still hear my pulse pounding in my ears. What was I thinking? He wanted to prove how vulnerable I am unarmed, and all I’ve done is make a fool of myself. I can’t let him fluster me like this.

The mischief fades from his eyes. “Cynthia,” he says, his voice low. “What are you doing alone in the woods without a single blade? You’d better have a good reason.”

Despite it sounding like a threat, I sense genuine concern.

I sigh. “My knives are buried in a tree. I’m trying to use my Gift to fight, but my aim isn’t great. A fire-wielder would burn me alive before I hit them. Someone like me has no hope of surviving Olin’s tomb on their own.”

“So you’ll give up on your dream? Only because you think you’re too weak to follow it?” he asks, the disappointment in his voice cutting worse than a blade.

“You have no idea what my dream is,” I snap, my hands clenching into tight fists.

A scoff twists his lips. “It’s rather obvious, actually. You want to protect your family.”

I want to argue, but I don’t understand why at first. He isn’t wrong. But he’s not right, either.

He notices my hesitation, and his eyes narrow. “Then what is your dream?”

What a dangerous thing to tell a fae. But for some unfathomable reason, I’m desperate to say it, as if the words themselves are clawing out of me. Desperation to admit how selfish it is. Desperation to have someone understand.

“I want to see the world.” It rushes out of me so quickly that I catch my breath. Then guilt immediately follows, my gut wrenching. I know how uncaring that wish makes me sound. A farmgirl leaving her family to fend for themselves so she can run off and play adventurer. It tastes as bitter and ridiculous as it sounds.

It feels like I’ve bared myself before him, trusting him with my greatest desire. I expect him to rebuke me, when he undoubtedly can’t imagine a dream so trivial with an entire fallen kingdom on his shoulders.

Yet Desmond doesn’t scoff again. He’s staring at me with wide, open eyes, like he’s never seen me before. I’m no longer the stubborn, gluttonous human, but someone else entirely. Someone who’s rendered him speechless.

“The world?” he finally chokes out, not mocking or bemused, but reflective, as if he can’t believe his ears.

“What of it? Is it so hard to imagine that I’m unhappy with my life?” As if defending myself, I blurt out, “You don’t seem so happy with your own.”

“I’m not.” Desmond is still staring at me, his brows pinched like he’s caught in a trance.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I murmur. Even if he doesn’t look affronted, I still feel like an ass. Of course he isn’t happy with his life, haunted by nightmares, feared by the world, and carrying the crushing weight of his people being enslaved by my own.

He shrugs, a startling human dismissal. “Why haven’t you done it?”

It takes me a second to realize he’s circling back to my dream. “What kind of daughter would I be if I left my family?”

“Thus the tomb raiding,” he says, sounding as though he already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from me.

The anger slips away, leaving only self-doubt behind. I look away. “My Gift isn’t strong enough to join the adventurers’ guild. At least, so I’ve been told. I don’t know why I’m trying to explain it to you.”

He watches me, silent at first. Then he sighs. His shoulders drop as if he’s released a burdening mass of tension. “I know what it’s like to have foolish dreams,” he says. “I also know what it’s like to doubt your Gift.”

Minutes ago, I would’ve accused him of belittling me. But the indifference he wears like armor has cracked, and through our bond I sense genuine empathy, a shared understanding.

Searching his eyes for more answers, I ask, “What’s your foolish dream?”

He holds my gaze with such quiet intensity that I shiver. “I’ve given up on it.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.” I pause, waiting for him to say something. “I vow I won’t tell anyone.”

Three heartbeats of silence pass. Then I feel his resignation, so similar to mine that my pulse stutters.