Page 40 of My Fae Lady

Instead, I gave in to a brief spurt of angry tears that transformed into fearful sobs when House wouldn’t even bring me a bonbon when I asked for it. Had the manor already decided in favor of Sylvan?

No. I was still tied to the house, but Unseelie power throttled my requests before the house manifested them. If I wanted to maintain my claim, I needed to untangle those threads and strengthen the Seelie magic flowing through House.

I clambered to my feet and limped out of the room. The pain of my sprained ankle was nothing compared to the pain of realizing Sylvan had used me. And the sticky fear that I’d lose my home was enough to make me push through anything.

I made my way down the unfamiliar hall House had sent me into and opened the third door on the left. I was halfway into the sitting room before realizing it wasn’t my sitting room. Even when Rook Manor’s magic had been at its lowest, the third door on the left of any hall had always led to my suite. But here I was, in a lushly masculine room I had never seen before.

The furniture was all leather and dark wood, with a forest green rug and damask wallpaper. There were no side tables with spindly legs, or chests with engraved whorls. Just strong, straight lines and clear varnish. Despite the window on the left wall being shut, I could smell the loamy forest floor, the ivy growing up the outer walls, and a hint of the musk that declared an animal a predator.

I pivoted on my injured foot and hastened back into the hall. The door was at the end of a long corridor this time, with plenty of space before the next one. I limped down the hall and jerked open the third door on the left.

I was back in the sitting room that combined the forest with the comfort of home.

“House,” I whispered as I made my way to the stuffed leather chair. I needed to put my ankle up, and clearly I wasn’t going to find my suite anytime soon. “I can’t help you if I can’t get to my workroom.”

The ottoman in front of my seat raised itself up, the legs stretching until my ankle was elevated, and a cold compress dropped onto it from above.

The house wouldn’t give me chocolate, or let me into my own room, but it was still caring for me. That had to mean something.

I gave myself a few minutes as the coolness soothed my ankle. Then I pulled out my lens and got to work. I might not have my workroom, but I had plenty of tools stored in my apron pocket. Thank the goddesses I had asked for the apron before House stopped listening to my requests.

Unsurprisingly, the room I was in was shrouded in Unseelie magic. If any of my ancestors had ever found this suite, they’d have replaced the green with aubergine, leather with velvet, and traded out every splinter of mahogany wood with something lighter.

Like ash.

My family’s penchant for decorating with pieces made of the same type of tree Sylvan had been living in suddenly felt far more sinister.

I pushed the thought away. My ancestors’ crimes had nothing to do with me. That they had been in the wrong didn’t justify Sylvan’s betrayal.

I plucked the tweezers I had spent weeks wrapping in Rook Manor’s magic from my pocket, held up my lens, and tried to tug a strand of power. The Seelie threads responded as they always had, moving easily—maybe even more easily than before. But the Unseelie magic resisted my efforts, even when I used the tweezers coated in the same power.

Next, I switched my attention to the wild magic. Though the house was no longer quaking, there was still far more of the raw power slipping free than I had ever seen before. I tried to wrap it up in the cooperative strands of Seelie power, but wild magic rejected the order and control. It had to first be blanketed in Unseelie power, which though opposed to Seelie, accepted it.

And that was something I could not do, no matter how hard I tried.

Eventually my eyes were blurry with strain, and I knew I had to stop for the day. I was shocked to discover the room had grown dark as I’d studied the magic. A simple faelight solved that problem and reminded me of the unexplored suite I had found myself in. I slipped my tools back into my pocket, gingerly lowered my injured foot to the ground, and stood. I wasn’t completely healed, but the rest and ice had helped.

It was time to indulge my curiosity. I ventured deeper into the sitting room, toward the door opposite the one I had entered through. The brass knob was warm and welcoming, twisting easily in my hand. The door swung open into a bedroom that matched the sitting room perfectly, with a gigantic four-poster bed dominating the space. A fae could sleep on that bed with his wings unfurled without so much as a feather drifting over the edge.

Because the fae who would sleep in this room would have wings.

Or at least, he should.

I shook off the guilt that tried to lodge inside me at the thought of Sylvan’s missing wings. Knowing who he was, how my family had taken the manor from him, I had no doubt the wings had been lost in the same manner. Which meant that those ugly wounds, the festering scars marring his back, had come at the hands of my forefathers.

I wasn’t even sure how many generations ago the manor had changed hands. It hadn’t been my father, but it could well have been my grandfather who had severed Sylvan’s wings and ensured they couldn’t grow back.

Through the still open door to the sitting room, I heard a different door slam, and a familiar voice growled, “Finally. Why didn’t you bring me here first, House?”

I took a step back instinctively, my shoulder hitting one of the bedposts. Sylvan stormed into the bedroom, slamming that door, too, before noticing me. He hissed the moment he saw me, pressing clawed fingers against his chest as if he could rip out the bargain magic demanding he leave me in peace.

He said nothing, spinning around and pulling open the door. He stepped out . . . and was coming right back into the bedroom, crossing himself on the threshold. We both gaped for a moment. Then Sylvan stuck his arm through the door. His hand popped back out to slap himself in the face.

“House can make a room lead to itself?” I asked incredulously.

Sylvan pulled his hand back. “So it seems. Probably because this is my bedroom, which I’ve been trying to get to for hours.” His fingers curled and his jaw ticked. “If you want your peace, you’ll have to be the one to leave.”

Sylvan stepped away from the door, heading for the side of the bed opposite me. A small part of me—though maybe not as small as it should have been—wanted to refuse to leave. To force Sylvan to suffer through the magical backlash of breaking the bargain. But I knew how bargain magic worked. The longer it was denied, the worse the effects grew.