Page 27

“Several days now.”

“And you said nothing? You’ve not come to see me? Come to tell me? How could you!” Her hand lashed out and gripped the stitched up, partially healed wounds on my forearms and squeezed as hard as she could. “That was unnecessarily cruel, even for you. You will never do this again.”

I held back the howl of pain that shot through me like a bolt as she ground down on the wound.

“Swear it!”

“I cannot!”

“Promise it at least.”

“Why do you care? You barely knew her!”

“I knew her better than you will have wanted and not as well as I have wanted. Now, promise it!”

“Fine. I promise that if she ever dies again, I’ll come and tell you.”

Her hand uncoiled from my wound and gingerly set my agonizing meat back onto the coverlet. “She’s not dead. She can’t be dead.”

I sighed and bit through the pain that radiated up into my arm. The flesh might have been knit together for the most part, but the nerves had not yet finished their litany of complaints and were still tender and raw as if it were a fresh wound—the dangers of Fae healing. It may knit the flesh closed and set bones, but the nerves themselves are beyond our magic for the most part. The amount of magic it takes to ease nerves back into place is usually far more than it is worth to execute. “You know who she was to me?”

“Who she is to you? Yes.”

“I cannot feel the bond any longer. I’ve felt it since the day I met her at the Market. I cannot feel it anymore. The world has gone grey. All I feel when I reach for it is a shard of glass slicing at my magic.”

Doom fell over her face, and she looked away. We both knew what that meant. We both knew those symptoms. Finding your anam cara was rare but losing them was not. The agony of it was well documented in our folk tales and stories. Any young Fae might be confused when they first meet their anam cara, but none of them would be confused if they felt what I felt. Too many of us lived with the pit of despair twisting within us. Many felt it before they had had the joy of even meeting their anam cara.

Magic was a twisted bitch sometimes.

It made no sense to meter out the meeting of two hearts the way the gods had planned it. There was no internal compass marking the path to finding your anam cara. The only map to them was the line the gods had drawn for your fate. And even so, if that map saw you to the heinous fate of their death before you met? You would still mourn their loss as if you had spent centuries at their side.

“She can’t be dead.”

“And yet we both know what that means.”

“Has color come back at all? Perhaps she has gone into Human? And that is why you cannot feel the bond?” She was grasping at straws, just like I had. “She has not been here overlong. Surely not long enough that the return would be fatal.”

“How would she get into Human? How she even got out of the palace grounds is a mystery and you think she could have managed to find a circle to bring her back to Human? Bandrui, even you are not that hopeful.”

She sighed and took up the linen of my tunic again. “She’s not meant to be dead yet. So, I can only trust and hope that she is not. Fate is a fickle mistress to one such as her, but I must trust that it is not a cruel mistress.”

My brow shot up. “One such as her? What does that mean?”

She pushed up from the bed and patted a clean black tunic and pants that were folded neatly at the foot of the bed. “I can tell you no more. It is not for my lips to say.”

“So it is a matter of the gods? Tell me which I must search for. I will hunt them down until they tell me what I need to know. How to get her back. Where to find her. Tell me.” Desperation brought me up from the mattress.

“I do not know! I don’t know anything that I can tell you. I can only tell you that she was not meant to die and that if she has, then someone has meddled with the threads of fate and the consequences may be dire for the whole of Magh Meall. So be on your toes. Our time with that Bastard grows short. I can feel it on the air and in the pulse of magic.” Her eyes flicked up from the clothing, a faint glow of orange flames twisting in the dark. It must have been the candle reflecting in her gaze. “Now, get up. The High Pig holds a fete to welcome guests and new arrivals to court. He bid me have you dressed and prepared for it, should you rise before dawn. As if I’m some chambermaid. I won’t dress or bathe you. I’ve seen enough of that hairy ass to suit me a lifetime.”

I smirked and eased my hands along the coverlet to slide free of it. My pants were missing. She’d surely seen my hairy ass, as she called it, if she had disrobed me to get me into bed. “Thank you, old friend. I’ll wash and dress. Will you be at this . . . boar-ing party?”

She snorted at the pun. “I will not. The less I am in the sty with him, the less I crave a good milúll roasting sauce.”

“I hear some of the humans eat their own,” I quipped idly as I shuffled to where she had thoughtfully left a basin of water and a clean cloth.

“Are you calling me swine?”

“Perish the thought. You’re far too picky of an eater for that. I’ve known you my whole life and never seen you touch any sort of meat or blooded thing. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you even hunt. You must be shit with a bow. Fingers too soft and wrinkled from the songs of your drui.” I availed myself of the washcloth and scrubbed crusted blood from my skin.