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At this, he snorted. She half-laughed too. “You did not have much laughter during your childhood,” he remarked, “and I apologise for any part I might have played in that.”
Juliana blinked at him as if he’d suddenly grown antlers. In fact, she might have looked less surprised if he had. “You are not to blame for my troubles,” she told him.
“Who is, then?”
To this, Juliana would not respond. “We should go back inside,” she told him. “It’s growing cold. Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill, or anything, being so newly-recovered.”
Now did not seem like the time to remind her that Faeries were immune to such things. For once, she did not sound like she was teasing. She almost sounded concerned, and he didn’t know why the thought reached him so, soft as the brush of a feather. He wanted to say something else, to stay with her there a little longer, but before he could find the words, she moved back towards the party, and he knew the moment had whispered away from them.
A few days later, having come to an agreement with Serena and her mothers, the royal party departed for the capital. All the softness he’d experienced with Jules during the trip departed also. He’d thought something had changed between them, but nothing had. She snapped back to her usual ambitious, prickly self, as if the past two weeks hadn’t happened at all.
Eventually, he convinced himself they hadn’t either, that whatever stirrings of something he might have felt was just some side-effect of the fever, induced by delirium.
Most of the time, it worked.
But Jules entered his dreams in ways she never had before, and as much as he tried to ignore it, as much as he knew she didn’t feel the same, and that nothing hadreallychanged between them, he knew thathehad.
A lifetime affliction.
SomeonewasscreamingJuliana’sname, but the voice kept disappearing, snapping off mid-syllable, only to rise again, fog-like and indistinct. She knew she should clutch at that voice,wantedto clutch at it, but her limbs had turned to lead.
Get up,said a voice inside.Move.
I can’t.
It was too hot, too cold, too hard. Consciousness felt like syrup.
“Jules!”
Come back, don’t leave me, stay, I’m coming, I’m going, I’m lost, I’m nowhere. Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.
Time was stripped away, minutes and hours mashed to meaninglessness. She no longer knew where she was or who she was with. Fragments of pain spilled against her.
She thought she might be moving, but she wasn’t sure. She thought someone might be pulling off her clothes, examining her wound, but she wasn’t sure of that, either.
She was only sure that sometimes, sometimes there was a warmth beside her, a pressure, a light, something touching her that she wanted to touch back.
Stay with me,she wanted to say, but she couldn’t.
She couldn’t do anything at all.
When Juliana at last returned to consciousness, she was warm and dry, lying on a bunk in a hut so cluttered with objects—both mundane and arcane—that you could barely see the floors or walls or windows.Plants hung from the ceiling or lined the shelves, leaves in every hue of green, spiky, spindly, long, short, fat, thin. Books were piled everywhere, crammed into bookcases or stacked so tall they were used as side tables. Surfaces dripped with wax, and everywhere else was stuffed with jars—bits of bone, shrivelled herbs, withered organs that looked suspiciously like hearts.
She bolted upright at the sight, making pain split through her side. She winced and fell back to the rough canvas mattress, piled high with furs.
“Steady now,” said a voice beside the roaring fire. “You’re out of the woods, but you still went through them. You’ll be sore for a little while yet.”
Juliana angled her head towards the voice, and found herself face to face with a wrinkled old woman.
“You,” she said, as her features slotted into her memory, “the witch from the market. Mabel, wasn’t it?”
“My friends call me Mab,” she said, cackling for some reason. “But Mabel will do just fine. How are you feeling, dearie?”
Juliana pressed a hand to her middle. It was thickly bandaged, skin and muscles tight behind it. Her head felt light and woozy. “How long have I been out?”
The witch shrugged. “A couple of days. That prince of yours was most distressed.”
“That… wait.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “How did you find me? How do you know about him? Is he here—“
