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Juliana chanced a look at Hawthorn. She didn’t need to ask.
And if she asked you to follow them in the mortal realm, knowing you might never be able to return? What then?
She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about that because she knew the answer.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Within a few minutes, clothes had been flung into bags, Juliana’s weapons strapped to her body. She took little but a change of clothes, several blades, and the payment Hawthorn had given her.
Wrapped in cloaks, the three of them hurried out into the night, past the revelry, into a deserted part of the garden.
Juliana’s dim eyes could just make out a black carriage beside the lake, saddled with four giant winged horses. A couple of guards surrounded them, but Juliana couldn’t make out their faces in the dark.
Hawthorn paused, staring. “You’ve been busy, Mother.”
“When you cannot lie, you do not speak,” she said by way of explanation.
Juliana knew such mounts existed, but they were rare, difficult to tame. How long had Maytree been planning this? Was this always what she hoped to do—
The words of the curse churned inside her.When the Prince comes of age, at the first drop of blood spilled from his body…
It didn’t say it had to be tomorrow. Any day after his birthday would count too. Did Maytree honestly hope to keep him safe forever?
But maybe, if they were outside of Faerie when the blood was spilled… the curse wouldn’t hold any potency. Faeries tended to lose their magic the further they were away from Faerie, and the longer they were gone. It stood to reason that curses were the same…
“Hurry,” said Maytree. “We have not as many hours as I would like.”
She pushed Hawthorn into the carriage, climbing in herself afterwards. Juliana hesitated, a hand reaching out to grip her arm.
“Juliana.” Markham’s tired face looked down at her.
“You’re coming with us?”
He nodded. “I’ll be escorting them as far as the border.Onlyas far as the border,“ he added, looking pointedly at her.
“Don’t worry,” she told him, “I won’t leave Faerie.”
Her father nodded grimly. “Don’t do anything foolish in order to keep him safe,” he warned. “Run the first chance you get. He isn’t worth it.”
Juliana frowned. Not so long ago, she would have agreed with him—or at least, pretended to.
Not now.
“I get to decide who and what is worth it,” she said stiffly. “No one else. Not even you.”
She yanked her arm away from him and climbed into the carriage, sitting closer to Hawthorn than she’d initially planned. Her hand skimmed the back of his.
“You all right?” he asked.
She blinked at him. “You’re about to leave Faerie for an indeterminate amount of time to a land that will drain your magic, and you’re askingmeifI’mall right?”
“Of course,” he replied, as if this was obvious.
Maytree banged the roof of the carriage, and the whole thing set off at a sudden, horrible, lurching pace. Juliana flung backwards in her seat as the wheels spun from the ground, stomach backflipping as the horses leapt into the air and a horrible, impossible weightlessness branched out beneath them.
Her lungs shuddered, and she half-fell into Hawthorn.
“My, my, snakes and heights, Juliana,” he said, smirking. “What other fears are you keeping secret?”
