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Our past here and the pain we’d suffered wasn’t nearly what the Conjurites had to deal with in the long run. To be that caught up in darkness…
The very thought of it was terrifying. We’d been caught in the darkness for almost two years in total, but even then, it had ended, and the darkness had never been a part of us.
I kept falling back on Ellie’s compassion for her people, on Nylah’s connection with Terra, who had given us the healing power in the first place. I told myself again and again that this was where we needed to be. If it wasn’t scary, if it wasn’t hard, then the end result wouldn’t be worth it.
Erol was difficult to read. He seemed irritated and frustrated all the time, snapping at us when we talked about things he didn’t agree with. His views on setting the people of Palgia free were clearly in direct contradiction to ours.
As soon as the hovercraft landed in the castle courtyard, Erol undid his seatbelt and left the craft. We stayed behind. I wasn’t sure I wanted to exit. Now that we were back at the castle, the horrors of our time in the dungeon rushed back at me, pounding into my mind over and over.
“What’s his problem?” Zita asked with a scowl.
“He’s a Conjurite,” I said softly. “I guess he can’t help it.”
“Why did he bother bringing us here if he doesn’t believe in what we’re trying to do?”
“Rainier asked him to,” I countered. “Ordered him to, rather. He had to do it.”
“If he tries to get in our way—” Zita started, but Mom cut her off.
“We’re here to do something that’s bigger than the darkness in Erol. We can’t expect him to act right when everything in him wars against it. We should be more forgiving.”
“After what he did to you, I don’t know how you do it,” Zita said tightly.
She was right—it was a lot harder to do what we said we would than I’d thought at first. We were here as royal guests, ordered and invited by Rainier, but we were in the heart of darkness, and the dangers of being here were very real.
“We should probably get out of the craft,” I finally said.
Mom and I glanced at each other, nodding, but we still stayed in the craft for a long time, scraping together the courage to get out.
* * *
When we werein our rooms, Erol was still nowhere to be found. I was relieved. He was riddled with darkness, and his Conjurite magic couldn’t help but flare to the surface every time we ran into each other. It had happened when we’d arrived at the hovercraft this morning, too. He’d been gracious, smiling, ready to put on the face Ren needed to see, and at the same time, his magic had washed over me like a wave. It had sparked the fear I’d already had about coming back here and made it worse.
I’d been able to fight it—after spending so much time in Palgia as prisoners, my mom and I knew how to combat the feel of darkness, to keep the fear at bay. I’d learned how to discern between the fear Conjurite magic tried to instill, and the one that was my own.
Our rooms were beautiful. My mom and I each had a large room with a bathroom, a living area with couches arranged around a hearth, and a small kitchen. We had a door between our rooms so we could visit each other privately if we wanted to.
Zita had a similar room across the hallway from us, close so that she could check on us at any moment, but she had her privacy, too. Erol treated her as a guest, just like he treated us, and not as a servant of some kind, traveling for the sole purpose to look after us. I was sure it was because of Ren, too. All of this had to be—Erol surely wasn’t one to exhibit that level of kindness.
When I’d walked into the room first, I’d been surprised about how homey it was. The castle lived in my memory as a cold, dark place, and I’d expected only a small step up from a cell. The rooms were nothing like that. Loose rugs had been thrown onto the slate floors, thick velvet curtains framed the windows, and the furniture was luxurious and comfortable.
It screamed of Ren, of Fae kindness and Fae riches, used to do good.
“What do you think?” Mom asked when she opened the door between our rooms and popped her head through. “Pretty grand, huh?”
“It’s so much more than I expected,” I admitted. “Ren must have thought about this for a while.”
“I know, me too. Did you see everything is brand new?” Mom walked to the couches and ran her hand over the cushions. “None of this has been used. We’re the first—it looks like Erol bought it all to allow us a cozy stay.”
“Ren wanted us to have a cozy stay,” I corrected her.
“Erol allowed it.”
I studied the furniture, the rugs, the curtains, and realized she was right. Erol had made sure that our stay here was warm and welcome by getting all new things to make us comfortable.
“He didn’t fight Ren on it,” I said. “That doesn’t mean that he liked allowing it. Or that he would have bothered doing any of this.” I wasn’t under any illusion about what Erol was…and what he wasn’t.
“It’s nicer than I thought he was capable of.” Mom nodded. “Sometimes, I allow myself to think that he might not be the monster we thought he was.”
