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“What good is a lesson born from spite?”
“If you learn it, then it is revenge,” said Naeve. “And you will know true love.”
“True love,” I snarled. “Who needs it?”
“You do, idiot,” said Naeve, who jumped from her place on the bench and left my chamber. I had a feeling that if the mirror could leave, he would too.
“She is right, you know,” said the mirror.
“No one asked you!”
“You posed the question. She answered it.”
“It was hypothetical!” I yelled, throwing my hands in the air.
I started to pace. My body was tense, and I was frustrated. I had been frustrated since that creature had arrived in my room on her knees. This was her fault. I would not feel this way if she had never come. I would not havehope.
I hated hope.
I stopped pacing with my back to the mirror and began to ask, “How do I…”
I stopped abruptly.
This was ridiculous. I was an elven prince. Hundreds of women had fallen in love with me. Why was this one different?
“Were you about to ask me how to woo a woman?”
“No,” I snapped, folding my arms over my chest. I hated the embarrassment I felt and how it warmed my cheeks.
“I am a mirror.”
“Iknowyou are a mirror,” I said. His meaning was twofold. He had never wooed a woman, and he also knew the truth behind my question. Yet I could not bring myself to ask it. “I know you watch my brothers.”
“Your brothers are no more knowledgeable about love than you are,” he said.
“Lore is in love,” I said.
“With a mortal who does not know he exists,” said the mirror.
“Cardic is charming,” I said.
“Yes, and he uses his charms to bed women.”
“But do they fall in love with him?”
“They usually end up hating him,” said the mirror.
I frowned as I considered my other brothers, but none of them had managed to fall in love. Not even our father had loved our mother. Their union was one of convenience, and while they produced heirs, they had other lovers. Had they loved them?
“Perhaps you should ask someone who is actually in love,” the mirror suggested. “Like the mortal prince you imprisoned for stealing a rose from your garden.”
“I doubt he will help me.”
The prince, whose name I did not know, had come from a mortal kingdom. He had hoped to scale the Glass Mountains and return to his kingdom with a golden apple, which grew inside the mountains. On his way, he stopped, climbed my walls, and plucked a flower from my earth for his princess. I kept him captive even after he begged to be set free to return to his betrothed.
“There’s no harm in asking.”
“There is always harm in asking.”
