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"What would I do with the stars and the moon?" I scoffed.
"Whatever you want," he said. "But you don't need either of those. They’re already in your eyes."
I snorted. "That's very…poetic. Did you say the same thing to my mother?"
He actually flinched minutely. "I might have. It didn't work on her either."
He had the grace to look sheepish. He was right, he wasn't what I expected. I couldn't decide if he was sweet or way too good to be true. Or just a good actor.
I couldn't, wouldn't, dismiss everything Ryze, Vayne and Tavian told me about him, based on one conversation. In the end, he still had Zared sent back to Ebonfalls. I had no real reason to trust him. I was basically a prisoner here.
"If it's my whim, can I go and get some air?" I gave him a challenging look.
Predictably, he responded with a sigh and a shake of his head.
Before he could speak, I said, "Let me guess. For my own protection, I have to stay here."
"I heard you froze my fish." He glanced down at the reflecting pool.
"I heard they usually get boiled," I retorted.
"I really need to stop restocking that pool," he said. "It looks so much nicer with fish swimming around in there. The alternative is to keep the omegas in the dungeon, and I suspect that wouldn't be well received."
"Nothing says ‘prisoner’ like putting someone in a dungeon," I agreed. "At least this cage is pretty."
He looked at me like he wanted to say something, but forced his gaze over to the window.
"Yes it is. Best view in all of Garial. Sometimes I think we’re justified in changing the maiden's memories because no one would want to leave this and go to Havenmoor."
"You've been to Havenmoor?"
"A long time ago," he said vaguely. "I remember old stone buildings and new timber ones. An old well and lots of mud. Nothing to compare to Fae cities."
When he put it that way, he had a point. Not that a gilded cage was preferable to anything, including mud, but if he meant what he said about letting me go, then Garial or Lysarial were nicer places to be than anywhere I'd seen in Fraxius.
That speculation was all moot anyway, since I couldn't go back and live in Fraxius with a Fae face. Either way, I'd end up somewhere in Jorius.
"Is that why the Fae moved out of Fraxius?" I asked. "To get away from all the mud?"
"I don't know why," he admitted. "That could have been it. Plenty of us don't like getting our hands and feet dirty."
He was smiling again. I wasn't sure if he was joking or not.
"Poor babies," I said sarcastically. "My mother wasn't afraid of getting her hands dirty."
"No she wasn't," he agreed. "Or bloody. I'm guessing she didn't tell you she was a soldier."
I shook my head at him in disbelief. "My mother? Are you sure we're talking about the same woman? She didn't even tell me she was Fae. I don't remember ever seeing her ears." I lightly touched my own with my fingertips.
"You wouldn't have." He closed his eyes tightly. "She was so determined to fit in, she had them changed. The woman did such a terrible job on her, I had her executed. Thank the gods Alivia had slightly human-shaped eyes. I’d hate to think what she would have done to herself if she hadn't."
I thought back again to that memory. To the sense that I knew she said something about having an accident. But she'd done it on purpose, because she loved my father that much.
"I'm starting to think it would have been safer if she and my father stayed in Jorius," I said. I didn't bother to keep the accusation out of my tone. If he sent them away and made her so desperate she let herself be mutilated, then he should wear some of the blame for that.
"Possibly," he conceded. "Those were the choices made then. They cannot be unmade. All we can do is learn from the shit we did in the past and move on. Build the bridge, as you so eloquently said, and get over it."
"If you knew what she'd do, would you have let them stay?" I asked.
