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“Just wondering what you’ll do to retaliate, mate.”
He chuckles, finds the hand I’ve had on his chest for hours, checking that he’s breathing, and squeezes my fingers. “Watch out for those third-degree burns the next time I fuck you.”
I shift onto my side to face him and stick out my tongue.
He sticks his out back at me and waggles it suggestively. My boy does have some oral skills.
“Get over here,” he says, peeling back the blanket on his bed. “I’m totally fine.”
“Healers won’t be happy,” I warn, even as I slip off the cot and climb into bed with him.
Darwin cuddles me down against his side, drapes the blanket over us, and entwines our fingers across his chest.
“Now tell me what you were really thinking. You’ve got your hag face on.”
I poke his chest with my thumb. “I do not have a hag face.”
“It’s a very cute hag face,” he reassures me. “But definitely a hag face.”
I humph at him; he chuckles.
“Come on, tell me.”
“When I was in the future, I learned that in that past, that-Teddy killed Da at Yule. The spell I learned today? That’s how she did it.”
“Oh,” he says softly.
“Yeah, oh. Still not a hag face, though.”
He slips his hand free of mine and reaches up to cup my head, cradling me against his shoulder.
When he doesn’t say any more, I whisper, “I have a thousand reasons to kill him.”
Darwin’s thumb slips through my hair to find a soft spot under my ear. He strokes it and hums in his chest. Knots of tension I didn’t realize I was carrying loosen in my shoulders. Okay, maybe I had a bit of a hag face going.
“In my father’s court,” he murmurs. “Well, in all the courts, there’s a room known as the Hall of Smoke. It doesn’t stay in one place. One day it’s a dining hall. Another day it’s a bedroom. Another it’s a storeroom. No one but the Thistle Regent knows where it’s going to be. It mimics each room perfectly. Except everything in it is made of smoke and once you go in, you can’t escape until the following dawn.
“I was seven the first time my father took me to the Hall of Smoke and made me go in. The day before, I’d skipped my fencing lesson because my baby sister Orlaith had colic. She didn’t cry when I held her, so I spent the whole day carrying her around, showing her things to make her smile, while our mother rested. I was exhausted by the end of the day because Orlaith was heavy, but one of my mother’s handmaids brought a bottle and I fed her. She fell asleep in my bed and I didn’t want to wake her, so I climbed in and we both slept the whole night through. That’s the only night of good sleep I ever remember getting at my father’s court. In the morning my mother came and I was happy because she looked so much better after a day and a night of rest. But she took my sister away and told me I shouldn’t have done it. The babies were her burden to bear, not mine. Then my father came.
“The Hall of Smoke was up in a tower that day. I usually loved the tower rooms. They were full of books and small fae. I could always find toys or things that had been forgotten in odd corners in the tower rooms. The court brownies set out tea and cakes for me to eat. I could hide from my father and the other courtiers all day up in the tower rooms.
“But that day every book I picked up, every toy I found, turned to smoke as soon as I touched them. Every chair I tried to sit in disappeared so I fell on the floor. The tea and cakes were nothing but good smells. I’d heard courtiers gossiping about the Hall of Smoke, but I never really understood it until that day.
“Father came and got me the next morning. I was curled up in a corner. I thought he was an illusion, too, until he took my hand and led me out. I was so thirsty the first thing I did was run out to the courtyard and stick my head in a fountain.
“Father pulled me out of the fountain and held me while I struggled to get to the water. He held me while I fought and cried. He told me by taking Orlaith I’d made my mother look weak. By letting her sleep in my bed, I’d opened the family to unwholesome gossip, even though she was just a baby and I didn’t even understand kissing when I was seven. By skipping my lesson I’d disrespected my fencing masters and appeared undutiful. He lectured me for an hour before he finally let me go so I could drink.
“That was the first of a lot of lessons. Everyone says I’m the most stubborn prince Thistlemist has seen in ten generations. I don’t accept defeat easily, and I hated what he was trying to teach me. I didn’t understand why appearing strong and dutiful was more important than showing my mother and sisters I loved them. I don’t know when his lessons began taking hold. When they started turning me into the monster who hurt you and Gabe. I just know they did. And I hate him for that ... I hate myself for that.”
I stretch my arm up around his neck so I can hug him.
“It’s not our fault,” I remind him.
Chapter46
Thinking Aloud
“It’s my fault I let him wear me down into something mean and ugly,” Darwin says.
