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“Alright. How do we play for truths?”
“If you get a match, you can ask a question.”
I nodded, staring intently as Gillie placed the first card between us. The picture on it was blurry, but I could make out a queenly figure draped in long, flowing robes, with gossamer wings glimmering in early morning light. An old seelie queen.
“Now you.” Gillie nodded at the stack in my hands, so I turned a card over and placed it on top of his.
This one was of a handsome king lounging beneath an oak, several smaller fae surrounding him to plait daisies into his long brown hair. The next was another queen, flushed with good health, her brown skin painted with gold across her eyes and down the slope of her nose, following the curve of her shoulders.
I was paying more attention to the detailed drawings on the cards than actually keeping an eye out for a match, so when one finally came, Gillie snatched the pile up before I’d even realised. He chuckled, stacking the cards up and adding them to his pile.
I huffed, reaching for my wine glass. “Ask your question, then.”
“Are you anxious here without Ash, Lonan?” Gillie kept his voice low, and he wasn’t looking at me when I snapped my head up to stare at him.
Licking my numb lips, I rasped, “Not anxious. Just… ill at ease.”
He nodded, shooting me a tiny smile. “I understand. You go first this time.”
The second time a match appeared, I made a concerted effort to snatch up the pile of cards between us. But Gillie got there first again, which made me huff in irritation.
“Are you happy here, Lonan?”
The question threw me off guard. Was that the second time someone had asked me that today? I couldn’t really remember my conversation with Sanya earlier, but it felt familiar.
And the horrible tightening in my chest felt familiar too.
I was silent for too long, my muddled brain trying to think of a way to get around the question with a non-truth. If I told the truth, Gillie would tell Nua. And Nua would tell Ash.
I couldn’t bear the thought of Ash thinking I was unhappy with him. Thinking I was so weak that only a few weeks on seelie land was affecting me this badly.
Gillie sighed, reaching over to pat my arm, making me flinch. “You don’t have to answer, lad.”
“I feel wrong,” I heard myself blurting, fingers tightening around the cards in my hand, threatening to fold them in half. “It’s too hot. Everything is too… It’s cluttered and overcrowded and the food is… is—”
“I understand,” he said calmly, keeping his hand on my arm. “You must tell Ash.”
“No.” I shook my head, horrified, my vision wavering as my head spun. “I—He’s trying so hard to settle into his role. He doesn’t need any added worry—”
“You are more important to him than being king.”
“It’s not just that,” I burst out, breathing hard now, unable to look at the fae next to me but also unable to stop speaking now I’d started. “The urge to shift is… It feels like insects crawling under my skin, trying to wriggle their way out. But I’m… I’m scared. Of what will happen to my leg.”
Gillie’s fingers tightened before he released my arm to sit back.
“Oh, Lonan.” He reached up to scrub a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought of that.”
I licked my lips, breath shuddering out of me. “Do you know? Do you know what… will happen if I shift?”
“No,” he croaked. “I’m sorry. I… I could read up on it more. On the properties of the ingredients I used for the brew. But—” He made a frustrated sound. “My notebooks are back at the sidhe. I could try and find something in the library—”
“Let’s go to the sidhe,” I blurted, trying to stand up and promptly wobbling back into my chair. “We can go and get Ash’s things at the same time. Have them here for him when he gets back.”
Gillie’s eyes flashed with alarm. “No, lad. We can’t—You shouldn’t leave seelie land.”
“I’ll be fine. I have handled my mother my whole life.”
“It’s different now, Lonan,” Gillie said quietly. “You know it is.”
