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Any semblance of a smile melted away to a dark scowl. “That can’t be true.”
“It is,” I started, trying to keep my thoughts on track. There were so many things I could say about the problem with Daethian. Too many worries to even list. “There’s more I need to share with you, too.”
“Oh, great. Hopefully it’s better news than what you just told me.”
“Dace wants me to marry him,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.
She took a step back, her eyebrows knitting together. “Do you want to marry him?”
“You make it sound easy,” I scoffed. “There is more at stake here than if I want to do it or not. Isn’t there?”
“It sounds simple enough to me.”
Everything always seemed so simple to Hattie. Her life was a series of choices, all of which were either black or white, but my choices all felt murky and gray, with no easy difference between the good and the bad of what I should and shouldn’t do.
“I would have to live in the Twinity Court. And what of this advantage we took here in the Heathern Court? What of Daethian? What of the war?”
“We can figure it out together.” Her voice was motherly. “Honestly, I’m more surprised you’ve made it so far with Dace in such a small amount of time. I’ve been flirting with King Windre and going on these dates for five years and the man still refuses to kiss me. I’d marry him in a heartbeat. If only he wasn’t so stubborn.”
“I knew you two had a thing.” I smiled.
“As do you and Dace. You like him, don’t you?”
My heart raced at the thought of him. A small space inside of me missed his company. “I like him,” I said slowly, in an attempt to speak some part of my muddled thoughts. “I mean, mother above, he is beautiful, charming, revolutionary in his political stance; he cares for me, and we get along so well, but he is also cocky, vain, and Fae nobility.”
“What is so wrong about that?”
“I’m a Nymph. I’m barely not a slave, I don’t have any wealth, and I’m living out of an estate that I stole. Dace is aprince. Totally opposite ends of the spectrum. You should have seen the Fae at his bridal proposition. They hated seeing me. They hated seeing us together even more.”
“Stop worrying so much about everyone else. Worry about you. Does Dace make you happy?”
“I mean, yes, I’m interested. The spark between us is everything to me, but don’t you think it’s too soon? You even said it hasn’t been very much time.”
“Stop overthinking,” she said sternly, a familiar motherly tone. “Yes or no answers only. Do you like Dace?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to marry Dace?”
“We need more time before I’m ready to marry him. That’s a huge commitment, a scary one at that.”
“Yes or no only,” she tsked. “Do you want to marry Dace, maybe not tomorrow, but someday in the future?”
“Yes,” I finally said, weakly. It felt like giving in. Like I was finally admitting the extreme amount of feelings Dace made me feel.
“Then you have an answer.” Hattie's gaze was soft as she looked me over.
“Daethian hates it,” I whispered, touching my neck once more. “It’s why he did this.”
“You don’t really know that. There is something very wrong with him, and it has nothing to do with you and Dace.”
I nodded like I agreed, but my stomach still felt heavy. Something was very wrong with Daethian and it felt so much like it was partially my fault, like my body was going to cave into itself to fill the gaping hole that the divide in our friendship had caused.
“What else did you want to talk about?” she pressed.
“Did you have any dreams last night?”
“None that I recall. Should I have?”
