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“You see? There is nothing to worry about, my queen.” The fae man on the floor had finally found his voice. “He might have formed his own attachment to this girl, but how could it possibly be returned? I swear, he was a cat, and he had no connection to her before then.”
The Fae Queen kept her frown. “And why would he choose to form even a one-sided attachment to this girl if he agreed to your bargain as freely as you said he did?”
“It was a free bargain. He wished for the means to defeat an ogre who sent a plague to their lands. I gave it to him. I even allowed him to find and train his own replacement, fully compensating his kingdom for his loss. You know this is true. I cannot lie to you or anyone.”
Leo frowned. The fae prince might not be lying, but he wasn’t telling the truth. “You broke our bargain, and your magic should be forfeit.” Leo had suspected it before and had it confirmed here—now that he understood more of how the magic worked.
The fae fed off of human belief—their desires, wishes, stories, and dreams. They kept their bargains and avoided outright lies to strengthen their power, but they didn’t have to tell the truth as much as they had to be believed. A lack of belief or a strong enough counter-belief could hurt them just as much as an iron blade.
And even drained of emotion, Leo had sharpened his view of his bargain with the fae prince into a deadly point.
“You become a white stag on the Wild Hunts when the rings are open. My uncle, the former Marquis, caught you and used a corrupted version of your power to start the plague. He even gave you my name because he hoped you would kill me—or at least remove me as the heir to the throne of Umbrae. But you wanted me as your pet instead—you gave me a part of your magic because you wanted me to hunt the Marquis and free you by his death. I wanted the plague to end, so I agreed, but only if you agreed that no more harm should come to my family or my kingdom. But my uncle is my family—even if I never told you how we were related. Even if we both wanted him dead. You killed my uncle, and our bargain should be forfeit.”
Soft murmurs trickled through the fae at his pronouncement and the queen didn’t even look at the fae prince this time. She just pointed at the door.
“Leave me. Retire to your mother’s country until I can stand to see your face again.” She whirled to face the rest of her court. “All of you must leave me at once.”
The fae and their creatures all scattered. Dishes fell. Feathers and trinkets were left behind in their owners’ haste to retreat, but Leo didn’t move. He rarely did anything unless the queen directly told him to, and she commanded his every movement when they were together.
But sometimes her attention was called elsewhere.
That was when he walked and dreamed.
Once the hall was empty, Leo still sat on his cushion and tried to make sense of everything that had passed. “Are you also angry with me, my queen?”
“Of course not, my darling.” Her voice was softer, though she still carried an unfamiliar frown. Her hand went to her crystalline eyes. Was that a tear? Did the fae shed tears? He had never known them to, and he still couldn’t be sure now. It was gone in a blink, whatever it was. “I could never be angry with you. The bargain you made with Pan’dryn was corrupted by his own deceit, and I have always known that you would leave me eventually. Humans are such fragile and delicate creatures. I should be grateful for the time we had together.” She stepped forward and cupped his face as if memorizing its shape.
Leo tried to look at the ground, but that was wrong. She lifted his chin up to face her.
He wondered if she might bend down to kiss him. His memory had become such a scattered and fickle thing, but he was certain she had done it before. He couldn’t have refused her, and perhaps no sane person should want to. She was beautiful. Powerful. A goddess who put even other fae to shame. Being made to meet her gaze was like looking straight into the radiant sun.
But now, after seeing the human girl, he couldn’t help but wonder how it might have been to taste her lips instead.
Someone who might be his equal in every way.
The queen let out a sigh, as if she could somehow read his hesitation. “I cannot say if this counter-bond you made will be returned, but you will have your choice, my love. I cannot take it from you. I will not.” She dropped his face, her words becoming as firm as steel. “And when you see this girl again, this is what you must do . . .”
* * *
That night, Leo went out into the forest. With each step, the surreal beauty of the fae court gave way to thorn trees with discolored bark and a variety of mortal imperfections. A dark-haired young woman waited for him. She sat on a fallen log, holding a fluffy gray cat and humming a familiar tune. He shook his head in wonder. “Tabitha. You’re here.”
“I’ve been out here to see you several times,” she said, a soft furrow in her brow. She released the cat and stood, straightening her simple skirt. “Do you remember?”
Leo frowned. He knew he had seen her before, but was it one time or a dozen? It was impossible to say.
The few steps between them could have been a thousand, the air too thick to cross.
She sighed. “I’m not surprised. When I saw you last, I still thought it might have been a dream.” She fiddled with something in her hands. The missing bead. “But the new Marquis, Archie, said I might be able to help you find your way home, and I would like to try. If you would let me . . .”
She reached out her right hand, her left still holding the bead, but Leo knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that. He recoiled. “Why did you come?”
“Because you are my friend.”
He shook his head. “That isn’t enough. I can only be released if your love is true, and you could not have fallen in love with a cat.”
She lowered her hand, laughing. The errant sound stood in discord with the somberness of the moment. “And why is that? I fall in love with cats quite frequently. They became my family after my human family became lost to me. You know about that.”
Did he know about that? Leo frowned, unsure. But the fluffy gray cat at her feet seemed to blink in confirmation. And at once Leo knew something else—this cat was one of Biscuit’s kittens all grown up.
