rank mean I never have the opportunities to achieve what I believe in.”
And both our wishes would never come to pass.
Even if I survived, it would be to become what I could no longer imagine being. I’d never pursue any of my passions, as they’re not part of the job I’d been primed for since birth. While he couldn’t hold any position with his fey blood. Not before Bonnie, as Arbore’s first fairy queen-consort, normalized fairies among the nobility and gentry, probably decades from now.
“It’s not funny, it’s sad,” I said, shoulders drooping.
“You’d be surprised how often people laugh at misery, be it theirs or anyone else’s.”
“That sounds like a fairy trait.”
“Fairies are people, too. They just don’t lie to themselves about who they are. There’s a lot of humans like them, but they just don’t have the power to reveal themselves. If they get it, they become Prince Jonquil and his circle of sycophants.”
“You have a lot of hate for that man.”
“No less than your hatred towards the fairy who cursed you.”
That might have been true once. But I no longer had any capacity to expend on my hatred of the Spring Queen.
I played with my hands in my lap, feeling their shape, structure, but no warmth, no blood, no skin—like I was a hollow sculpture.
That was how I’d felt, for a very long time, in every way: hollow.
“I just want this over and done with.”
“If all goes well, that could be tomorrow for you.” He was trying to sound cheerful, for my sake, judging by how closely he watched me. “You get whatever it is you need from King Theseus, and we get Marian’s whereabouts, and you’ll be rid of me.”
I did a double-take at that statement. For some reason, I didn’t like the idea of him disappearing, not one bit.
As I considered a response, an inexplicable longing assailed me, and along with it, the memory of Reynard.
I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on him since the early days outside my body, had actually been suppressing my recollections of him, until I’d felt them fraying.
And I should let them fade completely. Clinging to insubstantial hope was what had me in this dire situation in the first place. I should have admitted that Cyrus wouldn’t have me, when he’d initiated the Bride Search. Just as I shouldn’t have wasted my last chances with the candidates, hoping for Reynard’s return. He was already promised to some girl he’d known for ages, and likely loved. It hadn’t mattered that I would have loved for him to be the one. That I would have loved him.
What I wanted and felt had never mattered, anyway.
So it didn’t matter that I didn’t wish Robin to disappear. He would, all too soon.
“You can’t wait to see Marian again, can you?” I said, without meeting his eyes, looking at the lip he’d split again instead.
“You have no idea.” Fondness softened its tightness, making me look up. I wished I hadn’t when I saw how the thought of her warmed his eyes.
Because some illogical part of me wished that that look was for me.
But as the old saying went, if wishes were kisses and princes were frogs then we’d all live happily ever after.
Now I wanted to merely live, happily ever after not expected—or even possible.
Chapter Seventeen
Time in the Summer Court moved in a way I couldn’t conceive.
But that might be because I was, technically, dreaming. Or as Robin had put it, in a dream-self state. Dreams warped the perception of time, making a minute feel like an hour. The lone day we’d been here felt like an unending week of sunshine.
Being whatever I was now, I didn’t need rest, and was unhampered by barriers. So while my companions slept and recuperated, I charted the Summer Palace. And all the time, I rethought my conversation with Robin.
In retrospect, I had made several mistakes. I’d been too honest with him, too open, in a way I’d never been with anyone. As painful as the topic had been, I’d never felt more comfortable expressing it, not even to myself.
Was this some fairy aura I’d been affected by? An influence that loosened my tongue, my reservations about him, and my guilt about the bitterness I felt towards everything in my life?
There was also the question of why he was the only one who could see me until we arrived in Faerie.
I’d first thought his fairy blood explained it, before I remembered that Keenan had made no note of me. So