Chapter Three Felicity

Chapter Three

Felicity

"T HREE DROPS EACH MORNING AND no more," I say, my wrinkled fingers gripping the pipette to fill the small bottle with the healing tincture. "If her cough doesn't get better in two days, come back. But this should be an improvement over the thyme and honey variation you tried last week." I stride to the front counter and pass the bottle to the pale-faced young mother.

Worry is etched across her forehead, and the dark circles under her eyes tell me she hasn't slept in days. "Thank you so much." She digs in her tattered purse, no doubt looking for the coin to pay. I wonder how many times she's had to choose between food for herself and a visit to the apothecary.

I glance over my shoulder to make sure the little shop's proprietor—my boss—hasn't made it in yet. "No charge," I say quickly. "Since the original tincture didn't help."

Her brown eyes fill with tears. "Thank you," she whispers, voice hoarse. "Thank you so much."

I hear the creak of the back door and stiffen. "Hurry on, now."

"Felicity!" Estella barks. "We need to talk."

The young mother's eyes widen for a beat, but then she wisely hurries out the door before Estella can make it to the front.

I busy myself with straightening my station, moving with the steady grace of the gray-haired faerie whose form I've been taking since I got this job two months ago.

Estella pushes into the front of the shop, letting the door swing wildly behind her. She's as physically beautiful today as she was the day I came here looking for a job—silky blond hair that falls past her shoulders, bright violet eyes, with a regal face and long, graceful limbs—but all I can see when I look at her now is ugliness. She's a terrible apothecary who uses the cheapest ingredients over the most effective. Half of her tinctures are little more than soaked herbs.

"I had a young male come into the shop last night who wanted me to refund the continence tincture I sold to his father. He said when he tried to buy some for himself, you told him it wouldn't protect them against the faceless plague." She lifts her pointed chin, nostrils flared. "Do you know what happens when you say things like that?"

That young male was begging on the street before coming to see me. I couldn't take his money in exchange for a tiny vial of useless drops. "We should be selling products that help people, not—"

"When you spread lies about our products, people talk, and soon no one buys from me."

"But those continence drops can't protect anyone from—"

"None of my customers have fallen to the faceless plague yet," she snaps before I can finish.

Only because it hasn't torn through our village yet. But I don't dare say it out loud. It seems like nearly every week for the last few months there's a story about another group of fae found dead with no sign of the cause, so the people have begun to call it the faceless plague. The victims are always found in groups, pale but uninjured. Most, if the rumors are to be believed, had no prior signs of illness. It's as if Death himself is showing up to gatherings uninvited and taking the attendees without reason.

"People are scared." Frowning, I twist my hands. Too many people in this village lost everything during the years of Mordeus's rule. After he stole the throne, all it took was a whisper of an alliance with the rightful king, and Mordeus would send his personal army to destroy their businesses and their homes. While I don't know what it was like to live here during those times, I know what it's like to have nothing, know what it's like to wonder where your next meal will come from. "We shouldn't exploit that. We should—"

"How dare you, you ungrateful crone," Estella says, seething. "The only reason I hired you was because people trust your wrinkly face and spend more money when you're behind the counter. But you do me no good when you convince them not to buy! Get out of my shop, and don't come back."

I squeeze my eyes shut. Jobs are hard to come by, and if I've ruined this... "Please reconsider."

She points one long, manicured finger toward the door. "Go. Before I decide to take what you've cost me from your hide."

Lowering my head, I fist my hands at my sides and make toward the door. I went too many months without steady work before Estella agreed to hire me, and now I have to start over. Maybe it's for the best. I couldn't endure her greed and lies.

The day is bright. I squint against the afternoon light as I emerge onto the bustling streets—and freeze when I spy a familiar face watching me from across the road.

In riding leathers with white tattoos all over his forearms and glasses perched on his nose, Natan still appears to be no more than a harmless scholar.

My pulse skips a beat—stuttering from a heady mix of hope and heartache. I immediately scan the streets for my brother, who's never far from his side. I haven't seen him in three years. Not since before my mother sent me away.

I'm still looking when someone grabs my arm and drags me into an empty storefront by Estella's apothecary.

"Hello, Felicity," my brother says, his grin wolfish as Natan slips in behind us.

Hale Kendrick's long light brown hair is tied back at the base of his neck, and his ice-blue eyes bore into me, seeing every fault and failure. Every moment of cowardice.

The door clangs shut, and my throat goes tight.

Natan dips his head in greeting. There's so much in that simple gesture—awareness of who I am beneath this form I've taken, acknowledgment of the adventures we shared as children, and a reminder that he's here to protect Hale, all rolled into one.

Instead of lying, instead of pretending I'm the elderly faerie everyone sees when they look at me, I give my own nod of acknowledgment before glancing around the empty store. "What brings you to this part of the world?" I ask, as if I haven't ached from missing them every single day of my three years away.

"The usual," my brother says, his blue eyes bright. "Rebellion. Treason. Sedition. Plans of world domination."

I nod and wipe my wrinkled hands on my skirts. "How did you find me?"

"It's cute that you think I ever lost you," Hale says. He's my brother in every way that counts. We might not share blood, but we were raised side by side, and he would never just let me run away without bothering to keep tabs on me.

"And how is Mother?" My voice hitches on the word and Hale's face softens.

"Why don't you go home and find out for yourself?"

My stomach twists painfully at the thought. It's like seeing a warm bed after days in the cold and knowing you can't climb in. "Did you come here to be cruel?"

Hale sighs. "Never, Lis. I came because I need you."

Guilt swamps me. Hale wants me to save our home realm, Elora, and all I've ever wanted was to save him.

He sweeps his hand up and down my form. "Who's this? Tell me, does living in a body that can't even fight make you feel safe?"

I can fight just fine but won't bother trying to convince him. I lift my chin. "Why do you care?"

"Because I'm going to need you to leave behind the elderly faerie act. Immediately. It's time to slip into your other favorite skin."

"You're being obnoxiously vague, Hale."

"You're being deliberately obtuse, Lis." When I narrow my eyes, he laughs. "Gods above and below, when you look at me like that, I can almost see the real you in there."

"What's she look like?" I ask. "Just curious, since it's been over three years since I last got a glimpse of myself."

He shrugs. "That was the choice you made when you decided you'd rather hide for the rest of your life than fulfill your own destiny."

"Hale . . ."

"I'm not here to try to change your mind about that." His hard eyes soften, and so does his tone. He reaches into the satchel hanging at his side and withdraws a tattered, leather-bound notebook. "I'm here about this."

I gape at the journal— my journal. Inside, next to a small envelope of the princess's hair I bought from a palace maid, I've been keeping notes about the shadow court's princess, documenting every detail I've learned from taking her form, hoping to figure out what the oracle meant when she told me the shadow princess could save Hale from an early death.

"It seems you've been taking Princess Jasalyn's form for months."

I huff out a laugh to hide my grimace. No one knows that I've been taking the princess's form, because I never leave my house as her. But Hale only had to see those hairs and read a few pages of my scribbled notes to know. Every memory from every transformation is documented in there, spanning between the most uneventful moments from her childhood to the darkest days as the shadow princess.

"You know something, don't you?" he asks. "You knew, even before me, that she can help us save Elora."

I frown. I don't know anything about that, but maybe if she really can save Hale, she can help us both. "What do you mean?"

"I need you to take the princess's form—but not just in the privacy of your own chambers this time."

"Right." I glare when what I really want to do is yank my journal from his grasp. "And have a target on my back for impersonating royalty? I'll pass."

"You can't pass, sister. If you don't help, the streets will be flooded with shadow court sentinels searching for her."

I stare at him, confused for a beat until I realize—

"You took her? You kidnapped the princess ?" I spin to Natan, hoping this is their idea of a joke, then squeeze the bridge of my nose when I catch his hard stare.

"I did," Hale says. "And since I'm putting my entire team at risk if the queen is looking for her, I need you to go to the palace and be her. As soon as possible."

"The palace?" I shake my head. He's always thought me braver than I am, from the first time he taught me to climb a tree and I got stuck fifteen feet off the ground. Now, once again, he's asking too much. "No way."

"Yes."

"Absolutely not. I can't do that."

"You always underestimate yourself," he says, glancing over his shoulder and toward the busy street beyond. "I've left you alone for three years, let you deny your destiny, let you abandon your realm. Now it's time to step up. You know her. You have, what"—he waves the book between us—"a dozen memories by now?"

I fold my arms. "You're going to get me killed. You're asking me to take her form and then live with her sister. Her handmaids. All the people who know her best."

"A day at most with her sister and then you'll be sent to stay with King Misha. The queen wants the princess away from the shadow court for a while."

Pretending to be the princess would be much simpler in the Wild Fae territory, where I wouldn't be surrounded by the people who know the princess so intimately. But why would the queen send her away when she's been so protective of her up to now? "Because of the faceless plague?"

Hale shrugs, but I'm sure he knows more than he's saying. Hale always knows more than he lets on. He also cares for me more than he lets on, and I know he wouldn't ask without good reason.

"It's too dangerous. If they found me out—"

"I have faith in you." These words, spoken with absolute sincerity, make me more homesick than I've felt in months. They make me miss the relationship Hale and I had before he lost faith in me.

"This is your out, Felicity," he says softly, as if he can see my thoughts on my face. "This is our way back home for good."

My chest aches. I'm not the only one who's desperate to go back to Elora. Hale was fifteen when he dedicated his life to bringing down the Elora Seven and returning the realm to the rightful monarchy. While I can't return to Elora so long as I'm hunted, my brother won't let himself go so long as his quest is unfulfilled.

"How?" I ask, voice cracking. "How does Jasalyn figure into this?"

"I visited the oracle."

My stomach flips, then plummets. The Oracle of Light is sacred and revered, and I hate her with every fiber of my being. Knowing your destiny can be more of a curse than a gift. "Not everything the oracle foretells is so simple," I say to my hands. But if she showed me Jasalyn as a way to save Hale and showed Hale Jasalyn as a way to save the realm...

I shove away the temptation of hope before I can pull its poison into my lungs.

"Regardless of what you think of the oracle, you might want to know what she showed me this time," he says. He's quiet for a few long moments, probably waiting for me to meet his eyes, but I can't. "The princess, Felicity. She showed me the princess slaying your father." He tilts his head and hoists the journal in the air. "But maybe you already suspected she'd play a role, and that's what's behind your little research project."

I draw a ragged breath, suddenly lightheaded with the possibility of a better future. Dangerous.

"You told me years ago that you won't kill Erith," Hale says, and I flinch.

"It's not that simple."

"Listen to me, Lis. I've found an alternative. I was shown the alternative. Will you help us take it or not?"

My heart is racing. My birth father has grown too powerful, and the consequence of that power has been horrific for the majority of the Eloran citizens. Even if I didn't have my own reasons for needing him gone, I would want to help my brother with his mission. Hale has never been able to understand why I wouldn't slay my father myself. He's never known what the oracle showed me. But I'm haunted by the memory of that vision, by the sight of death creeping into my brother's eyes as his blood pools around him.

If I kill Erith, as was foretold, Hale will die too. I don't know how one leads to the other, but I know what the oracle showed me.

And I could never tell Hale, because he would've told me to do it anyway.

But now we've both been shown the shadow princess as the key to an alternate path.

"What do you need me to do?" I ask. My hands are shaking. I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. It's insanity. It's a death wish. It might be the only way to save Hale.

"Be the princess. Then once you're sent to Castle Craige, I need you to get as close to King Misha as you can."

"Why?"

"So he'll fall in love with you, of course," he says.

I grunt. "You overestimate me."

Hale grins. "You underestimate the allure of a beautiful human girl. I need him to show you his Hall of Doors. If we can't find the sword, the Hall is our only way to give Jasalyn a direct portal to the Eloran Palace."

I frown. "We don't even know if the Hall of Doors is more than a legend."

"The Halls are real. The Unseelie Court lost theirs when the queen took the crown from Mordeus, which leaves the Seelie and the Wild Fae."

In which case, the choice is obvious. "How do you know this?"

"While you've been hiding in the shadow court, Shae's been investigating. We've learned a lot since you left."

I flinch at the name of my old crush. He was always by my brother's side and yet always out of reach. Then I was sent to the oracle, and for a moment after I returned, I thought maybe he might feel something for me too. But then I had to run—had to hide to protect my family—and Shae never came to find me.

I fold my arms in front of my chest, as if I can hold my heart together. "Okay, so assuming he's right, even the legend says that the courts hold the locations of their Halls as sacred. King Misha wouldn't hand it over to a human princess—no matter what good ties he holds with her court."

Hale smirks. "Then I guess you have some work to do."

"Please tell me you're not resting the future of the realm on my ability to seduce a faerie king."

This earns me a crooked smile from Natan.

"We'll be looking for the sword," Hale says. "I know what the oracle showed me and have every faith we'll find our way to where we need to be. That said"—he waves up and down to indicate my general form—"the princess has been missing from the palace for several hours now, and the longer she's gone, the more closely they'll investigate her on her return."

I scowl at him. "Then maybe you should take her back." Of course he waited until he'd already captured her to tell me his plan.

"Wrap up any business you need to this afternoon and then get some sleep." He presses several strands of hair into my open palm. "We'll be back tomorrow to take you to meet the princess. If you have any questions before making your grand return to the palace, that will be your chance."

"She's truly agreed to help you?" I ask. Jasalyn was a human from Elora before she was the shadow princess, so she would've been raised to believe the Elora Seven were the saviors nearly everyone else in the realm believes they are. "She's agreed to slay the leader of the Seven just because you asked?"

"She doesn't know all the details yet." He shrugs. "But she will, and when she does, I'm confident she'll get on board."

Typical Hale. "And if she refuses?"

He leans over and flicks my nose. "Don't worry so much, sister. The oracle has been asked, and she has answered." He turns for the door, Natan his silent shadow. "See you in the morning."

After the door clangs closed behind them, I can only stare at the strands of hair in my palm.

I'm not like my brother. He rushes in to save the day because he believes the hero wins and fate is the reward the good guy gets at the end. I used to believe that too—until my biological father found out I was alive and the soldiers he sent looking for me slaughtered the man who raised me. I've seen the cost of fate and know it's not always worth paying.

But if Hale is working with Jasalyn, maybe the tides have finally turned.

Could Jasalyn truly have the power to take out Erith, Patriarch of the Seven? Could she be my way home and prevent Hale's life from being cut far too short?

I wish I could have a fraction of Hale's optimism, but it doesn't come that easily to me. I'll do this anyway, because I owe it to my brother to try. I owe it to the whole realm.