10

I know Celinda’s wicked stepmother has chained her with an entire list of commands. There’s nothing Celinda can do to stop the royal wedding, or the transference of the anklet. My plan is set and my fate determined, but I can’t shake the thought that if I had more time, perhaps I could devise an alternate way to set Celinda free. So on the morning of the wedding, I make one final attempt to circumvent the stepmother’s will, by appealing to the Prince’s handsome bodyguard, Winston.

I find Brantley and Winston in one of the parlors on the palace’s main floor, where the Prince is doing a last-minute check of the route he and his new bride will take through the city this afternoon.

Winston seems shocked when I enter the room and pull him aside. Perhaps the real King never interacted much with his son’s personal guard.

“Brantley is making a terrible mistake,” I tell Winston quietly. “You may think I’ve never noticed how much you care for him, but I have. The way he talks about you—it’s clear you’re his favorite companion, and I think you could be much more to him, if he would only open his eyes and see what’s so obvious to those who know him best.”

Winston swallows hard and glances across the room at the Prince. “My King, if I have ever behaved inappropriately—”

“No, no, nothing like that,” I assure him. “Your behavior has been exemplary. Perhaps it’s time to be a little less exemplary and a little more honest.” I nod toward Brantley. “Tell him how you feel.”

Winston frowns. “Your Majesty, he’s getting married in a few hours.”

“All the more reason to take a chance. What have you got to lose? I’ll come with you so he knows your confession has my full support.”

A determined desperation overtakes the bodyguard’s face, and he nods. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Over the next few minutes I bear witness to the confession—a clumsy yet heartfelt one—but there’s another witness to the impulsive kiss that follows. Celinda, passing through the hallway outside, sees Winston kiss her fiancé on the mouth.

When I smile at her, Celinda glances away immediately and continues on, surrounded by her maids and step-family. I’ve seen the horrific dress they plan to make her wear today, and inwardly I determine to correct that atrocity and make her trip down the aisle the most stunning processional anyone in this kingdom has ever witnessed.

But my creative visions of Celinda’s alternate wedding gown are disrupted by Brantley’s pained gasp as he breaks the kiss with his bodyguard.

“Winston,” the Prince exclaims, looking thoroughly shaken. “This is beyond anything I—this is my wedding day .”

“I know,” the bodyguard replies tightly. “That’s why I had to speak out. Your father encouraged me to do so. ”

“Father?” Brantley looks at me, his face taut with uncertainty. “You always told me I must have a wife and produce heirs.”

“An old-fashioned notion,” I scoff. “You can adopt a child.”

“But—that isn’t what you said.” Brantley’s voice is strained. “I thought you would be furious if I—” He breaks off, spinning on his heel and stalking away.

For a moment I think my plan has succeeded, and that the wedding—and my impending death—will be delayed. But then Brantley says, in a tone of cold resignation, “Celinda is a good woman. She deserves a good life, and I have promised her my hand in marriage. She will be my partner and the mother of my children. I am a man of my word.”

Winston’s face hardens, a mask over the pain that must be ravaging his heart. “As you wish, my Prince.”

Well… fuck that plan. There’s no time to try another, which means tonight I will endure the agony of the anklet.

I welcome it. I deserve it.

But Brantley doesn’t deserve a life of denying who he is, so when the time comes for me to make my royal speech at the start of the wedding, I take a moment to speak the words he needs to hear from his father. By tomorrow morning, Brantley will know that the King is dead. What I have to say cannot allay that grief, but I hope it helps alleviate any doubt the Prince might feel about his father’s respect or approval.

The wedding ceremony is less painful than I expected it to be. Unlike Fae life-knotting ceremonies or mating bonds, mortal marriages are easily dissolved. I have much greater worries than a few promises presided over by a human bishop.

Afterward, I perform as the King throughout the rest of the day. I remain present for the speeches and festivities, yet I do not center myself. This celebration is for Prince Brantley, a man I’ve come to respect, and even though Celinda was forced into this, the festivities are for her as well .

Her gaze keeps finding me, over and over. She seeks me out restlessly, and she always seems more peaceful once she catches a glimpse of my face. The attention gives me hope that her forgiveness is not entirely out of my reach.

Before the newlyweds retire for the night, I leave the gathering and shut myself into the King’s chambers, giving my servants strict orders not to disturb me. From the King’s suite, I portal to the library, remove the real King’s body from its hiding place, and transport it back to the royal bedchamber. There I dress the corpse in nightclothes and arrange it under the blankets.

Next I create a portal into Brantley’s study and wait there in the darkness. From my conversations with the Prince, I know that he reads every night, and since I’ve taken every book off his nightstand, he’ll have to come into the study to fetch one. My ring’s secret compartment has been refilled with sleeping powder, so it will be an easy matter to render Brantley unconscious and stow him out of sight while I take his place.

Everything unfolds according to my plan: putting Brantley to sleep, returning to Celinda in the guise of her new husband, facing her stepmother, and finally enduring the agony of the anklet.

What I don’t expect is Celinda’s determination to save me. She is relentless, unyielding, and with her encouragement and my final shred of strength, I manage to create what I expect to be my last portal: a doorway into my father’s shop in Faerie.

The next several moments are blurred with pain and the sound of my own screams, but I’m dimly aware of my mother cutting off my leg to save me, followed by my father giving me the strongest healing sweets in his arsenal.

Then I’m in the guest room on the first floor of my parents’ house, and it’s quiet, and Celinda is with me, grasping my face and saying fiercely, “Do you realize you almost died ?”

“I’m quite aware of the fact,” I reply with a weak smile. “I figured it was likely, and I was prepared for it. ”

“But I wasn’t!” she exclaims. “Killian, how would your parents have felt about that? About you dying for some human girl you barely know?”

“Some human girl? You think that’s all you are to me? Fuck that, Celinda. You know better.”

She’s breathing hard, her cheeks pink. “What exactly do you think I know?”

I reach for her hand and gently uncurl her clenched fingers. “You are my madness. I fucking lost my mind over you. That’s not your fault, I know. But when I lost my mind, I lost my heart, too. I would die for you, Sin—I would kill for you if I had to. I understand that you hate me for lying to you, and I can live with that, as long as I know that you’re free.”

“But I’m not free,” she whispers. “I’m married to the Prince, and the King is dead. When I go back, I will have to wake Brantley and tell him his father is gone. I don’t know how to do that, Killian. He’ll be heartbroken. And then… I want the marriage annulled, but I can’t do that to him. I’ll have to stay with him, to comfort him…”

“I think he might seek comfort from someone else. The Prince has recently realized a few things about himself. He will grieve for his father, yes, but I don’t think he will grieve the marriage.”

“His bodyguard,” Celinda says. “He’s in love with his best friend, isn’t he? And despite being so brilliant, he never saw the signs until now.”

“Precisely.” I smile a little, pleased at her perceptive nature. “And don’t talk as if you’re going back alone. I’m returning with you, though I won’t be able to glamour myself as the King again. I’ve already placed his body in his bed, and the servants will find him there in the morning. He’s been preserved by magic, so the death will seem recent. They’ll think his heart failed while he slept. But I can take on an alternate glamour and remain nearby. I’ll stay as long as you need me. ”

She strokes my fingers with her thumb. “Then you might be staying a long time.”

I barely breathe, hardly daring to hope for the answer I crave. “How long?”

“Only until I die.”

Fuck yes. “Is that so?”

“I have conditions, of course.”

“Obviously.”

“One—you will help me settle things at the palace. Two—once my annulment goes through, you’ll bring me back to Faerie with you. I haven’t seen much of it yet, but I’d like to. And three—I will forgive your great deception, if you will agree to take on the form of the King whenever I ask you to. For fun.”

“What sort of fun?” I blink at her, feigning innocence.

“Don’t look at me like that, not after you asked me to step on you,” she says. “Your father thinks you’re this gentle, sweet soul, and you are, but you’re also a degenerate scoundrel. A depraved, lecherous fiend.”

“I like it when you call me names,” I murmur.

Her gaze lingers on my mouth with the expression of entranced desire she used to give the King during our dalliances. She’s looking at me with the same reckless abandon, that irresistible need.

“To be clear,” I whisper, “I love you.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t say it back to me, not yet, and I’m willing to wait as long as I must—years, perhaps, until she trusts me enough. But for now, I’m too weary to talk any more. Despite my father’s magic, my body has been ravaged, and it demands rest to complete the healing process.

Celinda seems to understand my need for sleep. She starts to rise from the bed, probably assuming I want her to leave. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I catch her arm. “Please. Stay with me. ”

With a relieved sigh, she sinks back onto the bed and lies down, resting her golden head on my shoulder and placing her fingers on my chest. It’s a position of quiet trust, and for a moment I’m certain my heart will burst with joy.

And then she says, with soft certainty in her tone, “I love you.”

I suck in a quick breath, stunned by the agony of happiness. “After everything I did?”

“Yes.”

Devotion, adoration, and gratitude beyond words swell in my chest. Somehow I manage to say, “For the rest of my life, I will strive to be worthy of your love.”

Celinda snuggles closer to me, a contented sigh escaping her lips. “You already are.”