It’s just easier this way.”
I was stunned. He had basically said that a dragon lived in the neighborhood as casually as if he was mentioning a local McDonald’s. “Why can’t you stay in the dark worlds?”
“I can visit but I wouldn’t last long. For much the same reason your Shadow servant can’t stay here permanently to be at your beck and call. Dark beings must stay in the dark worlds, and light beings in the light.”
I didn’t like Michael being referred to as a dark being, so I tried to ignore that. “What would happen to you?”
“I’d get weaker and weaker, steadily losing any magic or power I have until I might not be able to find a gateway home.” He didn’t look entirely comfortable discussing this with me. But he had said faeries were really honest, hadn’t he? Maybe he felt compelled to answer my questions. It was surprisingly helpful, actually. “I can compare it to a human who scuba dives,” he continued. “After an oxygen tank runs out, there isn’t much time to get back to the surface before the human drowns. Faeries must stay in light worlds and Shadows must stay in dark.”
“And demons?” I asked. “I know my father spent a couple months here before I was born.”
“Demons are different,” he said with a sour look. “The rules don’t seem to apply to them. Which is why your father must maintain the barrier that holds them back. Otherwise, there’s nothing stopping them from staying in other worlds for as long as it suits them.”
A steady stream of students passed by us on their way to the first class of the day, the buzz of their conversations muted by the shield Rhys had put up around us. A familiar face caught my eye, though. I could have sworn I saw Michael in the middle of the crowd. I took my attention off Rhys for a moment to search everyone’s faces, trying, and failing, to find him.
Knowing it had only been my imagination disappointed me.
I wished he was here. I missed him so much already and I had no idea when I’d get to see him again.
“What’s wrong?” Rhys asked.
“Nothing.” I shook my head, then chewed my bottom lip as I attempted to concentrate on the problem at hand. “So when are you seeing the … the dragon oracle?”
Even though no one was close enough to hear us, it felt so strange to talk about dragons out loud, like we were in a role-playing game.
“Soon,” he said.
“How soon?”
He gave me a guarded look. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Why? Not in a hurry to find out your future?” When he didn’t reply to that, instead shifting his stance to look past me at the students breezing by, I continued. “So … what’s the dragon supposed to tell you?”
His attention returned to me and a slow smile crept over his face. “Suddenly you’re interested in me, are you?”
I crossed my arms. “Just call it morbid curiosity.”
The idea of meeting with a real live dragon and having it confirm or deny the prophecy was surreal at best, but I could recognize an opportunity when it presented itself.
“The oracle will tell me many important things,” he said simply.
That was vague.
“Can I … can I tag along? Get the oracle to give me that second opinion?”
He stared at me for a long moment as if considering this possibility. “Perhaps. I do need to know if this prophecy is true or not.”
I glimpsed Melinda down the hall at our lockers. She’d definitely spotted me talking to Rhys in a semiprivate corner. I waved in her direction and she waved back, mouthing the words “What’s going on?” to me. I shrugged back at her.
I returned my attention to the faery king. “This is way off topic, but you should know my friend likes you.”
So much for being subtle. It was good that Melinda wasn’t within hearing distance.
“Your friend?”
“You met her yesterday. Melinda?”
“Oh, right. I remember.” He smiled at that. “She likes me?”
“I’m supposed to casually find out if you like her in return, but that doesn’t work for me, since I know who you are and why you’re really here. So I’m going to tell her that you have a girlfriend and so, even if you did like Melinda in return, you can’t date anyone else. It’ll be easier for her if you come off all honest and devoted. She won’t take it personally that way.”
He looked vaguely amused by my master plan. “It’s not that far from the truth.”
My eyebrows raised. “You have a girlfriend?”
“Is it that hard to believe?”
Hardly. If I looked at him as just a guy and not as a faery king with a fondness for sharp swords, Rhys really was megacute. Melinda wasn’t insane for developing a quick crush on him — not that I’d ever tell him that in a million years. “No, but … I don’t know. I guess I’m surprised. You haven’t mentioned her before.”
“Well, it’s more of a girlfriend in theory,” he clarified. “A
I scrunched my nose. “A fiancee? But you’re only sixteen.”
He absently dragged a hand through his short chestnut-colored hair, looking a bit uncomfortable with the direction of our conversation. “It’s faery law that a king must have a queen. If he is unmarried when he takes the throne, the identity of his queen must be prophesied by an oracle.”
“So that’s why you’re going to see the dragon.”
“That’s part of it.”
“Matchmaking by a fire-breathing dragon. Sounds so romantic,” I said sarcastically.
“It’s not even remotely romantic.” Rhys cleared his throat. “But it’s something I have to do.”
He wasn’t looking forward to this unknown faery-girl matchup. I could hear it in his voice. He was being forced to accept and do things he didn’t want to do out of responsibility and duty. I felt an odd sense of kinship with him there.
“It must be hard for you,” I said with not an ounce of sarcasm this time.
He looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Being … alone. Dealing with everything now that your parents are gone.”
A shadow of pain went through his eyes. “How do you know about that?”
“I just know. I’m …” I swallowed hard. “I’m really sorry.”
“I’m not looking for your pity.”
“I’m not pitying you.”
The hurt disappeared from his eyes, replaced by something harder and less vulnerable. He turned away from me. “I’ll let you know when I’m seeing the oracle. That is,
Without another word, he walked away, leaving me standing there alone.
For the rest of the week I tried to act as normal as possible and put the prophecy as far out of my mind as I could. Every day I’d wait for something horrible to happen and was both relieved and slightly surprised when nothing did.
I told Melinda that Rhys was already taken and, while disappointed, she took it in stride with an optimistic “They’ll probably break up.”
The faery king attended school every day, although I wondered why he bothered. He didn’t have to go to school at all, did he? But there he was in biology with me and also sitting with the Royal Party at lunch in the cafeteria. After how we’d left things on Tuesday, though, he stayed very quiet. He didn’t ask me any more questions about the prophecy, which was fine with me, since I didn’t know anything more than what I’d already told him.
Rhys continued to study me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. I wondered what he was thinking, what he planned to do next. But nothing happened.
