Well, that answered the question about who had drawn the guards away from their posts. They were forming search parties, looking for this group of intruders.
“Stand aside,” growled the red- haired one in the middle.
Belenos, I’ll wager. A cold smile spread over Reynard’s features.
Eden was silent as she walked with Miru-kai through the Castle’s grottoes and torchlit halls. Deep in thought, she barely seemed to notice her surroundings. Or perhaps she was too afraid to be curious about the dark, stony prison. She was probably thinking about her grandparents.
Sadly, fey magic didn’t include taking back words he had no business speaking. The prince cursed himself.
It wasn’t like a fey to wonder about a human’s thoughts, but Miru- kai had human blood. It made him ponder things no other fey would worry about. For instance, every child taken by the fey changed the future. Their threads dropped from the weave of human history. Deeds would be left undone, future children never born—the effect as absolute as if they had lost their lives. Did the fey have the right to cause such changes in the pattern?
Right now he wished he were fey enough to simply grab the girl and count his blessings. Instead, his rudimentary conscience—a very human attribute—was forcing him to think hard about what he was going to do next. What futures might he alter by interfering with her destiny?
He could feel her unhappiness. Empathy was something Simeon had tried to teach Miru-kai, and now he couldn’t shut it off. The very air around the child screamed with how much she wanted to go home.
How did humans get on in life with everyone else’s feelings to worry about? It was exhausting. On the other hand, he couldn’t indulge in emotion all the time. He had to keep several thousand monsters in line. That called for a cool head.
“Sometimes,” he said, “it is difficult to be a prince.”
“Why?” Eden responded, startling him.
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. He looked down at her, and then decided to finish his thought. Listening and advising. That was what human companions were good at. That was what Simeon had done for him.
“I was a pirate once. That was much more fun. Gratuitous amounts of robbery and liquor.”
“So, why’d you change jobs?”
Miru-kai sighed. “The fey were weak. They needed a leader, and I was a prince. Then others came along —changelings, goblins, the unwanted and ugly species no one would take in.”
“Why do you want to rule them, if no one else seems to?”
“I understand what they need.”
Miru-kai stopped. They had reached a vast space ringed with balconies. In the center was a dark pool rimmed by white marble, the carved lip of the stone fluted and curving outward. The overall shape of the pool was squares overlapping squares in a geometric pattern. Rather than torches, fires burned in the four corners of the space.
The hall had seen better days. Tiers of stone benches rose up a sloped balcony, but many had been broken during the last battle inside the Castle. The curious fact was that some kind of night-blooming plant had begun to grow there, twining around the ruins and breaking them down to rubble. And yet, there was neither sun nor water. The sweet-scented vine had to be a freak of the Castle’s errant magic.
Eden reached out to touch one of the red- veined trumpet flowers, but the prince caught her hand. “I wouldn’t touch that. I’m not sure if it’s safe.”
Her face turned to him, and his heart grew still. There was gratitude in her eyes, and a glimmering of trust. The look made his chest hurt. Few people ever looked at him that way.
Eden put her hands back in her pockets and sat down on a stump of stone pillar. She looked sleepy. Dimly, he remembered that children needed rest.
“There used to be a dragon here,” he said, nodding toward the pool. “But they had to put it back downstairs, where it was warmer.”
“A dragon?” she asked. “My mom and Uncle Alessandro fought a dragon once. I wonder if it was the same one.”
“I think it was.”
She seemed to ponder a moment. “I thought dark fey were bad.” Eden made a face. “Sorry, but you seem nice. Not at all like what I’ve been told.”
Miru-kai blinked. That was the thing with children. They were blunt. “The dark fey are tricksters, but we’re part of nature’s cycle. Sometimes we’re the necessary chaos that breaks down old, dead patterns. Sometimes we give people what they deserve and they call it bad luck. That’s why they’re afraid of us. We’re not evil. We’re just uncomfortable.”
“And light fey?”
“They dress better, but they’re not that different. They don’t like to be around humans as much.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated. The last light fey I talked to still referred to humans as an upstart ruffian species that deserved to be exterminated like an unwanted invasion of ants.”
“Whatever.” She yawned. “Bring ’em on. Ants bite back.”
He tilted his head, amused. “I wonder how like your mother you are, and if Reynard knows what he’s getting himself into.”
Her mood, which he had so carefully eased, flattened. She began picking at her fingers, head bowed. “Why do you say my mom killed my grandparents?”
“It’s just something I heard,” he said lightly. “It’s probably not true.”
She gave him a withering look. “You said it had something to do with a spell?”
“So it was rumored.”
Eden pursed her lips, looking out over the dark pool of water. “I’ve asked and asked, but no one’s ever told me how they died. My grandparents weren’t sick or anything, were they?”
“No.”
“And no one suspected it was something magic?”
“Very few people had any idea there was anything out of the ordinary.”
“So it wasn’t like a mugging or something?”
“No.”
She fell silent.
“What are you thinking?” the prince asked uneasily.
“About something Mom said once. About how a selfish spell broke her powers.”
“What was the spell?” As soon as he asked the question, the prince felt a sudden need to change the topic. Talking about this was only going to make the child unhappier. “Have you noticed how sweet these blossoms smell?”
“It was to give Grandma and Grandpa car trouble so they wouldn’t come home and find out that Mom snuck out to a concert instead of babysitting Auntie Holly.”
“Ah,” said Miru- kai. “Would you like to visit the gargoyles? The hatchlings are really rather comical.”
“I don’t want gargoyles or flowers!” Eden snapped, then lowered her voice. “I just want to know the truth.”
Miru-kai considered long and hard. “A spell like what you describe is meant for two people. If your mother tried to perform it on her own, it would have been difficult to control.”
“Is that what did it? A car crash?”
Miru-kai looked down at his hands. “According to what I heard, your grandfather’s car went out of control.” He didn’t say the vehicle had fallen down a cliff, crashed to the beach, and burned mere feet from the ocean. In his experience, truth had to be adjusted to suit those who heard it.
Tears welled in Eden’s eyes. “I hate my mother.”
“Don’t be so hard on her,” Miru-kai said gently.
“She killed my grandparents. She cast a selfish spell that went wrong and they died.”
