Page 70

He waves my concerns away with a mean, dismissive gesture. “Silly girl. It’s only a horse.”

My teeth clench. “I want to go.”

“Me too.” Cece runs inside the room, a desperate Esme clutching her skirts to slow her down.

“Now, girls, you shouldn’t talk to your father this way,” Esme says in a chastising but hesitant manner. Our Fae governess sways from side to side like she doesn’t quite know which leg to stand on.

Father looks at Cece and Esme in turn, but he still won’t look directly at me, and his stubbornness is a direct dart to the heart. He gambled away my freedom—to a Fae king, no less—and condemned me to this half-and-half fate. I don’t truly belong to either world while I live out his contract, and he should find the courage to look me in the eyes.

“If you don’t arrange a carriage right now, I’ll go alone,” I say quickly, my chin held high.

Father chuckles unkindly. “And how do you propose to do that without my help? Do you have your own money, or your own horse?”

My jaw clenches in the angriest line it has ever known. “I don’t need money. I can walk there. Through the mirror you keep downstairs.” I’m not sure I could find the Summer house in the sceawere, but I could find my way back to Faerie and beg One or even Two to take me there.

Father’s face becomes white as a sheet. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.”

His already red face turns almost purple. “If you can walk through mirrors, you’re no daughter of mine!” he shouts before whipping his head around to look at Esme. “You told me she wouldn’t become one of these crawling, disgusting creatures. You swore there was no way she could be transformed into a Fae.”

I jerk away, terrified of what he might do.

Cece gawks at me, her pupils wide and deep, but I don’t detect a hint of fear in them. In fact, if I had to describe the fire in her eyes with one word, it wouldn’t be sadness or disgust or fright. More like unabashed curiosity. Even…excitement.

Esme clears her throat loudly after a moment of quiet reflection. “Do not worry, Your Grace. This is nothing but an empty teenage threat.” She looks down her nose at me, her best haughty governess voice on full display. “Say it’s not true, Miss Penny. Admit that you’ve made up this unspeakable lie to upset your father so he would cave in to your silly demand, and I will accompany you to visit the horse.” She wets her lips, her keen intelligence shining in her eyes. “By the Mother, tell the truth, and I swear that I will get you there today.”

I know what she’s doing. It’s clever. She gets to pacify Father by coaxing a false apology out of me, and if he decides we can’t go regardless, she can cite her formal promise as a reason to find a different way to punish me.

A Demeter woman knows never to swear on our Mother’s head, but Esme can pass it off as a foreigner faux-pas. Despite the fact that she’s lived here for decades, she can claim she didn’t know any better.

Thank you, I try to convey with my eyes.

She offers me a discrete nod.

Father will punish me. He’ll think of something I would have found dreadful in the past to assert his authority, but no punishment could truly impact me anymore. If he takes away my books, I can get new ones from Faerie. If he grounds me, great! It doesn’t matter because I’ll be a social pariah for at least another season anyway. And if he decides to punish me physically, the way he did after mother died…I can always sneak out of the castle without being seen.

Chapter 25

A Lesson in Biology

The sun is quickly dropping in the evening sky when the carriage rattles to a halt in front of Gerald and Mathilda’s farm.

“We’re not too late. Thank the Mother!” Cece shouts before she climbs out and runs toward the crooked farmhouse.

Firenze’s white mane blows in the breeze, his bridle attached to the wooden fence next to the stable. The once proud horse is merely a shadow of his old self. His defined ribs are visible in the distance, and his head is hunched in capitulation.

The crisp autumn air makes me grateful for the thick wool overcoat Esme forced me into. I tighten the collar around my neck as we walk to the pasture, half-frozen mud crunching under my boots.

Gerald and Cece catch up to us a moment later.

“By our Mother’s grace…I was just about to put him down. Mathilda couldn’t stand the sight of it…” Gerald’s gaze falls upon me, his hat crumpled in his tight grip. “Are you sure it’s wise for ye to be here, princess? Yer father said you were too sick to travel?—”

I pick up the pace, anger threatening to pierce my royal exterior. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve never been better.”

“Alright, then.” He secures his hat back upon his head at my resolve, and we all hurry to the sick horse.

“Oh, poor Firenze…” Cece says, her voice strangled.