The other possibility left me even more confused. What if his improved behavior was simply a product of his interactions with her? What if she could somehow bring out better behavior in my delinquent young noble just by having himguardher room?
I was still standing in front of her door wondering when the twins returned with dinner trays. They bowed politely with their typical carefree smiles, but then Koan paused.
“Your Majesty?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“I just arranged for the kitchen to send someone up here with food for her three times a day, so that her meals aren’t delayed by changes in our schedules.”
I nodded. Thoughtful and responsible?
“Your Majesty?” Koan needed something else?
“Yes?”
“You’ll allow that, won’t you? She… Fae eat just as much as we do. It would be cruel to not—”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “Of course I’ll allow it. It was good of you to arrange.”
He grinned and dipped his head. “Thank you, sir!” Then he knocked on her door and disappeared inside with Jolter after she opened it.
Fagan laughed out loud. He, Mylo, and Aunt Acantha had gathered in my sitting room for our weeklydiscussion on the state of affairs of Sirun and ways to end our curse.
“Let me be sure I’m hearing this right,” Fagan said between chuckles. “You’re concerned that your fae prisoner is plotting something because she’s stayed nicely in her room and Koan has developed a sense of propriety and respect over the last week?”
“And responsibility,” I added. That just set him laughing again. “His interactions with her are the only things that have changed. And he started changing his behavior the day he met her.”
Fagan collected himself and smiled at me. It was a fatherly sort of smile I was not in the mood to indulge. “Aedan, forgive an old elf for finding humor in our cursed condition.”
I couldn’t be annoyed at him after that. He was trapped farther from home than anyone else here. And that was my fault.
He sighed. “Sometimes, a simple act of kindness can wake up an elf’s desire to serve or protect or respect. And when that kindness is not deserved, it is even more potent. I suspect our young friend has simply found himself inspired and motivated to improve.”
Was Fagan talking about Koan now… or me? But he couldn’t know how the fae’s kindness to her brother had made me want to protect her since I’d met her.
“She did ask for history books,” I reminded them.
“But she didn’t complain when you refused them.” Mylo, whose personality would have made him my best friend if his position hadn’t been a soldier, leaned forward so his weight pressed his elbows into the table. “I agree with Fagan. She’s done nothing suspicious on any of the days I’ve watched her, and she’s accepted every limitation we’ve given her with grace and patience.”
Acantha shook her head, letting her black curly hair bounce around her shoulders. “She’s most likely biding her time, waiting until she has everyone’s trust. Once we all drop our guard, she will strike.”
Mylo leaned back and folded his arms. “And exactly how will she strike? What is her great, secret plan to destroy us?”
Acantha’s slender lips tightened into a thin line, and she stared at each of us before she spoke. “Most likely power. That is the motivator I have seen the most amongst fae.” She turned to me. “Perhaps she intends to kill you. Perhaps destroy the roses that strengthen you. Perhaps steal our secrets. I can’t guess at her agenda, but I will not trust her. And if her human inheritance allows her to lie, we have no weapons against her deceit.”
I almost regretted telling them that she was only half fae. But these elves had been with me through my parents’ deaths and the curse. I’d trusted them with nearly every secret I’d had for years.
But I hadn’t told them that I’d bound her to me with a mistek bond. Or that I could sense her lies through it. Or that I knew she could lie, but she had not… except for when she told me she hated lemons.
Of all the ridiculous things to say when asked to form a lie! But then, nearly everything she’d said had surprised me every time I’d spoken to her. What would it be like to have a real conversation with her—one that wasn’t overshadowed by a high stakes event? I was almost jealous of the twins’ ability to casually join her for dinner so often.
What would they do if I joined them? I shook my head. They wouldn’t want my company. I needed to stay separate and aloof to maintain order and safety in mykingdom anyway.
“Aedan?” Acantha had been talking, and I hadn’t actually heard anything she’d said. “You shook your head. Do you disagree?”
I shook my head again. “I’m sorry, I was distracted.”
“I was merely pointing out,” she said with a justified look of annoyance, “that we haven’t seen any fae in Hemlit for centuries. Then, a year after your parents’ unexplained death, Radira—a fae—showed up and trapped us with a curse. A curse we still haven’t found a way around. Now, only a decade later, two more fae show up… and one of them is inside our fortress.”
