Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Destiny?” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and I’m instantly mortified at my lack of manners. “I’m sorry—”
“It’s nothing,” he assures me. “Your mother told you about your conception, yes?”
“She wished at the cenere tree and was granted a child.”
“She left out an important part of the tale.” He plucks another glass from the air and swirls the liquid inside. “I offered her three wishes. She only used one. The rest pass on to the next in her line.”
I can’t think up any words. I point to my chest.
“Exactly.” He sips from his glass. “As your faery guardian, it is my job to make your two wishes come true.”
Two wishes? Even just one wish is unthinkable. Wishes are rarely granted, and certainly never to unimportant people like me.
“You don’t have to use them today,” he begins. “In fact, I have a proposal—”
I don’t hesitate; I don’t hope, either. Wishes and magic only go so far, and I know the moment I utter the words that my wish can never be. “I wish my mother was alive again.”
Sadness flickers across his face like cold flame. We both know his answer before he speaks it. “Everyone knows that a wish cannot restore life once the spirit leaves this sphere.”
“Then I wish Cadwyn Thrace dead!” I blurt.
“Death?” Luthian blinks at me. “Death, then? Not something more… satisfying?”
“I…” Now that he mentions it, maybe it is a little too simple. “Can I take it back?”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” Luthian says somberly. “But may I offer you an alternate deal?”
I nod, ashamed to have jumped in so quickly to wishing. I’m one of a very lucky few. Wishes don’t happen every day. I need to think carefully, view my requests from every possible angle. Wishes do go wrong.
All it takes is a blink, and Luthian stands beside me, one long-fingered hand walking on its tips from my chin to my collar bones. “You could wish for his death, but I would personally find it too quick. It’s a sentence, not revenge.”
Revenge. The possibility lights a poisoned flame in my heart.
“You could wish for power. You could wish for riches,” he goes on.
“Power comes with riches,” I counter.
His beautiful mouth grins wide and he’s close enough that I feel his breath against my cheek when he speaks. “You’re clever. That cleverness means you won’t choose incorrectly.”
Luthian crouches in front of me with the long-limbed grace of a spider. “Wishes are powerful. And rare. Why would you waste them on something so petty as revenge? Or riches, which will only make you more attractive to your enemy?”
I get the distinct feeling that he’s trying to pull some fae trickery. “Why should you be so set upon me retaining my wishes? So that you don’t have to grant them?”
“My, but you are like your mother, aren’t you?” He holds my gaze for a long, silent moment, then rises and paces back to the window. “I know of a way that you could keep your wishes until you truly need them.”
“And I know that a faery would never make such a deal without a reason.” My mother taught me well. She was teasing, of course, when she would hold a daisy out to my chubby, child’s hand and croon, “Come and give me a kiss for it.” There were other lessons, later, but those first games laid a foundation for my distrust of her kind.
“My mother taught me that no deal with her kind comes without a price.”
Luthian doesn’t deny it. “Smart. But ultimately, not something you need worry about with this deal. I will still owe you two wishes when our venture is complete. But you’re right; I’m not doing this out of sentimentality or altruism. I stand to gain quite a lot if you agree to my proposal. But so do you.”
The way he stares into my eyes, as if he can push my acquiescence from some precipice and into the pit of his desires, unsettles me. I hear a voice quite like my mother’s, urging me to reject him, to leave Faeryland and never be tempted back.
But I’m too curious. That’s her fault, too. “What do you stand to gain?”
Perhaps it’s a fae trick, but when he turns back to me, there is an earnestness in his expression that wasn’t there before. “I have fallen out of favor with my court. I plan to use you to get back into favor.”
“Be more specific.” For all I know, he could plan to present me trussed and roasted at a banquet with an apple in my mouth. He would still owe me the wishes.
“The king has two sons. I loathe the eldest, but the second is a dear friend of mine. He will be my ticket to return to the heights I commanded previous to the… indiscretion that resulted in my banishment.”