“Thin enough to cut.” I scoffed.
“Many things in Elfhame cut.” His smile was humourless. “Two palaces almost identical in layout.” In pencil, he drew a square on one side of the paper, then turned it over and drew another. He held it up to the light and I could see through the paper—the squares overlaid each other. “But they’re on different planes of existence, separated by the thinnest membrane. You could be in the library in our version of the palace”—he drew an X inside the square—“at the same time someone else is in Dawn’s library”—he turned the sheet and added a small circle in the same location—“and you’d never know the other person was there. You’re in the same space but on different planes.” He held up the paper again.
I frowned at the circle and cross, which were together and not. “They’re close… but also separated.”
He nodded. “Like the veil that lies between us and the Underworld.”
“Can people hear across this veil?” My stomach turned at the idea of someone from Dawn sitting in an office like this one and being able to hear all the details of what unCavendish had done to me.
“No. The only way for anything to cross is at one of the fixed points between the two. We call those lodestones.” He pushed the pencil through the paper. “You experienced one yesterday when we arrived. There’s a tipping sensation as you enter, but you get used to it. There are several throughout the palace. Guarded, of course. The royal suite, the library, the ballroom—there are two of each, one on either side. But the throne room, the grand hall, the royal balcony, for example—these are lodestones. There is only one throne room, accessible by Dusk and Dawn.” He removed the pencil and showed me the hole.
I rubbed my head at the impossibility of it. But was it really more impossible than a city that shifted from one state to another as the sun rose and sank?
Looking at that sheet of paper, I could picture an ant walking along one side, reaching the hole, and passing through that to the other side. And weren’t we just ants to the gods?
“If the lodestones are guarded, there’s no danger of me accidentally crossing over, is there?”
His mouth flattened, the scar standing out pale in the light. “You might not mean to pass across, but someone from Dawn might try to lure or trick you through the wrong door back into their side.”
“But… why?”
The muscle in his jaw flickered again. “Because I’d be powerless to follow.”
I fought the urge to rub my hands over my arms as goosebumps chased across my skin. The word “powerless” on Bastian’s tongue seemed as impossible as a tree growing underwater.
“You see why you need to understand my city and its rules?” The low line of his eyebrows didn’t invite me to answer.
“It’s imperative.” He swept to his feet and circled the desk, going to one of the high windows that looked out over the city. “Never ask someone their name—it’s considered taboo. Offer yours, then they should offer theirs in return.”
I frowned at his back as he leant his forearm on the window frame and looked out. First contracts, then names—fae were full of strange rules.
“Tell no one about your condition. The poison or your need for… me.” His hand clenched into a fist and pressed into the window. “Use the fact you can lie to your advantage. Most fae don’t deal with humans often, and although they know you can lie, theoretically, they won’t be used to watching out for it.”
As if I didn’t already use lies to my advantage.
Softly, he added, “They don’t have experience of dealing with humans and their pretty, lying mouths.”
I shivered at his intimate tone, at the way I wasn’t sure he intended to say it out loud, and at the memory of how he’d dealt with my lying mouth so thoroughly on plenty of occasions.
I had to stand to dispel some of the sudden energy skipping along my nerves and pooling in my belly.
Turned out, it was a lot harder than I’d expected to hate someone who’d opened a part of me I hadn’t even known was there.
Or at least it was hard to only hate them. I could hate Bastian alongside lusting after him very easily indeed.
He straightened as though he’d spotted something interesting outside, and I approached, drawn by the strange beauty of the fae city.
“Most importantly, never—never reveal your heart.” He bowed his head and for a moment, the desire to reach out to him was so intense, I had to grip my hands together. “Who you are. What you want. What you feel. What you love.” His voice lowered, a hoarse, raw quality to it. “You must keep these things close or they will be used against you.”
I laughed. “I thought I didn’t know what I was. Guttered so low, I don’t even know I’m a flame anymore. That’s what you said.”
He spun, then stiffened as though he hadn’t realised I’d drawn so close. “I’m serious, Kat. Deathly serious.” The look he gave me as he closed the distance between us was a physical thing that killed the laughter in my throat. He towered over me, frown so deep it shadowed his eyes and revealed their glow. “If they know your heart, they will tear you apart to feast upon it.”
Mine thudded harder, perhaps at the threat, perhaps at his intensity up this close. But I raised one eyebrow like I was brave enough to face both. “Fae eat hearts?”
“Not literally. But still cruelly.” He leant in like he wanted to take another step.
His warnings were kind. Protective, even. But it wasn’t as if I didn’t already know fae were dangerous. Hadn’t my internal alarm bells clamoured the instant I’d realised what he was? I’d known I was in danger from that moment.
“Don’t worry.” I shrugged and managed a reassuring smile. “I don’t know what I want anymore. How could I possibly tell anyone else?” I tried to laugh, brash and bold like the Wicked Lady on the road at night, pistol in hand. But saying it…
Saying it made it real. And the reality of it was the opposite of funny.
His gaze skipped between my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“For so long, I’ve been clinging to survival. For years.” Oh, gods, the thoughts I’d tried to escape yesterday were spilling out and I couldn’t stop them—as inexorable as a river bursting its banks. “And yet, I let go of that in the grove. I chose to take that poison. I chose to not survive.”
He might’ve paled then. It was hard to say with the window behind him and his face cast in shadow. “Why did you choose that?”
“Because I realised there was something more important than survival.” I found myself studying my poison stained hands as they wrung together. “But… I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know who that makes me now.” It had been at the core of who I was and what I did for so long. Who was I without it? “What do I want, if not to survive? What else is there?”
The terror of that gripped my throat.