Page 73 of Lady of the Lake

Talan is dressed more simply than usual in a tightly fitted charcoal shirt with short sleeves that shows off his tattoos and black trousers. No rings, no crown, no earring.

“This garden is beautiful,” I say. “I’ve been desperate for the sun and warmth.”

Talan’s gaze slowly rakes over me, the copper in his eyes smoldering with heat. He takes a slow step closer, his eyes burning into mine. “Well,” he says in a low voice, “this is interesting.”

“What?” I look down at myself. I’m dressed in a short yellow summer dress that stops high up on my thighs. It’s the type of thing I would have worn back at home in the summer heat—a short style never worn in Brocéliande.

My heart races. “What’s interesting? My dress?”

He drags his gaze from my thighs to my face. He goes strangely still, and shadows slide through his eyes. As his dark gaze pierces me, I feel as if he’s uncovering my secrets right here.

“When entering a dream, we reflexively shape our appearance in the way we see ourselves,” Talan says. “You’re wearing a dress that looks like something from the human realm. And it’s notjustthe dress.”

I inhale shapely, and he takes a step closer, stroking a fingertip over my earlobe, and a hot shiver trails in his wake.

He’s staring at me with utter fascination as it dawns on me exactly what has his attention.

Oh.Fuck.

My glamour doesn’t exist in the dream world. My breath speeds up, my pulse roaring.

When I stepped into Talan’s dreams all those days ago, he never actuallysawme. He sensed me, but he never found me, but now he sees me as I see myself—as human.

“Well, well, well.” The rich velvet of his voice has a sharp edge. “That’s certainly interesting.”

My heart is racing out of control. “It’s probably because of what you said earlier—that I’m as breakable as a human. It got in my head. It’s probably?—”

“It would be nice,” he says, “if you stopped fucking lying.”

I snap my mouth shut, my brain scrambling for an exit. He can kill me in the dream.

Talan tilts his head, studying me. “The glamour is impressive, I’ll give you that. Who wove it? Someone with incredible skill.”

I’m breathing so hard and fast, I’m not sure I can remember how to speak. “I…”

His eyes gleam with something I can’t quite read. “You’re demi-Fey. I’ve been wondering about your lungs.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, turning to face him, acting offended. “Demi-Fey are mongrels. They’re filth. I’m nothing like them. You know that. You’ve spent enough time around me. Do I really strike you as?—”

“You strike me as someone with secrets.” His voice is controlled and quiet, but an edge slides under it. “Secrets you’re keen to hide at all times. I met your father, who seemed Fey. But I’ve never seen your mother.”

My blood roars in my ears. “I can’t exactly introduce you to her if she’s dead.”

“You don’t need to. I can see what you are for myself.”

I swallow. The jig is up. Trying to deny it will just make him more suspicious of me. He still needs me, doesn’t he? And as long as he doesn’t know who I work for, maybe he won’t kill me. “The midwife glamoured me. I have been glamoured since I was young.”

He shrugs slowly. “There are numerous hidden demi-Fey in Brocéliande. I don’t share my father’s beliefs about them. I doubt he even believes what he says. The demi-Fey are a scapegoat for his own failures. Nothing more. Are your taxestoo high? Is your income too low? Are the roads crumbling and crime keeping you trapped in your home? It’s not the king’s fault. Never the king’s fault. It’s those insidious enemies of the kingdom, the demi-Fey, whom we’ve let live among us too long, rotting us from within. It’s a very convenient deflection for him, the first propaganda tactic of a tyrannical ruler. But is any of it real? No.”

I let out a long, slow breath, staring at him. “Okay.”

“However,” Talan says, “given how effective the propaganda is, I doubt Kahedin will find a demi-Fey in his dream reassuring.”

He lifts a hand, slowly stroking his fingertips over my earlobes again, his heat skimming against my skin. I shiver at his light touch, and tingles bloom at the contact.

He smiles faintly as he admires his work.

I touch them, feeling the pointy tips that weren’t there a second ago.

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