Page 78 of Cursed Shadows 1

Back in our shared time, I could only glamour leaves or parchment into human currency, or dark circles under my eyes into a brightened complexion, vanish away a small bruise here and there. Not this. This took a long time of practice.

I shrug and take the valerian.

Through an inhale of smoke, I dismiss the praise I sought from him, but the praise that feels empty in the face of the Sacrament, “It’s mild. I can’t trick my appearance to look like another’s. Just small things. Mud to stones, stones to copper, copper to silver. It wears off fast.” The best glamourer I know of is Affay’s brother, Prince Angus. He can glamour himself into camouflage. “So how will it help me in the passage? I can’t make myself look like a dragon, or even a shadow—it’s not that strong.”

And with my blood and breed, it never will be.

Daxeel just watches me for a long moment. It’s starting to feel likethen—like the memories I cling to, like hate and rage is fading away.

If he has the answer, he doesn’t give it. He just reaches out for the valerian and takes it.

I slump against the cushion and let my head fall back.

I look up at the dark skies.

Up there, it’s like an abyss beyond the pearlescent light of the glowworms and fireflies, like if there was no light here on the tower, the skies would crash down on us—and crush us.

“Your kind won’t let me make it to the caves before they strike me down.” My voice is a whisper, a confession—words of insult against his race that I shouldn’t be saying to him at all. “Glamour doesn’t help me against them.”

I’m not wrong.

If the dark fae don’t take me out for revenge after what I did to Daxeel, to one of their own, then they’ll do it just to wipe out another light one or even to anger the litalf males—so wildly protective of their own females, they never want any dark male to have us.

So it’s no lie that I’ll be targeted, and this isn’t either, “I’ll be as useless in the first passage as a human servant. And I’ll last even less time than one, because at least a human servant has some value.”

Daxeel’s eyes gleam through the silvery cloud of smoke that lifts from the valerian. He considers me, and I don’t think he’s deciding on how best to respond, but more his mind is working on all the pieces on his own chessboard.

He exhales with a sigh. “Servants,” he echoes the word with a hint of disdain. “Your kind,” he adds, and I see in my peripherals that his teeth are bared only slightly, “are surprising in that way. For fae who can’t lie, you seem to lie about yourselves all the time.”

I frown at the skies above, feeling the cool burn of his gaze on my face. But to look at him, I’d have to tuck my chin to my collarbone, and that feels like a risk. I don’t want him being sucked back into reality, the reality of his hatred of me, the reminder of his rage.

I want him to stay here with me, this fantasy dome on the tower.

He answers my unspoken question, “Your humans are slaves as much as ours are. Not servants.” I hear the ash flicked from the valerian. “They are stolen from bargains or born in your lands where you snatch them up, if you don’t steal them from the human realm itself. You enslave them but call it servitude.”

My mouth puckers with a scowl, and raindrops drizzle onto it. “You have slave markets,” I argue. “You point to them in cages and keep them in damp conditions. It is not the same.”

“It is the same,” he says, but there’s no sword’s edge to his tone. He just speaks, like we did back then. “It’s only thetransaction to acquire them that’s different. Your kind cannot self-perceive. Cannot see yourselves in the mirror.”

The rain falls harder now, striking us. But neither of us seem to notice or bother to shield ourselves.

I look down my body at him. The wet of the rain has his hair inkier than ever, and the rose of his mouth glistens.

“You fear my kind in the first passage,” he goes on, “but is it not the litalves who torment for fun, hunger to maim, yearn to torture? You have your Wild Hunts, your Eternal Dances, the Chase, rituals and sacrifices—and smile at the agony you inflict on those humans. But you look upon the dark ones as brutes and unevolved barbarians because we acknowledge our need to shed blood and to war and to kill. You judge us,” he adds darkly, “because we do not pretend that we are something else.”

I sigh up at the air. “Sometimes, I have the energy to bicker with you. Sometimes, I seek out a spat for the fun of it.”

Or just so you look at me.

“Not this Quiet,” I add. “My sorrow is for me, not the humans.” A bitter smile tugs at my lips. “But I might confess that I’ve missed how you sparring me with your words—and make me think in ways I didn’t before. Even when you’re wrong.”

Silence is my answer, but only for some moments.

The coffee table creaks with shifted weight.

Again, I look down my body at him.

He has his weight settled on one knee, and he outstretches his hand to offer the valerian.

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