Page 19 of What did you do?

“It’s part of his job, Caly. Let him. You’ll need to adjust to people helping you now that you will be living in the castle. The bag will be taken to your room for you. Let’s go inside; I know mother is dying to see you,” the princess said, sounding more than a little annoyed. She laced her arm in Eli’s, who linked his in mine, and guided us forward—away from my things.

I smiled wide, making certain it reached my eyes. I gave Eli’s arm a light squeeze before deftly unlinking it as they continued. “Just give me one second,” I mumbled in their direction.

With the smile still plastered on my face, I walked back to the guard who held my bag and scanned his gold armor. They were either really powerful and didn’t need very good armor, or they were foolish and it was for decoration. Either way, it was ineffective. I noticed several arteries fully exposed. Even their helmets left their faces open for an attack. I didn’t deal with magic very frequently with the fae I killed in the human realm though, so I had to assume that they were far more dangerous than they appeared. It didn’t help that every one of the guards also had a small, creepy grin on their face. I would need to adjust to that.

The guard with my bag paused for a second, likely trying to figure out why I was approaching him.

Smile still plastered to my face, I leaned in and whispered into his slightly pointed ear where small tufts of white hair peeked out, “You are going to hand me my bag.” I leaned back to look in his face, gave him a bright smile, and let out a giggle. His smile faltered but returned once I giggled again. “You are going to give me my bag right now, or I am going to take it from you, and trust me, you don’t want that.” I laughed, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Like a good guard, he glanced to Eli, who rolled his eyes and nodded, no doubt having heard every word I’d whispered with his foxlike hearing. My hand tingled slightly on the guard’s shoulder, and I pulled it away to take the bag from him just as he and everyone else noticed the wisps of smoke trailing into the sky from my hand.

What the fuck was going on with this? I needed to run some tests and figure out exactly what caused it to react. It hadn’t gone off when the portal guard had touched me and had even stayed dormant a few times when Eli had. It didn’t make any sense.

I shifted my bag’s strap over my shoulder and rejoined the group, smile still in place. I wanted to make a mental checklist of things to test for, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin with this kind of thing. As soon as I got settled, I would ask Eli about a library.

My arm once again looped through Eli’s, I began to walk before he caught my gaze, tilting his head a fraction. The customary best-friend check to make sure I really was ok. Barely hidden concern leached out of his pretty honey eyes. I nodded back with a real smile this time, and we continued up the mammoth-sized stone steps into the Seelie castle.

If I had thought for a single moment that the outside of the Seelie castle had been obnoxious, the inside was like a punch to the face.

Mendax and Queen Tenebris’s castle had been opulent, but the Seelie castle made theirs look like a small manor in comparison. It was deceptively large, even considering the outside made it look like an absolute monstrosity. The inside felt repulsively grand—and gold.

Bright, shiny gold—not the deep, dark gold of human jewelry, but a neon, sparkling, gleaming gold that bathed every inch of the interior, making my eyes tremble and squint. The unbelievably tall ceilings, marble floors, intricate molding, andcarved doors that seemed to go on endlessly down a hallway were all gold.

Holy shit.

What was I doing here? I didn’t belong here.

“I’m going to go find Mother. She is going to be so excited to see you,” Tarani said with a sly quirk to her smile as she left Eli and I in the entryway.

I craned my neck and saw the ceiling wasn’t simply gold, but bright rays of sunshine also beat down harshly on every crack and crevice.

Already, I missed the gentle comforts of the darkness. This hurt my eyes and made me feel…exposed. Did everyone feel this way under the scorching ceiling? Perhaps they had done this intentionally.

“Just the hallways are spelled to have the sunshine on them,” Eli added as he watched me try and relax my face. “The Seelie royals are the house of the sun, and we are light wielders. The queen, Princess Tarani, and I are the only SunTamers left,” he said proudly, tracking my reaction.

“Was Langmure a SunTamer?” I asked, regretting my words the moment I said them.

“Yes. My brother was a SunTamer before Mendax killed him,” he snarled and looked at his shoes.

“I’m sorry, Eli. I-I didn’t mean to bring it up,” I apologized.

What the fuck? This was the worst possible entrance to the Seelie castle I could have made.

“Cal, you have nothing to apologize to me about. You killed my brother’s murderer. I should be thanking you.”

The burning in my lungs threatened to knock me down.

When would I feel good about what I had done for my family? Would it ever feel right?

I had killed many times before. As an assassin, I had killeda lot. It was all I knew.

In all the times I had taken someone’s life, not once had I felt as broken and hollow as I had after Mendax.

What a fool I was.

There was no hiding that I had started to fall in love with Mendax. I deserved every hollow moment that I got for being such a fool. Once I got the other half of my heart back, I would feel differently. I had to. I would stop thinking about him. Stop missing him. It would all be a part of the past.

If I could go back, I would kill Mendax all over again just for making me feel so miserable without him.

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