Page 6 of The Mirror and the Curse

She rolled herself to one side and pushed up to lean on her elbow, but her head seemed to whirl. “Kai?” she blurted. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes flew open to meet her gaze. “Eddi.” He visibly struggled for words, but then his features shifted into a quizzical expression, one brow quirked. “Haven’t you ever read ‘The Turtle and the Rabbit’?”

“What?”

“The old fable, you know. Stopping for a nap in the middle of a race is bad optics, Your Highness. Smacks of a superiority complex.”

Eddi’s brain cells slipped into gear, and she pulled a face. “Would stopping for a photo shoot be more acceptable?”

He appeared to consider the question. “If I get a signed eight-by-ten glossy.”

“I’ll be sure to have White autograph it with a hoofprint.”

He put on a mock scowl. “Hey!”

“Sure, he’ll accept hay in payment.” Proud of that quip, she nearly forgot their circumstances. But then her smug smile flipped into a frown. “Kai, where did he go? The guy you were talking with.”

His expression turned wary. “He left to do further investigation, leaving me to explain the inexplicable.”

“I heard you talk about sleeping potion, an enchanter, and a mirror.” She tried to think, but her brain still felt sluggish. “So, somebody put a sleeping spell on me and White to keep us from winning the Stakes. Were you watching the race? Did you see what happened?”

He nodded once.

“And?”

He was silent, his expression solemn.

“I’m supposed to keep this hush-hush?” she guessed.

He nodded again. “We need you to keep what happened today to yourself.”

Eddi would have nodded if her head hadn’t felt like a lead weight. “All right. I’ll have to come up with a story. Hey, my stepmother does potion magic . . .”

Maybe Jakinda’s sweetness was a façade to conceal an evil, jealous heart? Possible, but a definite stretch.

Her gaze dropped to Kai’s hands, and curiosity rolled through her. “Were you doing some kind of magic on White?”

He sat back on his heels. “I was telling him not to worry about you.”

Eddi processed this. “But you weren’t talking. You told him that through dwarf magic?” she guessed. “I mean, in a way he understands?”

“Yes, but the magic is his, not mine.”

“You can communicate with him using your hands?”

His brows quirked. “Touching was just to comfort him.”

“Then how?”

“Fterotá—winged horses—communicate with . . .” He visibly struggled to find the words. “Brainwaves? Emotion?”

Excitement felt like an inflating balloon inside Eddi’s chest. “I knew it! I knew I was missing something with White, but I didn’t know what it was. Can he sense my emotions any time he wants to?”

“He can unless you deliberately conceal them from him. He can sense thoughts and motivations as well. He’s probably been eavesdropping on yours all along.” One brow twitched, and a smile quirked his lips. “The poor guy must be so confused.”

Eddi huffed. “Very funny. But he doesn’t share anything with me. Why?”

“Stubbornness? Fear? With his past, he has good reason to distrust humans. I doubt he would have allowed me to see all that if he’d been awake.” Kai tipped his head. “Earlier, he fretted in his sleep, worried that he’d harmed you.”

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