Page 55 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
Aislinn glanced around her, checking no one was listening in. “We… might have done a moon dance.”
“Naked?”
Aislinn pursed her lips. “Not quite.”
“And?”
“It was… magical.”
“They’re supposed to be.”
“No, I mean… It wasreallymagical. No quiet hum. It was dripping from my fingertips.”
“Hardly surprising. You’re the future queen of Faerie. You’re supposed to feel magic more than the rest of us.”
“But I don’t, Beau. I never have. I feel more than nothing, but nothing like what Father talks about, or you…”
Beau cocked his head. “Are you having a moment of doubt?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you genuinely thinking that I would make a better queen than you?”
“You’d be a king, Beau.”
“I could be queen!” he said indignantly. “I could be the best queen that ever was!”
“That’s rather what I’m afraid of. Not that you’d be great, because you would be, and I wouldwantyou to be, but… I’m afraid that I won’t be good enough.”
“Magic doesn’t make a monarch!” Beau insisted. “I’d be terrible! I’d definitely get lost in a book and miss council meetings, or start asking personal questions to some visiting dignitary, or accidentally cut off someone’s head whilst trying to knight them, or—”
“Beau, you’re seventeen. I think you’ll grow out of it.”
Beau snorted. “You’re only nineteen,” he said, “and unless Mother makes good on her promise to murder Father, I reckon we’ll have him for a few centuries yet. You’ll be queen one day, but you don’t have to be queenyet.”
“That was extremely mature.”
“I have my moments.” He nudged her shoulder. “So, you and Caerwyn, then…”
Aislinn shook her head. “We arenotgoing there!”
“Why not? I thought we agreed you had plenty of time to fool around?”
“We did not, and I have better things to do than moon over some stupid mortal prince with ridiculously muscular arms and a soft, sullen mouth…”
“How can a mouth be sullen?” said Caer, appearing behind her, arms full of firewood.
Aislinn jumped. “How can you move so silently?”
“I wouldn’t say my mouth is sullen. Devilishly handsome, maybe. I’ll take the soft part. And my arms are agreeably muscular, I must say.”
“I, er, I, you’re not—” Aislinn’s mouth stalled. She coughed out another few horrid sounds, emulating a cat retching up a hairball.
Caer stared on, bewildered. He turned to Beau. “Is she all right?”
Beau just grinned. “She’s trying to find something to say that isn’t a lie and failing miserably. Probably something like ‘I hate you both’ or ‘I will end you’ but shecan’t.”
“I will find something horrible to do to you, Beau. Mark my words. If you say one more thing—”
