Page 44 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
He lies back on the bed, eyes covered by his arm and his legs dangling over the edge. No matter how powerful he is, in that moment, Neirin is as worn as me. I stare at him before I close the door, and it’s only when it’s shut that I realize.
This room has only one bed.
It’s large enough for two and covered in clean, white sheets. An armchair is tucked in a corner beside a set of drawers with a washbasin, and a window juts out from the wall, underneath which is a small bench.
I’m so tired that a part of me just wants to accept it. But I can’t.
“I’ll not share a bed with you,” I say.
Neirin uncovers his eyes and cranes his neck to look at me. It’s an unflattering angle, and I’m happy to know that even he can look terrible at times. “Why?”
I shoot him an incredulous look. “Because it’s improper. You’re a boy; I’m a girl.”
“I’m hardly a boy,” he reminds me.
“But I’m still a girl,” I protest. “And you certainly act like a boy.”
Neirin glances at me quizzically. “Is it true that in your time only people who are married can share a bed?”
“Yes,” I say slowly, as if talking to an imbecile, “and we aren’t married.”
Neirin looks at the palm of his hand, then turns it to me, revealing the smooth, raised scar where I burned him with my ring.
“We’re bound to each other in our own way,” he reminds me.
Indeed.
I cross to the window seat and shrug off my coat. The bench isn’t big enough for me to lie down on, but I can sit and rest my head on the glass.
“I’ll sleep here.” I toe off my boots, clamber up onto the seat and draw my knees to my chest.
“Am I really so unappealing?”
I can hear the smile in his voice. The village is still, while the music and shouts from the pub below are muffled, by magic, I assume. A fox creeps up the road, sticking to the silver path left by the moon.
I glance over at Neirin, and the confusion on his face is obvious. He looks away and says, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Not physically, at least.
He’s still a handsome lord, and I’m still a girl pretending I don’t want to be every bit as great as he is.
“There’s a fox,” I tell him, trying to steer us away from conversations about beds and exactly how appealing I find him. “Gran says they were her sister’s favorite animal. We have a fox that sits in our garden at night. Gran would say it was her sister come to visit, to watch over us.”
“Is her sister… dead?” He says it like it’s a foreign word.
“I don’t know. She disappeared.” I lean my forehead against the cold glass. “Just like mine. I need to find her. I can’t… I can’t be like Gran. I wouldn’t survive without my sister.”
Neirin’s shadow shifts in the dark reflection of the glass as he sits up. “All along you’ve been saying she’s going to die without you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek until I’m close to drawing blood. “She will, and so would I if I were back in Llanadwen, waiting for her. They’re different deaths, one far more drawn out than the other, but they’re both deaths nonetheless. We’re sisters,” I say tightly. “We’re not supposed to be apart.”
“You’re avoiding the truth,” he says. “I like it when humans do that, andyoudo it more than most. I think you’ve been lying since the moment we met.”
I turn to face him slowly. His shirt is hanging open more than usual—I wonder if that’s supposed to catch my eye. Unfortunately, it absolutely does. His chest is as pale as the rest of him and smooth over taut muscle. I stare for a beat too long, pretending it’s merely out of academic curiosity about whether ellyll anatomy is any different from human, and Neirin leans back, like he wants me to keep looking. My face is hot, but who am I to refuse? He seems to enjoy the attention just as much as I hate being the one to give it.
“No retort?” he says.
The string between us snaps, striking me as it breaks. I blink, and I finally understand what he said moments before.
