All That Glows (13 page)

There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.
I look at my hand, so vivid and light against Richard’s sun-kissed skin. My pulse starts to gallop. I feel it in my fingertips, beating against the tenderness of the prince’s cheek.

“Anywhere. Just not here,” he says.

Footsteps, faint in the hall, reach my ears. My hand pulls away, lashing back like a bullwhip. My fingers become a fist, curling deep into the unworn skin of my palm. Nails dig, forming bright pink crescent moons in unseen flesh.

We both look over at the door, listening as the muted thuds in the rug grow closer, closer, closer. Finally they’re here. And then the footsteps pass, their tempo fading, growing silent. My fist remains, a bundle of knuckles, joints, and guilt.

No more touching.

Richard looks back at me. Light from the window pulls a rare green-blue sheen into his eyes. They remind me of the ocean, how it looks just after a storm: weathered, eternal.

This is going to be hard.

Twelve

I
t takes a miracle and a little bit of magic to escape the palace unnoticed. We walk down London’s streets, together but distinctly apart. My hands are tucked into my elbows, and Richard has his shoved into the pockets of his trousers. It took me a few minutes to decide where I should walk. In front of him? Behind? How close? I settle for two feet from his right side, farther from the steely cars that rip past the sidewalk, leaving behind the stench of peeling rubber and exhaust.

The afternoon is gray, overcast. The smell of almost rain swells through the air. Even so, Richard soon starts sweating in his dress shirt. He rolls up his carefully pressed sleeves and loosens his collar.

“I hate this bloody getup,” he mutters, and undoes the button I just fastened. “It makes me feel like a mannequin.”

“It used to be a lot worse,” I tell him. “Fur cloaks and chain mail. You’ve got it good.”

“I think I’d cut a rather dashing figure in chain mail, don’t you?” He laughs. It’s strange how quickly his mood has lightened, away from the palace. The storm clouds that dampened his spirits and lurked behind his eyes are gone. The weight of his father’s death is only a shadow.

“You’d be dashing no matter what you wore.”

“You think so?”

“Stop fishing for compliments. You know you’re sickeningly handsome.” I mean for these words to be teasing, but they betray me. Come out earnest.

“So you’re saying I make you sick?” Richard pulls a wry face and teases back. I don’t know what’s behind his verbal parry. Unlike most humans, he isn’t very easy to read. Even his aura is murky and muddled. It’s difficult to pick out his feelings from my interpretations of them.

“You flatter yourself.” I skirt the subject, like a mouse that’s decided it’s had enough cheese. “The machines do that well enough.”

We turn off of the street, into an abundance of trees and grass. All of the breath abandons my body in a single gust when I realize where we are. Without meaning to, I’ve followed Richard back here: Hyde Park.

“You’re okay though, aren’t you?” he asks.

“Yes, I’m not old enough to be seriously affected. For now.” I can’t help but shudder. Such talk only serves to remind me of the Old One. Of the threat that looms, far more heavy and devastating than a group of rain clouds.

“Does being here help?” He nods at the collage of trees, all bursting into the shades of early summer: mint, jade, emerald, olive, celadon.

So much green. It reminds me of the wilderness. Of the feelings of wholeness and health. It makes the constant nausea at the base of my throat all the more awful.

“As much as it can,” I tell him. “I haven’t thrown up since The Blind Tiger. I’m getting used to the city, I think.”

“That’s why I brought you here, you know. Last time. Figured it would be better than a pub.”

“Much.” All at once I see where this conversation is going. Just like our physical steps, crunching hard on beige gravel, getting closer and closer to that bench.

“Look, I just want to know.” He stops and scuffs the ground, calling up clouds of chalky dust. “Why did you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“You know . . . our kiss.”

I try to keep walking, but Richard stays anchored. Soon there’s a haze of gravel particles roiling through the distance between us. We’re up to our knees in it.

He goes on, trying his hardest to kill the silence I’ve settled into: “There was something there. I know you felt it too. Why did you stop?”

There’s an ache. An emptiness inside me I didn’t really know about until now. Has it always been here, waiting for this one moment to show me how much I° don’t have? My mouth falls open, hoping to let it out.

But all that escapes me is more wordlessness.

Richard watches, relentless. “You’re different from all the other girls. . . .”

“That’s because I’m not a girl!” The words explode out of me like some triggered land mine. Hot and piercing. They rain on the prince like shrapnel. “I’m your Frithemaeg, Richard! My job is to protect you . . . nothing else!”

“But you felt it, didn’t you?” He doesn’t give up. Doesn’t flinch. “Just tell me you felt it too!”

Those eyes, I feel them on me, staring through darkened lashes. And I’m sure he knows the truth, sees it rising in the blood just under my skin.

Stupid human face. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“It doesn’t matter what I felt,” I say.

Richard looks on the verge of a smile, ready to chase the matter with the complete dedication of a hound pursuing a fox. But his mouth stays straight, set. “Damn.”

He’s not talking to me. I know this because his gaze has shifted, its arrows no longer cracking my breastbone. “What?”

The prince nods over my shoulder and I immediately understand. Just a few yards away, lurking by a wildly untrimmed hedge, are men with cameras. Their shutters click with bursts as rapid as machine-gun fire. I’d been so caught up in the heat of the moment, the tangle of emotions cocooning me in, that I hadn’t felt them coming.

Richard stiffens. “They can’t see you, can they?”

I check my veiling spells. They’re altered so only Richard knows my presence. All the camera lenses see is the prince, walking through the trees, talking to himself.

“I’ll take care of it.” I face the paparazzi, trying to work out the spells I’ll need to erase the memories in their minds and on their cameras.

Before I can weave the spells, every single photographer stands straight, turns and jogs away.

“Nice work,” Richard says. “Wish that would happen every time.”

“I—I didn’t do that—” The air thrums with magic: a banishing cast that isn’t my own.

I don’t fully sense the other immortal’s presence until it’s too late. The bushes at Richard’s side shudder, and a long arm, pale as larvae, bursts through the leaves. A knife-edged cry leaves the prince’s throat as the attacker drags him back into the towering hedge.

I waste no time. A wordless spell rips through my arm into the bushes. There’s a shudder and a high, grating wail. The hand retreats into the flaming leaves. Richard stumbles forward, eyes wide.

The unearthly keen stops; the only sounds are the light snaps and hisses from the fire. The bush is a torch, blazing, its leaves curling into tiny black scrolls.

A Green Woman bursts out, gold-strung hair radiant with a halo of my fire. She lunges, a terrifying beauty wreathed in flame, fingers gnarled and teeth bared.

The rush of magic is magnificent when we collide. The Green Woman’s power, so foreign, yet familiar at the same time, jolts through my bones. It buzzes between my joints and behind my teeth, leaving a slight burning taste on my tongue.

“Blodes geweald!” I manage to shout just before her hands find my throat.

The soul feeder’s grip is strong, trapping air inside my windpipe—stopping any spells from being spoken. The white burn of my own magic wraps around my neck, eating away at my skin. My failing arms rise to claw her face, only to be singed by the flames there. The Green Woman doesn’t seem affected by the fire that swallows her. There’s a shield between her and my spells—its magic tastes different from the Green Woman’s. It’s far older and richer, like a honey-gold mead poured over vinegar. It reams through my senses, brimming power and shock: the protection of the Old One.

A sharp kick loosens my opponent’s grip, if only for the slightest second, and I scream a well-chosen word: “Adwæsce!”

The flames wither into nothing. My neck no longer feels like pins and needles are being jammed through my veins. I twist, thrash, flail. Try to get away from the Green Woman before she can speak again. Her face is clear now, unmarred by flames, her lips managing a grim smile.

“I see you did not take our warning, sister. I’m sorry!” As the words leave her lips, the mirage of supple flesh melts away. Beauty becomes a beast, peels back into vein-riddled, charred parchment skin. Teeth like a shark. Bared and ready to tear.

I feel the spell building up inside her. It’s powerful—not meant to hinder or disable, but extinguish. She means to end me.

My mind scrambles to find an effective defensive spell. The words, treacherously hidden within the many layers of my memory, don’t come. I’m going to die, and Richard with me.

Shouting, growling fury fills my fading ears. There’s a flash of charcoal suit and human skin; the Green Woman’s withered hands are wrenched from my throat. I cough, sit up. The Green Woman lays only an arm’s length away, paralyzed by shock and the fact that a lanky-limbed man is on top of her. Richard has her pinned to the ground, his face a war mask. The prince just saved our lives.

“Hold her throat!” I scream at him, my voice hoarse under bruising skin. “Don’t let her speak!”

He responds quickly, his long fingers wrap harsh around the creature’s strung, knotty neck. She’s effectively gagged.

I pick myself up off the ground, wasting no time with sore joints as I move over the helpless predator. A spell as horrible as the one locked up inside her cannot be released without a word, so it stays, corroding her soul instead of mine.

“You have violated the treaty of Camelot,” I rasp. “You’ve committed treason against Queen Mab and the rest of our kind. For this, the consequence is death.”

I bend down and study the shield clinging to her gray skin. It’s older and more powerful than I first realized. I don’t know if my magic alone can shatter it.

“What do I do?” Richard yells. His knuckles are tight, white as a winter moor.

“Just don’t let go,” I tell him, my mind scrambling for the right spell.

Slowly but surely, it comes to me. Word by word, the magic builds inside my body, taking the form of something dangerous and unwieldy. If I don’t handle it right, Richard could end up dead.

“Ábrece innan. Áfeorse!” All of my energies pour out, raging against the shield.

For a terrible moment, the Old One’s magic seems to hold. Then cracks, nearly invisible, race across the Green Woman’s skin, splitting off one another like a quickly spun web.

“Læte!” I shriek the final word.

The huntress’s eyes meet mine, solidly unrepentant. I watch, my jaw set as the body in front of me starts to dissolve. It begins at the edges, pieces of her disappearing like sand sucked through an hourglass. Richard’s gasp of horror reminds me that he’s still straddling the dying creature. I put my hand out.

“Stay there. Don’t let go of her throat.”

He nods dumbly. His hands stay clenched until there’s no longer any neck to choke. The Green Woman is gone. I stand and stare at the smoking ground, where her body lay seconds before.

Richard stands slowly, wiping loose crumbles of dirt and leaves from his irreversibly stained trousers. “What the hell was that?”

I ignore his question as I feel around the park. It seems the Green Woman was alone in this attempt. But her death is fresh in the air; it won’t be long before other soul feeders arrive to investigate. There’s only one safe place Richard and I can go. The place we never should have left.

“We’ve got to get back to Buckingham. Now.”

But he doesn’t move. “Embers, what just happened?”

“I’ll tell you everything when we’re back on the palace grounds. I promise.” I look at his hand. It’s trembling, fingertips blurry with movement. I don’t reach out for it.

***

Richard’s mother is waiting for him. Her face the definition of anger—colorless and winched tight, ready to snap—as she watches him stumble down the hall. Clods of earth are still wedged in the tread of his oxfords, leaving a distinct bread-crumb trail of dirt as he follows me. Although I know she can’t see me, the queen’s glare is enough to send chills down my spine and give me pause. Richard keeps walking. Past me, past the lifeless, stone busts of his ancestors, past his mother.

“Where have you been?” she sputters once she realizes he isn’t going to stop. “What happened to your clothes?”

He keeps walking.

“I asked you a question, Richard!” His mother marches after him, heels stamping over her son’s filthy tracks. “You just stood up the prime minister and a room full of journalists! At least have the decency to answer me.”

Richard reaches the door to his private apartments, rooms that were once his father’s. It’s here he pauses and looks his mother in the eye. “Not now, Mum.”

She stares at him, her wiry lips slack into a perfect, speechless O.

I slip, fluid through the door as soon as Richard opens it. Every single corner of the room is scoured clean by my magic. No soul feeders. I know now, after our hasty walk back through the gathering rain clouds, that this was my fault. Even though I knew there were assassins on the loose, I’d let myself get caught up in Richard, in these . . . feelings I can’t seem to shake. I ignored my duties, skipped protocol. Richard almost ended up dead for it.

More angry words fly behind the door, all spark and heavy black smoke, before Richard finally enters and shuts it behind him. His back leans hard against the thick wood.

“My father didn’t die of a stroke, did he?”

Rain is falling, beating against the window beside me. The sound should be soothing. Instead all I can feel is the blade of the Green Woman’s magic, still slicing and paring my skin.