All That Glows (22 page)

I take in Richard’s smell: a tangy mix of soap and his own, natural musk. Earth and sea salt. I memorize every inch of exposed skin, noting the freckles and scars: the crescent moon, soda-can sliver on his thumb, the knotted, pearly dog bite.

Love: a word that holds so much in four brief letters. What does it mean for me to love him? It’s a thought so huge and foreign I can barely fit my brain around it.

One thing I do know: being so close to him helps me forget the gut-shredding sickness, the traitors, and the Old One. It would be so easy for me to just stay here, watch him forever.

But I don’t know if that’s enough.

Eventually he opens his eyes. He finds me there, watching. He doesn’t flinch when our gazes meet. Instead he holds my eyes in a steady, unrelenting stare. Fear, yearning, love. All of these swirl up inside me, a pillar holding right now together, pulling my old self apart. I’m motionless on the edge of the mattress, scrambling to read what might be behind those irises of henna and green.

And though that draw is still, always, between us—a forte of feeling under my skin—Richard seems now, more than ever, unreadable.

“I don’t think I can get out of bed,” he says. His breath blows hot against my face, full of blue tingle mouthwash.

The hairs on my arm rise, like tiny twists of fire, flickering for more breath, more touch. I try my best to ignore them. Right now is about Richard. About helping him face the day. “You start by sitting up.”

He groans, buries his bristly jawline into the creampuff pillow.

“You’re still afraid?” I ask after a while. Richard stays burrowed, as if some fabric and feathers can really shield him from the hours, days, years to come.

Finally he breathes deep and rolls on his back, exposing all the tautness of his shoulders and chest. I focus hard on his stubble-coated, pillow-indented mess of a face. “I don’t
feel
like a king. I have absolutely no bloody idea what I’m doing. . . .”

“None of the new monarchs did. Most of them felt the way you do now.” I reach out and take his hand. It’s cooler than mine, trembling like a discarded autumn leaf. “There’s no reason you won’t be a good king. All you can do is get out of bed and try to do best by what’s been handed to you.”

“They were scared too? My father was scared?” Slowly, surely his grip steadies until I can’t tell if I’m holding his hand or he’s holding mine.

“Oh sure. Some more than others. They all had their fears. Henry the Third was a mess. Albeit, he was nine years old.”

“I guess that puts things into a little perspective.”

Right now, in this little heaven of cloudy sheets and amber dawn light, I long to graze my palms against his face, kiss him. More than that, I want to tell him everything, to pronounce, so loud and clear and eloquent, the word
love.
But fear spools out, painting so many different futures: Richard accepting my love, asking me to give up everything. Richard running, tearing me to pieces with his denial.

I don’t know which would break me more.

So I swallow it back, for another time. “You’re going to be an amazing king, Richard. You have Edward’s steel. And more, I think.”

The smile on his face is fresh, full of newness.

“I’ll always believe in you. Now get out of bed, you lazy arse. We have a birthday party to go to.”

Richard shoots me a look of bale and mock contempt. “That’s no way to treat a king!”

“Even kings need a push every now and then.” I slide off the bed. “Oh, and Richard?”

He grunts and starts sorting through his floor laundry for an acceptable outfit. From the look of the crumpled shirts and slacks, I doubt he’ll find anything of worth in that pile.

“Happy birthday.”

Richard pauses; the smile on his face blazes like the noon. I tuck the sight away in my mind. I know I’ll need it, to remember, in the days to come. “Thanks, Embers.”

The party is extravagant, a worldwide affair of friends, family, and unstoppably grinning diplomats. There’s an elaborate five-course meal of fruit, pheasant, and every other expensive ingredient. A multitiered cake towers in one corner, waiting to be cut. There are more toasts than I care to count—explosions of corked tops fizzing gold into glasses every few minutes—pour after pour after pour in Richard’s honor.

Under six pear-shaped chandeliers of blazing crystal, they dance, mingle, and drink until they glow. I feel as if I’ve stepped back in time, watching them. Silk-clad women glide around pomegranate carpet, cocktails in hand. Men in sharp tuxedos gather in groups. Their conversations of politics and art are as circular as they’ve been for centuries.

As the night goes on, the furrow in Richard’s brow grows. He watches his mother flit in and out of the crowds—newly refreshed from her time in Bath. She hasn’t said a word to her son. Not that she needs to. I can tell the occasion is too much for him. These scores of distinguished guests, the orchestra, the flower arrangements that resemble small jungles. There’s not an eye in the room that hasn’t pinned and examined him like some elaborate foreign insect.

It doesn’t help that there’s alcohol in the room. It flows abundantly, in champagne flutes and endless wine bottles. The crowd of faces grows increasingly flushed and the laughter grows volumes louder by the hour.

It’s all too much. It doesn’t take a Fae’s sense to know he’ll run.

Richard’s gracious smile stays, faithful as a trained dog, when he heads for the door. He glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m following. I weave through the crowd, ducking beneath martinis and wild-slung elbows. Though it would be easier to fly over their coiled, braided heads, I prefer to preserve my magic. Tonight, with the confused crowd and newly anointed power of Richard’s kingship, is the perfect opportunity for the Old One’s assassins.

Richard doesn’t stop at the door. He walks through the palace’s grand, public rooms, roped off and dimmed. We pass through these silhouettes of grandeur like a night train, flying past the bruise-shaded darkness without braking. Although we’re in the same building, it feels as though we’re worlds away from the bright noise of the party. The silence of the halls is strange, invading after an evening of constant chatter.

“Where are we going?” I ask after we plow through the second room.

“You’ll see.” Richard pauses to let me catch up with him. Somewhere in his journey out of the ballroom he managed to snatch an unopened bottle of champagne. He grips its gold-papered neck with terrible tightness.

More questions rise, about the bottle, our path, but I bite them back. The last thing Richard needs right now is more pressure. I have to let him lead.

We continue to the far corner of the palace. To a place Richard’s daily duties never take him. Out of all of Buckingham’s many rooms, the one that holds the swimming pool is my favorite. Its walls are all windows, presenting a full view of the gardens beyond. Now, with the night, the light of the stars creeps through the panes, raining silver on the water. The pool is smooth and undisturbed, acting as a mirror.

Richard sits. The jungle-green bottle tinks hard against the tile as he sets it down. His fingers uncurl, fall away from it.

“Some birthday, huh?” His laugh, the hollowness of it, bounces off the windows, rounds us like a repeating canon.

“Your mother does know how to organize a party.” I come to rest just inches from the pool ledge, inches from him.

“It was Belle, I think. If Mum had her way, she would hide me forever.”

“You’ve done a good job today,” I tell him.

The sudden tilt of his head, the slant of his eyes on me, speaks surprise. “You think?”

“Of course.” I think back on the day, full of more press conferences, meetings, and paperwork. How Richard walked through it all with steadiness, poise. “Anyone would be tired after today.”

Richard’s agreement is a sigh, low and whistling like a cello note. He reaches for the bottle, his fingers working hard and quick to unwrap the paper and twist the wire that tamps down its cork. Even though I expect it, the blast of the cork stops my heart.

Richard watches the carbon-dioxide wisp out, his four fingers coiled, python-like, around the neck’s ripped paper. I wait and wait for him to bring the glass to his lips. But he doesn’t.

“Want any?” He holds it out so that the smell of flowers and apples and air fills my head.

I shake my head, fighting the sudden urge to knock it from his hands and watch it shatter against the poolside. It’s
his
choice. His alone.

He squints a single eye down into that mass of bubble and fizz. Then looks back at me. He sets the bottle on the ground, at his other side, so there’s nothing between us. I’m still breathless as Richard edges closer.

His lips are close and he’s going to kiss me. I want him to. I want him to so badly. But I think of the champagne bottle and where we are and what’s behind us and I can’t let him.

“I—I don’t want to be your excuse,” I manage, pulling the fight from some subconscious part of myself. Because now I know what this means, our lips touching, making me love him more. And I want it to mean the same thing for him. Because if it doesn’t . . .

The thought makes my heart raw-edged and bloated with its fullness.

Richard pauses. His nose is so close to mine that I can’t tell if we’re touching or not.

I go on. “You have to stop running.”

“I’m not running.” He pulls back, his manner a puzzle-work of confusion, restraint.

“Are you sure?” I think of every kiss, every touch, born at the height of emotions so strong they singe the air around us. I point to the bottle beyond his thigh. “That used to be your escape. What is it now? It can’t be me. I’m not some high you can just keep going back to again and again to drown out the rest of the world.”

“Embers, you aren’t my escape,” he says, solid and sure. “You’re the reason I’ve stayed.”

So I kiss him. The truth of it all is that he has become my escape. The way his skin melts into mine, how his fingers dance against my cheek. It sets every cell, every fiber of my being ablaze. In this moment I can forget the sickness and the loss. The decay of everything falls away into something healing, altogether beautiful.

But it’s short. So short. We break before the room lanterns bright with my magic.

We both sit in darkness, full of hard breath and pulled into ourselves.

“You know,” he begins, “I used to be terrified of swimming.”

“Really?” I look down at the pool’s shimmer and gleam. The sight of the two of us, sitting so close together, gives me ache.

“Yeah.” Richard reaches out and dips his fingers into the water. Our images are instantly ruined, distorted by the ripples coursing through them. “I thought there were sea serpents in the water. I don’t know why. . . . But I put up such a fight that the swim instructor gave up.”

The image of a young Richard, kicking and screaming to get away from the pool, is both humorous and saddening.

“Of course Anabelle, she jumped right in. She picked it up so fast you would’ve thought she was a mermaid.” Richard’s voice swells with admiration for his sister. “She’s never been squeamish about stuff like that. When I was younger, I’d always had this idea that when Father passed on I’d abdicate in favor of Anabelle. It’s just as well I didn’t have the choice; I had to prove to myself, to
him
that I could be a good king.”

I touch the water. It’s tepid, soothing beneath my fingertips. “What changed? What made you decide to learn to swim?”

He shrugs. “I grew older. I realized there were no such things as sea serpents.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I tease. My insides feel less leaden, less torn in the moment’s lightness.

Richard smirks. “Well, none in my swimming pool anyway.”

He stands upright, looking very much like a young king. His dinner jacket slides off his shoulders, crumples onto the poolside tiles. He kicks off his shoes and holds his arms above him, hands clasped together as if he’s praying.

Richard leaps, his swan dive close to perfect. He cuts effortlessly into the water. Small droplets of bleach and chlorine spray my face. My nose wrinkles its distaste as Richard surfaces, his hair plastered against his face like some strange war helmet. He treads the water well despite his soaking clothes.

“Come on!” He waves, flinging more beads of water through the air. “Don’t be shy!”

I cast a dubious look into the water, so clear and laden with chemicals.

“It won’t hurt! I promise!” Richard calls. “No sea serpents in here. I checked!”

“Oh. Well, in that case.” I lunge into the air, taking advantage of my magic to perform a string of elaborate acrobatics before I sink into the pool’s embrace.

Despite the pungent chemicals, the water slides like silk off my bare skin. I surface with a gasp, spitting the distasteful liquid from my lips.

“See. It’s not so bad.” Richard swims toward me. The force of his waves beat against me. Relentless.

“Richard! What the hell are you doing?”

Our heads whip at the sound of Anabelle’s sharp voice. The princess is standing on the pool’s edge, staring incredulously at the wrinkled dinner jacket, orphaned shoes, and brimming bottle of alcohol. Even in her annoyance, she’s stunning. Her dress is a sleek midnight blue, hugging her enviously slender form. Her hair is set in its usual loose curls, the front half pinned up with a diamond tiara.

Richard gives his sister a blithe arc of a wave. “Just taking a dip! Care to join?”

“But—but the party! They’ll expect you to give a speech. . . .” Anabelle falters.

He wipes his wet fringe from his face. “How’d you find me anyway?”

“Lawton said you headed this way,” his sister says, her voice crisper than a harvest apple. “They need you to cut the cake in five minutes.”

Richard stretches out to float on his back. “Everyone’s too tipsy to notice by now. Jump in, Belle! It’s refreshing!”

“I’ve been planning this party for
weeks
, Richard! God help me if you pull a stunt like this at your coronation. That’s going to take a bloody six months to organize!” His sister frowns, taps the champagne bottle with her foot. It tumbles over, topaz liquid sheeting all the surrounding tiles. “What’s gotten into you?”