“Yeah, well. I had other things on my mind.”
“Indeed.”
“Anyway, the idea behind CPR is that it keeps oxygenated blood flowing through the body after a cardiac arrest. It’s even been known to restart the heart, or at least keep things moving until a defibrillator can be used.”
Idris finally deigned to look at me. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“A defibrillator sends an electric shock to the heart. It can restore the rhythm.”
I thought of Hyacinth, bleeding out on the forest floor. A defibrillator would have made no difference, not with that amount of blood loss. I looked at my hands again, still stained red. I scrambled to the water’s edge and dipped them into the lake. I rubbed and twisted, trying to free myself of Hyacinth’s ghost. Who was I trying to fool? It would haunt me until my last breath. I swiped my hands on my trousers. They weren’t clean, but they were better than they had been. I turned to the prince.
“What are you drawing?”
He’d resumed his sketching and didn’t pause or look up at my question. “None of your business.”
“I answered loads of questions.”
“And yet, I asked only two, one of which you failed to answer. You like the sound of your own voice, human.”
“I have a name.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Fine, fae. What are you drawing?”
He snapped the book shut, fixing me with a glare so similar to his brother’s and yet lacking all of his warmth. “Nothing. Not anymore.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Trying to get away from you.”
I scowled.
“And everyone else,” he conceded, losing some of his waspishness but assuming an air of extreme boredom.
“I’d have thought that after a few centuries sealed in a box you might be glad of company. Especially after tonight.”
“Perhaps I grew fond of the silence.”
I couldn’t relate. He was right about one thing; I did love to talk. Maybe not as much as Pansy, but I enjoyed the company of other people. Most of the time. Except when they were Idris.
“Are you… okay? After what happened?” I dared to ask, bracing myself for a stinging reply.
None came. Instead, he asked, “What are you doing out here?”
I picked up another pebble and threw it at the lake. It did no better than the first. “The witches lied to me.”
I wouldn’t mention Anwir, not to his brother. It probably wouldn’t go down well. But what had Anwir called Idris? Tedious? I snorted. He wasn’t wrong.
“About?”
“About everything, I think.” I heaved a sigh, my shoulders sagging. “Ever since my first day here, all I’ve wanted was to go home. They said the rifts were closed, and that the only way to open them was to wake you two. Is that true?”
“As a victim of said curse, I wasn’t privy to its inner workings.”
“Oh. Well, anyway. Now they’re asking me to stay longer, to pretend I wan—I mean, to pretend I’m going to marry your brother and be this ridiculous Human Queen.”
“You don’t want to be queen?”
“No.”
The scratch of his pencil resumed. “You seemed to be enjoying my brother’s company. Do you mean to tell me you’re not falling over yourself to put on a pretty dress and marry the charming prince?”
I smiled. I actually smiled. For the first time, Idris and I seemed to be on the same page. “Believe it or not, no. I want…” I trailed off, my throat restricting, my eyes stinging. My earlier numbness had long since vanished, and it was only in its absence that I realised what a blessing it had been. There were too many emotions fighting for space inside me. Hope was still there, though it dimmed with every passing day. I missed Mum and Dad, and the cramped house that I’d desperately wanted us to escape from. I missed my friends and the future I’d toiled for and earned with my own sacrifice and determination. A future I could be proud of because I’d forged it myself. Not this one. Not this glittering, magical prophecy. I looked up at the smattering of glimmering stars beyond the canopy of leaves, so beautiful, so vivid, compared to the night skies of the human world. “I want to go home.”
“Anwir will win back his kingdom soon enough. The palace of Tir o Haf is quite something.”
“What?” I turned to give him a questioning look. Was it my imagination, or were his eyes rimmed in red? I couldn’t quite tell in the dark, but the skin around them looked darker. He looked exhausted. I’d never seen such dark shadows hang beneath anyone’s eyes before. “No, I mean, my home. The human world. I want to go back.”
“Oh really?”
He didn’t even look at me, the ignorant prick. He just lounged against the tree trunk, sketching away, his dark hair flopping into his eyes, his long legs crossed at the ankles.
“I know you don’t care, you arrogant, immortal bastard, but you insisted I answer your stupid question. I won’t bother next time.”
He made a small breathy noise as one side of his lips curved, revealing the slightest glimpse of teeth. The nearest thing to a smile I’d seen from him. “It’s not that I don’t care, I just don’t believe you.”
He really was a tit. I should have left him locked away, sleeping off his curse, where he couldn’t sneer at any of us.
