“Tell me how it happened. How you came to be here.”
I heaved a sigh. My tumble in the cave seemed like forever ago, and my bump to the head had made things hazy, but I told Anwir about the Fairy Glen, about how I hadn’t wanted to go into the cave at all, how, for whatever stupid reason, I’d wandered deeper than my friends, losing myself in the dark. How I’d slipped, and the next thing I’d known, I was here, in Neath. Lost and alone, with no way back.
“Then… your family…” Anwir began hesitantly.
I pressed my lips together in a cheerless smile. “They probably think I’m dead. That’s why I have to get back, Anwir. I can’t leave them like that. I can’t just disappear and leave them without answers.”
“You love them.”
“Of course I do. It's just me, Mum and Dad now. My grandparents are all gone, and my auntie lives abroad. I’m an only child, and my parents gave up everything to have me. I have to get back to them.”
“What do you mean, gave up everything?”
“Well, they couldn’t have kids naturally, so they had to pay for IVF.” Anwir’s brow knotted in a questioning frown. “Oh, it’s a medical thing. They take the egg and the, um, sperm” — God, how had I got into this? Why was I talking about sperm with a gorgeous, rich, immortal prince but not falling into bed with him? — “and they basically make a foetus in a little glass tube, and then transfer it into the mother. Anyway, it didn’t work the first few times, but they desperately wanted a child. They ended up selling their house and spending every penny they had on this treatment, until they got me.”
“You are a baby from a tube?”
“Yep. A miracle, according to my mum and dad.”
Anwir’s lips quirked in a smile. “I would have to agree with them. That you made it here, against all odds, that you woke Idris and I… The fact that you did all that without intending to be here… I would call that a miracle.”
My ears began to burn. I ruffled my damp hair, shifting it so the wet clumps fell over my ears, hiding them from view.
“Just a girl, trying to get home.”
Anwir’s smile dropped. “About that. Aliza, I know you want to leave. I know you will leave, and I understand. I do. But I must beg you. Please, consider staying a while longer. I expect nothing of you, and you’ve already given more than I deserve, but my people are in danger, and without you, I cannot save them. Will you hear me out?”
No. Absolutely not. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears and scream at the top of my lungs. This late-night tryst wasn’t playing out as I’d expected. I didn’t want to be roped into another scheme that had absolutely nothing to do with me. And besides, what use could I be? I’d already saved the princes, and now I was expected to save the kingdom? Nope, nope, nope.
“Okay,” I said.
What? What? No! Anwir’s tragic expression crumpled with relief, and he dragged a hand down his exquisite face as it broke into a smile. More guilt dolloped on top of everything I was already wrestling with. Letting the prince down would be nothing compared to the burdens I’d shouldered tonight, but I didn’t relish the thought of doing so, especially now I’d stupidly given him a shred of hope. I should have said no. I should never have allowed him to believe there was even the slightest chance I’d agree to whatever he was about to say.
“It’s nothing awful, or dangerous, I promise you that,” he insisted, maybe glimpsing my dismay. “I will allow no harm to come to you. All I want is for you to attend a few events. Balls, parades, that sort of thing. I want people to see you at my side. I want them to believe us united.”
“Balls? Why? What difference will that make?” I was no expert, but it didn’t seem like the most direct route to taking back a kingdom.
“It will bring them hope, Aliza. For millennia, we have heard whispers of the Human Queen who will rid this world of evil, a promise derived from a prophecy made by our first queen, sixteen thousand years ago. The Human Queen would rid my bloodline of evil. We tell our children bedtime tales about her. She has always been a part of who we are, a symbol of hope. When my uncle betrayed me and cast his curse, I’m certain he believed it an amusing quip to name a fragile, mortal human woman as the only one who could break the curse. An impossible caveat. He made it impossible by driving out your kind, slaughtering them until none remained. The day I fell asleep, it was in a thriving kingdom, brimming with all kinds of people, humans included. Your kind were as much a part of this world as mine. Then I wake to find hundreds of years have passed, and the humans are long gone. And yet, here you are. You came, just as we’ve always believed you would. You’ve already begun to fight the evil by breaking my uncle’s curse. Don’t you see? After all these years, glimpsing a human at my side, one who woke me, no less, will convince my people that redemption is at hand, that my uncle’s downfall has come at last. The prophecy has come to pass. The Human Queen has arrived.”
“So… You want me to be your mascot?”
“My rallying cry.” He leaned closer, skewering me with his golden-green stare. “Dance with me. Sit at my side. Smile. If you act as though you love me, my people will love me too. They will rise for me, fight for me. Fight for themselves. They have lived too long without hope of a better world. I can give it to them, but only if they believe in me. If they believe in us.”
Dancing at a royal ball didn’t sound that bad.
“And if you wish it,” Anwir continued, “when this is over, I will escort you back to the human world myself. You will go with my blessing and, I hope, my lasting friendship and… gratitude.”
I did wish it. More than anything. I had no hope of surviving my journey to the rift alone. “How long will I have to stay?”
“Not long at all. How about this? One ball. We’ll throw one ball, right here in Nairsgarth, a week from now. You and I attend together, a chance for the free fae to come and see us with their own eyes. We’ll dance and laugh and eat, and we’ll see it as nothing more than a celebration of the curse being broken. A chance to have fun. You can give me your answer after that.”
“And if I want to go home after that ball?”
Anwir reached out, taking my hand in his own. The warmth of his skin sent a jolt through me, and I squirmed in my seat. “Then I will be sorry to see you go.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable request, and when would I ever have a chance to attend a proper ball, if not here and now? I might not be in the mood for dancing, but I could pretend. A week wasn’t that long. Mum and Dad would understand. Saving the world was pretty important. More important than me or even them. It would be selfish of me to refuse such a simple yet important task.
“One ball,” I said sternly. “I can’t promise more than that.”
The prince smiled, a wide, glorious smile. It was real and raw, the most genuine gesture I’d seen from him. For a moment I glimpsed a lonely, desperate male beneath the smooth veneer of a prince. A male who, for the first time in God knew how long, had found hope.
He slid out of his chair, kneeling at my bare feet, and lifted my hand, pressing it to his lips. His eyes slipped closed, and he held my knuckles to his mouth far longer than he had any cause to. My heart skittered about my chest like a dizzy butterfly, and as for breathing, it seemed I’d forgotten how. But I couldn’t sleep with him now, not after agreeing to stay a while. He’d take it completely the wrong way. He’d think there was hope of a more permanent solution. He’d be wrong. Handsome or not, he wouldn’t be sharing my bed tonight.
At last, but far too soon, Anwir pulled back, only enough to allow himself to speak. His breath brushed my fingers as he said, “Thank you, Aliza. You truly are a miracle.”
I couldn’t find my words as he rose gracefully to his feet. He dropped my hand, only to touch his fingertips to my cheeks. “Rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
With a slow blink and one last smile, he departed, leaving me staring at the door he’d disappeared through, my skin still tingling from his touch.
The witches wasted no time.
I was summoned from my bed at midday, having finally managed to doze off as the sun was rising. A witch I didn’t recognise hovered at my bedside, an apologetic look on her face.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Majesty, but the funeral will take place in one hour at the cove. Your presence has been requested.”
“An hour?” I parroted, the words wading through the grogginess of sleep deprivation. How could a funeral be arranged in only a few hours? The witches must have worked through the night while I floated in my bathtub. While Hyacinth’s body cooled.
