I’m doing this for me, foremost. But I suppose it’s enough for the curse that I made the discovery with the queen in mind.

“I’ve found a way to return your son to you.”

The silence that hangs between us is palpable.

I swallow, sweat threatening to bead on my forehead as I wait for a response.

Confusion knits the queen’s pale brow, and for a moment, it’s as if she’s left the room, her presence at the table is so absent.

“You are my son, Farin,” she says with hesitation, but there’s a sliver in her tone, a crack through which a droplet of hope leaks through, and I know then that I have her, that she’s wet clay in my palm.

It’s also confirmation that deep down, she knows I’m not her son. There’s relief in that revelation alone.

I’m going to be free of her soon enough.

Farin’s ashes are kept in a bone carved vase that sits above the mantel of the queen’s workroom.

I learned that’s what occupied the jar the hard way, by reaching for it thinking it was an ingredient just like any of the others the queen kept in crystal vials.

The lashes on the backs of my hand have since healed, but the memory remains, and so does the theory I’ve never quite been able to shake.

The vase itself is simple and kept free of debris on its outer surface. There was something eerie about it that drew me to it that day as a curious child. Even standing in its presence now, watching on as the queen delicately removes it from the mantel, my fingers twitch with excitement. With discovery.

There’s an aura that emanates from the container—rather, its contents. Like Farin’s life-force hasn’t completely moved on. Like he’s settled himself into the crevices between the ashes and gotten comfortable there.

I hope for my sake that he’s ready to come out.

The glow from the firelight warms the smooth bone, as well as the queen’s face.

She almost looks healthy in its gentle glimmer.

I notice something I haven’t witnessed since the first day we met. A mother’s gentle glow softening the sharp edges of her intense beauty.

When she sets the container on the workbench, the vials that line the shelves rattle, despite how delicately she places it upon the smooth surface.

Goosebumps litter my arms, the back of my neck.

Gunter’s warning echoes in the back of my mind—there is no antidote for death, my boy—but it’s only an echo, not the actual substance, and I ignore it.

This will work.

It has to work.

Because I will be free, and Farin is going to make sure of that.

I set the vial of prepared antidote—lacking only a single ingredient—upon the counter next to the urn. The queen doesn’t move, refusing to take her hands off it like she’s fearful it will slip off the even counter and come crashing to the floor.

Like she’s clinging onto her son’s life, not the evidence of his death.

Because she won’t move, our arms brush as I reach into the urn and produce a handful of Farin’s ashes. The boyish urge to squirm away from her touch churns through me, but I suppress it and focus on the feel of cool ash as it settles between my fingertips.

I wonder what the queen would think if she knew I preferred the feel of fae ashes to her touch.

She flinches when she sees how much I’ve taken from the urn, but she says nothing.

She’s as desperate as I am for this to work. Perhaps this is the only moment when our desires have been utterly aligned.

When I tilt my palm, half-closed to funnel the ash into the smoking vial, the ashes fall like loose sand.

The smoking substance inside the vial thickens, its purplish hues turning black as night. There’s no need for me to mix it manually because the swirling smoke does that for me, churning the mixture until it’s the consistency of tar.

Though there’s molten moonlight in the concoction, one wouldn’t be able to tell with how the ashes dim its glow. It’s been the limiting factor in producing this antidote. It took me years to skim money off the top of the queen’s allowance she supplies for my and Gunter’s supplies, even longer to find a supplier shady enough to sell it.

Farin’s ashes stain my palm, but when I go to rinse them in the nearby bowl of salt water, the queen grabs my wrist and shakes her head.

“Not until I see it works,” she says, as if there’s a way to remove the ashes from the cracks in my skin and return them to the urn should this fail.

I don’t fight her, though. I’ve long since learned the queen’s peculiarities are not to be questioned. One cannot reason with a person whose reality abides upon a different plane. Within a different realm.

So I do as she says and fight my instincts to wipe my hand on my robes.

“It’s done then?” the queen asks, running her long fingers against the curve of the vial. “There is nothing left to do to it?”

“Only to apply it to the corpse of your choosing,” I say, and, noticing the queen has not brought one to the workroom, add, “I suppose you’ve yet to find one to your liking?”

That’s not entirely surprising, though I find it irritating if that’s the case. I wouldn’t put it past the queen to spend months scouring the entirety of Alondria for a corpse who looks practically identical to her dead son, but I’ll do my best to convince her otherwise. That it’s her son’s spirit she misses, not his form.

The queen clutches the vial to her chest, then peers in the urn. We must’ve used at least a quarter of the ashes. “There are only so many opportunities. We’re limited in our trials,” she murmurs, almost absentmindedly.

It’s then that I commit perhaps the most deceptive act I’ve ever attempted; I place my hand upon the queen’s, slipping it between her fingers and the urn, and give it a gentle squeeze. Tears flood the queen’s colorless eyes, but I feel nothing.

The fae curse prevents me from lying with my tongue, but there is nothing stopping me from lying with my hands.

“I know this will work,” I’m able to say because I believe with all my being it to be true. “If you’d like, I’d be more than happy to help you in picking out a…vessel.” I almost choke on the word. I’m not keen on the fact that a fresh corpse is necessary to complete the reanimation process. It feels like a violation to the previous owner’s body to place another spirit inside of it.

But my identity has been violated for the past nine years, and it’s time to pass that burden on to someone else. At least they won’t be around to understand what their body is being used for.

“It doesn’t concern you?” the queen asks, her gaze dipping into the urn. “The levels of power it might take to bring that which is dead back to life?”

I sigh, and I try to make it sound sympathetic rather than impatient, and I’m not altogether sure that I’m successful. “We’ve been over this, my queen. You’ve already agreed we have all the elements necessary to restore life. A life sacrifice. A celestial anomaly. The ashes of the lost. It’s your heart that doubts, not your reason.”

“Still,” she says, “one can’t help but wonder if it would ensure the process if we were instead to use an already living subject.”

The image of a bulbous tick, gorged on blood, flashes before my mind.

I have to stifle the tickle in my throat, the urge to clear it. I’d be lying if I said my thoughts haven’t already traversed this path many a time as I lay tossing and turning at night. The queen is right. Breathing life into that which has already lost it is a much more complicated process than transferring the essence of her son into a living vessel. In fact, I’ve held onto that option, keeping it tucked away in my pockets in case the queen expressed doubt in my proposal. But I haven’t offered it forthrightly.

I’ve spent the past nine years acting as the vessel of another without my permission. I’ve been called by a name that is not my own, touched with hands that are not meant for me, adored by a heart that has no business claiming my affections. Yet in my case, I am only the vessel in name, in behavior.