Page 73 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
“Absolutely not.” His hand cut through the air. “It’s too dangerous. After what he did onmylands… What do you think he’d do to you in his own halls?”
What do you think he’d do to you, a mere human?
I clasped my hands together, some cowardly part of me relieved that I didn’t have to go.
And wasn’t cowardly right? After all, I was only a human with a scrap of magic. What could I do surrounded by fae that could terrorise me with a thought, kill me with a click of their fingers?
I needed to finish those gloves. They might be my only defence against any fae who were less friendly than Ly and Sylvie.
Shoulders easing, Ly returned to his seat. “I’m sorry, I just…” He shook his head. “That man. The idea of him anywhere near you…” His knuckles paled to white as he gripped the arm of his chair.
He wouldn’t need to worry about a fae woman like Sylvie—she’d be strong enough to look after herself.
We resumed lunch in near silence. When we finished, he kissed me goodbye, and I went back to work, slamming the mallet into the buttonhole cutter as my eyes burned.
All the while, my heart clenched like someone squeezed it in their fist.
He had to be regretting this. Regretting me.
Maybe I was a fool to cling on to this idea that there could be anus, but cling, I did.
Beautiful But Deadly
That night I stayed up working, even after Ly went to bed. The work—it was something I knew. It was safe. It was somewhere I belonged. Not fooling myself that I had a place in his bed.
The next few days passed in what had become my usual routine. Sewing in the morning, riding and walking in the afternoon with Ly or both him and Sylvie. When no one was around, I picked up the gloves and worked on those. In the evenings, I sewed and Ly joined me, reading or talking.
All the while, I warned myself it couldn’t last. I hadn’t been enough to keep Callum, how could I be enough to keep Ly? He was a fae lord, for goodness’ sake.
Perhaps it made me a coward, but I still went to his room each night, and in his arms, my fears fell away.
One afternoon, a week after Calan Mai, Ly was busy, so Sylvie and I rode alone. I’d slept poorly, plagued by nightmares that combined the sluagh and Goren’s not-changeling. The latter told me I was a fool, a gnat, that it should have been me, before the former sank its claws into my flesh. I woke clutching my chest, and a headache plagued me all morning.
But once we were out in the brisk breeze, the headache faded. I eased into Sylvie’s chatter, which was familiar and didn’t require too much input from me.
Since we were alone, she filled me in on all that had happened the night of Calan Mai as I’d only heard bits and pieces. She’d caught the wolpertinger but hadn’t yet decided what boon to ask Ly for. After, Goren had returned to the house with the other guests, but he’d scowled when neither Lysander nor I appeared and left soon after.
Clouds gathered overhead as we rode through the gardens, but they were as pale as my hair and didn’t threaten rain.
Beyond the garden walls, we passed huge spires of purple aconite and my mind turned to the gloves, which only needed the poison adding to their lining before I sewed it to the outer piece. With the warm weather here, they bloomed much earlier than in Albion, where they wouldn’t put in an appearance until late summer.
At a natural pause in her tale, I cleared my throat. “Why would you grow faebane if it’s poisonous to you?” Unless it wasn’t and the stories were wrong. I grimaced. This could destroy my whole plan to have some sort of weapon I could use to keep myself safe.
Sylvie shrugged, her streaked hair gleaming in the cloud-diffused light. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Such a rich colour—it’s even more brilliant in the sunlight.”
That was why I’d stared at it as a child and Papa had warned me of its danger as we’d walked along the lanes around Briarbridge. I nodded and steered Luna along the path.
“Its poison doesn’t detract from its beauty.” Sylvie grinned, raising her eyebrows at me. “As long as I don’t touch it, I’m safe.”
“True.”Beautiful but deadly. Just like Mama had said about the fae. My gloves would be the same. I would come tonight and gather the flowers. We were well within Ly’s wards, so I’d be safe from any night monsters.
We rode on, and Sylvie continued her story of the feast. Someone I didn’t know had disappeared with someone else I didn’t know, the implication being that they’d taken advantage of all Calan Mai had to offer.
She gave me a long look as though asking if there was anything I wanted to add.
I liked her. Itrustedher. Another day, I might’ve told her like Rose told me about her flings and conquests. But my words were all tangled in my gut, like a thread hopelessly knotted.
Instead I asked her ifshe’dfound anyone to disappear with and she scoffed and shook her head. “All the best ones are at court,alas!” She gave a dramatic flourish, and it reminded me of Rose so sharply, it stole my breath. “Except for Ly,” she hurried to add as we approached the back of the house.
