“With the loveliest girl in my village.”
“The most beautiful?”
He made a face at me like I’d offered him overripe fruit. “The most beautiful was a terrible liar. She would kiss one boy to make him fight another. Wildmother, I’d be glad never to see her face again.”
My smile grew. Yes, I had entirely underestimated him.
“Brenna had a soft, sweet way. She would nurse a baby bird to seeit fly again.” Finch had stopped fidgeting now. "She had freckles across her nose, and when she laughed, she’d cover her mouth with three fingers.” He lifted his hand to his lips. “And, ser, no disrespect to you, but the greatest gift of my life was that she told me she loved me, too.”
What an oddity of a boy. Like a strange, magical creature.Pure, if such a thing were possible in Feyreign. “What village did you come from, Finch?”
“Brackenford, ser.”
The name meant nothing to me. It must be small, or on the fringes. “How many in Brackenford?”
“Three hundred.”
“And what’s its purpose?”
“Dyes, ser.”
A village of three hundred producing dyes for the court. Probably for the dress Eurydice wore right now.
“Why are you not in love with Brenna now, Finch?”
He slumped against the wall. “It’s not that as such. I just… stopped letting myself think of it that way.” He shrugged, the gesture too careful to be casual. “My parents sent me away. I might not ever go back.”
“You’ll go back, after you’ve served.”
“Not as who I was, ser.” For the first time, his gaze held a certain challenge—a wisdom I couldn’t argue with. He was right. None of us came back the same, if we did come back from the citadel. Few wanted to return to simplicity after knowing grandeur; fewer could live in peace after seeing the worst of Unseelie-kind.
“That’s true.” In the hall, shadows danced across our bodies. “But you might go back worthier, after you’ve read every book in my study.”
He let out a breath of a laugh. “That would take decades, ser.”
Kinship slipped into my veins. I’d resisted it, and now I couldn’t deny it.Haskel, you bastard. You knew this would happen.
I pushed off the wall, ruffled his brownhair. “You have the time.”
He pressed his hair back to shape with both hands. “Please don’t do that, ser.”
My eyebrows rose. “Why, Finch, did you just draw a line on my behavior?”
He kept smoothing his hair. “Oh, no. I just?—”
“Come on, then." I straightened my doublet, rolled my shoulders back. "A thousand ladies are missing the sight of your lustrous locks.”
Finch fell into step behind me. The corridor stretched long and golden, and with every step I rebuilt myself. I was herveyre. I had a duty. Whatever I felt, whatever I wanted, it lived beneath that duty, and I would keep it buried for as long as the night demanded.
We reached the ballroom door. I pushed through.
Music swelled. Fae swirled in silks and masks, a kaleidoscope of color and large smiles. I scanned the room for her—force of habit, or something deeper—and I found her.
On the dance floor. In his arms.
Black hair. Dark eyes behind a hawk’s mask. And that scar along the jaw, the one I’d put there five years ago when I should have put my blade through his throat instead.
Gawain.