Makeup
I stare up into Talan’s heartbreakingly beautiful face. Even
though I should be scared out of my wits, all I can think about is
how desperately I wanted to see him.
“Nia.” Talan’s voice sounds wrecked, like he hasn’t slept for days. “You
came back.”
“I’m not allowed in Camelot anymore. They say I’m a traitor.” My
voice cracks a little. “They arrested me. I can’t go back there.”
“Did they arrest you? It’s hard to say when you lie endlessly.” His voice
is barely a whisper. “You faked your family. Your name isn’t Vaillancourt, is
it? And the man I buried—”
He breaks off, staring at me.
I feel myself crumbling into ash. “He was a member of the resistance.
Anti-monarchy. Demi-Fey.” I swallow hard. “And no, I’m not the farm girl
you thought I was. I’m Nia Melisande, Mordred’s daughter. He’s still alive,
in Avalon.”
He stares at me without moving. Not betraying a single thing.
“I grew up in America, speaking English,” I add. “I grew up believing I
was human. You heard my thoughts for years. I heard you repeating them
once in your sleep.”
A tiny twitch of his lips is his only reaction to my confession. “You’re
here only because you have nowhere else to go.”
Desperation crackles through my nerves. “I wanted to see you.”
His eyes flare like torches in the breeze. “I want to hear it.”
My heart is beating faster. My blood pumps hard. “Hear what?”
“You.” He switches to English. “Speak to me in English. I want to hear
My mind reels. All this time I was hearing his thoughts, I never
imagined he was hearing mine, too.
I lie awake until dawn.
0-30p: Kontrollü okuyucu 📖
40-70p: Hafif bağımlı 👀
80p+: Geçmiş olsun, kitaplar seni ele geçirmiş 😅
She did it
Raphael was wrong. Although the dream is in our minds, we have no
control over it. Our fantasy of escape is just that—a fantasy. The Dream
Stalker let us think we were escaping, like a cat toying with a mouse, but
we’re still there. Our bodies are still in the Château des Rêves, enfolded in a
terrible nightmare. Sooner or later, the dark prince and his guards will find
us. Fear crackles through my nerves.
If I know I’m dreaming, can I force myself to wake? I pinch myself, but
that doesn’t help. Pain is real in this nightmare, and it’s not a way out. If we
drown here, I feel disturbingly certain that would mean the end for us.
What does the Dream Stalker want? I’ve heard his thoughts for years.
He craves pleasure and beauty, but he always feels alone. If I’m in the
château right now, as I suspect, could I slip into his mind as I accidentally
did before? Maybe—only then—we can find a way out of this nightmare.
The thought of going anywhere near him, much less his thoughts, scares
the shit out of me. I’ve already come close to losing my sanity by invading
too many people’s thoughts. It would be dumb to risk drowning in a sea of
consciousness again, but do I have a choice? Not if I wish to escape this
nightmare.
Gripping the slippery wooden edge of the boat, I close my eyes and
focus on the magic inside me, the frenetic, high-pitched, violet magic that
allows me to hear another person’s thoughts.
As I summon it, I recall the way the prince’s mind felt as it touched
mine. Dark, brooding. Obsessed with sex.
I channel my telepathic powers at that mind and feel something brush
my thoughts, a shadow of another entity. Dark. Alluring. Seductive. But
First Sparks
What happened to your family?” I ask, deflecting.
He winces nearly imperceptibly. “My mother raised me. My father was
never in the picture. Auberon considered my human mother an enemy of the
crown, even though she hardly had any money. I don’t understand what he
had against her, except that he blamed all his failures on humans. And she
was human.” He leans back against the wall and stares out at the river.
Sensing he needs a drink, I hand him the flask.
He takes a sip. “We didn’t realize how far he was going to go. This was
before the invasion of France, when our world was still secret. And we
never imagined…my mom thought if she just kept quiet, he’d leave her
alone. So, we kept to ourselves. But one day, Auberon’s soldiers raided our
home. There was no trial, no jury, no chance to repent. Dawn broke, and
they slaughtered my mom in the garden.”
His jaw clenches, but he keeps talking, as if he’s forgotten I’m there.
“We’d all been in bed, then someone knocked on the door.” He takes
another sip. “They wanted to kill everyone in the house. My sister screamed
at me to run to the forest, that Mom was gone, and they were after us. I ran.
I thought she was behind me.” A line forms between his eyebrows. “She
wasn’t, and I ran back to find her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.”
My chest aches. “How old were you?”
“Nine. My sister was sixteen.”
I swallow hard. “And you never found her?”
He hands me the mead. “I kept searching the forest, living off berries
and water from the stream. She never came. I think I was half-dead when a
demi-Fey family found me and took me with them to France. It was really
"Burada hepimiz kırık döküğüz Theddy. Sence birinin hapishane hücresine girmesinin nedeni, içten içe bir yerlerinden çatlak olması değil midir?"
To be continued
He scrapes his bracelets together angrily, letting his wrists spit sparks. None of them catch or burst into flame. Spark after spark, each one cold and weak compared to mine. Useless. Futile. I follow him down a spiraling stair to a balcony. If it has a lovely view, I don’t know. I don’t have the capacity to see much farther than Cal. Everything inside me quivers.
Hope and fear battle through me in equal measure. I see it in Cal too, flashing behind his eyes. A storm rages in the bronze, two kinds of fire.
“You promised,” I whisper, trying to tear him apart without moving a muscle.
Cal paces wildly before putting his back to the rails of the balcony. His mouth flops open and closed, searching for something to say. For any explanation. He’s not Maven. He’s not a liar, I have to remind myself. He doesn’t want to do this to you. But will that stop him?
“I didn’t think—what logical person could want me to be king after what I’ve done? Tell me if you truly thought anyone would let me near a throne,” he says. “I’ve killed Silvers, Mare, my own people.” He buries his face in his blazing hands, scrubbing them over his features. Like he wants to pull himself inside out.
“You killed Reds too. I thought you said there was no difference.”
“Difference not division.”
I snarl. “You make a wonderful speech about equality but let that Samos bastard sit there and claim a kingdom just like the one we want to end. Don’t lie and say you didn’t know about his terms, his new crown. . . .” My voice trails away before I can speak the rest aloud. And make it real.
“You know I had no idea.”
“Not one?” I raise an eyebrow. “Not a whisper from your grandmother. Not even a dream of this?”
He swallows hard, unable to deny his deepest desires. So he doesn’t even try. “There’s nothing we can
