I DESPISE YOU,” BLYTHE SPAT, RIPPING OFF HER GLOVES AND TOSSING them at
Aris’s chest before she hiked up her dress and stomped to take a seat beside the fire. Though the skies had been clear when she’d left, all of Wisteria trembled from roars of thunder. How strange it was that the storm mirrored the one brewing in Fiore so perfectly.
“Get in line.” She hadn’t heard Aris sit down, but suddenly he was beside her, his voice low as he asked, “Did he touch you?”
Blythe knew at once who he referred to. She was grateful for the flames against her back, for goose bumps slithered down her spine at the memory of Death’s touch. “I’d be dead if he had.”
The firelight cast severe lines across Aris’s face, sharpening the planes of his scowl. “You were a fool to let Death so close.”
“Don’t pretend you’re worried for me.” It was impossible to tell how cross Aris was, for Blythe made a pointed effort not to meet his eye. All she could see was that he’d swung one leg over the other and that his foot tapped a silent rhythm in the air as the stillness between them stretched on. Eventually, as the storm died down and Death’s lingering chill finally seeped from her bones, Aris asked, “Did you have a good time at Foxglove?”
It was such a ridiculous question that she laughed. “Of course I did. I was glad for the company and to spend my day staring at more than hideous gray stone because you’re angry that I stopped your attempts to manipulate my cousin.”
“Manipulate? She was my wife. It’s Death who’s manipulating—”
“Signa was never your wife. Life may have been, once upon a time, but not Signa. My cousin is free to spend her years with whomever she wants, and it isn’t going to be you.”
The lights flickered as Aris reached out, taking her chin in a deft hand to demand her stare. “And you know that for a fact?”
Blythe wasn’t so foolish as to cower. It wasn’t as though he could hurt her, so what was the worst he could do? Send her to sleep in the stables? That, at least, would be more comfortable than her stone slab of a bed.
Aris didn’t want Blythe to believe that she had any power in this situation. But if there was one thing that Blythe was growing more certain of by the day, it was that she had so much more than he’d planned for. And she’d proved it today when she’d left for Foxglove.
When Aris bent so that his forehead was pressed against hers, she kept her gaze level.
“It’s your fault she doesn’t remember,” he spat. “I could have brought her here. I could have shown her the life we used to have!”
“And what life are you referring to, exactly? One that existed literal centuries ago? Whatever caveman life you had back in the prehistoric age is gone. Continue to waste your years pining, or do everyone a favor and move on.”
He was so bright that Blythe’s eyes burned to look at him. She nearly pinched them shut but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Something about Aris’s anger and the burn in her belly felt familiar. Almost… expected. So much so that she did not lose her voice but told him sternly, “Burn as brightly as the sun if you wish, Aris, but I will not look away.”
To her surprise, the light flickered out as quickly as a snuffed candle. Blythe hardly had the chance to blink clarity back into her eyes before she saw that Aris once again stood before her. Not angry this time, but with his lips pressed tight and a crease between his brows.
“What did you say?”
Blythe thought over her words—a little forthcoming, perhaps, but not so aggressive as to warrant his reaction. She gave Aris no response as he drew back to lean against a settee, perhaps plotting his next move. He looked not to Blythe, but at his hands. Then, to her surprise, he laughed.
Blythe wondered if perhaps she should hide, though she couldn’t convince a single one of her limbs to budge. She was too enamored by the
sound, for this laugh was not like his others. This laugh was the first light of dawn, warm and pleasant as it shuddered across her. It was a sound that lasted only a second, but in that second Aris became another person entirely. One she did not recognize, but found herself unnervingly curious to know.
“Life once said that very thing to me,” he told her eventually, which was fortunate given that Blythe had lost her voice. “It was during our first true argument, so long ago that I’d nearly forgotten.”
Despite everything, Blythe found herself softening. “She meant a lot to you,” she whispered. Aris gave no response, for none was necessary. Only a fool would doubt Aris’s love for this woman. “Would you tell me about her?”
So much of Blythe’s past two days had been spent pondering the woman from the portrait, and whether it was truly Life who Blythe had seen wandering the halls. She yearned to peel back the layers of time and unearth the secrets shrouding this woman, to know what kind of person could look upon Fate and find him worth a shared existence.
Aris’s expression bore the weight of complex memories, a mixture of softness smoothing his edges while anguish pinched the corners of his eyes. In a tone as delicate as a secret unveiled to the night, he asked, “What do you want to know?”
Everything. It was strange, this insatiable curiosity that had taken root, a growing obsession with the woman whose life Blythe felt as though she’d stepped into. “Did she have a name?”
While she’d thought it would be one of the simpler questions for him to answer, the veins in his hand pulsed as he clenched his hand against the armrest.
“We all have an alias,” he finally said. “She called herself Mila when I first met her, though I’ve not spoken that name in ages.” Aris kept two fingers pressed against his lips as if savoring the taste of it. “It was important to her that she felt close to humans. To ensure that the souls she brought into this world were as happy and as thriving as she could make them.”
It was curious how someone who seemed so kind could end up with someone as rigid as Aris. Had he always been the way he was now, or just how hardened had he become since losing his first wife?
“How did you and Mila meet?” The fire was warm against her skin, and Blythe leaned toward it, ready to cozy up and fall into the story as Aris ran a hand down the length of his jaw and rubbed away the hint of a smile that had come with the memory.
“She sought me out.” There was a fondness to his words. “At first, she despised me. My job and hers were not so well aligned. She thought I should be kinder, for the life of a human is a short and fragile thing.”
As if the story was waiting there behind her eyelids each time she blinked, Blythe could nearly picture it. “And what did you think?” she asked. “Did you become any kinder?”
Aris lifted his eyes, and for a moment Blythe wondered whether she had shattered their tentative peace and if the conversation was over. But then he said, “I will tell you the same thing I told her, which is that when a soul unveils its future, I weave the path it has chosen and set it into motion. Sometimes things happen beyond anyone’s control, but I am never cruel by choice. Every soul is different. Each one is circumstantial. I was as kind to the souls she gave me as I could be.”
Blythe thought on those words as she slipped from her boots. She detested the very thought of her future being some rigid, predetermined story that could never be changed. Yet at the same time, she could acknowledge that at least a portion of her anger was unjust. Aris had not asked for the burden of this job, which was why she folded her hands into her lap and told him with bated breath, “I am tired of fighting with you, Aris.”
“And I am tired of listening to you fight.”
Blythe bit back a smile, refusing to let him see just how amusing she found his stubbornness. “Then what do you suppose we do about it?”
His eyes were strange in the haze of the firelight. Darker, and somehow so piercing that if Blythe didn’t know better, she’d think he was looking through her.
“We form a truce, I suppose. Stop pestering me, and I will in turn at least attempt civility.” He reached into his pocket, fishing around. “I’ll start by giving you this.” He handed her a letter with her father’s handwriting on the front.
“You thief!” Blythe snatched the envelope from his hands, thumb running over the wax seal and relaxing only when she found that it was still
intact.
“Civility, remember?” Aris sighed as he kicked his feet up, spun sideways in his chair. “You can’t be angry when we’ve only just formed a truce.”
“Civility my ass.” She pried the envelope open. Perhaps it would have been better to wait until she was alone, but she’d never had much patience and there was nothing she wanted more than assurance that her father was well. And so Blythe unfolded the paper and read over the letter hastily.
Several lines in, however, her blood ran cold. She must have made an involuntary sound, too, for Aris rose and crossed the floor toward her within a second, his brows cast low.
“What is it?” he pressed. If Blythe had the wherewithal, she might have thought to pay more attention to Aris’s tone and decipher whether it was worry or curiosity that drove him closer. Perhaps he was every bit as nosy as she was. He tried to peer over Blythe’s shoulder but she was clutching the parchment too close, reading over the words again and again in the hope that something in them would change.
“Read it out loud,” he urged, trying to snatch the letter from her. “If you won’t, then hand it over so I can read it myself.”
Blythe curled her fingers against the page, and though every word was lodged in her throat, she forced herself to read what her father had written.
“‘My Dearest Daughter,’” she began, “‘I hope this letter makes it to you safely. I must admit that in all my travels I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting Verena. Until your letter, I was unconvinced that it was a true place at all, as I have not been able to find it on any map. Prior to writing this, I found myself wandering my study in search of it, yet I have been unsuccessful in my attempts.’”
Aris made a low noise of impatience in the back of his throat, urging her to go on.
“‘Since your departure, I have been increasingly interested in this kingdom you are to rule. I believe it’s only fitting that I pay it a visit, which is why I was ecstatic to receive your…’” She trailed off, daring a sideways look at Aris.
“Your what?” he demanded, jaw tight. “What was he so ecstatic to receive?”
Blythe wished in the moment that she could flip her body inside out so
that she might crawl into her own skin. She shut her eyes as she read the next part, for there was no forgetting what the last line read. “‘Your invitation.’”
Never had Blythe thought it possible for Aris to look as cold as Death.
“You invited him?” His voice swelled like the tempestuous storm, mirroring the hearth’s fiery display. “To where, you buffoon? The land of make-believe?”
“You cannot be angry with me,” Blythe bit back. “We have a truce! Besides, this is your fault. I’m not the one who felt the need to pretend I was the prince of an imaginary kingdom, and it’s not like I actually invited him! All I said was that I wished he were here.”
Aris raked his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends. “There’s no choice but to wipe his mind. I’ll have to use my magic—”
“Touch him and I swear I’ll find a way to kill you in your sleep.” Never had Blythe felt more lethal than she did then, each word striking with the force of a bullet. If there was one thing that she would make certain of, it was this. Elijah had been through more than enough for a lifetime. “My father is no plaything and you will not turn him into one of your puppets.”
“Oh? Then what do you suppose we do, love? Tell him the truth and pray for the best?”
That certainly wasn’t an option. As wonderful as it might have been to be able to tell her father the truth, every time she imagined doing so she thought only of the alcohol he’d once relied on to quell his woes and how grief had altered him into a stranger she didn’t care to know.
She worried for her father more than anyone. So no, she wouldn’t tell Elijah the truth. Not when he was only just beginning to return to his old self.
“We’ll have to come up with something else,” she decided, clenching the parchment. “He says that he’ll be waiting for your driver to pick him up on Friday morning. We’ve no choice, Aris. We have to bring him here.”
“And then what? I transport Wisteria to some magical spring forest that I pretend to rule?”
“Somewhere in the snow, actually,” Blythe admitted with a wince. “I might have told him that Verena was basically an arctic tundra. Though I did say it was beautiful.”
Aris shot her a bleak look. Blythe, to her credit, had only wanted to tell
her father how she was faring and stop him from worrying. She’d never thought that he’d want to come see her. At least not immediately.
“There’s no other choice,” Blythe decided when Aris still had not spoken. “You said yourself that Wisteria can move. We’ll have to find a place that matches the description I gave and bring him there.”
“Oh, yes. A simple task.” With his back to the hearth, dark shadows cut across Aris’s face. “What of the people? The staff? Your father believes you are a princess.”
“Then make me a princess. You are Fate, are you not?” On Blythe’s tongue, it was more an accusation than a question. “You have the power to control people. How they behave, what they perceive… If what I’m asking for is beyond your ability, then you are weaker than I was led to believe.”
“Beyond my ability?” Such words hit their mark, striking Aris as fiercely as if she’d slapped him across the face. “There is nothing that’s beyond my ability, you petulant girl.”
Frustrating though it could sometimes be, Blythe appreciated Aris’s pride, for it was the greatest source of leverage to use against him.
“Prove it,” she demanded. “My father is a clever man. Your party tricks will not be enough to fool him.”
“Party tricks? My party tricks?” Under his breath Aris repeated those words quietly, spitting more venom into them each time. He opened his mouth—likely to curse her, Blythe guessed—but she held up a hand to stop him.
“Prove. It.” Her words were slower this time, brimming with challenge. And to her delight, Aris could not avoid the bait. He stepped forward, his glare smoldering.
“And what, pray tell, is in it for me?”
Blythe had expected this much, which is why the offer rolled smoothly from her tongue. “If you can manage to fool my father and make him believe that Verena is a real place, then I will put up no fight to traveling with you. Not so long as you promise to take me to see my father whenever I’d like.”
“Twice a year,” he argued, but Blythe held firm.
“Whenever I’d like,” she repeated. “Within reason, but no more than once a week unless it’s agreed by both parties.”
Tension knitted Aris’s brows, and Blythe was relieved by the cluck of
his tongue and the way he threw his shoulders back, trying to fill the room with his presence. God, did she love a good ego. Especially when it had his lips thinning and his face twisting with a displeasure that told Blythe everything she needed to know—she had won this round.
“Fine, you wretch. But know that if I do this, in Elijah’s absence, I’ll have to manipulate the minds of dozens of others for this charade to succeed.”
Blythe shrugged. “Do whatever you need to. As long as my father’s mind remains untouched, I don’t care.” And she truly didn’t. Though Aris’s manipulations often unsettled her, in this moment, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Elijah was not easily deceived. Unlike so many others, Blythe’s father didn’t see her as mere property or a means to boost his own standing. He didn’t care that Aris was a “prince.” He cared only about Blythe’s well-being and happiness, and for his sake, that was the life she intended to show him.
The firelight around Aris flared brighter as he stepped closer, taking her chin in his hand once more. “If even a single complaint about my magic escapes your lips, I’ll end this charade immediately and claim victory in our little wager,” he whispered, tilting her head so she couldn’t look away. “I will do this my way. Am I clear?”
She didn’t draw back, nor allow a single ounce of hesitation to pass over her features as she locked eyes with him and said, in a voice as bright as a spring day, “Perfectly.”
