Another riddle.
Another clue.
A suggestion.
“And may
be we can come back here in the future,” he added, his knuckles brushing my cheek.
“That implies I can trust your word, which I know I can’t.”
“You can’t?” He arched a brow. “Why not, Aflora? I’ve never lied to you.”
“Your actions are louder than your supposed truths.”
“My actions,” he mused, his hand falling from my face to the flower petals around him. “You mean how I doctored the recording to save you from the Council’s wrath? How I brought you to this special place to give you a day of freedom at the expense of my own?” He phrased both as questions. “Are those not actions in your favor?”
“You gave them the recording.”
“An altered version of it, yes.”
“Why?” I demanded. “You had me essentially arrested for what purposes?”
He scrutinized me for so long that I was surprised when he actually replied, “To lull the Council into a false sense of security. If they think I’m playing by their rules, they’ll give more freedom—something we could all use at the moment. I also wanted to distract them from looking into the explosion of power from the other night. Kols’s little story about the duel wasn’t going to satisfy my father. He knows I’m not the losing sort.”
His explanation shocked me for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being that he’d actually given me a factual reply. The question was, did I believe him?
“You believe actions prove integrity,” he continued, arching a brow. “Then ask me to bring you back here in the future. We’ll see what happens. In the interim, I need you to enchant your collar again. But if you want to program in a backdoor to access your earth, I’ll look the other way and pretend not to notice.”
He stood and wiped his palms against his pants.
“I’m fucking starving,” he added, abruptly changing the subject. “Did you happen to make anything edible around here? Like fruit?”
My lips curled at the thought of home and the Elemental Fae Queen’s favorite peach trees. “No. But I can.” It was one of the only human fruits I knew how to create, thanks to Queen Claire’s obsession with the juicy treat.
Shade faced me, his expression expectant.
So I gave him what he wanted by calling the seeds to the soil and expediting the growth through my access from the source.
He watched in fascination as the tree grew, the branches sprouting with leaves first and then luscious circles of fruit. He plucked one off the tree and took a bite, his moan of approval holding an erotic appeal that I pretended not to hear.
“Fuck, this is delicious.” He leaned once more against the tree he’d used for his nap and devoured the peach. Then he walked over and snatched another one.
“Throw the pit over there,” I instructed him, pointing with my finger to where I wanted it.
He did as I requested, and I used the core to create another tree. “Earth is a continuous cycle of life.”
“While Midnight Fae are known for the darkness of death,” he returned, his blue eyes alight with knowledge. “But Quandary Bloods are rumored to be more than just dark magic. They’re conduits of The Source. The one that controls all others, I mean. That’s how many of them were able to hide during the mass extermination—they assimilated as other types of fae. Even Earth Fae. Or that’s the theory, anyway.”
“Are you saying that not all Quandary Bloods perished?”
“I think your existence answers that question, little rose,” he replied before finishing off his second peach. “Now we have to stop stalling. If we don’t return soon, we’ll be back where we started—in the dungeon—and we can’t have that. Not after I went through the hassle of having that tape altered to suit our needs.” He pushed off his tree, hopped over the root I’d left in the ground, and came to stand over me. “Snap the magic in place and let’s go.”
He made it sound so easy.
Which, now that I knew how to unravel the spell, actually was pretty simple to put back together. But the confident manner in which he spoke made me wonder how he knew it would be such a quick task.
“Do you know any Quandary Bloods, Shade?” I asked him while I mentally began the process of closing off my connection to the earth source.