The Prince of Secrets Read online

  The stillness drained out of him, taking the sharpest of his edges with it. “There’s a spell on the henhouse to keep the foxes and stoats away.” The words burst from him in a sudden torrent, as if he couldn’t get them out quickly enough. “As well as the lowfae. Brownies love eggs and will steal them if they get the chance. And there are spells on the carpets to help keep the dirt out. Actually, a surprising number of my spells have to do with keeping things out or keeping things in. There is a cooling spell in the pantry—”

  “Just how many spells do you have whirling away out there?” she interrupted him.

  “Ah, of what order of magnitude?”

  She gave him a very speaking look.

  “I’m not trying to be difficult, Hetta. But it might be easier to ask Stariel to simply tell you.”

  Hetta closed her eyes and reached. It took a few false starts to explain to Stariel what she wanted, but once she had, the land responded so eagerly that she had to pull back from the sudden influx of information. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself, her head ringing. she instructed the faeland. She and Stariel were still working on their communication; it wanted to please her, but it had difficulty grasping the smallness of humans.

  To her relief, the land understood, and the avalanche of knowledge slowed to a more manageable trickle. She frowned as the information came to her. Wyn’s magic was everywhere, and it was magic wholly unlike her own, or like any human magery she knew. Hetta herself was a master illusionist, had worked most recently in a theatre in Meridon before Stariel had chosen her. Illusion was a magic largely used for entertainment—including some very adult entertainments—and was consequently looked down on by polite society. Though there were a variety of other human magics, from the common technomancy to the rare mediation, all had known bounds and rules within which they worked. Wyn’s magic was something altogether different, something out of tales. Or, she thought with a start, like the magic of Stariel itself.

  Stariel’s magic didn’t fit within the neat parameters of human magic that Hetta knew, but she’d never really questioned it before. Its magic might be old and strange, but Hetta’s family had been used to that strangeness for centuries. But it’s just as much fae magic as Wyn’s, she thought, trying to decipher the wefts of Wyn’s spells. Wyn had told her Stariel was built on an accord between Hetta’s distant ancestor and the High King of Faerie.

  Some of Wyn’s spells were obvious. The one in the dairy was to keep milk from spoiling. Around the household lay a great many of a cleaning nature. She paused to pick at one in the linen closet, deciding eventually that it was to repel moths.

  Reaching out with her land-sense like this was oddly satisfying, like stretching a cramped muscle, and knowledge began to come to her faster as her focus widened. It didn’t feel as if she were being told new information by someone else. Instead the knowledge welled up inside her, immediate and complete, as if each area she focused on was merely a prompt for her to remember things she’d only momentarily forgotten. Her head throbbed, the pain increasing until she gave up on trying to hold on to the details of every ‘memory’ at once. Slowly she mastered the trick of it, learning to let the knowledge fade as she moved on to each new, tightly defined area. The headache ebbed. I suppose there’s only so much space in a human head, she thought wryly. Like a cup beneath a running faucet. It was probably for the best; being aware of every ant’s location moment-by-moment would be overwhelming rather than useful.

  Reaching the village, she found spells of warmth on some of the cottages, which, Hetta reflected guiltily, still weren’t properly insulated. They had yet to secure a bank loan to begin the necessary upgrades.

  She couldn’t tell what every spell was for, though they all felt benign enough. A few of the village gardens had spells affixed to them, but not all. Similarly, individual trees in the home orchard. Other spells were larger and more powerful, strange and tasting of storms. she told Stariel when it became something between frustrated and downcast in its inability to translate in a way she could understand. she corrected.

  She opened her eyes. Wyn was carefully lining the crate with discarded paper. “What are all the ones on the children for?”

  He kept his eyes on his task. “Three years ago, in January, two of the village children who’d been out playing didn’t return from the forest before nightfall. A blizzard came in very suddenly. By the time we managed to rouse Lord Henry so he could find them, the smith’s daughter had died of cold.”

  Stariel was a very large estate and entirely wild in parts. The Lord of Stariel could locate anyone within the estate’s bounds, but the old Lord Valstar, Hetta’s father, had been a drunk. If he’d fallen into a stupor, waking him enough to understand what was needed would’ve taken a long time. Too long. Her stomach twisted.

  A clean, cold anger burned in Wyn’s eyes for a heartbeat before he tamped it down. “They’re locator spells. But they too are now rendered superfluous. I don’t doubt your capacity to do your duty, Hetta. I will undo those as well, if you wish it.”

  “After that tale, I don’t know how I could.” It seemed a sensible safeguard, but it still made her uneasy. There was so often an edge of secrecy or manipulation to fae magic—Wyn’s magic. He’s not human, she thought for the thousandth time, trying once again to merge the two halves of him, the old, trusted friend and the strange fae prince. Which one was she attracted to? Even as she posed the question, she knew it was a foolish one. Wyn wasn’t two people, and it wasn’t as if he’d developed a whole new personality overnight. He’d always been a study in contrasts: secretive and manipulative; kind and dry-humoured. And yet, something had changed, between them if nothing else. It had only been a few days since they’d kissed, irrevocably exchanging friendship for something she didn’t yet have a name for, but already she could see complications sprouting in all directions. What was she going to do with this infuriatingly attractive man and all the baggage that came with him?

  Something of her emotions must have shown, because he left the crate, rose, and wrapped his arms around her. She went willingly, tucking her head under his chin, letting her anxieties melt against his reassuring solidity. He smelt of clean linen and soap, with a hint of rainstorm and a spice she couldn’t quite place, similar to but richer than cinnamon. Her mind supplied the name after a pause: cardamom. That familiar mixture had always been his, but she’d only recently realised that some of it wasn’t real scent at all, but how her senses perceived his magic. Human magic didn’t have a smell. It might as well have been a symbol of their entire relationship; something she’d always known about him given suddenly new connotations.

  Magic or not, it was still a highly appealing scent, and she gave a little sigh against his chest. “I understand why you’ve kept so many secrets in the past. But we can’t go on like this, with me continually blindsided by things you ought to have told me sooner. I have wider responsibilities now, and this isn’t just about me and you.” Which one of them was she reminding?

  She felt him nod, his arms tightening around her. “You’re right.”

  “You know it irritates me when you won’t defend yourself,” she told him, looking up and lacing her hands behind his neck. Her hands were ungloved, bare fingertips brushing against his skin and the silken strands of his hair. “How are we ever to have a proper fight if you just give in all the time?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Very well. In my defence, I am new to this…” he fished about for a word, “this sharing between us. And the spells are largely old.” He smiled then, slow and full of wickedness. “But don’t tell me you want to fight, Hetta, when you are clearly angling for something else entirely.”

  With slow deliberation, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and raised it to her lips, carefully wiping away the remnants of her lipstick. Her breath caught.

  As she’d hoped, he bent and kissed
her. He was so careful, so controlled, and only when they kissed did he ease the tight leash he held on himself. Not completely, of course, but there was a hint of wildness in the curve of his mouth, a fierce, tantalising edge of temptation. Some devilish part of her was determined to see him cut free of restraint, and if she couldn’t make him lose his temper then perhaps she could drive him mad with lust.

  The latter option also appealed for entirely non-altruistic reasons. Frequently, Hetta had found, men kissed merely as an eager prelude to more intimate relations. Which Hetta didn’t object to, but Wyn kissed like they had all the time in the world, as if kisses were an end in and of themselves, a slow, languorous drug burning deliciously through her whole body.

  She fumbled at his bowtie, feeling there was altogether too much starch separating them. Wyn made a noise low in his throat, half-laughter, half-growl, and then he picked her up and swung her onto the high map table so that her legs dangled to either side of him. A pile of paper crashed to the floor. They both ignored it, and she fisted her hands in his shirt, pulling him closer, her heart dancing a frantic rhythm.

  They’d forgotten to shut the door to the map room.

  This oversight became apparent as two of her cousins traipsed into the room one after the other and then froze in similarly staggered fashion.

  4

  Unwanted Relatives

  “Hetta!” her cousin Jack exclaimed. Hetta had a good view of his face past Wyn’s shoulder; his brows nearly merged with his hairline in shock. Her cousin Caro wore a similar expression. Hetta had a fleeting impression of seeing double, as Caro had the same true-red hair as Jack and both her cousins had flushed nearly the same shade.

  Wyn broke away, stripes of colour high on his cheekbones. In the unguarded instant before he reassembled his composure, he looked gratifyingly unravelled with his hair mussed and bowtie hanging loose.

  Hetta remained awkwardly perched on the map table. Was there any point pretending she and Wyn had been engaged in some innocent lord-and-steward consultation? Deciding that there wasn’t, she grinned impishly up at her cousins.

  “Oh, do go away. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Jack spluttered something inarticulate, but Caro, her eyes round and brim-full of questions, said, “Fair enough. I think I’ll look at the waterway maps some other time. Come on, Jack.”

  But Jack wouldn’t be shifted. Caro shrugged helplessly at Hetta and trotted out alone. There was a pause while they all listened to her footsteps recede. Wyn went and shut the door behind her, rearranging his bowtie with quick, neat motions. When he turned, his armour was firmly back in place.

  Jack shot him a venomous look. “What the blazes do you think you’re doing?!”

  “Reciting poetry,” Hetta said acerbically. “Honestly, Jonathan, if you don’t know what we were doing, I’m not going to explain the facts of life to you.”

  Jack went even redder, his mouth pressing into a hard line of disapproval.

  “You know what I mean! You can’t carry on like, like—” Jack whirled on Wyn. “If I found anyone else canoodling with my cousin, I’d ask when the wedding was, but there bloody well better not be a wedding in the offing here, Mr Tempest.”

  Jack knew Wyn was fae. He’d known it for years before Hetta, something that still irked her. Hetta’s own father had told him, expecting Jack to follow in his footsteps as lord.

  “Canoodling?” Hetta repeated incredulously. “You sound like your mother! I truly don’t see what business this is of yours. Go away.”

  She and her cousin had only recently reached an uneasy truce after they’d had to work together to unravel a plot against Stariel. Hetta had a feeling she might’ve just undone that. But she was less concerned with Jack than Wyn. He’d gone distant and unreadable again, but she knew what he was likely thinking; his ambivalence about remaining at Stariel had been increasing with every day since her lordship, and her dashed cousin’s untimely interruption would be making him recalculate.

  “You know what I mean! It’s not—you can’t go round acting like a…” Jack’s indignation faltered in the face of Hetta’s cold stare.

  Wyn’s demeanour had also grown frosty. “Do go on. Acting like a what, exactly?” he asked in a soft, dangerous tone.

  But though Jack was hot-headed, he wasn’t a complete fool. “Don’t you try and turn this back on me. How long has this been going on? Carrying on like bloody dogs in heat! I thought you had some notion of honour! I don’t know what your people think is acceptable, but you can’t just—”

  “Don’t worry, Wyn hasn’t deflowered me,” Hetta interjected, bringing Jack’s diatribe to a screeching halt.

  Jack turned an even deeper shade of red but didn’t back down. He could be tiresomely persistent if he saw something as his duty.

  “Well. Good,” he said stiffly. “Because it’s not like you can marry him.”

  “That privilege was given to a very comely stagehand five years ago,” Hetta continued as if he hadn’t spoken, sick of Jack’s prudery. Honestly. “Steven, his name was. Or was it Stefan?” She slid off the map table, dusted off her skirt, and said with false sweetness, “No, it was definitely Steven. He had lovely blue eyes.” She draped an arm deliberately around Wyn’s waist. He put a hand over hers, presenting a united front without hesitation, and her heart gave a fierce, happy squeeze.

  Jack was, for once, speechless. Hetta had evidently so offended his sense of propriety that he couldn’t even look at them, fixing his gaze on the far window instead as his throat worked, trying and failing to form speech. Eventually he grit out, “You always ignore things you don’t like, Hetta, but you can’t just please yourself and pretend it affects no one else this time. You’re the lord. He’s not even human.”

  Hetta glared daggers but Jack ignored her and turned to Wyn. “If she won’t see the sense in it, then you’d bloody well better. Whatever this…thing…is between you, it needs to end now.”

  Wyn’s voice was still clipped and cold. “I make you no oaths, Jonathan Langley-Valstar, but I would remind you that I made an oath to your uncle to bring no harm to Stariel. I do not intend to break it.” His hand on Hetta’s tightened. “And now I would ask you to leave.”

  Jack rocked back on his heels, eyes narrowing. Wyn rarely made demands. But to Hetta’s surprise he nodded curtly, turned, and left without another word.

  Wyn dropped her hand and went to the door again, closing it with a soft click for the second time. The room echoed with a pleasant absence of angry relatives. As if the silence were an entrance cue, the wind rattled at the windows.

  “You lied to him,” Hetta observed. There was no possibility of Wyn breaking his oath to her father, since it didn’t exist anymore.

  He leaned his head briefly against the wood, his back to her, and didn’t bother to refute her statement with the technicality that he’d said nothing untrue. Wyn couldn’t outright lie, but Hetta had begun to realise that you could lay out pieces of perfect truth to create wholly false pictures. She didn’t disapprove, exactly, since she’d probably do the same in his place, but it had made her pay more attention to what Wyn meant rather than what he said.

  “I would re-take the oath in a heartbeat if you would but let me.”

  Wyn’s oath to her father had ended when he’d died. Oaths were a serious business for fae; they lost power if they broke them. Hetta didn’t like the idea of imposing a magical obligation on her friend; a broken oath had already hurt him once, and she didn’t want to be the means for it to happen again.

  “Well, I’m not accepting any such oath. I don’t want us to be liege lord and supplicant.” There were already quite sufficient complications between them without adding that on top. Hetta might technically be his employer, but at least he wasn’t magically bound into that role.

  “Neither do I,” he said, turning away from the door. As he did so, something beyond her caught his attention. “Get out!” he told it sharply.

  She turned too but caught only a flash
of movement as something scuttled away, impossible to recognise. She leaned on Stariel for the knowledge. “A wyldfae,” she answered herself. She could feel the little creature hurrying away from the tower, through the cavities in the walls.

  “A brownie,” Wyn agreed. “The wyldfae are already investigating the house.” His eyes were distant. “That brownie will likely spread the news of our relationship to half the wyldfae on the estate before noon tomorrow.”

  “Jack and Caro won’t tell anyone, though.” A hope rather than a certainty, but far more important than whatever brownies thought of her and Wyn. She crossed the distance between them and put a hand against his chest. “What Jack said—”

  “He is right.”

  She stiffened. “He’s not right, thank you very much! If you dare say that you’ve dishonoured me or any other such ludicrously old-fashioned sentiment, I shall singe your eyebrows off!”

  He blinked down at her. “Oh. No, of course I don’t mean that. I mean…I’m not human.”

  Several retorts sprung to her lips, but she waited for him to explain himself instead. Outside, hard drops of rain began to hit the tower.

  He spoke softly, as serious as she’d ever seen him. “It’s not human scandal that I fear the most. I fear what it may mean for Stariel if my past catches up with me. And I fear it may not be a matter of if but when. Perhaps it’s merely paranoia to worry about those catshee kittens…but perhaps not.”

  “And I said I would fight the fae for you if need be.” She could expel fae from Stariel, if his father sent them again. But it was the wrong thing to say. His jaw tightened. “Have I wounded your pride?” she asked, somewhat fascinated. She didn’t think she’d ever managed to offend him before, or at least he’d never shown it if she had.

  He grimaced. “I’m a damnably proud creature, apparently.” He reached out to tuck a tendril of Hetta’s hair behind her ear. “It irks me, that I bring so much trouble with me. I should much prefer the reverse, that my presence should bring you only gain.”