Lips Like Ice

XXV

Lydia sucks in a breath and stumbles back a step, two, fetches up against the chair and slides down it until she is sitting on the ground, legs akimbo and the only thing keeping her upright is the chair leg behind her.

"By all the laws and customs of your land, you died."

What he said... no. It can't actually... no.

She would... if she had died she would... she would remember, wouldn't she? Dying isn't something you just... forget. Even with a scar-spell. It seems like it would be too... painful. Too important. She wets her lips, swallows hard, but her tongue is thick and fuzzy and numb.

"I..." she manages to croak. "What?"

The Prince kneels beside her, takes her hands between his, soft and kind and hateful. She shoves his touch away, but he just swings back, cups her chin in one palm instead, forces her to look up, look at him.

"Even if I had the desire to send you home, I cannot. For the one thing we must always do is preserve the natural order of the human world."

"But not the laws, is that it?" Lydia scoffs. "You can kidnap me but you can't send me home? You hypocritical bastard." She tries to shove him away, but he simply remains there, unmoving.

Unmoved.

"I'll thank you not to impugn my mother the Queen's honor." The Prince sighs. "My father took you as your life light flickered towards death. He kept you from guttering, and gave you unto me to shelter. I cannot send you back there, or you will be snuffed."

The world tilts dangerously. Lydia is glad she's sitting. "I'll die?"

"If you step back across into the human world, yes." The corners of his eyes crinkle with a soft look of pity, and she is startled to realize that this cold, perfect paragon of male beauty has smile lines. "And have I not told you that I care for what is mine? That I protect it?"

"I don't believe you," Lydia breathes. "Your answer is too convenient."

"There is no way to show you that would not endanger either your life, or my ability to keep you within my grasp."

Lydia thinks of the Prince's brother and shudders.

"Why... why didn't you say all this to start with?" Lydia asks softly, turning her cheek into his palm not because she sought comfort, but because his cool skin feels good against her flushed face.

The Prince shifts and kneels before her, face lowered like a contrite little boy. He clears his throat and bites the inside of his cheek and Lydia realizes with a start that he feels guilty.

"Because I did not care for your emotional well-being then," he admits faintly. He raises both his face and his other hand then, his thumbs tracing the arc of her cheeks, penitent. "I thought I needed only to keep you alive, healthy. I did not consider your happiness, your loneliness then. Forgive me? I was a poor master."

The knee-jerk reaction to say no, never mind, it's fine, is strong. Lydia swallows it back down, forcing it into a hot burning ball low in her stomach.

Because it is not fine, and she should mind.

It doesn't occur to her until after the Prince has left for court the next morning that he didn't tell her how she died.

IX

The second time that Lydia ever sees more creatures like the Prince, it is when five of the things push their way into the bedroom and start folding everything the Prince owns into cases and hinge-lidded wicker baskets. Lydia is still asleep, curled in the duvet, and they don't notice she's there—and in fact, she doesn't even hear them come in— until one of them whisks the covers off the bed and tumbles her onto the floor. They both shriek, though Lydia with less offended girlishness. Lydia stays put, naked and rubbing the heels of her hands in her eyes to clear out the sleep, because whatever. She's pretty much lost any and all body modesty she ever had.