Young Immortals

Two: Caught

When you work for the fae, you either learn the rules fast or die slow. During my first week at the palace, a satyr servant stepped on a fae's cloak. In response, the fae ripped a horn straight from his head. No questions, no apologies, no room for error. 

Splatter, turn, scream. 

While I froze, all the blood draining from my face, another copper grabbed my shoulder and whispered in my ear. "Rule one. Don't insult the fae." 

It's good advice. Perhaps I shouldn't have broken it on the daily.

Trying to stay calm, I walk the length of the garden three times. Then I sneak into the RA's quarters and hunt through their things. Then I tear my chamber apart, which doesn't take long, considering there is only enough space for a bed and a desk. 

Each time I fail to find my sketchbook, my chest tightens. Running isn't an option. If coppers spend more than a day outside palace grounds, our masks gradually tighten until they grind our skull to dust. 

First a headache, Madame will say, then a snapped skull, then brain matter leaking out of your mask's eyeholes.

But no matter how desperate I get, I never consider going to Aerwyna. If she spares me from punishment, it may be the last favor she ever does me, and then I am back where I started, just another copper scrubbing chamber pots. I'll just have to check the gardens again. 

I open my door just as Prince Silas is about to knock. He catches himself just in time, stopping his fist an inch from my face.

"Your majesty," I blurt out, my breath ghosting his knuckles.

His eyes flicker from my sweat-soaked shirt to the frizz that escaped from my braid. "I hope you haven't wasted the whole day searching. Your sketchbook has been in my possession since this afternoon. The wind blew your painting rags off of it, falling upon a rather ... detailed drawing of my brother."

I still, the blood draining from my face.

Silas tilts his head, his expression unreadable. "May I come in?"

In a daze, I step aside and then close the door after him. His body takes up half the chamber, and while the top of my head is an inch away from the low-hanging ceiling, he has to lean against my desk at an angle. While I've memorised his older brother, it's the first time I've looked at Silas with any real focus. 

His eyes, cold and sharp, glitter like diamonds, and every angle of his body is perfectly symmetrical, as if sculpted by the gods. Many coppers say he is the most comely prince, but something about his appearance has always stuck me as off putting about him, perhaps because of how boyish he looks – when he's not cutting down his sparring opponents with a flick of the wrist. Fae age about fifty times slower than mortals, making Silas centuries old, even as he could easily be mistaken for my age, eighteen or so.

"If you're wearing iron, charm, or anything that will disrupt my glamor, take it off," Silas says. I set my iron bracelet on the nightstand, and he pauses for a beat. "I can sense it, you now."

And so I have no choice but to remove two more bracelets, three arm cuffs, a necklace, an iron dagger, a string of rowan berries, and two charms tucked in the soles of my slippers. Silas stares in disbelief at the small mountain of loot piled on my desk. "Leave anything for the other coppers?" 

Embarrassed, I look down, only for the prince to place a thumb under my chin, tilting my head back to meet his stare. His eyes glow in the dim light, so rich and deep that I couldn't look away even if I tried.

"In Aerywna's coronation portrait, you placed a bundle of flowers where her body should have been, leaving only her gown and the background intact," he says, his voice rich and heady. "Why?"

I try to lie, but his glamour is stronger than I am. "Since human eyes and hands can never capture the fae's beauty, any attempts of doing so are considered slander of the highest order." While my heart races, my voice comes out flat and monotone, as if put into a trace. "A terrible insult to most fae, treason when done to royalty."

"If you were aware of the consequences, then why draw Devlin? I can only assume it was him, based on the scar."

Heat crawls across my face. I had failed at capturing the fae's beauty – failed spectacularly. If I had not included such an identifiable characteristic, Silas never would have never guessed I had drawn his brother. 

"I — well —" Again, his glamor yanks the truth out of me. "I couldn't help myself. He inspired me, so I drew."

Silas stares at me, lifting a dark eyebrow. "No espionage? No profit?"

"Nothing like that. I just liked his face."

He blinks, and the spell shatters.

"I'm sorry," I say, taking advantage of my returned ability to lie. "I'll never do it again. I'll throw the whole thing in a fireplace."

I reach for my sketchbook, but he slides it out of range. "A few portraits seem trivial to a copper, but to a fae, our reputation is on the line. It's not a matter of vanity but respect. For my brother's good, I must inform him at once."

My stomach drops. "Is the matter settled? Can I do nothing to change your mind?"

"Like what?"

I sit down on my bed, my knees too shaky to keep me up. He's right; I'm finished. I've been living on borrowed time ever since the copper mask locked over my face. Something like this was inevitable. 

Silas moves to the door, only to pause at the handle, his brows pinched as he studies me. "What are you banking on? Devlin's ego? Eldor's good nature?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've never seen anyone face corporal punishment so calmly... or do you truly regret what you have done?"

I look up with a start. He wouldn't have asked the question if he wasn't going to be lenient, would he? 

"More than words can express," I say. 

Which is true enough. I don't regret no part of drawing the prince. I definitely regret the part when I was caught.

Silas' eyes shift across the planes of my mask as if trying to find the face below. If I could take it off, what would he see? An eighteen-year-old girl who made a mistake? Or, more likely, a perverted stalker begging like a worm? 

 "So you're an artist?" he says.

"Yes."

"Perhaps we can work out an arrangement, after all."