The Fae Princes: Chapter 16

I’ve aged by years and years and yet my royal clothing still fits. No magic is required to loosen its seams or take in extra fabric when I put it on.

Tilly has brought us to one of many fitting rooms in the royal wing of the palace.

I’m behind a screen carved from teak wood. There are cabochon jewels set into the wood with pixie bugs glowing inside, casting a rainbow of color. I can’t tell if the pixie bugs are real, trapped inside for all eternity, or if it’s just an illusion.

“How does it look?” Bash asks from the room.

“Like it did decades ago.”

Bash chuckles. Our sister makes an annoyed little tsk-tsk.

“If you’re good then,” she says.

I step out from behind the screen.

Bash comes to stand beside me. “We look fucking amazing.”

We’re wearing our royal blue coats. The ones with golden leaves embroidered down the front and around the sleeves, and again on our shoulders almost like armor.

I don’t disagree, but I don’t like being dressed up like a mother’s toy. Pranced around the royal court like a bargaining chip. That’s what I feel like right now, like Tink is using us as a means to an end. I’m just not sure what the end is. Or, even more worrisome, what the means is.

Tilly regards us, head held high. “You look like princes again.”

“We’ve always been princes, Tilly Willy,” Bash says.

Wetness immediately comes to her eyes, hearing our old nickname for her. Tilly Willy, like the willy bugs that we’d find nestled between soft petals of flower blooms.

The willy bugs have vibrant spotting on their backs, but they have stingers too. Tilly had always been willing to sting for the smallest infraction. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she banished us.

“‘Your Grace’ to you,” she reminds me, rocking her shoulders back.

“Of course.”

Callio comes into the room, clearly in a rush. “Your Majesty,” she says and bows and then looks at us.

Banished princes get no formal greetings, but Tink promised us our exile was finished and now in our royal attire, it cannot be denied.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” she adds and bows to us too.

I always hated the pompousness of being royalty and found the ceremony of mundane things such as being greeted by royal titles insufferable.

But it’s not just about being greeted now. It’s a symbol of what has changed.

“You’re needed in the council room,” Callio tells the queen.

“Til,” Bash starts, “if we could just speak another moment longer—”

“Perhaps later,” she says, wringing her hands in front of her. “You both look handsome and… I’m glad you’re here,” she adds, then hastily departs.

Bash sighs.

“What did you want to say to her?”

“I wanted to try to talk some sense into her.”

“You’re wasting your breath.” I stand in front of the gilded full-length mirror and straighten the golden brooch at my collar.

He comes up behind me and bats my hands away, unpinning the brooch to make sure it’s on straight. “I suppose it’s just as well, her leaving us. Perfect opportunity to go to the vault.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

“No fucking around,” I tell him.

He gives me a salute, but I know it means nothing to the bastard.

We wait a few minutes, just to be sure Tilly doesn’t come back for one reason or the other. When we poke our heads out of the dressing room, we find the long hallway empty at both ends.

“We’re clear,” Bash whispers and slips out.

We’re boys again, sneaking around the palace, on some clandestine mission.

Our steps are quiet on the cobblestones as we make our way down the hall, then cut left. Though it’s been years since we were here last, we know every turn in the wide, arched hallways, where every closed door leads, what secrets might lay beyond the thick, strapped wood.

Glowing lanterns create pools of light on the stone floor as we advance deeper and deeper into the royal wing, passing a long line of oil-painted portraits of our long-gone ancestors in their royal finery, some looking dour, some powerful, some with a twinkle in their eye as if they were trying really hard not to laugh.

We pass another hallway on our right that would take us to the infirmary and apothecary, and Bash pauses at the opening.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shout to him.

“I mean…it would be a shame not to let Darling experience a bottle of fairy lube. Right?”

“Bash.” I cock my head, giving him my best don’t-fuck-this-up look.

He walks backwards down the hall, smiling at me.

“Bash!”

“It’ll only take a second!” He turns and jogs down the hall, darting through several square cuts of diffused moonlight that pour through the wall of windows overlooking the garden below. His laughter rings out.

“Goddammit,” I mutter and jog after him.

When we lived in the palace, a green fairy named Mead oversaw the apothecary. She was a knowledgeable woman much younger than Nana, but who would spend hours and hours listening to Nana’s stories and advice on harvesting and creating tinctures and salves and magical oils.

I liked Mead, even if she worshipped Nana and sometimes monopolized Nana’s time.

Bash and I had always been greedy for our grandmother’s attention. We never got enough of it from our mother and father, so we had to look elsewhere. Nana had always been willing to tolerate us, even when we were being bastards, but she had a life beyond us and she wasn’t above telling us to go away.

We find the apothecary quiet and dark. If Mead still manages it, I’m sure she’s at the party enjoying a break.

The room is exactly as I remembered it, with a garden window on the left, the shelves inside full of small potted flowers and herbs. In the center of the room is one long worktable, the wood base well-worn, the marble top spotted with stains, but still smooth to the touch.

On the right, shelves and shelves of amber glass bottles.

Bash runs his fingers over the labels, searching for the fairy lube.

I go to the worktable and pluck a pale blue flower from a repotted forget-me-not. Nana used to call them mouse’s ears.

“Do you want to hear something weird?” I ask my brother.

He continues his pursuit of the bottles. “Sure.”

“I’ve forgotten what Nana looked like.”

Bash stops searching. He frowns at me over his shoulder. “You know…I don’t really remember either. Like I can see her in my mind when I think of her, but her features are fuzzy, a little indistinguishable.” He laughs. “I can hear her voice, though. Clear as day. ‘You may be princes, but you’ll act like gentlemen when you’re around my ears.’”

I laugh too. “‘If you want to learn how to harness true power, you grow a tomato!’”

My brother turns and folds his arms over his middle. “I wonder why she never sat for a portrait? I can’t think of a single image I ever had of her. Tink had a dozen paintings done. I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing our mother rendered in brush strokes.”

I think of the contrast between my grandmother and my mother and have a hard time reckoning with my brother and me being some kind of converging point between them. Equal parts Tink and Nana, two very different women.

I crush the flower petals between my fingers and the oil soaks into my skin. Forget-me-nots are traditionally given to a person you love. It’s a promise, or a reminder.

But what if you forget yourself? Who you were and who you wanted to be?

What if you thought you knew what you wanted only to find out you were groping around blindly, in pursuit of something that, once you had it, did not feel so important?

Will getting my wings back make me feel whole again?

I want to be free of the pursuit.

“Come on,” I tell my brother. “Let’s get into the vault and find those vessels.”

Bash scans the last of the bottles and finally lands on what he’s looking for. He holds up the amber glass and gives it a little shake. “Got it. Darling’s going to love this.”

I roll my eyes, but honestly, she probably will. That shit is amazing.

We leave the apothecary and return to the main hallway, still finding it empty. We jog the rest of the way, cutting left, then right, then left, until we’re underground again, the shadows a little thicker, the air colder.

At the large double doors, we stop. There’s a glowing orb at the latch. It’s fairy magic, an impenetrable lock that will only open for a select few.

Bash and I used to have access. Do we still?

It seems unlikely, but yet…

When I hold my hand over the orb, the energy inside condenses and glows bright blue.

And the lock thunks open.