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I scrape my hand down the rough bark because I can’t tell her that a punishment would be unnecessary. It would wreck me if something bad were to happen to her. “I want to be here.”

Surprise clouds the aether. She tries to hide it, dusting her dress as she stands. “Really?”

“I thought that was obvious.”

“Let’s go, then.” She holds another piece of roast beef out in one hand. With the other, she clutches my coat, following me down to the lake.

The kelpie ducks behind her as we reach the muddy banks, hiding behind her skirt.

“It’s ok,” she says, giving him the last piece of meat before she sends him off. “You don’t want to stay with me. Not when I live at the castle.”

He trots into the lake, his sleek body slipping beneath the dark water. Cordelia beams, watching as raindrops pebble the surface. It’s the most authentic look I’ve seen from her since everything went sideways.

She flutters her lashes, and I realize she’s not just blinking the rain away. She’s crying.

“I’m not mad at you,” she says, steam curling from her skin as it begins to pour. “Well, I am, but I’m mostly glad you’re still here.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about Cosette.”

“I understand why you didn’t.” She takes my hands and holds them close to her chest. “If there are things you can’t share because of the deal you made, then that’s ok, but don’t lie to me.”

“I won’t.”

Wet hair clings to her forehead as she tilts her head back. I brush a curl back, and a sensation runs through the aether, heating the air around me.

I’m grateful that she can’t sense how badly I want her in my lap again.

She lowers her chin. “Any chance you can vanish us both into thin air so that we won’t have to walk all the way back up to the castle?”

“My aether doesn’t work like that. I’ve never been able to pull another living creature into it.”

I tried and failed during the Queen’s War. When all of the portals to the fae realm were sealed on land, there was a mad scramble to escape through the ones located in the ocean.

We weren’t aware King Morrow had decided to block them until he launched an attack against the group I was leading, leaving dozens of bodies strewn across the beach. Every time I came across someone who was still breathing, I made an attempt to transport them to a healer.

I couldn’t accept that I had to just leave them there.

“It would be a pretty handy trick,” she says, calling me back from the past.

“Yes, it would be.” I squint into the torrent, letting water wash those bloody images away. “We’d better start moving.”

Lightning splits the sky, and thunder rolls in after it. Cordelia jumps into my arms as it booms through the woods.

I hold her longer than I should, then break the embrace, reaching for her hand again. “Alright, let’s make a run for it.”

I take the steep hill winding back up toward the castle, trying to avoid the stables. Cordelia is still wobbly on her human legs, and I have to catch her around the waist a few times to keep her from face-planting into the mud.

We reach the tree line, and she pauses. “Should we sneak back in separately?”

I consider how it will look if we’re seen together at this late hour. “No need. I’ll be with you until you get back to your room.”

Shifting into a form smaller than a hummingbird, I flit above her shoulder, ready to help if she has trouble getting back in.

But there’s no need. She pushes into a hidden entrance she’s left cracked open for herself and climbs a tower, tiptoeing through her wing.

“Goodnight,” she says, standing behind her bedchamber door. “Thanks again for being here.”

This is where I’ll leave her. I pinch myself back into my room and fall into a pillow.