The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(60)

Leave her free to find how to destroy him.

Instead she was trapped in his villa, cut off from everyone she knew and every resource she had, and Teague was poised to exploit Thad at the cost of entire kingdoms.

Grief swelled in her throat, and tears spilled onto her cheeks.

What if she never saw Thad, Sebastian, and Cleo again?

What if she couldn’t find anything that would show her how to stop Teague?

A knock sounded at her door, and she quickly wiped tears from her face as the door opened and a tiny woman old enough to be Ari’s grandmother shuffled in carrying a tray.

“Breakfast,” she said matter-of-factly, as if finding the princess here was business as usual.

Ari sat up slowly. Her arms had long slashes from the beast’s talons. Her back ached where she’d been kicked. And something in her chest sent a sharp pain through her whenever she moved.

The woman’s eyes, nearly buried in mounds of wrinkles, watched shrewdly as Ari struggled to get from the bed to the slim wooden chair that rested beside the open window. The woman put the tray, with its covered plate and mug of tea, on a table beside the chair.

“I’m Ari,” the princess said, her breath catching on the pain in her chest.

“I know who you are,” the woman said in the dry, papery voice of old age. She lifted the lid off the plate, revealing a dish of yogurt with honey drizzled on top and a slice of dry toast.

It was barely enough food to qualify as a snack, much less breakfast, but Ari found she couldn’t stomach the thought of putting a single bite into her mouth. Not with the pain that lit her on fire from the inside every time she moved.

She looked away from the food and found that her window faced the sea. Last night, hearing the crash of the waves against the shore had comforted her. Now it somehow made her life at the palace seem unbearably distant.

“Eat,” the woman said. “You’ll need your strength. The boss won’t tolerate someone who doesn’t pull her weight.” She sounded smug. Like she’d already decided Ari would be a liability Teague would soon cut loose.

“I’m not hungry.” Ari reached for the mug of tea, which smelled like lemons and cream and something dark and exotic that she couldn’t quite place. She took a sip. It was just as delicious as it smelled.

The woman smiled grimly. “That will fix what ails you. I’m Maarit. I do the washing up, the ironing, the dusting, the sweeping, and the shopping. Don’t expect to be taking any of those from me.”

Ari took another sip. “Am I going to be doing housework?”

Maarit sniffed, though she watched the princess closely. “What else would you be doing?”

Ending Teague, she hoped.

“I don’t know. I’m good at bargaining, sums, and baking,” Ari said. And snooping. There were definite advantages to having been raised by a servant mother who’d taught her how to move unseen through the palace so as not to disturb the royal family.

She took two more swallows of tea and looked out the window again. The sun danced over the water, golden diamonds glittering against the sea, and thick, pillowy clouds wandered across the sky. Her throat closed on tears that she refused to shed in front of Maarit. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Cleo and eat Mama Eleni’s raspberry scones. She wanted to see if Thad was recovering from his head wound.

She wanted Sebastian.

Stars, how she wanted Sebastian. She wanted his quiet strength and his confidence that she could do anything she set her mind to. She wanted his crinkle-eyed smile and the deep stillness of his body when he mentioned his past. Missing him was a bittersweet ache that sank into her bones like it never meant to leave.

“Thinking of running away?” There was a tiny spark of curiosity in Maarit’s voice for the first time. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

Ari turned away from the window, surprised that the movement didn’t hurt as much as it had a moment ago. “I don’t run from my promises.”

Especially when she was one word away from having her soul ripped out of her body. She’d always been a loyalty-or-death kind of girl, but this was taking it to an extreme.

There was a glimmer of approval in Maarit’s eyes as she said, “Finish your tea. You’ll feel better soon.”

Ari took the last swallow of tea and then blinked. The room grew blurry at the edges and spun in slow, sickening circles. She had the unsettling sensation that the walls were breathing—in and out, a slow gentle rhythm that sent a chill skittering down Ari’s spine.

Setting the cup down, she rubbed her eyes, but nothing changed.

“What’s in this tea?” she asked, her tongue feeling too clumsy to properly form the words.

“Little bit of fae herbs blessed with magic. Good for knitting broken bones and cleansing the body of bruises.” Maarit lifted the cup out of her hands, and Ari caught a whiff of something that smelled of wild, overgrown forests and dark, loamy soil.

Teague had smelled like that. Or maybe it was the open vial he’d held. It was unsettling to think that she’d just ingested something that smelled like the man she desperately wanted to destroy.

She tried to sit up straighter, but it was hard to feel her legs. The walls seemed to breathe a little faster.

“Back to bed,” Maarit said as she wrapped a wiry arm around the princess’s back. She was stronger than she looked, and Ari leaned heavily on her as they made their way back to the bed.