Page 71 of Avalon Tower

Raphael pushes himself up to sit on the bridge’s wide stone railing and pulls a silver flask out of his pocket. With a sly half-smile, he hands it to me. “It’s very strong,” he warns.

“Is this part of our training?”

“It is.”

I take the flask and sit down next to him, stretching out my feet toward the ledge. I’m wearing the usual Fey attire, a sheer dress and almost nothing else. I’ve generally stopped feeling self-conscious in it—except for right now. Because sitting next to Raphael in the hot summer air, I feel acutely aware of my legs and cleavage on display.

A cascade of stars spreads out above us, and the night air kisses my skin. “So, this is part of training?”

“In a way. You need to get in touch with the creative force, and it helps to be in awe of nature, where you see its work etched in the sky and on the land. And from here, you can tune in to the history of the place. The mead is to help you relax.”

I take a sip of it. It’s drier than the mead in the dining hall, and the sting of alcohol burns my throat. “This is strong.”

“Don’t have too much, or you’ll lose your inhibitions. And I know how Americans get when you lose control.”

“We’re not as bad as the English,” I mutter. Already the drink is warming my chest. I take another sip. “You think my problem is that I have too many inhibitions?”

He nods. “You are a bit tightly wound.”

My jaw tightens. “Maybe I’m a bit disoriented. My life has been moving too fast for the past four months. One minute, I’m on vacation. The next, I’m on a boat, getting attacked by a sea monster. And—”

I stop myself short. I don’t want to talk about the deranged, scrawled letter I got from my mother today. She told me that if I didn’t return home, she would die. My mother is a master of the guilt trip. It’s not clear from the letter how she would die, but there are allusions to walking into the sea.

“What is it that you’re not saying?” He leans forward, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“What happened to your family?” I ask, deflecting.

He winces nearly imperceptibly. “My mother raised me. My father was never in the picture. Auberon considered my human mother an enemy of the crown, even though she hardly had any money. I don’t understand what he had against her, except that he blamed all his failures on humans. And she was human.” He leans back against the wall and stares out at the river.

Sensing he needs a drink, I hand him the flask.

He takes a sip. “We didn’t realize how far he was going to go. This was before the invasion of France, when our world was still secret. And we never imagined…my mom thought if she just kept quiet, he’d leave her alone. So, we kept to ourselves. But one day, Auberon’s soldiers raided our home. There was no trial, no jury, no chance to repent. Dawn broke, and they slaughtered my mom in the garden.”

His jaw clenches, but he keeps talking, as if he’s forgotten I’m there. “We’d all been in bed, then someone knocked on the door.” He takes another sip. “They wanted to kill everyone in the house. My sister screamed at me to run to the forest, that Mom was gone, and they were after us. I ran. I thought she was behind me.” A line forms between his eyebrows. “She wasn’t, and I ran back to find her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.”

My chest aches. “How old were you?”

“Nine. My sister was sixteen.”

I swallow hard. “And you never found her?”

He hands me the mead. “I kept searching the forest, living off berries and water from the stream. She never came. I think I was half-dead when a demi-Fey family found me and took me with them to France. It was really amazing luck, I suppose. I was heartbroken, but they brought me to the château with them, and I started working, picking grapes.” He glances at me. “You know the rest. And now this is my home, and I will defend it with my life.”

This is a different side to Raphael, a softer side I’ve never seen. I don’t think he lets many people see the real Raphael. The thought sends warmth spilling through my chest.

“Now you,” he says softly.

I take another sip of the mead and lick my lips. “I’m not sure my mother is going to make it without me.”

“Why?”

“Because she needs me to look after her.”

“She’s convinced you of that.”

There’s a lump in my throat. “It’s also, unfortunately, true.”

“You get your own life. Demi-Fey live for a long time, but even we die someday. You have to die when it’s your time, and no one else can do it for you. That means you need to live for yourself, too.”