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The large man’s chest deflates as he lets a swear hiss past his lips. Covering his eyes with a hand, he rubs his temple a moment, then drops his arm. “Dear one…I need a moment. Take care of your teacher.” With that, he turns on his heel and marches through another archway on the other side of the kitchen.
He’s gone before I can blink.
Andromeda juts a lip and stares after her father. “Huh.” Looking at me, she smiles. “He’s still shy. The pie needs to cool a bit before I put it in the fridge to set. Would you like some ice cream while we wait? I like vanilla.” She opens the bottom freezer and pulls out a tub. After setting it on the counter, she looks my way again. “Are you well?”
No, but I pretend that it doesn’t feel like hundreds of bugs are crawling beneath my skin. “I… Of course. Ice cream. Vanilla is perfect, thank—”
“Ms. Role. Please stop thanking people. I’m monitored, so I can’t take your soul without Daddy’s permission, but Alexios isn’t. He’d try to take your soul just so he could bargain with Daddy.” Pouting, she shakes her head and serves up some scoops. “He’s gotten very mischievous the more he grows into himself.”
“Alexios…” The other man she lives with. The one I’m told she considers a brother. He couldn’t be the butler I met earlier, right? The butler who, on all accounts, seemed to be…flirting…with her.
“He greeted you at the door,” Andromeda confirms my worries. “Daddy says he’s at that age where he can only think about one thing.”
I don’t want to know what she’s been told in that regard, but I plaster practiced calm into every inch of myself, return to the bar stool, and ask anyway, “What is that?”
“World domination.”
I choke on my first bite of ice cream. “World domination?”
Andromeda’s big blue eyes stare at me, curious. “It’s common enough. Uncle Cael and Daddy went through the same phase when they were younger. Uncle Cael came close enough to succeeding that Daddy learned world domination involved too much paperwork. He prefers a more active role in his experiments and to record the results on his own terms with fewer redundant forms. Many fae have pretty nasty control issues, so the desire to own things runs deep.” Her laughter is much too bright. “Naturally, even I consider world domination once in a while, but I trust Daddy when he says the paperwork is stupid. Uncle Cael would visit more if it weren’t for all the stupid paperwork.”
Managing to get another bite of ice cream and compose myself, I ask, “Sweetheart, what does Uncle Cael do?”
“Oh, he’s our prince. I’ve mentioned him before in class. I just haven’t named him because I don’t want the other kids to be jealous that he’s my uncle.”
“He’s the faerie prince?”
“Mhm. The good one. Not the bad one who recently stopped by to make dire promises. I wasn’t supposed to overhear, but I’m excellent at eavesdropping. He wanted to meet me, probably take me away to his castle beyond the Desolate Caverns, but Daddy reminded him I’m not old enough for the kinds of things he was suggesting.”
My ice cream curdles as Andromeda tells me more than I want to hear about faerie princes who seem to think they have a claim to her. By the time the pie has cooled enough to go into the fridge, I’ve stress-eaten nearly the entire carton of vanilla ice cream and am seriously considering whether or not I can get away with kidnapping her myself.
A grandfather clock chimes from somewhere deep on the other side of the manor while I’m mind-mapping a forty-seven step plan that may or may not involve changing my name roughly five times. The ten heavy bongs summon Pollux back to the kitchen—which puts an immediate damper on my schemes.
Holding his gaze firmly off me, he says, “It’s time.”
“Time for work?” Andromeda asks as she collects our dishes and places them in the sink.
Pollux arches a brow, glances my way, then turns his face roughly toward the corner without replying.
Work.
At this hour? Why is Andromeda even still up? Seven-year-olds need ten to thirteen hours of sleep. Her father should have come to tell her it was time for bed ages ago.
But.
No.
Instead she’s been left to talk about how an “evil faerie prince” wants to take her away while she eats as much ice cream as she wants.
I smile as vibrantly as I can while hands constrict themselves around my heart. “Meda, sweetie, I’ve been meaning to ask. What exactly is work?”
She giggles, running to Pollux and jumping on him. Somehow, she scales his body, twists a fist in his hair, and perches on his shoulders like a frog. “Work is horrors beyond your feeble comprehension!”
“Meda…” Pollux murmurs.
“We’re being very nice and keeping our human forms in place because you’ve been raised human, but we’re actually quite spooky.” She fumbles, crushing Pollux’s head at an odd angle.
Deeply sighing, he says, “Okay, that’s enough,” then he shakes her off him, catches her ankle before her head smashes into the floor, and tosses her over his shoulder like a sack of beans. He turns on his heel so she’s facing me and grumbles, “Say goodbye to your teacher and stop being an imp.”
