Feyla stared at the door barring her from the pained man within. Her fists rested at her side in a tight clench. The back of her throat felt raw and the cry fighting its way past her control didn't help. She spun away from the door and ran down the palace hall.

The cry escaped sooner than she'd planned. Sedgewick might still be able to hear it. A petty part of her hoped the sound gnawed at him but she shoved that thought back violently. Oh, his face, his cries, the things he'd said, she'd done that to him.

Feyla ran faster, skidding around a turn, the speed causing her lungs to ache as much as her throat did. Moonlight poured in through the tall glass windows on her right, making bright steppingstones along her path. Finally, something in her snapped and she collapsed into one of the pools of light.

He'd hate her now. Hate her like—like he did Bilara. They'd never dance together again. Or hold hands while eating breakfast. She'd never watch his eyes light up when she brought him coffee. They'd never cuddle on his settee, his arm draped over her while they talked about curtains and baby name or work and new theatre shows.

Sedgewick would never...kiss her again in that half-desperate way that reached into her heart and begged for her love while apologizing for needing it. He rarely talked about it, but she rarely needed him to. Feyla had seen it. She'd felt that fear from him like it was her own and she'd been so diligent in drowning out that voice in his head that said she couldn't really love him and be trusted to stay. And to Sedgewick's credit, it had started working.

But now she'd shattered that into dust-sized pieces and left him worse than before.

"You betrayed me to get back into your mother's good graces," he'd said.

"I didn't want to!" Feyla shouted into the echoing halls. He didn't understand, she'd known he wouldn't understand. How could he know what it felt like to wobble on the knife-edge of her mother's approval, always one false step or one embarrassing word away from Arilla's rebuke? How could someone who'd flung his father's name in the man's face and vowed to never go home again grasp the crushing weight on her chest, the sickness rising in her stomach, whenever she dared think of doing the same?

Her mother had been there when Feyla's own father hadn't even wanted to be. It had always been just the two of them. What kind of daughter abandoned the mother who'd cared for her when no one else would?

Feyla's nails bore into the palms of her hands. Emotions twisted and writhed within her. For once, she didn't automatically sort out their source and note their names. They rolled over her, rising into her throat and washing out a high-pitched cry. The lines of shadow from the window panes separated the pool of moonlight on the floor with dark, iron-colored streaks broken by her white cloak against the floor and her own shadow. An image rose to her mind of a bird flapping its wings against the bars of a cage, unable to escape as water flooded in.

She was trapped, trapped by the things she wanted most in the world and all her attempts to fix it were failing.

"You should be careful lurking in my halls at night," a cool, commanding voice spoke into the silence. "The guards might think the worst."

Feyla's head snapped to her left. A frightened squeak left her mouth and the air around her shifted.

Eleyna stepped into the light of a different window. It highlighted the sharp cut of her chin and the arch of her brow. Her eyes should have been shadowed but dim starlight shimmer at the edges of them like it was greeting a familiar friend.

Feyla had thought —a little proudly—that she'd become...inoculated to her friend and queen's effect on people. She'd been wrong.

A deep, ancient instinct crawled through her magic and made her freeze like a dumb, helpless sheep before a wyrm. A voice inside her whispered warnings that the Eleyna-as-she-saw was not the Eleyna-as-She-is. There was something else under the fey woman. Something dangerous.

Eleyna tilted her chin ever so slightly as she looked at her and Feyla's magic essence leached away from her fingertips and curled into the core in her chest like an animal hiding from its natural predator.

A thud finally ripped Feyla's attention away. The light of Eleyna's normal blue magic faded from a chair now sitting in the middle of the hall, levitated from some dark corner Feyla had missed. Eleyna strolled over and claimed it like her throne. "Get up."

Feyla rose wobbly to her feet. She blinked at Eleyna and saw only the fey woman. A powerful, intimidating fey woman but still only a woman. Her ears pressed against her head irritably. "You did that on purpose," Feyla realized.

Eleyna's face might as well have been stone. She rapped her nails on the arm of the chair. "I consider you a friend, Feyla."

"I do too, but why—"

"I'm. Not. Finished." Eleyna's golden eyes flashed in the moonlight. Feyla wisely clamped her jaw shut. This was not their usual stroll through the garden. "I consider you a friend. But Sedgewick is family. So I would like you to explain why he arrived back at the palace without that wizard and immediately ordered several bottles of wine to be delivered to his quarters."

Feyla wasn't sure how Eleyna had expected her to react but given the look of utter terror that broke through her stony expression, bursting into tears and being desperately in need of comfort was probably not it.

Several minutes later, after Eleyna had made an awkward attempt at comfort and levitated over another decorative chair, Feyla began explaining everything that had happened up to Sedgewick's rejection. She described meeting Daydrel at the gala and her mother's threats, her own lies to Sedgewick and the disastrous encounter with Desden.

Eleyna silently absorbed everything, and only the faintest shift of her ear at any mention of Sedgewick showed a sign of emotion. When Feyla had at last spent all her words, the queen leaned back in her chair and finally allowed a line to appear in her brow. "You have made a mess of everything, haven't you?"

"I didn't want to." Feyla sniffled again.

"He actually started...crying?"

Feyla nodded her head, not trusting her voice to answer that question again.

"I see."

"He doesn't understand!" Feyla blurted out, unable to bear Eleyna's silent judgment a moment longer. "What was I supposed to do, just abandon my mother without at least trying to make her see?"

"Your story does not paint her as the persuadable type."

Feyla huffed. "So I should just fling my family name to the wind."

Eleyna gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. "I would have."

Eyes widening, Feyla stared at the younger woman incredulously. "You can't just say that. Everyone loves you and Fenroy together. You two waited and—and you talked it through and people started to understand! It's not fair to say what you'd do in my position."

A sly smile played at the corner of Eleyna's lips. "What gave you the impression that we did that?"

She must have noticed Feyla's look of confusion because she moved to explain herself, only to stop. "I would like to tell you a secret but it is not only mine to tell. One moment." Eleyna closed her eyes and Feyla caught the faintest flicker of blue, then green, near her chest. They waited in silence until loud, pounding footsteps broke through the night. Fenroy skidded to a stop in front of their chairs. His hair was disheveled, the tiny braids scattered throughout it now half undone. A large, scary-looking knife rested in one of his hands and the corded muscles in his arms were tightened and ready to strike. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of brown trousers and a knife belt. The way Eleyna devoured him with her eyes said that she didn't mind.

Fenroy relaxed his stance and slid the knife back into its holster. "'Leyna, we talked about the summoning thing."

"I had a question." She blinked up at her husband and somehow managed to capture perfect innocence with the same face that had earlier inspired terror.

Fenroy melted like she was a puppy. He knelt down from his towering height next to her makeshift throne and looked at her like she wasn't vaguely terrifying. "What is it, Sweetheart?"

Not for the first time, Feyla wondered...did he not see it? The magic underneath the fey woman? Or was there something else he saw that the rest of them didn't? She had known Eleyna long enough to not sense it most of the time but Fenroy never seemed affected.

"I'd like to tell Feyla our secret."

"Which one? Because I don't really want to talk about that kind of thing with—"

"Not those secrets. The boat one."

"Oh, that one." His ears shifted indecisively. "You have a good reason," Fenroy said finally. Despite being absent earlier, it was a statement, not a question. The tall king consort rose to his feet and took his wife's hand. "Eleyna and I have two anniversaries."

"You—what?" Feyla gaped at him in confusion.

Eleyna stood as well. "We eloped before our official house-binding. I rented a boat under another name and we sailed it to Pythran and had it done."

"Why?"

"Similar reasons. At the time, my family wouldn't approve of the engagement."

"But you'd just gotten your family back! You could have lost your future title. I always thought you talked them into it. Made them see." Feyla stood from her chair.

Eleyna shrugged again. "The approval was a nice side effect but..." She squeezed Fenroy's hand before releasing it and stepping closer to Feyla. "I never expected to live this long and I was not going to waste the additional time I'd been given making sure everyone was pleased with my decisions. People accepted it after a while. But in truth, it wouldn't have mattered if they didn't. If being queen has taught me anything, it's that you cannot please everyone. All you can do is trust to the wisdom and knowledge that you've been given. I knew Roy. And I knew their reasoning for rejecting him wasn't satisfactory. I would choose him again in less than a heartbeat."

Fenroy came up and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. His eyes were watery. "I was going to build her a house on the edge of the Wildwood. Guess we got kind of stuck with the palace though, didn't we, 'Leyna?"

His wife blushed, looking down as he kissed the top of her loose curls. When she looked up at Feyla again, she'd managed to smooth her expression back into stoney judgment. "I wasn't even half your age when I bonded. So my question to you, Feyla Everbloom, is this: are you a woman or are you a child? Because if you think that your mother is going to change her mind because you caught a wizard for her, then you're just as naive as one."

"I feel like I've missed some of this conversation," said Fenroy.

Eleyna flicked her wrist. Both chairs flew back to their respective spots. "I can explain it later."

"I'll see you soon." He released her reluctantly oved to return to their chambers. "And good luck with whatever mess you and Alverdyne have gotten into, Feyla."

Eleyna waited until her husband was out of sight before she continued. "I am going to show you some patience for now. But if you continue to hurt Master Sedgewick then friend or no friend, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you deeply regret it," she said through clenched, sharp teeth.

Feyla swallowed. She didn't breath until Queen Eleyna was well out of sight. Her chest shuddered as she finally relaxed. She slumped against the window, cooling her hot skin on the glass. Eleyna's words had cut worse than her threats. Feyla recalled her mother's harsh judgments about Sedgewick and turned every second of her time back at the guild house over in her mind. The guilt, the hints at her staying, the pushing her toward Daydrel again, the way Mother hadn't let her refer to Sedgewick by his first name. And she finally realized, or maybe just finally admitted, that Eleyna was right. Just catching Desden for the guild wouldn't win her mother's approval of her engagement. So what now?

Minutes crawled over her skin as slowly, a solution began to form in her mind. The healers and the mages, Arilla and Sedgewick, had both wanted her help catching Desden. Now Sedgewick wasn't speaking to her, Sandrina would never agree if she tried to switch sides, and her mother was slowly tightening her grip. She couldn't make everyone happy. Fine. But...she could at least make sure neither side could call her a traitor.

No more Feyla the Healer or Feyla the Assistant. Just Feyla.

And if "just Feyla" couldn't give Desden to both sides then she'd make sure neither of them got him.

*************************

Author's Note: I sacrificed homework time to finish this, praise me, people. What did you all think of Eleyna and Fenroy's appearance? Arilla's hold on her daughter is starting to crack... What do you think will happen now that Feyla's going rogue? Did you see that coming?