Madame glares at me when I step through the kitchen doors, her beady eyes just visible through the silts of her gold mask. While everyone else is already halfway done with breakfast, I'm the last copper to arrive, having spent my morning painting over my neck bruises. 

Most coppers can enter the kitchen with strange, unexplained marks without anyone batting an eye, but the princess' 'pet copper' would stir gossip, and might even reach Aerywna's ears.

"You're late," Madame says. I start to apologize but she holds up a hand. "Just fetch the eggs. And watch out; the pan is hot."

Technically, I am no longer hers to command, but Madame will occasionally do so anyway as a reminder that at the end of the day, no matter whose favor I secure, I am still a copper and she is still a gold; I am still a human and she is still a fae. 

Not wanting to draw her attention, I'm usually hypervigilant around her, but today I move through the kitchen like the walking dead, my head a million miles away, still stuck in the darkness of the cave. What I wouldn't give to –

"Hey!" someone shouts. "Watch the metal!"

I jerk back my hand, a second too late. The hot metal scalds my skin, forming angry red burns all along my palms. The other coppers do not reproach me, even though I delayed their preparations back half an hour, at least. 

But Madame does not share their concerns. "Didn't I just tell you to be carefull? Dammit, pay attention next time."

After I get the burn bandaged, I go to the gardens. Since Aerywna's busy with coronation duties, I'm working on the background alone today, or for however long I can stand before the burns force me to stop. 

I'm mixing colors when Hunkletoad arrives, skipping the greetings to list all the reasons I must fix his preliminary sketches. As he goes on and on, I rub my temple, sensing a pounding headache in the near future. Finally, I can't take it anymore. 

"Should I just do it for you?" I interrupt.

He stares at me, shocked. Then he practically throws his sketchbook at me. As I fix his sketches, my mind wanders back to the cave. The light shining off the wall was so bright that with every blink, I see the symbols burned into my eyelids. Each had a different shape, twisting across each other with no rhyme or reason –

"What on earth?" Hunkletoad cries, ripping his paper from my hand. 

I look down, blinking several times. When my vision clears, I realize that I was correcting his drawing – at first. But midway down the page, I started drawing the symbols from the cave, over and over again, so hard the charcoal ripped through the page at certain points.

"Sorry – I don't – let me fix it." I reach for him, but he jerks his arm back.

"It's fine."

"Hunkletoad –"

"Don't worry about it. I'll fix it myself." 

His jaw tight, Hunkletoad stalks back toward the palace, only to stop dead when he spots Silas approaching. He tries to tuck his sketchbook behind his back and bow at the same time but accomplishes neither, falling flat on his face. Without blinking, Silas steps over Hunkletoad's body, continuing his same pace until he reaches me.

"Nice company you keep," he says.

I bite back a scowl, staring down at the ground. "How may I help you today, Your Highness?"

His mouth curves. "Well that wasn't a very nice greeting. What happened to all your promises of gratitude? How quickly eternity expires."

All morning my patience has been hanging by a thread, but with that, it finally snaps. 

 "I only said that because I thought you were helping me!" I burst out. "You made our 'arrangement' seem like you were doing me a favor."

"Have I not kept my silence?"

"I nearly died yesterday."

He stares at me. I stare at him. Several seconds pass. Then he raises a brow, urging me to make my point. "And?"

My hand twitches, itching to slap him. "How long will you hold the sketchbook over my head?"

"What if I give it back?"

I stop short, blinking. "Come again?"

Ten minutes later, I'm standing by the door of his office, arms crossed over my chest as I watch him withdraw my sketchbook from his drawers. 

"I looked through the rest of your drawings last night, and it was even worse than I imagined," he says, glancing up at me through his lashes. "There are hundreds of drawings of Devlin, but the most I ever got was half a shoulder blade. In one drawing, you even drew in a tree to block my face."

Here's another rule I learned during my early weeks at the palace – when the fae make a joke, even one at your expense, laugh. Take joy in the fact they're making you blush, not bleed. But on the heels of the cave, I cannot manage so much as a smile. 

"You said you would return my sketchbook, your highness?" I ask.

"For every favour you do me, I'll return a page of your sketchbook, until your debt is paid in full. I'll return three now, to prove my good faith."

I don't need to be told twice. As soon as he rips three pages, I snatch them from his hands, quick like a cat, and chuck them in the fireplace.

If he's surprised by how quickly I destroyed my work, he doesn't show it. "The thing is, while I have hundreds of pages, I only need your services twice more. I can return all but two pages if you answer some of my questions."

"What kind of questions?" I ask, staring into the flames. 

While I'm listening intently to the offer, nothing on earth could make me look away from the papers until every square inch of evidence was turned into ash.

"Humans have always fascinated me."

I whip toward Silas, my brows pinched. While I have never broadcasted my humanity, I have never gone out of my way to hide it, either. If you are not fae, it does not particularly matter what you are. Goblin, selkie, gnome, human – in the eyes of the fae, we are all varying shades of lesser. 

Except for Silas, apparently. Flames dance across his eyes as they trace the curve of my ear, until he catches himself, and his gaze flicker back to my face. 

"Our scholars have a working theory that because you have such short, fleeting life spans, every emotion is heightened a hundredfold." He cocks his head, studying my expression. "Is it true you cry over spilled blood?"

"Depends on how much, I suppose. Depends on who." 

I keep my words clipped and short, not trusting him from a second. I could not think of a single reason a fae prince would have any interest in the human kind, but then again, it's not like burning through my favours would cost him anything. If Silas doesn't need any messages transcribed, he has no use for me.

"What of fear? Do all humans lose control of their person?" he asks. "Or just you?"

"I've never –" I stop short, remembering the cave. "It's not an unprecedented reaction," I say, crossing my arms over my chest. "If the human nearly dies."

"And disgust?"

I tap my mask. "We don't feel it a fraction as much as the fae."

"Sadness?"

"Uh, tearful?" What am I supposed to say? Has he never been sad?

"Jealousy?"

"Some humans go mad from it."

"Love?"

"They go mad from that, too. It's very powerful. Or so I am told."

"And you?" He leans forward, watching every flicker in my expression with undisguised fascination. "What do you think?"

I tense, then disguise my hesitation by clearing my throat. "If you want to know about love, I'm the last person you should ask. I've never been in love, nor can I imagine ever going down that ..." I search for a neutral word, ignoring the stream of nasty ones that spring to mind first. "... road."

He studies me for a beat, a challenge dancing in his eyes. "I will return your sketchbook if you say that again. Every last page."

"Okay."

"Without wearing your irons and charms."

My face drops. Long story short, I don't get the pages.