Lament

I couldn't move. I sat as still as stone, my gloved hands covering my open mouth. It was Prince who made the first move towards me, his dark eyes staring right at me and long, darker than auburn hair tangled at his shoulders. His legs shook as he walked, the punishment for having not used them for four months. He looked so serious I thought he might yell at me, I thought he might blame me for what happened, but at the last moment, he broke out into a smile. He kneeled down and wrapped his arms around my small shoulders and crushed me to his chest. My arms were trapped between our bodies, and suddenly I was consumed with such an immense sense of loss, the feeling I'd felt the night of the Blood Moon when Alphonse had left, Prince was trapped in death and Wren blamed me for it. My body wracked with a sob I could not stifle, and Prince's arms held me tighter. I thought of how he'd proposed to me and revealed that he would never love me because he was not attracted to women. I'd told him that I would still be his friend no matter what, but to find his own love. Then he'd been caught at the border between life and death, there was no love to find, no adventure to lead. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I felt myself say to him.

He laughed in my ear. "The weight of life...it is hard to carry sometimes. Cry all you want. It is not your fault. It never was." His voice, the silk of it combined with just a touch of haughtiness, this was what had made him Prince Morgenstern. I could still remember a time when I did not trust him and I laughed at that. Prince had been my truest friend. He had saved my life. I had missed so much everything about him. When I finally pulled away from him, his shirt was soaked with my tears. Rubbing my eyes, we both laughed a little. I turned then to the rest of the people in the parlor. Glenn Morgenstern, whose cool exterior covered a strong desire to help people, even when his way was atypical. Wren Morgenstern, whose fickle and cruel demeanor masked a self-consciousness, a desparate need to be loved.

And then I turned to Alphonse Wainwright, the man who had brought Prince back to the world of the living. More than that, he was the boy who'd helped soothe the pain of losing my mother and father. He was the boy who'd risked his father's disapproval and had snuck into the masquerade to waltz with me. He was the boy who'd proposed to me on a boulder. He was the man who had returned, maybe not for me but still with love for me in his heart. He was a man who had saved me from what I'd thought to be my mother. He was the man who I loved, the man that I wanted, the only thing I needed to live. I would go anywhere, as long as it was with him. I would do anything for him, if only to make him smile at me.

Alphonse was looking at me with such a strange look in his eyes, as if he were seeing the world for the first time. Glenn and Wren had moved off, tactfully coming to talk amongst themselves to give Prince and I some privacy. Prince looked back, noticing I was looking at Alphonse, and then turned to me, a soft smile playing on his aristocratic lips. When he spoke, the words shocked me. "I didn't do it for him, Faerie," he told me. "I didn't bring Lily back for Alphonse." I peaked up to see if Alphonse had heard his name spoken, but he had not. He still stared at me, his eyes a lifetime away. I wished I could know what he was thinking, but maybe I didn't want to know all the same.

"What do you mean?" I asked instead to Prince.

Prince's soft smile grew wider. "I know you think I went into death because I fancied him. I knew better, though. He loved you, only you, and in my eyes, that made him nothing but the lover of a dear friend to me. I did it for you Faerie, only you mustn't feel guilty."

"How can you say such a think and not expect me to? If I had wished you not to save Lily, you wouldn't have gone," I replied, my mouth twisting in frusteration. As soon as Prince had told me he'd done it for me, my heart had been stabbed with guilt. And then there was the other matter of those little words: lover of a dear friend. Lover.

Prince shook his head. "I would have gone anyway. Lily was Alphonse's mother. Alphonse is your love. And if Lily is housing you, keeping you safe, protecting you from harm and from talk, then it was all worth it. I would have made the decision a thousand times over if it meant that you would be safe, I swear it." I was shocked by his words and let my hands trail away from his arms. "I mean it, Faerie. I knew one day Alphonse would come and help me, I knew that he was a good man in his heart and that he would do what was right. Besides," at this, Prince winked, "he did owe me." I managed a laugh then. "I knew I would be okay, and maybe that was what kept me hanging on all those months. I knew I would survive in the end, so I stayed. I fought at the border. Other souls in death tried to drag me away, tried to take my place, but I always fought them off. I always clung to that part of myself that still lay in Life. Because I knew I would be okay. You? You I was worried about. Your father, dead. Your mother, dead. Charles, a madman. If Lily did not live, what would happen to you? I did not want to think of it."

I shook my head. "Your selflessness astounds me. You are truly remarkable, Prince Morgenstern."

Finally, Prince lifted an eyebrow and smiled that same smile I remembered. "But of course I am. I always have been one of a kind." He stood up then. "Now, you must go home. We all must get some sleep. For tomorrow, I return to London and make a grand entrance." He turned to Alphonse, who had finally come back to us. "I assume you will escort Faerie home."

"You assume correctly." Alphonse's voice was thick.

"Wait." It was Wren's voice. She strode over to me, took my hands and led me into the darkest corner of the parlor. "Glenn has just told me what you were telling him before." I cringed. "He said that you were thinking of breaking off your engagement to Jules, and that you wished to know my opinion." She took in a deep breath. "You and Jules were always a smart match. But...you do not love him. And without love, there can be no hope, and without hope there can be no light and without light, there is nothing. Hope and love were what kept my brother fighting against the tides of death. If you love Alphonse, you must stop turning your back on him. I know that you even trust him. You'd probably go with him if he left tomorrow after Charles. You're scared of being left behind again, Faerie, and I know that feeling." Wren took in a deep breath, her eyes had filled with tears. "Trust me, I know. But you must gamble on love, because if we do not have love, we do not have anything left in this world." With that, she held me close to her. I thought of how terrified she must have felt looking at Prince and wondering if he'd be okay. I thought of how humiliated and sad she must have been when Jules came back and told her he wished to have nothing to do with her.

"Thank you," I murmured and let go. Wren nodded and wiped away a single tear. I wondered if I'd ever see her this vulnerable again. I smiled at the thought. Whenever I'd wanted to be strong, I'd always thought of her. I opened my mouth to tell her so, but she pushed me away, nodding in the direction of Alphonse, who handed me the dark cloak I'd given to the footman who'd let me in.

We looked at each other for a moment and I felt the way he was looking at me into my fingers. They tingled and ached. Alphonse took my arm into his and led me out the front door. We did not speak for quite some time. Indeed, we did not speak until we reached the front door of Lily's townhouse. My mouth made some kind of motion to bid him goodbye, but my words would have none of that. "Would you like to come inside?" came out instead.

Alphonse looked shocked but then smiled. "Would you like me to?" he inquired. My head nodded, entirely against my will. His smile was still that innocent one I'd fallen in love with so long ago, but now it spoke of promises of a different kind of love. A tremble passed through me. I remembered our locked hands, the feeling of his skin on mine, his free hand tangled in my hair...the awkward simplicity of that new love, curious and innocent as a lamb. "As you wish," he said and guided me into the house. We crept up the stairs, careful to avoid any night prowlers or the sobs of a lonely Lily. If Alphonse heard her, he would go to her side. And although I did not wish to keep them apart, my selfish side said Not tonight, please not tonight. Thankfully, we heard nothing. My room was still bright as we entered. A fire burned bright in my fireplace and I'd lit some candles before I'd left so my room shone with light. In the dark, orange glow, Alphonse looked dark, mysterious...the way he looked sent a ripple of nervousness through my torso.

It was then that our eyes met. "Do you love him?" he asked. I realized that this was what the look in Alphonse's eyes had meant when he'd been staring at Prince and I. "You were crying when you saw him. Were those tears of unending happiness?" His voice was full of jealousy and a small piece of me reveled in it. If he was jealous it meant he still cared. Not that I didn't think he cared, but here was raw proof that I had not escaped him quite yet.

I couldn't string him along with jealousy, though, I knew that well enough. I gave a small sigh. "Of course not." I was sure my eyes were red even now from crying earlier. I must look like a fright. In a sudden bout of self-consciousness, I smoothed my hair down, though it was most likely to no use. "When I saw him, when he embraced me, it was...like seeing you for the first time when you came back, I suppose. Sudden happiness mixed with such a terrible loneliness, guilt, anger - at myself." I shook my head and clasped my hands together. "I do not know. Everything inside me is so confusing and overwhelming. I'm sick of secrets and lies and curses. I missed him, and when he held me, I missed you in more ways than I care to explain or even understand."

Alphonse sat down on my bed and looked at me with his wide, dark eyes. His face, the one I'd fallen in love with so desperatley those many months ago, was different and unchanged at the same time. All of him looked older and weary. I'd seen him many times since his return, but this was what I'd been trying to realize. That he looked so much older, in the fact that his skin was paler, there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. His body sagged and his hands looked weathered. He was sinewy and had an almost wax-like quality to him. I wondered if I looked the same way to him. Older, stranger, trying to do more to blend in with the rest of society. Doing my part to secure a good husband. Maybe I was abonimable in his eyes. I did not know.

"What would have happened, do you think, if I had never gone off after Charles?" Alphonse asked me.

"You would have instantly gone to help Prince. You would have come with Lily and I to London. You might have gone to Cambridge, or Oxford. You would have taken over the Wainwright estate."

"We might have been married by now. We could be in a far-off land," he added. "You might still trust me." This last sentence was no more than a whisper. Alphonse then looked up. "You might still love me. I could kiss you anytime I wanted. I could reach up and touch your eyelashes because as your husband, I would be allowed. You might have been the mother of my children. We might have died together, side by side, hands clasped as we traveled together onward, onward..." He chuckled then, as if he were joking, maybe. His words made my entire body hurt. "That was what I was thinking about, when I was watching you and Prince. I thought maybe you loved him and I wondered, 'What would it be like if she still loved me?' And I kept thinking of holding your face between my hands and listening to you breathe and kissing you everywhere from behind her ears to the back of your knees and of dark haired, dark eyed fae children who I would never, ever tell about alchemy..."

I swallowed. "I'm not going to marry Jules." My words were final, yet weak after such a tender proclamation from Alphonse. When he'd spoken of kissing me everywhere, I'd felt myself shiver in response. Surprise and happiness flickered through his eyes. He opened his mouth to ask why, but I stopped him. "I do not love him. I never did. I only said yes because he was a proper gentleman and I knew I could never marry you if you ran off after Charles because it would mean I really was not in your heart. I married him because I feared I did not have any more options. But now I know I do. No matter what happens, I'm going to leave England. I don't know where I'll go, but I'm going to go."

Alphonse stood up. He towered over me, I hadn't noticed how tall he'd grown. He put an arm around my waist and another in my hair. "Please believe me, I will follow you to the ends of the Earth. My love for you is far stronger than my hatred of Charles, I promise you that."

No longer did I care that his words might not be the truth. No longer would I deny myself this happiness. "I know," I said, and my throat closed. I could not speak again, for fear of crying.

He leant down and pressed his lips against mine and this was what I'd been searching for. He was the feeling of home I'd been aching for, he was the relief and the cure of my sadness. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was for him until now. I felt parched and the only way was to keep drinking in more of him, more, more, until there was nothing else. I felt myself sigh against his lips. They were like I'd remembered them. For a moment I thought of our very first kiss. I'd been so scared. It had been just after my confrontation with Charles, after he told me about him and my mother. Just after my father had died. And I had been frightened of the world. I could see it now, so perfectly. Alphonse had leaned in close, he had sensed my fear. He had asked me if I was scared. I had said yes. And he had said, "Trust me." I had trusted him then. I trusted him now. There was no way I could just break off everything with him. Every part of my body had been screaming for this, for this relief of his mouth against mine. The way it felt so right. The way that if I died right now, I would at least die happy.

I felt his hands come to my left hand. He slid off the engagement ring that Jules had given me. It slid off quite easily, it had not been on there so long. Then his hands left mine for a moment, only to pick it up. Alphonse moved away from my lips as little as he could. "Will you marry me?" he asked against my lips.

"Of course, of course," I replied. I no longer cared if there was hate for Charles in his heart, because I was so tired of trying to fight loving Alphonse, so tired of resisting him. Alphonse slid on my left ring finger a heavy, large ring. When I looked down, I saw that it was his signet ring. It was not too big for my finger, it did not slide off too much. "I love you," I murmured against his lips, or maybe that was me, I thought it was, but it could have been him. It did not matter anyway because our lips said everything our voices did not.

And then his arms came back up around me and he straightened up to lean over me and crushed me against him. One hand held me protectively against his body, another was tangled in my hair at the back of my head. Alphonse parted from me, but only to move his head to my neck, where he kissed the skin there softly. I felt a buzzing against my neck - he was laughing softly. "You are mine," I thought him say. "Oh my God, you are mine, and you are beautiful." His words made me feel so perfect and dizzy that I wanted to melt against him.

Except then he was tense and his head was alert. I broke away and looked at his face, which was focusing on something. When I turned, I saw Jaedo standing by the open window. Flushing, I stood away from Alphonse. "Jaedo, I'm not sure this is such a good time," I said, my voice breathless.

"Please believe me, Highness, I didn't mean to intrude." His voice sounded embarassed. "I wasn't aware that Alphonse was with you."

Alphonse started, but I put a hand on his arm. "Jaedo is my friend. He is the one helping us. I assure you he is good," I explained, taking careful note of his face. He seemed to register what I'd said, but still was shocked that a tall, dark haired man with green wings should be standing against one of the walls in my room. And shocked that he'd been able to get inside in the blink of an eye. I'd told Alphonse what Jaedo was, but I knew he had not understood what I'd meant until this particular moment. I turned to Jaedo. "It's all right, I would have liked to be warned, but that's okay. You must have news for me. Please tell me it is good."

Jaedo turned his chin just in the slightest. "I suppose it is good, if you are selfish. I doubt you will find the good in it, however."

"You're speaking in riddles again, Jaedo. Will you not give me answers?" I implored.

He inhaled. "Yes. Yes, it is time I explained all to you."

"All?"

Jaedo's green wings suddenly were furling in on themself and after only a moment, they were gone. "Yes, at least, all that I can explain. Maybe it is best that your fiance is here. He is involved with much of it." I waited for him to explain. "You know all of your mother's unconventional birth, except one thing. You know that she was a changeling, you know that as a child she was replaced with a sickly human baby. You do not know why however. It was the Unseelie that did it. They were the ones that took your mother and replaced her with a weak human child, one who would never amount to anything other than a less-than-helpful servant to the court. Your mother's faerie parents were furious when they realized what had become of your mother. But your mother's human parents had already accepted her as their own, already began to love her. And because of that love, she was untouchable. Not for the Unseelie, maybe, but the Seelie would do no such thing to a mother, even a human mother."

"But you still aren't telling me why my mother was taken."

"I know." Jaedo moved around my room, his gait was lazy, not like the crouching walk I was accustomed to. Each time I saw him, he was less faerie. I knew this was because of his living in the prescence of humans. The strange thing was that I welcomed these changes. Maybe it was because I could feel that he did too. "The battle between Seelie and Unseelie has raged for centuries. It has been waged quietly in the wood and humans know nothing about it. The Seelie had bewitched one of the Unseelie's princes into falling in love with a human girl. In retaliation, the Unseelie stole away the princess of the Seelie court."

He stood quiet. "My mother," I said, the realization dawning on me. "My mother, the Seelie Princess."

Jaedo turned his head a little so I could see his grin. "When she was old enough, your mother's parents influenced her to become curious about her special talents. In the forest, they met, and your mother's parents trained her to become the Queen of the Seelie Court. And because the Seelie court had always had the advantage over the Unseelie court, she would eventually become the Queen of the Faeries. The Unseelie court killed your mother's lover as revenge for her eventual crowning. Devastated, your mother became engaged to the first man who looked her way. The Seelie Queen and King were sad about her decision, but could not do anything about it. They gave her the mirror to talk to them. She would know, they told her, when it was time for her to return and become Queen."

"When the mirror stopped working," I said, breathless. My faerie companion nodded. "But that would mean..." I looked at Alphonse, who did not understand.

"Yes. The mirror stopped working, so I went home. The Queen and King died of heartbreak when they found out their daughter died. The Court was trying to figure out who was next in line. And then they realized..."

"No." My vision started to swim. No. Oh dear god, no.

"They request your presence as soon as possible to crown you. But for all intents and purposes, you are now the Queen of the Fae."

My knees gave out and I found myself flopping, very unlady-like onto my bed. I thought of my mother. She'd left me clues all along to what - who I was. Just the fact that I was named Faerie, that meant so much. I knew now that it was not my mother laughing in the face of the superstious Irish, but my mother embracing my future as Princess, then Queen. She must have planned to go back to them all along, she must have planned to take me with her. She must have planned to help me become like her. I didn't want to be like her, though. I didn't want magical powers, I didn't want to have a secret or to have a curse. I did not want to be queen of some mythical race of forest-dwellers. I wanted to be Faerie Wainwright, I wanted to see the world, discover new things. I wanted to leave this world of fairytale. "You are right to assume that this does not come as good news to me." I sighed. Alphonse picked up my hand and held it close within his. "Was this what you meant when you said you had to tell me all?" My voice was tentative.

Jaedo hesitated. "No. I have been changing, if you couldn't tell. I am becoming more and more human with each moment that passes. And you must see that I like it. The truth is, I was never meant to be Unseelie. And I would like to tell you now why I have been helping you." I was taken aback by his words. He sounded unsure, nervous. "I want...you to know who I am."

I closed my eyes, and on the edge of my vision there lay a dream I'd had, a dream that had come back to me night after night. Jaedo taunting me, me following him to Seven Dials, him blaming Prince on me, me getting caught in a spiderweb, him turning his face towards me...I'd felt such terrible fear as he'd turned his face towards mine. When I opened my eyes, though, I realized that all alone, that had just been my dream speaking for me. I'd wanted to know all alone. Ever since that evening at Criewulf when I'd seen him walking across the moor behind the estate. I'd wanted to know who he was even then.

"Okay," I breathed after a moment. I stood up. I knew Alphonse did not understand what this meant, but still held my hand as tight as he could. I loved him for this, loved him for supporting me even when he didn't know why he was.

Jaedo didn't move. Not for an entire minute at least. Finally, he spoke once more. "Please, whatever you see, do not hate me. Please know that what I am doing, it is all for good. Please understand." His tone was begging.

"I could never hate you, you have done nothing but help me." Jaedo nodded.

And then his hands, which I'd never noticed before but were elegant with long fingers, came to his long, black hair. He pulled his hair back and I could see his ears, his cheek, his chin. Jaedo let his hair fall over one shoulder and turned to us.

And when I saw his face, I understood.