The Lost Prince (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten 1)

“But then she died,” Kenzie went on softly, and swiped a hand across her eyes. “She died, and she never got the chance to see Egypt, or Paris or any of the places she wanted to see. And I always thought it was so sad, that it was such a waste. All those dreams, all those plans we had, she would never get to do any of them.”

“I’m sorry, Kenzie.”

She paused, taking a breath to compose herself, her voice growing stronger when she spoke again. “Afterward, I thought maybe Dad and I could…take that trip together, in her honor, you know? He was so devastated when he found out. I thought that if we could go someplace, just the two of us, he’d remember all the good times. And I wanted to remind him that he still had me, even though Mom was gone.”

I remembered the way Kenzie had spoken about her father before, the anger and bitterness she’d shown, and my gut twisted. Somehow, I knew that hadn’t happened.

“But, my dad…” Kenzie shook her head, her eyes dark. “When Mom died, he sort of…forgot about me. He never talked to me if he could help it, and just…threw himself into his job. He started working more and more at the office, just so he didn’t have to come home. At first, I thought it was because he missed Mom so much, but that wasn’t it. It was me. He didn’t want to see me.” At my furious look, she shrugged. “Maybe I reminded him too much of Mom. Or maybe he was just distancing himself, in case he lost me, too. I would try talking to him—I really missed her sometimes—but he’d just give me a wad of cash and then lock himself in his office to drink.” Her eyes glimmered. “I didn’t want money. I wanted someone to talk to me, to listen to me. I wanted him to be a dad.”

Anger burned. And guilt. I thought of my family, of how we had lost Meghan all those years ago, and how my parents clung to me even more tightly, for fear of that same thing. I couldn’t imagine them ignoring me, forgetting I existed, in case they woke up one day and found me gone. They were paranoid and overprotective, but that was infinitely better than the alternative. What was wrong with Kenzie’s father? How could he ignore his only daughter, especially after she’d just lost her mom?

“That’s insane,” I muttered. “I’m sorry, Kenzie. Your dad sounds like a complete tool. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.” She didn’t say anything, and I rubbed her arms, trying to get her to look at me, keeping my voice gentle. “So, you do all these crazy things because you don’t want to end up like your mom?”

“No.” Kenzie hunched her shoulders, looking off into the distance, and her eyes glimmered. “Well, that’s part of it, but…” She paused again and went on, even softer than before. “When Dad remarried, things got a little better. I had a stepsister, Alexandria, so at least I wasn’t stuck in a big empty house all day, alone. But Dad still worked all the time, and the nights he was home, he was so busy with his new wife and Alex, he didn’t pay much attention to me.” She shrugged, as if she’d gotten over it and didn’t need any sympathy, but I still seethed at her father.

“Then, about a year ago,” Kenzie went on, “I started getting sick. Nausea, sudden dizzy spells, things like that. Dad didn’t notice, of course. No one really did…until I passed out in the middle of class one afternoon. In history. I remember, because I begged the school nurse not to call my dad. I knew he’d be angry if he had to come pick me up in the middle of the workday.” Kenzie snorted, her eyes and voice bitter as she stared at the ground. “I collapsed just picking up my books, and the freaking school nurse had to tell him to take me to a doctor. And he was still pissed about it. Like I got sick on purpose, like he thinks all the tests and treatments and doctor appointments are just a way of getting attention.”

Something cold settled in my stomach, as many small things clicked into place. The bruises. The protectiveness of her friends at school. Her fearlessness and burning desire to see all that she could. The dark thing hovered between us now, turning my blood to ice as I finally figured it out. “You’re sick now, aren’t you?” I whispered. “The serious kind.”

“Yeah.” She looked down, fiddling with my shirt, and took a shaky breath. “Ethan I…I have leukemia.” The words trailed off into a whisper at the end, and she paused, but when she continued her voice was calm and matter-of-fact. “The doctors won’t tell me much, but I did some research, and the survival rate for the type I have, with treatment and chemo and everything, is about forty percent. And that’s if I even make it through the first five years.”

It felt as if someone had punched a hole in my stomach, grabbed my insides and pulled them out again. I stared at Kenzie in horror, unable to catch my breath. Leukemia. Cancer. Kenzie was…

“So, now you know the real reason I wanted the Sight. Why I wanted to see the fey.” She finally looked at me, one corner of her lip turned up in a bitter smile. “That month I traded to Leanansidhe? That’s nothing. I probably won’t live to see thirty.”

I wanted to do something, anything. I wanted to jump up and punch the walls, scream out my frustration and the unfairness of it all. Why her? Why did it have to be Kenzie, who was brave and kind and stubborn and absolutely perfect? It wasn’t right. “You should’ve gone back,” I finally choked out. “You shouldn’t be here with me, not when you could be…” I couldn’t even get the word past my lips. The sudden thought that this dark pit could be the last place she would ever see nearly made me sick. “Kenzie, you should be with your family,” I moaned in despair. “Why did you stay with me? You should’ve gone home.”

Kenzie’s eyes gleamed. “To what?” she snapped, making a sharp gesture. “Back to my dad, who can’t even look at me? Back to that empty house, where everyone tiptoes around and whispers things they don’t think I can hear? To the doctors who won’t tell me anything, who treat me like I have no idea what’s going on? Haven’t you been listening, Ethan? What do I have to go back to?”

“You would be safe—”

“Safe,” she scoffed. “I don’t have time to be safe. I want to live. I want to travel the world. See things no one else has. Go bungee jumping and skydiving and all those crazy things. If I’m living on borrowed time, I want to make the most of it. And you showed me this whole other world, with dragons and magic and queens and talking cats. How could I pass that up?”

I couldn’t answer, mostly because my own throat felt suspiciously tight. Kenzie reached out with both arms and laced her hands behind my head, gazing up at me. Her eyes were tender as she leaned in. “Ethan, this sickness, this thing inside me…I’ve made my peace with it. Whatever happens, I can’t stop it. But there are things I want to do before I die, a whole list that I know I probably won’t get to, but I’m sure as hell going to try. ‘Seeing the fey’ wasn’t on the list, but ‘go someplace no one has ever seen before’ was. So is ‘have my first kiss.’” She ducked her head, as if she was blushing. “Of course, there’s never been a boy that I’ve wanted to kiss me,” she whispered, biting her lip, “until I met you.”

I was still reeling from her last words, so that admittance sent another jolt through my stomach, turning it inside out. That this strange, stubborn, defiantly cheerful girl—this girl who fought lindwurms and bargained with faery queens and faced her own mortality every single day, who followed me into Faery and didn’t leave my side, even when she was offered a way home—this brave, selfless, incredible girl wanted me to kiss her.

Damn. I was in deep, wasn’t I?

Yeah, and I don’t care.

Kenzie was still staring at the ground, and I realized I hadn’t answered her, still recovering from being blindsided by my own emotions. “But I understand if you don’t want to,” she went on in a forced, cheerful voice, dropping her arms. “It’s not fair to you, to get involved with someone like me. It was stupid of me to say anything.” She spoke quickly, trying to convince herself, and I shook myself out of my trance. “I don’t know how long I’ll have, and who wants to go through that? It’ll just end up breaking both our hearts. So, if you don’t want to start anything, that’s fine, I understand. I just—”

I kissed her, stopping any more arguments. She made a tiny noise of surprise before she relaxed into me with a sigh. Her arms laced around my neck; mine slid into her hair and down to the small of her back, holding us together. No more illusions, no more hiding from myself. I needed this girl; I needed her laughter and fearlessness, the way she kept pushing me, refusing to be intimidated. I’d kept people at arm’s length for so long, scared of what the fey would do to them if I got close, but I couldn’t do that anymore. Not to her.

It seemed a long time before we finally pulled back. The shuffle of the former half-breeds echoed around us, the pit was still dark and cold and unscalable, but I was no longer content just to sit here and accept our fate. Everything was different. I had something to fight for, a real reason to get home.

Kenzie didn’t say anything immediately after. She blinked and looked a little dazed as I drew back. I couldn’t help but smirk.

“Oh, wow,” I teased quietly. “Did I actually render Mackenzie St. James speechless?”

She snorted. “Hardly, but you’re welcome to try again.”

Smiling, I pulled her to me for another kiss. She shifted so that her knees were straddling my waist and buried her hands in my hair, holding my head still. I wrapped my arms around the small of her back and let the feel of her lips take me away.

This time, Kenzie was the one who pulled back, all traces of amusement gone as she stared at me, my reflection peering back from her eyes. “Promise you won’t disappear when we get home, tough guy,” she whispered, and, though her tone was light, her gaze was solemn. “I like this Ethan. I don’t want him to turn into the one I met at the tournament once we’re safe.”

“I can’t promise that you won’t ever see him again,” I told her. “The fey will still hang around me, no matter what I do. But I’m not going anywhere.” Reaching up, I brushed the hair from her eyes, smiling ruefully. “I’m still not sure how this will work when we get home, but I want to be with you. And if you want me to be your boyfriend and go to parties and hang out with your meathead friends…I’ll try. I’m not the best at being normal, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“Really?” She smiled, and her eyes glimmered. “You…you’re not just saying that because you feel sorry for me, are you? I don’t want to guilt you into doing anything, just because I’m sick.”

No, Mackenzie. I fell for you long before then, I just didn’t know it. “I’ll prove it to you, then,” I told her, running my hands up her back, drawing her closer. “Once we get out of here, I’ll show you nothing has changed.” And everything’s changed. “Deal?”