Free When Magic Sleeps by Tera Lynn Childs

As the queen, her role required strength and certainty. She carried that requirement over into the rest of her
    life.
    But despite the warnings in his mind, the desperate feeling that something was very wrong, he couldn’t make himself rise. Couldn’t pry his eyelids open.
    Couldn’t remain awake…
    This time when Cathair woke, the leaden feeling was gone and with tremendous effort he managed to open his eyes.
    At first he thought the view that greeted him was the night sky—all midnight blue and silver stars. As his eyes focused, however, he realized the sky and
    stars had been painted on. His bedroom ceiling.
    Turning his head, he saw the dark silks that covered his bed.
    “He wakes.” The smile in the queen’s voice was unmistakable.
    His mother rose from the chair beside his bed and leaned over him. As she brushed the hair from his forehead, he swore he saw the glisten of tears in her
    amber eyes.
    Memories came back to him in flashes. Leaving Winnie. The wolf. Dying on the sidewalk.
    He had been so certain he was dying. The wound had been fatal—healable if he had not been so very far from the veil. Far from the only magic that could
    heal a magical wound. But somehow he was alive. Somehow he…
    “She saved me,” he echoed, his voice rough, scratchy.
    He knew it had to be true. Winnie must have found him, must have gotten him back to the veil. He could not imagine the kind of terror she must have felt.
    He closed his eyes, knowing that her fear probably saved his life.
    “Aye,” his mother replied. “She approached the veil, at great risk to herself. It is only chance that Tearloch found her. Another guard…”
    Cathair filled in the rest of the sentence. Another guard might have killed Winnie, not knowing her death would have been a death sentence for the prince
    as well. But she was not out of danger. If his mother viewed Winnie as a threat to the clan, or as a threat to her son, there was no telling what she might
    do.
    “She is brave,” Cathair replied vaguely.
    “Her bravery is not in doubt.” The queen sat on the bed next to him. “She knows much about our world.”
    He considered withholding the truth. But as he had told Peter recently, his mother knew when others lied. She had a sixth sense for falsehood. There was
    little point in even trying.
    “She is a seer,” he said. When his mother began to reply, he added, “And a dreamer.”
    The queen jerked back. “Truly?”
    Cathair nodded, his chest tight.
    For several long moments she was silent, thinking, her thoughts a mystery. When she finally spoke, Cathair feared the answer.
    He need not have worried.
    “I have heard prophecy of such a one. The daughter of two lines.” The queen gazed into the blazing hearth. “She is said to be quite powerful.”
    Stunned by both his mother’s words and their gentle tone, Cathair could think of no response. Only questions. Winnie had been prophesied? She was descended
    from two lines of fae magic? Did Winnie even know this?
    “But that is a concern for another day,” the queen finally said, rising and turning to face him. “We have more pressing issues. How did you come to be
    injured? What attacked you?”
    His jaw clenched as he remembered the attack. “‘Twas a wolf.”
    “A wolf?” his mother scoffed. “No mortal world wolf could—”
    “A wolf as black as midnight,” he explained. “With lavender eyes.”
    “No.” The queen clutched at her throat. “It cannot be.”
    As fae, Cathair was very nearly immortal. Within the human realm, he was susceptible to few wounds. One delivered by a magical weapon. One delivered by a
    creature—animal or human—enchanted by magical spell. Or one delivered by one of his own kind.
    There was no doubt which kind of wound he had sustained.
    “Mother,” he said, his voice full of strength despite his body’s weakness, “I am not mistaken.”
    The queen stiffened. Her despair melted away, burned off by anger. He saw fury in her eyes that could