“Can’t remember the title,” I say around a mouthful. “Anyhow, if you wait too long on things, you miss out—on the first chance as well as the second.”
“Mmm-hmm. Are we still talking about my baking?” he asks gingerly.
He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.
Papa follows my gaze to the mountain silhouette beyond the trees. Sometimes, I wait out here for my sisters, hoping they’ll stumble around the bend. Other times, I wait for a horned owl, for a message, for handwriting that says,I miss you. I need you.
Come back to me.
My father’s burly sigh filters through the porch, tucking us into the sound. “I lived alone for so much of my life, I’d forgotten what it felt like to love someone. That is, until you three came along. I’ve never cherished anyone the way I cherish you girls. You’re my treasured riffraff misfits, you know that?”
If I speak, the dam will shatter. I set the bowl on the ground and nod while gazing at that mystical range.
Papa chuckles. “You girls were tough ones from the start. Juniper, trying to prove her worth by showing off her smarts. Cove, trying to comfort others, not knowing how to soothe her own wounds. You, trying to fly so you’d never be stuck.”
My tongue flexes but fails to whittle out a cheeky reply.
“You, always doubting what’s not in your control. You, always keeping us close, fearing you’ll lose us like you’ve lost others.” His head swings my way. “You, always thinking we’re all your heart needs, as if you’d even have to choose. Don’t you know, my girl? Don’t you know we’re not going anywhere?”
The question pries my heart open and burns my eyes.
“It’s you who’s going somewhere,” Papa says, the words coming out chunk by bittersweet chunk. “Lark?”
“Mmm?” I manage, blinking at the cobbled vista.
His intakes stumble, then come out solid. “Make sure he treats you right.”
My breath stalls. I swivel toward Papa’s knowing gaze, toward the understanding there. Then my features crumble, and I fling myself into his arms, and I cry.
He knows. Somehow, Papa knows.
When I pull back, I wipe my eyes. “I fell in love with ’im.”
His brawny chest hitches, then releases. “Loving someone is better than loathing them, isn’t it?”
I chuckle weakly. “Hell, you’re as sappy as Cove.”
“She takes after me.”
Our laughter tinkles into the woods. From the market square, the bell tolls. I share the fragments that I hadn’t before about Cerulean, the memories I hadn’t dared let myself replay.
With a grudge, I tell Papa about the bond. Magic tied me and Cerulean together without our say so. This connection should have come only from me and him. It should have been our choice. Our fates should have belonged to us, whether or not I was heading home.
“My girl, we never know which direction our fates will turn, much less where our hearts will land,” Papa Thorne says. “But what we do from there? That’s up to us. It’s a balance, a compromise. That’s what love is.”
“What if that love breaks my heart?”
“Hate breaks hearts. Love reinforces them.” His thumb sweeps across my cheek. “Ask yourself, how did you feel before that first kiss? Before all this—” he clears his throat ,”—mate business? Wasn’t the kiss your choice? Weren’t those feelings real? Have they gone away or gotten stronger?”
He’s right. Fables, he’s right.
Papa cups my jaw. “I wasn’t expecting you, and suddenly there you were, a sooty little girl who became my daughter. That’s magic, if you ask me. That’s a fated bond, and I don’t regret it one bit.” An unconditional light brims across his face, orange from the lanterns warming his features. “I’ll miss you so much. I love you to the clouds.”
I clasp him in another hug, my voice croaking. “I love you, Papa.”
What he said about compromise swirls in my mind, along with hope. I said I wouldn’t leave Juniper or Cove, and if I can’t join them wherever they are, I can be nearer to them. And even if I didn’t bind myself to Cerulean, I would have.
I don’t leave the people I love—neither human, nor Fae.
