“She’s lying.” The moth wheels toward her ruler, her tone growing thorns.“Jún lýkur.”
Whatever she said, Cerulean gives it due consideration, his index finger sliding back and forth across his chin.“Éck efast mvjöck um fade,”he replies without taking his eyes off me.
The moth festers. She’s on the verge of stomping her foot, but Cerulean pays that no mind, impatience crimping his features. “Well?” he insists, switching back to the mortal tongue. “Must I repeat myself?”
His posse departs. One of them wears a forehead band with a charm poised between the brows—the dainty bones of a human thumb.
The remnants of supper canons up my esophagus, chunks threatening to detonate from my mouth. The only distraction that keeps me from spewing the contents of my stomach is that whippersnapper of a female, who’s fuming that I tripped her and then attempted to undermine her leader within three seconds of getting here. On her way out, she tosses me a warning look before exiting the rotunda, her moth wings bristling.
The owls remain, bearing down on me in rumination. Like an advisor, the horned raptor drops to Cerulean’s shoulder, seeming to communicate something inaudible to its ruler, who obediently angles his head to listen.
All the while, Cerulean stares at me. Without waiting for him to nod, the parliament retires, shooting off the branches and disbanding into the horizon.
Silence descends. A quiet wind weaves through the rowan trees. Beyond them, I get a hazy view of the mountain’s range, its details obscured.
Cerulean swings his legs off the throne’s arm and swoops into an upright position. That single, braided reed of hair plummets from the rest of his layers, the feathered tip dangling in the valley of his plunging neckline.
Fuck him. Fuck him and his kind who think they’re so much better, desirable, and worthy because they have magic.
The Fae gives my dress and supply pack a blasé once-over, his blue mouth betraying the slightest twitch. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read, pet.”
It’s a good thing Juniper’s not here. But wherever she is, my sister’s in for a rude awakening when she learns salt, hawthorn berries, and everted clothes won’t do shit to protect her against glamour. That illusionary stunt with the mortal girl jumping to her death proves it.
Cerulean’s right, at least when it comes to what my people have been taught. The Book of Fables was written by group of ancient scribes who traveled the continent, researching mortal encounters with enchanted beings. Instead of chronicling the details straightforwardly, the scribes fashioned them into Fables, a dramatization of the truth. It reveals plenty about Faeries, but sure, it’s gotten some of the tidbits wrong. For instance, there was a time when humans thought the Fae aged and died slowly.
Wrong. They’re fucking immortal.
Cerulean clucks his tongue. “You’re late.”
I take my sweet time, twining the whip into a loop and jamming it into the buckle at my hip. “That depends on which cuckoo clock you’re looking at.”
He steeples his fingers together. “Lark, wasn’t it? What a beautiful name.”
“Ceruleanne, wasn’t it?” I ask, deliberately mispronouncing his own moniker. “Enough heroines have beautiful names. I’d rather have a sprightly one. Makes it hard to catch.”
“A lark,” he observes. “The rare bird that sings while flying, rather than while perched and idle like the rest of its kin. Hence, a human with a sky-worthy signature and hair as white as a cloud—a stray, unattainable thing. Is that what you are? A stray?”
“I had no idea Solitaries were that interpretive of humans. You don’t pay us much attention outside of pranks and murder.”
“Oh, but you flatter me. My skill in observation is purely rudimentary. If you think otherwise, you’re setting a low bar for intellect. Which is it, pet?”
“Was there a choice in that statement?”
“Are you in the mood for a choice?”
“I’m in the mood to rip out your tongue.”
“Such savagery.” His lips coil into a grin. “In which case, you’d be dismembering my most precious commodity.”
Man, I sure do know how to pick ’em. “You don’t need a tongue to communicate. I’ve heard paper and pen get the job done,” I snarl. “And don’t call me pet, or I’ll call you prey.”
Do I want to get myself killed? Possibly. My family’s had nearly a decade to wrestle manners out of me, and look where it got them.
In blink, Cerulean’s disappears. Then a current—or a breath?—sneaks up the tight slit behind my earlobe. A voice suddenly purrs at my side, “When I said that my tongue is valuable, what made you think I was referring to speech?” Instantaneously, Cerulean has materialized within stabbing distance. “Tongues are good for so many things—so many places, with splayed, satin, soaked little parts.”
I swivel toward him. I’d forgotten how tall he is, his physique slim but toned under that skin-baring shirt. I’m no thimble, yet his height forces my head to crane.
In his proximity, my nostrils get a whiff of musk and tempests. For the second time in our brief history, the scents resurrect a memory I can’t place.
