Cerulean gives a close-mouthed chuckle, low and mean. “It’s what? Not fair?”
With an indolent swipe of his wrist, the path leading out of here vanishes.
15
My gaze catapults across the wild, hunting for the trail. All I see are the pillars of jade trees, vines of vegetable pods tangling across the soil, white flowers burping that deceptive verbena-scented mist and the grass straining to catch it, and cackling wind chimes dousing the night in puddles of gold.
I swing my eyes back to Cerulean’s elegant smirk. “Know what happens to cheats in my world? They hang from a noose.”
“Don’t be a spoilsport,” he admonishes. “We were doing so well together.”
“Who’swe? I’m curious,” I snap. “Must be a hoot, watching a measly human do all the work while you stand by and jerk your magic wand.”
“It must be validating to assume what looks easy doesn’t take work.”
“That’s your ego talking, baby. I don’t buy it.”
He approaches once more. “I’ve made a decision about that,” he confides, each wispy word patting my lips. “I’ve decided not to care, because I’ve remembered that you’re wrong. Magic is given only to those worthy of the gift, the ones capable of learning its intricacies. What you call lazy is…” The Fae tilts his head, his lower lip stroking my cheek, “…anything but.”
The reply shivers from his tongue and blows between my lips. What is happening? I’m right peeved, which means I should be jamming my knees into his groin for manipulating the landscape. That’s what I should be doing.
Instead, I’m getting ideas I shouldn’t be getting. When it comes to blokes, I’m no blushing prey. Not since I was a little one. Not since that masked boy. But here I am, loathing a Fae so badly I taste its acidity. Here I am, craving that taste, wanting to know what it’s like to hate-kiss.
Cerulean’s attention drops to my mouth, the same way I fixate on his. “This doesn’t make sense,” I push out.
“No, it does not,” he rasps, stalking me across the hill, across the blooming grass, and backing me up against a rock wall that appears out of nowhere. “Why do you spurn me to viciousness as much as admiration? Why do your words insult yet invigorate me?”
“Why can’t I feel just one thing around you?” I ask.
“Why do I feel many things around you?” he replies.
“Why do I hear a hundred different words in a single one?”
“Why does a single word inspire a hundred different reactions?”
“Why the fuck did you block the path?”
“Why am I tempted to reveal it?”
Sure, he’s tempted. But he won’t do it.
We watch each other. Where is all this coming from?
Papa Thorne likes to josh affectionately that my hair’s white because I dropped from the clouds. Never the same shape from one day to the next, quick to change, quicker to move.
And Cerulean really is the sky, maneuvering and speaking like the wind. His features are cut high and wide. His thoughts are expansive.
But he’s got a secret. I know he does, same as I do. He shifts from lightness to darkness, from day to night, with each tint and shade of blue.
With each tint and shade of blue…
I blink. “Your true name is Cerulean, isn’t it?”
He tenses, his features seizing up. If a person knows the real name of a Fae, it gives that person control over that Fae.
“You keep it hidden in plain sight,” I accuse.
“I’m a Fae,” he says. “Many things are hidden in plain sight.”
