I’m repelled. Hell, I get the need to live. That isn’t the clincher. They may be doing this for survival, and a game might be the custom, but it’s still a sacrifice of innocent lives. And a hideous one. Nobody’s forcing them by the tip of a sword to prolong or magnify each mortal’s suffering.
It’s unforgivable. Yet I don’t recoil or swerve to clobber him.
What dark magic is this? What’s happening to me? To us?
“Would you like more truths?” Cerulean asks bitterly, passionately. “Should I give you something real? Many things real?”
If I didn’t know this Fae, that would sound like a pledge. It’s not.
The threat plunges down my belly. I’m caught between squirming away and curling into his body. The sensations clutter, so jumbled that I can’t tell fear, shame, exhilaration, or lust from one another.
This is wrong. So very wrong.
Maybe I’m not the only one stuck in a tug-of-war, because he grips me tighter. His heart rams into my spine. He speaks faster, his whispers strung taut and on the brink of snapping.
A limit has been struck. A nerve, hit.
I want to flee and dive off the edge. I want so badly to turn around.
Tell me something real!
That’s what I demanded from him. And so he gives it to me.
“You were a chimney sweep,” he says. “Abandoned by those who should have loved you most but raised by those who grew to love you most. You’re restless yet loyal, and you’ll fight to keep what’s yours, because losing it is the one thing you can’t endure, because it’s happened too many times before. You were comforted by a bird, then inspired to rescue yourself from servitude, yet you still long for wings. You’ve given a home to animals, and they’ve healed you as much as you’ve healed them. You’ve shared your body with men but not your heart, because it’s broken.
“Your eyes are the pale gray of a storm. Your laughter is a swift current of air that I can’t stop hearing, no matter the hour. Your voice is mist, intangible yet penetrating, filtering into my dreams and raiding my slumber. Your name is an addiction, soaking itself into my tongue, nesting itself into my throat, so that every other word I speak threatens to slip, to utter that name.”
Cerulean blows humid air into my ear. “Lark.”
When I was little, I wanted nothing more than to be nestled in the arms of a certain unearthly being. But not this one. My eyes prickle with sadness, resentment, and regret. And always, always loss.
Loss and longing.
Cerulean’s incisors graze my earlobe. “Do you know me so well?”
“Do you want me to?” I gasp, my head rolling onto his shoulder. Because I can’t, I just can’t anymore. Right now, right here. I don’t recognize myself. Yet this moment unravels as though it were destined to happen. A dormant, unconditional part of me surfaces and grows wings.
“You’re a devious one,” I start. “On the outside, you make people think you’re as transparent as the sky, so cavalier you’ve got nothing to hide and no vulnerabilities. You make others think you’re accessible, that unraveling your weaknesses won’t require much work, and so they don’t even bother to try very hard—and that’s your fancy trick. That’s what makes you so elegantly formidable. Not so much that enemies underestimate you, but that they overestimate themselves. When in reality, you’ve got plenty to conceal. Or make that, two things.”
Fear of captivity. Fear of losing the ones he loves, failing to protect them in the process. I know this because I’ve seen these things in him, and because he’s shown them to me, and because my fears aren’t much different.
“You’re afraid of cages,” I say.
He nods, rapt. “You’re afraid of chimneys.”
“Confined spaces.”
“Being trapped.”
“No escape.”
“Ah, but there is a way to free ourselves. It’s called magic. If you knew Faeries, you’d understand that wielding it is not cowardice or laziness.”
“If you respected humans, you’d know that magic comes in simpler forms,” I counter. “Raising a family. Nurturing a friendship. Caring for an animal. Facing your fears. Helping those in need. Learning forgiveness or humility. Painting a picture. Planting seeds. Building a house. Teaching someone to read. Loving another person. Giving somebody hope.”
All the things humans are capable of. All the things they do.
That’s magic, too. That’s strength.
