BELLAMY
Isat in the garden, cutting the nettles and dropping them into the basket while the pixies, Driscoll, and Leoni sat nearby, arguing about how to make proper tea. Three weeks had passed since my visit to the prisoner, since I spent an entire night playing mapora with Kairoth. It was the same routine every day. Harvest the nettles, cut them open, strip their fibers, and then start knitting the next sweater. I had two sweaters now, but I’d run out of fibers and needed more to start the third.
“You put sugar in your tea?” Wesley asked Driscoll. He tugged his blonde ponytail, horror pinching his expression.
“Of course you do.” Goji rolled her eyes. “Elementals ruin everything.”
Driscoll scoffed. “Excuse me. I’m from the earth court. We happen to have some of the best tea blends on the continent.”
Jerome shrugged. “As long as the tea is hot and served with milk, I don’t care where the leaves are steeped.”
Goji shot Jerome a look. “You like my tea last time I checked.”
Jerome raised a brow. “Oh, I love your tea.”
Wesley snorted.
Driscoll shot a look at Leoni, then me. “Did that sound sexual to anyone else?”
Goji sighed. “Jerome wishes.”
“It’s true,” Jerome said. “I do wish.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
“You should be,” Wesley snapped, and Goji shot him a questioning look that made his cheeks turn red. “Not ashamed to want to have sex with you, that is.”
Driscoll choked, and I sliced my thumb on a thorn at Wesley’s statement.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to wanting to have sex with you,” Wesley continued, voice squeaking, cheeks reddening.
Jerome was smiling now, and Goji was just staring at Wesley with a raised brow.
“What I was trying to say is that it’s not okay to talk about it so blatantly.” He cleared his throat then looked down at his feet.
“Is there like a threesome thing going on between you all?” Driscoll gestured to the pixies. “Because I’m all for that.”
“No!” Jerome and Wesley yelled at the same time, both of them glancing at each other before putting distance between themselves.
“Are you ever going to tell us why you choose to put yourself through this?” Goji gestured to my hands, once again swollen and agitated from the nettles.
“Probably not,” Leoni said. “She’s not very trusting.”
“Or friendly,” Driscoll said. “But I think she’s actually starting to like us.”
I gave him the middle finger.
“Never mind,” Driscoll said. “But you guys are starting to like us.”
Jerome lay onto his back, winding his arms behind his head and staring up at the blue sky. “We’re starved for attention, so to be fair, we probably would’ve liked anyone who came through those doors.”
I breathed through the pain pricking my fingers, looking down at the angry purple and red lines stretching from the wounds. My hands had gotten worse over the last few weeks, and they hurt worse and worse every day, making it hard to communicate with anyone. Including Kairoth. He came to the terrace every night as I knitted the sweaters. Sometimes we just sat in silence. Other times, he told me stories, and other times, when my hands needed a break, we’d play mapora or other games he taught me. Ancient games.
I hadn’t visited the prisoner again. I told Driscoll and Leoni about her story, even though it felt like a betrayal to Kairoth.
I felt like I was constantly being tugged in a different direction. One moment, Kairoth was tugging me to him, making me feel like he might not be the awful spirit everyone thought him to be. But it didn’t line up with his actions. He was collecting weapons. He held a woman prisoner below the castle. A woman who very well might have been his former lover. I didn’t even know whether to believe what he’d said about the star court—that destroying it and the shadow court had been an accident.
He was tiptoeing around me as well. I could feel it. I could feel him holding back the questions he wanted to ask me. At some point, we’d have to play our cards, we’d have to lay them down and reveal our hands. But right now, this felt so much safer, and if I was being honest, fun. I liked getting to know Kairoth. I liked spending time with him that felt easy and carefree.
Just admitting that felt like another betrayal. One to the entire world. But it was the truth, and if I could just stay in this safe bubble until I finished these sweaters, then I would. Afterthe sweaters were finished and I freed my brothers, well, then I would confront what Kairoth was hiding.
