“And where do you two thing you’re going?”
The voice is so familiar, but in the wrong place. That’s…
“Jasmine?” I breathe. From out of the long grass in front of us steps freckled, red-haired Jasmine, a smile on her pretty face. She’s in jeans and a stylish blouse, her arms folded over her chest.
“Hi,” She waves her fingers at me. “I gotta thank you for drinking that soda I gave you - otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to come in.”
Soda. She doesn’t mean…the green soda from the barbecue place? But why is she here -
“You,” Altair struggles. “You’re the Brightened who’s controlling the shadow fae. You attacked Barnabus.”
“That giant rock lunkhead?” Jasmine laughs. “You got me. I did. I tried to get in the first time, and he stopped me, so I stopped him. Sort of. But then little miss Goody-two-shoes over here had to go and feed him.”
All my bones feel like they’re stabbing me from the inside. Jasmine…is a Brightened? The one that attacked Barnabus with her shadow fae? “But - I thought - you and me were -“
“Friends?” Jasmine laughs. “We are. Were, I guess. Don’t get it twisted - I loved hanging out with you. But you’re on the wrong side of history, May. You’re on Van Grier’s side. And he’s the bad guy.”
“No - I know that!” I protest. “Listen, we don’t have to fight -“
“We do.” She says flatly, no amusement in her voice at all. “I have to kill his high fae so he’s not as powerful, and if I kill you in the process, he loses the food source he’s using to feed them. So. I’m sorry, May. Really, I am.”
I feel like my brain’s falling into a black void endlessly - everything was a lie? Her getting to know me, all the times we laughed together, talked together, all the times she listened to my problems - it was all just to get at Van Grier?
“Did you?” Altair demands at my side. “Did you really consume something she gave you?”
I nod, but it feels like I’m not in control of my body as I do it, like someone else’s pulling the puppet strings of my neck.
A shriek comes out of nowhere and Altair fumbles, the feeling of something hitting him hard rips his body out of my grasp. I whirl around to see the shadow fae looming over him, blade-like hands pointed right at his chest.
“Awww, did we hit you?” Jasmine give Altair a pretty pout. “I’m so sorry.”
She might be on Giselle’s side, but the cold carelessness in her eyes as she watches Altair bleed on the ground - she’s no better than Van Grier. She looks at fae like they’re toys, playthings. She holds her hand out and points at Altair.
“Kill him,” She orders. “Then the girl.”
The shadow fae - so many of them - all lunge in at once. Altair flings his hand out and a flash of bright white light staggers them, but it dazes me, too. All I can see are stars popping in my eyes, flashes of color, but I spot a deep black and race for it. That has to be him. I have to help him up, before they -
Two more shrieks. Three more. God in heaven on a butter biscuit they’re everywhere. I can’t see them but I can hear them, and I reach for the blackness and fling my arms around it, clinging tight and waiting for my inevitable death.
But the sound of metal being drawn rings out, the shrieks of the shadow fae bristling furiously all around me. My vision starts to swim back together, and standing in front of me I see a shock of white-blonde, and my whole body feels like it’s lifting off the ground with joy.
“Dane?”
Dane stands before me, his posture low and ready, his bejeweled sword in his hand already red with blood and his gemstone eyes glittering cold and hard and focused ahead. Five shadow fae screech and hiss before him, pacing like livid lions denied their prey, one of them missing an arm and bleeding red onto the tall grass.
“Dane,” Altair coughs beneath me.
“Get him back to the mansion,” Dane says to me, never once taking his eyes off the shadow fae and a surprised-looking Jasmine.
“But -“
“What, little beast, only now you’re worrying about me?” He chuckles, then his voice gets serious. “Go! Before they attack again!”
I want to say. I want to stay and help somehow but I know I can’t. I gather Altair up in my arms and he leans on me even more heavily, and together we half-sprint half-stagger through the sea of grass, the sound of metal slicing through flesh ringing in my ears.
Be safe, I pray to whatever god is listening, to the Bright Lady herself if I have to. Please keep him safe!
For what feels like hours it’s only the sight of grass in front of me, my sweat dripping down my neck and the sun beating on us relentlessly and my mind reeling with the aching thought of Jasmine’s betrayal. The pink of the magnolias is like finding water in the desert, and Altair and I make it past them, past the rose domes before Barnabus erupts from the ground, covered in dirt and moss.
“Where are they?” He rumbles. Altair points in a direction limply, and Barnabus thunders off, his stone legs beating against the ground like miniature earthquakes. I watch him dive into the earth again like it’s water and move twice as fast, the only thing visible his fin-like boulder on his back, the grass sea parting for him.
We make it to the stairs before Vil comes out, brown hair askew for once.
“What’s going on?” He demands. Altair collapses on the stairs and gasps, Vil’s face turning one shade whiter.
“Shadow fae,” He hisses.
“Dane and Barnabus are fighting them and their Brightened,” I manage. “But Dane - we left him…”
Vil’s mouth creases in a frown. “If shadow fae are out there, we can’t leave the border of Monster Garden.”
“May drank something offered by the Brightened,” Altair wheezes. “The boundary is useless.”
Vil shoots a curious look in my direction. “Then we can’t leave the mansion - it’s our only safeguard.”
“But! Dane’s still out there -“
“Waking another high fae would take too much time. We just have to hope he can return to us safely.”
The rage I’ve had for him bubbles over all at once. “You’re their Brightened! You can’t just hide in the safety of your walls and send them out to die for you over and over again!”
“I can, and I will,” His brown eyes snap to me. “That is the way of the Brightened. We are mortal. And they are immortal.”
“If the shadow fae drain all Dane’s Brightness, he’s as good as dead,” Altair struggles to breathe. “You lose one of your precious high fae.”
It’s the first I’ve ever heard him talk back to Vil. Vil narrows his eyes at him, looking down his nose.
“And if you don’t get fed immediately, you too are as good as dead. I send you out to battle and the best you can do when you return is be ambushed by shadow fae and nearly killed? How pathetic.”
That’s it. That’s the last time he looks down on the fae while I’m here. My fist balls but I feel Altair put his hand on it, using it to get to his feet.
“He’s right, May. I need a feeding. Come on.”
Bubbling over with anger, I help him up the steps and into the mansion. The house fae squeaks to our side almost instantly, helping us by making a shortcut through the walls to the feeding room. I fumble with his herbs, my hands shaking and my knees so weak I barely make it to the stool, not even bothering with my blindfold.
“I hate him!” I blurt. “I hate that stupid, stuck-up, holier-than-thou motherfucker!”
“Language, young lady,” Altair chuckles tiredly, leaning his head back on the tub’s ceramic lip. I dump the herbs in and press my hands straight to his stomach, the feel of his warm skin beneath mine helping my shaking palms start to steady. But my mind still whirls around itself like a drunk aunt at a wedding - Dane’s still out there.
“He’ll be fine,” Altair says, though his voice is too flat to inspire any confidence in me.
“I did this
, didn’t I?” I feel the sick rising in my throat. “I didn’t know she was a Brightened - I didn’t know -“
“You couldn’t have,” Altair sighs. “I knew Giselle was ruthless, but I didn’t know she was this ruthless. But how did she know you were our feeder?” He pauses. “The only people who know are the high fae and Van Grier. And Barnabus, Sir Charles, and the house fae would never talk to anyone from the human realm.”
I’m quiet, but Altair suddenly sits up straight, slamming his hand on the tub.
“Sythiel. That bastard!”
“The green rose?” I try. He nods.
“He’s been out assassinating Giselle’s Brightened in the human realm on Van Grier’s orders. But if he somehow told Giselle about you, if he leaked her information in order to try and help her kill Van Grier -“
“Why would he do that?”
Altair laughs, but nothing about it is pleasant. “Because he wants to free us. Because he thinks this is how to do it. Sythiel, you idiot - if we don’t all make it out alive, what’s the point of freedom at all?”
I start to think too much - if I’d already had sex with Dane, this could’ve been avoided. If Dane dies because of the shadow fae, then my pride killed him. My hesitance killed him. And I’ll live with that regret for the rest of my life. I see Altair’s brow furrow, and immediately excuse myself.
“I…I need to lie down. Are you okay with what I’ve fed you?”
“Yeah, totally. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I smile grimly at him, and head out of the feeding room and back to the relative safety of my room.
Sir Charles is nowhere to be seen - probably out fighting with Dane and Barnabus. If he dies too, if anyone dies….Altair is right. What’s the point of freedom if we don’t all make it out alive to enjoy it? All of us, down to the last fae, the last human. All of us except Van Grier.
I stare out the window and pray, I pace the room and throw myself into the bed and scream into pillows. If everything goes wrong it’s my fault - my fault and no one else’s -
“May!”
Altair’s voice thunders out at sunset, and I leap up and sprint down the hall. There, carried in Barnabus’s arms through the door, is a limp, unmoving Dane, covered in blood. Sir Charles limps behind them.
“Dane!” I shriek, and Barnabus puts Dane into Altair’s arms, the house fae helping to hold up his legs. Altair puts a finger to his throat, then looks up at me with sharp eyes.
“We have to get him to the feeding room. Quickly!”
I’ve walked this path to the feeding room so many times - past the library, down the stairs, around the hall and to the left. I could do it in my sleep at this point, but this time every step drags like an eternity. My brain is frozen in a cold lock, the regret sinking deep needles into it. If he dies - please, God, don’t let him die!
Altair eases him into the tub and I don’t bother with a blindfold, sheer panic tipping the herbs into the tub for me and my hands immediately shoving under his shirt to find his stomach.
“He isn’t breathing at all!”
“Calm down, May,” Altair coaches. “You have to focus. If you don’t, he’ll -“
“Get out!” I yell. “Everybody get out!”
Altair and Sir Charles skitter out of the door, the house fae and Barnabus watching from outside the glass woefully. I close my eyes and try to even my breathing out so I don’t hyperventilate, the heat of the bath dizzying me and not helping in the slightest.
“You can’t die,” I feel the tears start to prickle in my eyes. His marble skin is stained with crimson, his long lashes closed on his razor cheekbones. “Y-You said you’d b-be waiting for me.”
Not a single twitch. My palms flatten against his stomach harder.
“I haven’t e-even told you yet,” I struggle with breathing, the world going blurry with my tears. “I haven’t even told you -“
His neck, his torso, his shoulders and legs and hips - I touch everything, desperately, desperately melding my skin with his, willing all that’s inside me to go into him, to feed him.
“You’re going to d-die…thinking I h-hate you,” I sob, my tears mixing with the bath’s water.
I feel so completely exhausted but I press on, down to his stomach again, burning every cell in my body, commanding all of me to fall into him. Faintly through the wall of my tears I see something shining, throwing light all around the room, and in the back of my panicking head I realize it’s me - my skin glowing as brightly as the sun.
All of my memories with him flash through my mind in a split-second; choking me, practicing the sword, standing in my doorway, helping me to bed, the dressing room, kissing in the rose dome and this very room and it all swirls together into one pinpoint of longing, and then my eyes flutter closed and I feel the sensation of something cold hitting my back.
-16-
Everything is darkness. But I could swear between the endless floating darkness I see a glimmer of bright light in the shape of a woman’s face. She’s so kind-looking, so beautiful, that if I had breath she’d have taken it away.
“Take care of him, will you?” The light asks. “Take care of them all, for me?”
I can’t nod, I can’t speak. All I can do is agree, silently, and then the light grows blinding.
****
I come back to consciousness slowly, luxuriously, like waking up on a Sunday morning when you went to bed late knowing you have all the time in the world to yourself that day. Something soft’s beneath me, and my hands grasp at it but it moves through my fingers - sand?
My eyes crack open, and all I see is gray. Gray, interspersed with arcane black rock formations reaching to the sky. Oh shit! I sit up instantly, looking at the white sand below me. I know this place. Quinn called it the nether realm.
“Oh, finally awake, are you?”
I look over at the cheery voice to see a bright splash of pink standing out among the monochrome - a little old woman with flyaway white hair, a pink bow perched on top.
“C-Caelthea?” I croak. She claps her gnarled hands excitedly, smiling.
“And you even have your memory! Delightful! I was worried I was getting rusty, but it turns out I’m just as good at it as I remember.”
“Good…at what?” I groan and she trots over to me, patting me on the head.
“Bringing souls back from the dead, of course!”
I swallow a breath so fast it hurts. “W-What?”
“You, my dear, were dead!” Caelthea’s grin widens. “For approximately one week, two days, and thirteen hours.”
I try to stand up but my legs wobble violently, and Caelthea supports me with her deceptively strong hands.
“Now dear, you have to take it easy.”
“I must’ve….overdrawn,” I whisper. “The last thing I remember is Dane - is he alright?”
“Oh he’s just fine,” She assures me. “Or at least, I haven’t seen him here. Only you.”
“A week,” I whisper. “I have to get back.”
“Indeed! And I’ll send you back. Just as soon as I get a slight thank you, of course.”
“Thank you,” I blurt. “How did you - you can just do that? Bring humans back from the dead?”
“Only the ones I have contracts with who haven’t fulfilled their end of the bargain,” Her blue eyes glimmer. “Now go on - get out of here. And the next time you decide to throw away your life, maybe don’t.”
I can’t help my watery laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The world starts to go blurry, all the colors mixing in that familiar way, the last color I see a bright pink waving madly at me.
“Take care, dear!”
The colors start to fade in again - greens and golds and the black and silver of the mansion but I don’t wait for it to solidify - walking through the garden, past the wobbling rose domes and up the blurry steps, through the hall and around the corner until I stop in front of the one door
I never had the courage to so much as look at.
Dane’s door.
I knock, and walk in.
I hear him before I see him - a white-gold blur that inhales sharply and the next thing I know the smell of rosemary and gin floods me, his warm body all around me, on my waist, my shoulders, against my chest.
“M-May,” He breathes. “Is it - is it really you? This isn’t a dream again?”
Again? How often has he dreamed of me since my death? My laugh streaks with the beginnings of tears. “Yeah. It’s me.”