It’s a kiss, my first kiss, but it feels more like an explosion of lips and teeth and tongue, his hand on my chin and my hands around his neck, pulling him in close, so close I can smell someone’s perfume on him and I hate it, hate the way he tastes like bittersweet rosemary, hate the way his tongue darts like lava into my mouth, searing me all the way down to my core and leaving a scorched path in its wake that aches with ash, wanting to be filled again and again. I bite into his lower lip, demanding more, thinking I can goad him into giving me more, even if I’m nowhere near as beautiful as the woman he’s slept with - the women he sleeps with - even if I’ve never done anything like this with anyone before I want to do it with him, even if I wish I didn’t want to…I want to.

MONSTER GARDEN

a novel by Sara Wolf

Also by Sara Wolf

The Lovely Vicious Series

Love Me Never

Forget Me Always

Remember Me Forever

The Bring Me Their Hearts Series

Bring Me Their Hearts

For M. Keep going, no matter where you are.

May James expects to graduate, even if it means eating ramen seven days a week and flipping burgers. She’s prepared to do anything to succeed – anything except feed three beautiful fae with her touch alone. May is a Brightened, one of the few gifted humans who have abilities that can influence the gorgeous and intimidating fae who walk the earth. But when the enigmatic Vilmor Van Grier offers her sixty-thousand dollars to feed the eight high fae he’s collared with his own Brightness, May must contend with the magical reality of Vilmor’s estate – the Monster Garden, her own powers, and the infuriating-but-volcanically-irresistible fae named Dane.

If power can collar the fae, can love free them? Or will they be forever trapped in the Monster Garden?

***This book is a hate-to-love story that contains language and situations which may be inappropriate for minors below the age of 18. Please read responsibly.***

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Sara Wolf. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact sarawolfbooks@gmail.com.

-1-

This is the 347th time I’ve told the assholes upstairs to turn down their shitty music. I’ve tried to leave nice notes, I’ve tried to lead by example and play my rare wine-and-bubblebath-night music softly, I’ve tried everything short of lighting a firecracker and shoving it under their Kappa Theta Pi door.

Tonight we get desperate. Tonight is the bang-my-broom-on-my-ceiling-slash-their-floor night. I despise conflict with every fiber of my being and I also don’t believe in pissing off the people I live near just as, you know, a good don’t-get-murdered rule of thumb. I grew up on an organic farm commune in Oregon surrounded by hippies who popped pot brownies like tic tacs - I’m the least aggressive person I know!

Which is saying something, because I don’t know many people. I’m about as good at making friends as I am at getting violent on plaster with a broom handle - disgustingly awful.

“You’ve been partying for three. Days. Straight,” I mutter through clenched teeth as I do my best to balance on the rickety chair. Being 5’3 doesn’t get me much lateral traction, but I make up for it in inventiveness. “Maybe spend your college education doing something other than ruining mine? Just a thought!”

My neighbors upstairs kindly smash something heavy on the floor, and my heart jumps up in my throat. I can hear them laughing faintly over the music.

“If I was buff, and also a man, and if I had, like, a taser on me, you’d all be toast. Electrically-burned toast.” I sweep my black bangs out of my eyes and slam the broom handle on the ceiling again, but the bad death metal just keeps blasting, vibrating my entire tiny studio apartment so hard I see the resident cockroaches crawl around the duct-tape I put over the cracks in the walls.

“Aw beans. On electrically-burned toast,” I grumble. My stomach grumbles with me, and I sigh and stand down from the chair, dragging it back to it’s place in the corner. Sorry, tum. We don’t get paid until next Wednesday.

I flop on my beat up paisley couch and stare at the ceiling as it thumps with the music and the cheers. The smell of cigarette smoke from one of their guests wafts straight into my window, and I gag and hurry over to close it.

Immediately, a half-drunk voice rings out; “Fuckin’ prude!”

Laughter follows it and I sink into the couch and pull the throw-blanket up over my head as my impending failure flashes before my eyes like I’m dying and these are my last moments. I won’t get to study in peace, I won’t remember anything for the final, and I’ll flunk out of Oregon State and that’ll be it - all of Mom and Dad’s money down the drain for nothing. I was smart in high school - straight A’s in AP classes, but college piled it on so hard and I fast and I was so anxious about not failing I ironically nearly failed my freshman year, and I sure as shit didn’t qualify for any scholarships after that.

Failure wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Mom and Dad didn’t scrape together everything they had to send me to college, if they didn’t call me with cheery voices trying to cover up the fact they were struggling to pay the mortgage and my tuition. Mom tried to hide it, but I know Dad got a second job at the county office doing their tax work because I see him check in there every day on Facebook because he’s a dad and never learned how to turn check-ins off. The second I realized how bad it was I got a job at a fast food place and moved out of the dorms and found this dinky apartment complex on the east side of town where the artisan cupcake shops haven’t taken over and everything’s still cheap. It’s not super sketchy, but at least once a month the police bust down someone’s door, and there’s always a guy sitting on the steps outside selling ecstasy and other club drugs. He always latches on to me, but what about forgot-to-shower brown hair in a messy bun and sweatpants makes me look like I do party drugs? The world will never know.

Or the world will know, when I end up pulling the earlobes off the boys upstairs and get arrested for battery and my face is plastered all over the news. Or is it assault? Shit, I have an American Law final in three days, I should know this!

I curl up on the couch, feeling stupid and weak and overwhelmed. No - come the fuck on, May. You aren’t a freshman anymore. And Mom and Dad aren’t wasting a trillion dollars for you to cry on a couch all night.

I jump up - first things first; my stomach is a huge whiny baby and it needs sustenance. I shuffle to the kitchenette. It’s tiny, a sink and microwave the only things here, but I keep it as clean as I can. I’m pretty proud of the way the sink sparkles - even if I suck at deciphering logical fallacies, at the very least I can keep a damn sink clean. I pop a Cup Ramen into the microwave and watch it spin.

“A watched Ramen never boils,” I mutter, and turn to the window.

It’s the only window I have in my apartment, and considering I live in a concrete jungle with no real companionship except the occasional telemarketer and UPS deliveryman, the window is my favorite thing. It overlooks the gentle sloping hill of the neighborhood, and if you strain your neck enough, you can see the glorious greenery and huge mansions in the distance. Paringway Heights, it’s called? Something snooty, but the way the moonlight and sunlight catches the trees and the beautiful glass walls of the fancy modernist architecture always soothes me. No matter how stressed I am, no matter how much my workload tries to crush me, one look out this window and my heart feels lighter. Someday, I think whenever I look, I’ll live somewhere nice like that. I’ll be successful - even if I don’t have a fucking Blue’s Clues what I’m going to do with my Bachelors of Arts degree. Someday I’ll live somewhere nice without cockroaches in the walls, I won’t work on my feet for seven hours and come home smelling like burger grease, and I won’t worry about Mom and Dad and they won’t worry about me and I’ll have friends, maybe? Is that too much to hope for? I’ll get good at cooking, and I won’t live counting pennies to my next paycheck and I sure as hell won’t eat Ramen every night of the week.

Someday, I’ll be better. I’ll look back at this awful apartment and lonely life and laugh like it was all a bad dream.

I poke at my cactus on the window - his name is Sir Charles I bought him when I was feeling really down one day, and I had a bit extra. He doesn’t need much water, but having something green and alive around makes me feel like I’m alive, too. It’s nice to wake up and make some coffee and see a green thing soaking up the sun happily.

“Hey Sir Charles,” I stroke the non-needley part of it. “You hanging in there?”

Just then, an ear-splitting THUD collapses down on the floor above, the boys cheering. I reach for Sir Charles a second too late, and like the world’s in slow motion I watch in horror as his terra-cotta dish plummets towards the tile floor.

The shatter freezes me in place. No - not Sir Charles! He’s in fragments, dirt everywhere and his dish broken beyond repair, his green flesh splitting open where he impacted the ground. No no no no - my brain locks up like a repeating record and all I can see is red.

It’s a cactus. I know that. It’s just a cactus. But the tears well up, hot and angry.

The boys upstairs just keep cheering.

“That’s it. I’m done. I’m done playing nice!” They can take my peace from me, they can take my grades, they can take my sanity - but they can’t take the one thing that made me smile every morning!

I grab the broom and throw on a sweatshirt, gnashing my teeth. This is a bad, sleep-deprived idea and bad sleep-deprived ideas lead to confrontation and I hate confrontation and I’m terrible at it but I’m so angry I don’t care anymore. I smash my feet into my flip-flops and take the stairs two at a time, banging both my fists on their door.

“Hey!” I shout. “Hey! Open up!”

Nothing. Not even a guy out here smoking. The music just keeps blasting, the singer screaming the chorus hoarsely. I pull my foot back and kick with all my elementary-school soccer practice.

“It’s your friendly downstairs neighbor!” I shout. “I’ve got cookies!”

This is a lie. I have approximately one cookie and it’s a broom. But hopefully they’re too drunk to check through the peep-hole. No one’s coming - maybe they just can’t hear me. But they will.

“Hey, assholes! Open this fucking door right now before I battering ram it open!”

Nothing. Not even laughter. I take the handle of the broom and slam it into the door.

“OPEN THE DOOR, YOU MOLDY SHITPILES!”

I’ve never been this mad in my life - I’ve never shouted at strangers in public in my fucking life but here I am, pretty much a deranged neighbor stereotype. They could call the cops on me any second -

The music suddenly turns off and all my bravado goes straight down the toilet as I hear footsteps coming to the door.

“Oh no, oh dear god no,” I groan, looking for somewhere to hide. May, stop - you’ve got no friends and a garbage GPA - don’t add ‘coward’ to the list. Anything but that. It’s cowardice that destroyed Sir Charles and got you in this mess in the first place! I square my shoulders back and clear my throat just as the door opens.

“Can I help you?”

The man who answers is definitely not a boy, but he’s close - maybe a year older than me? Two? His sharp jaw practically cuts the gloom of the apartment behind him, his white-blonde hair kept short but with one stray wisp over his forehead, hovering just above his severe dark blonde brows and piercing blue eyes - Jesus H. Christ, do they even make an eye color like that in the human genome? It’s a deep rich blue streaked with green, like the waters of a tropical pool, or a perfect specimen of gemstone - those rare, multi-colored sapphires that sell for millions to like, Middle Eastern oil barons and sheiks. His eyes don’t stun - not like fantasy books with hot guys talk about, and not like romance movies try to emulate. They just pierce, like an Olympic rapier match, like the teeth of a predator through skin - rimmed with dark lashes and narrowed suspiciously. Despite how stunning his eyes are, he definitely dresses like he’d enjoy grungy screamo death metal music. His tall, lean frame is dressed in head-to-toe leather - black leather boots, a black wifebeater that shows off his muscled neck beneath a black leather jacket, black leather pants that hug his long legs and holy shit I took Biology and that is definitely an entire male genitalia at his crotch straining against the leather -

He’s hot. Fuck me sideways at sixty miles an hour, he’s so hot. I hate thinking it - I’m not the sort of girl who thinks dudes are hot. I’ve never met one that made me think ‘yeah, I’d jump his bones’. While every other girl in high school was squealing about hotness and getting laid I just never got it. I felt left out, and also grateful, because it seemed like a huge hassle and every girl who got infected by it seemed to turn into an idiot.

I just didn’t get it.

Until right now. I feel like I can’t breathe, like I can’t even look at him for too long. He’s not a person but a huge chunk of dark pressure I can tangibly feel with my skin. His gaze on me is like fire but my blood is icy and holy shit - I’m talking like one of Mom’s romance books she kept under her bed. Shit. Crap.

“Crap on a flaming shishkebab - why now of all times?” I groan.

“What?” The guy quirks a vicious brow and that one motion makes me suck in a breath. CRAP, GOD! Couldn’t you have waited until I graduated before I got hit with the hammer of raw sexual attraction? I’ve got a degree to fucking earn and a life to live.

God just chuckles at me. And then throws me a bone. The guy at the door opens it a little further, leaning against it with all his svelte body like a panther settles in a tree. He’s so tall - at least a head taller than me, maybe two, and that’s when I realize I’m in flip-flops and days-old sweatpants and a shirt stained with ramen broth and a messy bun and glasses and a huge spate of zits on my chin, clutching a broom in one hand.

“Beauty and the beast,” His full lips pull into a lazy smirk as he says it. I blink, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“Beauty,” He points to himself, then me. “Beast.”

My hormone-fueled lust instantly cuts off. I might not be able to handle sexual attraction, but insults - oh boy, I’m used to those. Being in the chess club AND the Dungeons and Dragons club in high school will get you used to them real quick. This guy might have rolled a natural 20 in Charisma, but right now I’ve got a resource, and it’s called Rage.

“Your - Your stupid fucking music is the worst!” I clutch the broom as I yell, like it’s a grounding pole for my pissed-off lightning slash urge to run. “You’ve kept me up for three straight nights with your idiot parties, I can’t study and I have a final soon, you’re so fucking loud you made all the cockroaches in the building come out and you killed Sir Charles!”

His gemstone eyes flash for a second. “Killed who?”

“M-My cactus,” I hold my chin higher. “You made that big noise and he fell out of his dish and you killed him so fuck you, turn down your shitty music before I call the cops on you! I’ve been nice for weeks, I’ve been nice ever since I moved in, I’ve been nice my whole fucking life, so just do me this solid and shut up so I can get one night’s worth of studying done, you entire cow’s anus!”

The last words ring in the empty hall and my chest heaves like I’ve run a marathon. The guy just stands there with his arms crossed, but his crooked smirk is replaced with something like shock. It doesn’t last, his eyes narrowing to slits again as a laugh vibrates his broad chest. It’s not a nice laugh - it’s a purr and a growl all wrapped up into one.

“You’re a weird little thing, aren’t you?”

“I’m a person, not a thing,” I spit. He shrugs.

“Same difference.”

He’s arrogant, too. Oh this is just dandy - the only thing worse than my sex drive kicking into overtime is it kicking into overtime for a guy who thinks people are things.

“You killed Sir Charles, and you’re full of yourself?” I scoff. “You’re lucky I don’t feel like beating ass tonight.”

“Hmm,” The guy purrs. Before I can even move he leans in, closing the gap between our bodies. My brain screams in one long, high-pitched note as his pale, perfect face looms closer, his nose straight and it hits me then, what he reminds me of - those long, angular guys who walk runways. He smells like leather and gin and rosemary. He moves his mouth to my ear, his breath pleasantly warm against the cool night as he whispers oh-so-softly;

“I do. Or rather, did. But the night is young. There’s always room for round two. What do you say - me and your ass and a very good beating?”

I’ve never understood the whole rave about ASMR - that thing where people listen to whispers and it makes a chill run down their spine. It’s gotten super huge on the online forums for Oregon State, people linking videos for other people to watch, to relax them before exams or to help their overworked minds go to sleep or whatever. I watched a ton and never felt anything special, but this awful shithead whispers in my ear once and my whole spine decides to tremble like the beads in a maraca. The way he says ‘beating’ makes it sound totally different from the way I said it. He means sex oh god he means sex with me oh holy -

The guy leans back from my ear, and then laughs. Not a dark chuckle like before, but a full-blown stomach laugh, clear and honest. This laugh is a nice laugh. And that’s when I get it - he’s laughing at me. He wipes his eye, a tear in his dark eyelashes, and stutters as he catches his breath.

“T-The look on your face! I can’t believe you actually fell for that. It’s 2018, little beast - being naive is very last century.”

“Fuck you,” I snarl.

“No,” He looks me up and down. “With that plain face, and that ungainly body? Not a chance in hell. I’d have a better time fucking a dust mop - ”

Like I said - I’ve got a lot of resource, and its name is Rage. I roll a natural 20 in Agility and shove my broomstick straight into his chest, hoping to make his stupid ass stagger and eat dirt, or at least apartment floor. But the second the tip of my broomstick touches his black shirt, something shifts. In him. And outside him - the air around us suddenly so cold I can see my breath. It’s May - it’s never this cold in May. All I see is a blur of black and then I’m pressed up against the wall, his broad hand around my throat and his whole body pinning me to the plaster and all I can think is fuck. Fuck I’m so dead - you knew this would happen, May, you knew confrontation with your neighbors leads to you getting murdered and here you are, getting murdered. Mom and Dad are gonna be pissed they wasted all that money for nothing. God he’s pretty but you sure wish he wouldn’t fucking murder you and does his left eye have a flower in it - a big white rose blooming from his socket - or is that just you hallucinating because you’re running out of oxygen -

“Dane!”

A shuffle, the guy holding me getting jostled around. My vision’s going black at the edges.

“Dane! That’s enough!” Someone roars. “If we kill an innocent Van Grier will end us! And I don’t about you, but I wanna get fed - not ended.”

I squint - I can just barely make out someone’s face over the guy’s shoulder. Another guy, with long black hair hanging around his high cheekbones. Handsome too, but tanner than the guy choking me. Why - why at the end of my life is the only I can think of how pretty these people are? I try to kick, but the blonde guy presses into me harder, his hiss audible.

“She tried to stake me with that thing.”

“It’s blunt, Dane. A sweeper for her house, not a weapon. For the Bright Lady’s sake; let her go!”

Dane - that’s his name. Dane’s turquoise eyes pierce me, every inch of me, and then change. From hate, to confusion, to shame, and back to hate again. But not aimed at me. He’s struggling with something inside - a memory, maybe. Finally he lets go, all the pressure lifting off me and I collapse to the ground like a sack of potatoes, gasping for air.

“Are you alright?” The black-haired guy kneels on the concrete next to me, my eyes adjusting as they get more oxygen flow back. His black hair, straight and luxurious and nearly down to his shoulders, shines in the fluorescent hall lights and its’ the first time I’ve ever seen fluorescence make someone look better instead of worse. He’s so well-tanned, his eyes dark but with that same weird undefinable gem-like quality that Dane’s have - though his are like black onyx with beautiful silver dots in them like stars and I swear for a moment I see a black rose in his left eye but I blink and breathe in again and it’s gone.

“I-I’m seeing things,” I mutter, my voice struggling to come out. It’s dry, like I haven’t drank water for years, and when I touch my throat it stings and aches, too sore to even glance over.

“Sorry about him,” The black-eyed guy helps me to my feet and I try to stand on my own but I stagger, but he catches me in his arms and he smells like copper and rainwater and - not this shit again. He’s jaw-droppingly handsome, but mercifully my body doesn’t scream for him like it does for blonde asshole over there. I push off him. He wears all black just like Dane, but his pants are jeans and his jacket is lined with faux-fur. No more of these weirdoes. I’m just gonna crawl back to my apartment and shut the door and double-triple lock it and maybe put a chair under the doorknob for good measure.

The dark-eyed guy smiles, his teeth sparkling white and his grin nothing but friendly. “You’re not, uh, going to sue or anything, are you? Dane’s just…had a rough day. Rough life, really, and uh we don’t live in this area, so a beautiful, kind girl like you probably won’t want to pull us into court, right? I mean, this isn’t even our town and it was all a mistake -”

“I’m a college student,” I wheeze. “I don’t sue.”

The guy laughs, eyes crinkling warmly on the edges. “Fair enough. Beautiful and a sense of humor!”

“Ass-kisser.” Dane, his eyes much clearer now, scoffs and starts striding down the corridor with his long legs and heavy boots.

Dark-eyed guy shuffles, calling after him; “Hey! Wait up!” He looks back to me and salutes me with a brilliant smile. “Thanks. For not sueing. Dane, c’mon, wait up!”

I’m sure as hell not walking after them. I wait until their footsteps fade, and then limp back to my apartment. Double lock, and a chair underneath the doorknob, and only then do I collapse in my bed and pass out, totally drained.

My last thought is of eyes like gemstones, cracking down the middle and blossoming with roses.

-2-

I hold a funeral for Sir Charles because that’s what any sane college girl with a finals week coming up would do. It’s hard to find a patch of dirt deep enough for him in the city - the ones in the park are covered in litter and I can’t stand the thought of Sir Charles getting an empty Big Gulp or used condom thrown on him. But I finally find a patch good enough - on campus, near the Agriculture building. It’s the least manicured part of the school, and my reasoning is maybe the caretakers will think it’s somebody’s project. Or so I hope.

The week passes in a blur and I try not to think of what came before. I wear the only turtleneck I own - one of those intentionally tacky Christmas sweaters and people look at me like I’m escaped from prison because I’m wearing a Christmas sweater in May, but at least they don’t get to see the massive bruises on my neck. Affording any makeup beyond dollar-store chapstick is a distant dream for me at the moment, so being called tacky will have to do. Work is harder - I beg my supervisor to let me wear a bandana around my neck, and only after I reveal the bruise to her does she agree with a hint of pity in her eyes, on the condition the bandana is plain.

I feel like I do great on my finals - but it comes at a bizarre cost. The boys upstairs pretty much always play music and party, on the weekends the most, but weekdays, too. In the year I’ve lived here they haven’t gone two days without blowing off steam.

But this time, my upstairs neighbors are silent for a whole week.

At first I just take full advantage of it - cramming as much study-juice into my virgin pina colada of a brain as I can. By the time seven days goes by I’m made of coconut liquor and a healthy dose of Godel’s first incompleteness theorem topped off with whipped cream and a cherry and the fact a precedent is an existing opinion that guides a court in the case before it, and an antisymmetric is a binary relation where R is an antisymmetric and so on and so forth. Rest assured - it’s a godawful cocktail, but I gulp it down and finish my finals feeling on top of the world.

It’s at night when things get hard.

When I strip down to take a shower to wash off the day’s grease, I can’t look at myself in the mirror - the bruise on my neck is too raw and real to confront. I don’t want to look at it, if I do it might solidify or get darker. That’s not how injuries work, I know, but rationality’s never been a star player on my team. And then after I’m clean and not in front of a mirror my bed yawns like the Grand Canyon, echoing back that night at me. Dane’s lithe outline, the way he sent my body quaking in its own boots, his hand around my neck as he tried to definitely kill me -

I almost got murdered by a runway model with bad taste in music.

I almost got murdered.

I shudder and pull all my blankets around me, but it’s never enough. I still feel cold on the inside. He really wanted to hurt me. I could see it in his eyes and his beautiful shitty face. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Looking out the window at the hill - the fairy lights of the fancy houses and the moon beaming down there - warms me up inside, but only slightly. It’s not the same without Sir Charles here.

I catch a flyer on a campus corkboard in the hall one day and it screams in comic sans at me; JUDO SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING! ONLY TEN DOLLARS A SESSION! I scoff and crumple it - ten dollars is ten ramen cups. Ten ramen cups is ten dinners. I don’t fucking think so. I don’t know what it is about the world trying to squeeze every last penny from college kids, but it feels like an Olympic sport everyone’s competing at, these days. Except then I spot kids in my class with clean Apple laptops, who drive home in BMWs and sleek Volvos and all I can think of is that not everybody lives like me. Some people are just lucky.

My fingers flit over the Christmas sweater shrouding my neck. Or in my case, unlucky.

Finally, my pile of clothes in my room gets too stinky to ignore. I arm myself with a pocketful of jingling quarters and a near-empty bottle of detergent and truck up the stairs to the laundry room.

When I get to the top of the stairwell, I freeze. My upstairs neighbor’s door is right there - that wall opposite is right where Dane pinned me and choked me. I scurry past it with my head down, and load the washer up. But when I come back, someone’s standing there. Not a runway model in all black, but my landlord, an ancient old man with liver spots for hair and fingernails longer than most ladies’. He stands in front of the door, painting it with a can of dark green paint. I try to sneak past him but he sees me and smiles.

“Hello there.”

“Hi, Mr. Reginald,” I force a smile back.

“Be honest with me,” Mr. Reginald puts the paintbrush down. “Does this fresh coat of paint make the door look more rentable, to you?”

“Rentable?” I frown.

“Yes - the boys who lived here cleared out recently. Probably for the best, I got quite a few noise complaints about them.”

“Why -“ I blurt. Shit, can’t seem too interested, or it’d be suspicious. “Did they go on vacation?”

“Oh no,” He waves his paint-dotted hand. “They just called to tell me the rent was too high. I could’ve sworn they told me it was just right when they first moved in. Anyway, I came up here the next morning and all their things were gone. It’s a good thing we’re month-to-month, or I’d have had them for early lease termination!”

“When,” I swallow, trying to make it sound natural. “When did they call you about that?”

“When was it now?” The landlord thinks. “Exactly a week ago. In the middle of the night, too. Kids these days - don’t know a lick of manners. Not you, of course.”

“Of course,” I force another smile. “I should get going.”

“See you on the first of the month!”

I take the stairs faster than a hamster running a wheel, my converse pounding the cement. I slam my front door behind me - one week ago was that night. The night I knocked on the door.

I put my head into a couch cushion and breathe the stale smell in. Anything to ground my wildly flailing thoughts. It’s just a coincidence. More importantly, Dane and the other guy were their friends, and now that they’re gone from here I’ll never see Dane again. I’m safe.

I celebrate that night by putting frozen peas and shrimp in my ramen, and I splurge maybe a little too much and buy myself a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I eat so much I feel like a mint-flavored swamp shaped like a girl.

I start to save up to buy another cactus. I make plans to visit Mom and Dad over summer break, working big chunks of hours the rest of the time to save up for next year. There’s still one more week of school, but after that I’m home free. If I work enough, Mom and Dad won’t have to give me as much, and that thought alone makes all the twelve-hour shifts worth it. It won’t leave much time to make friends this summer like I wanted to, but who am I kidding - even if I did make some, school and work would eat up too much of my time to ever keep them. That is, if I knew how to keep them in the first place. I had friends in high school, but we were never close. Sure, I went to a few sleepovers, and we shared homework answers, but that was it. I’m not even sure I know what real friendship is.

Regardless, life slowly goes back to being alright.

Until I see him again.

At first I think it’s a trick of the light. Someone tall and blonde is waiting at the bus stop outside my work. I can see them through the windows of the restaurant. All black clothes. Hair short and almost white. A languid, easy posture leaning against the bus stop sign, like they own the world.

My hand shakes filling up a cone of soft-serve for a customer. No, that can’t be him. Even if it is, it’s a coincidence. He’s catching the bus to go somewhere else.

Except he’s staring right at the restaurant.

I take my break in the back and steady myself on my knees. Marie, my only co-worker here who doesn’t treat me like gum on their shoe, takes her break too, lighting her cigarette and watching me with her cornflower-blue eyes.

“You alright, hon?”

“Y-Yeah,” I breathe in deep. “Just…didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Does that have anything to do with that man who’s been looking in here all afternoon?” She asks lightly. When I gape at her she waves it off. “Oh come on, sweetpea, it’s boring as fuck behind that counter. Of course I’d notice him. Is he your boy?”

My traitorous meat sack of a body reacts to the idea of him being mine with every hair on my skin standing on end. “No!” I shout it, but then lower my voice. “No. He’s just, uhm, a cousin. The weird one.”

“Well that weird cousin of yours sure likes staring at you.”

“Yeah, go figure. Some people just have crap for manners.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Marie laughs, coughing a little. She pats me on the back. “Let’s go back in and finish up. And maybe you can introduce me to him, if he ever comes in.”

She gives me a wink and I flinch. I do my best to have Marie work the cashier, shuttering myself away in the back working the deep fryer. If I keep his line of sight off me, logic dictates, he’ll lose interest and leave.

But then, over the din of people eating, I hear a deep voice. Murmuring. I hear Marie giggle, and then heavy footsteps, the kind with boots on. Crap on a biscotti, Marie let him back here - I need to get out. I fling myself towards the back door, but before I can open it long, pale fingers dart over the handle. The refined smell of gin and rosemary cuts through the kitchen’s heavy haze of grease. My eyes follow the leather jacket arm and freeze on his shoulder. That insane pressure comes from out of nowhere again, leaning against more than just my skin. It’s like my entire being can feel him without even touching him, like he’s an important weight in the fabric of reality.

“You’re the broomstick girl.”

Dane. His voice has none of the lazy purrs it did the night we met. It’s all crisp and clear, now, business-y. Marie is watching us from over his shoulder, so I relax just a smidge. He wouldn’t try to hurt me in front of her, would he? I touch my bandana to make sure it’s still on.

“Yup. And you’re the guy who tried to kill me,” I say softly. He clicks his tongue, narrowing his left eye with the sound, almost like a flinch.

“That was a mistake. On my part.”

“Really?” I snort and stare at his boots. “Is that your best excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse,” He snarls. “It’s an apology.”

I wave my hand. “You call it an apology, I call it not-an-apology-in-the-slightest, tomato tomahto.”

“You shoved that broom at me first.”

“Oh, now you’re victim-blaming. I bet you get all the ladies doing that.”

He lets out a raspy snarl and massages his forehead, muttering something under his breath. I swear I hear a snippet of it, but I clear my throat.

“What was that?”

“I’m sorry.” He says, his gemstone eyes darting away from my face for once. I look up - its easier to look at him when he’s not looking at me. His dark blonde brows are knit so fiercely he looks like he’s in pain, the sapphire of his irises dimmed. “I have a past. And that night it caught up with me. You took the brunt of it. And I’m sorry.”

He looks so sincere. I hear Marie give a little squeal behind us. Dane looks back to me and I look immediately away.

“There,” He says. “I’m done groveling. Now come with me.”

He catches my wrist but I pull away, my greasy gloves helping with that. “Just because you apologized doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere with you. I know this is going to blow your mind, but I’d actually prefer it if I never saw you again.”

“You don’t have a choice,” He grunts, grabbing my arm and pushing us out the back door. I dig my heels in but it turns out the floor’s greasy, too, my converse getting no traction. Marie calls after us;

“May! Your shift!”

“Marie, help me -“

Dane turns around and throws her a smile, that lopsided, confident one he gave me. “I’ll be borrowing her for a bit - my mother wants to see her. Urgent family matters. If you could cover for her, I’d be very grateful.”

I gape at him - he’s doing that thing again where he makes not-sex words sound like sex with that purring voice! Conniving little shit! He’s going to kidnap me and he’s gonna get away with it, too, all thanks to his runway body and his angel face - no, devil face! He’s gonna get away with it because I was stupid enough to call him my cousin.

Marie flushes ten shades of red and winks at him. “Alright, killer. Just bring her home before midnight.”

“Marie, no -“

Dane smiles and the whole world drops away below me as he hefts me into his arms and strides away. My stomach vaults into my throat - he’s really taking me away - holy shit I’m gonna be kidnapped by this freak!

“Put me the fuck down!” I yell, flailing and aiming for his eyes. He gracefully dodges my assassination attempts with some clever neck-work, and when we turn the corner behind a dumpster he finally obliges. I make a run for it, but he catches me by the back of my work uniform’s collar and pulls me to him, flush against his hard chest. God I wish I spent those ten dollars and took that Judo class but life always looks so easy to solve in retrospect, doesn’t it?

I’m suddenly keenly aware of how warm he is, and how that heat seeps into my spine, my neck, down to my ass - I mentally beat my libido with an ice-cold stick. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a special announcement to May’s idiot horny body; this is the guy who tried to choke you to death!

I have to try to get away. I open my mouth and start to scream with all the pent-up might in me;

“SOMEBODY -“

“That’s enough out of you,” Dane murmurs. I feel a cool metal something around my neck, what’s left of the bruise twingeing at the pressure - not hands, this time, but a necklace? No - a choker. How ironic. But jewelry bribes won’t stop me, and I breathe in to scream again but…nothing comes out. I’m screaming - I can feel it in my throat. I’m screaming ‘SOMEBODY HELP ME’ over and over, but there’s no sound. Not even a whisper, just nothingness. What the acrobatic fuck? I try to talk normally, but nothing comes out either. I turn in horror to see Dane looking at me with a sardonic smirk pulling at his velvet lips, his vivid blue-green eyes narrowed in victory.

“Definitely an improvement.”

‘You sonofabitch! What did you do to me?’ I mouth words but no sound comes out. This has to be some kind of noise canceling field - some fancy new tech.

“Nothing,” He smiles wider. “I’m just the delivery boy.”

How did he - how did he hear that when I can’t? What the hell is going on? There’s no dark-haired guy to act like Dane’s conscious, this time, and my insides start to twist around themselves. What does he want with me? Who cares? He might’ve muted me with this freaky choker, but I can still run, so I do, my legs pumping back to the restaurant, back to Marie who I can beg to call 911, back to normalcy and home and safety.

The asphalt parking lot starts to blur on the edges of my vision, like I have tears in my eyes but I don’t, I’m not crying at all but things are turning melty and transparent, the colors of the cars and the restaurant’s cheery yellow sign blurring together until I can’t see anything but smears, brightly-lit smears, but I force my calves and thighs faster, burning more, burning harder, and then I trip on something solid and I go flying - I’m going to land face first on asphalt. This is it - this is where I die, again, or at the very least scrape my whole face off.

Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. The daughter you worked so hard to raise is going to get her whole face removed. A face you made, technically. It’s not that she didn’t like it, it’s just that gravity decided to exist and an arrogant piece of shit tried to kidnap her.

My head hits the ground and my whole existence shatters into white-hot pain…except it doesn’t. It hurts, sure, but something soft cushions the worst of the fall, my brain only slightly jiggling in my skull. My knees take the beating the most, digging into that same soft something. My jeans immediately start to get cold at the knees, damp. The smell of earth floods my nose and I force myself up and look around, brushing crumbling dirt off my face.

“Wrap me in a tortilla and fry me,” I groan. I clutch at my sore throat and the weird metal choker there - I can hear myself again! My vision’s clear too, and all I can see is grass - long, wide, sleek stems of verdant emerald grass swaying in the gentle wind. I stand up shakily to get my bearings, but I can’t see anything but an ocean of grass in every direction. Since when did the parking lot of my work have such a huge field? Since when did soft, damp earth replace the concrete? Since when did this gray cloudy Monday turn into a flawless, ceramic blue bowl with a few puffy white clouds skittering across the surface?

I answer myself; “It didn’t. That’s impossible. Which means I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“I prefer to call it my own personal hell,” A voice drones out from the grass, and I jump. Dane.

“Where are you?” I snap. “You better not try to sneak up on me! I’ve got a black belt!”

“In what, screaming like a banshee?” He asks, the grass parting on my left to reveal his body, his clothes stark black against the greenery. With his looming height he can see just fine over the grass. Asshole. I decide to be the bigger person and ignore his insults for more pressing questions.

“Where the fuck are we?” I politely inquire without looking at him. God he’s so hard to look at straight on, like a torch burning too brightly.

“I’m not getting fed to explain things to you,” He scoffs. “I’m getting fed to bring you to the people who will. So let’s go.”

He starts off in the grass, and panicking about getting lost in the stuff I chase after him, limping a little with my definitely-bruised knees.

“Hey! I asked you a question!” I call. He ignores me and turns so fast I nearly lose sight of his broad shoulders. “It’s polite to answer someone when they ask you things!”

“It’s also polite to not swear.” He lilts. “But you fire those off constantly.”

“Maybe because I’m frustrated? Maybe because I’m not a saint?” Rage starts to build in me, like a jenga tower in fast-motion done by an expert. “Maybe because a guy chokes me to half-death and then puts a collar on me that shuts me up!”

“Like I said; an improvement.”

“You’re a dick,” I grit my teeth as he turns again, and sick of getting nearly-left behind I lash my hand out and grab the tail of his jacket.

“Is that why you’re clinging to me?” He asks, smirking over his shoulder.

“No - it’s because you’re going too fast.”

“You’re right,” His voice deepens into that sultry, infuriating tone. “As a dick, it’s my job to make sure to go very, very slowly. One inch at a time.”

Parts of me I didn’t even know could move start to throb. The rest of my parts break out into the world’s biggest eye-roll. “One inch, total.”

“So generous,” Dane chuckles darkly. “Haven’t any of your human friends told you? It’s not the size that counts.”

Human? That’s a weird tag to add on.

“Well there’s your first mistake; assuming I have any friends.”

I swear I feel his pace stutter for a second in his heavy black boots, but he recovers quickly. “And yet here you are; a well-adjusted girl who smells like animal grease.”

“At least I don’t smell like a hipster’s liquor cabinet and a grandma’s herb garden!” I fire back. He doesn’t say anything to that, striding along with me tailing behind for what feels like an hour. Two hours. An eternity. Finally, when I’m sweaty and stink even worse and my feet are two lead bricks, the grass ends. We walk out (well, he walks out, I stagger) onto normal grass, with a perfectly manicured gravel path cutting into the distance. Old, stately magnolia trees line the path, blossoming in bushels of white flowers that blush pink. The wind picks up, cooling the sweat on my brow and scattering a wave of pink petals at me. Despite how tired I am, how confused I am, the softness of the petals and the beauty of watching them spiral in the wind makes me feel a little bit better in the same way Sir Charles did. I feel…at peace.

Dane makes sure that doesn’t last long. “Come on, little beast - we’re almost there. Don’t give up on me now. Or do. Dragging you the rest of the way could be very entertaining.”

“You’re a sadist,” I feel my hackles rising and let go of his jacket. “And if you ever touch me again, you’ll be a dead sadist.”

Dane scoffs and starts down the gravel path. “Threats aren’t a good color on you. Come on - hurry up.”

“What am I hurrying for? You still haven’t told me -“

“If you want answers, you follow me.”

I turn and look behind me - the grass field stretching out as far as I can see on the horizon. There’s not even a building, or a road sign. How the hell did I get from the asphalt jungle of my city to here? All I remember doing is tripping. Am I tripping? On shrooms? Because that would explain a metric fuck-ton more than what reality is explaining right now. I check my phone - no reception. And no wifi, either. But if I’m tripping because this asshole somehow slipped me shrooms, everything I see is suspect. So I text Mom anyway, hoping it’ll pick up a spot of reception long enough to send it, and start after Dane.

This place is huge. I say that, but the scale of it is like something out of a BBC drama - what do they call them? Estates. This definitely looks like an estate, complete with lush, perfectly cared-for orchards; plums and oranges hanging ripe and clouding the air with the smell of dizzying sweetness. Soon the magnolias flanking the path give way to topiaries shaped like moons and suns sitting opposite each other.

“Somebody rich lives here, right?” I ask Dane, but he just ignores me and keeps walking. So I take in the sights - half for my own enjoyment (because I haven’t seen somewhere this beautiful uh, ever), and half for when I get home and report all this to the police. Shiny-leafed bushes thick with little yellow and blue flowers, huge stalks of sunflowers standing like soldiers at attention, even a thicket of blackberry bushes, the white blossoms letting off a cloud of sugary tartness.

And that’s when I notice it - no bees. A place like this should be swarming with bees, butterflies, hell, even hummingbirds. But there’s nothing. Not even regular birds in the trees, or squirrels - not even flies or mosquitoes. Either they use pesticide for rain, or something about this place is off. And with an estate this big should have gardeners - but there’s no one for miles. The beauty all around me is no less beautiful, but it feels sterile now. Hollow.

“Noticed it, finally?” Dane asks lightly. I jump at the sound of his voice.

“Y-Yeah. What’s wrong with this place?”

He laughs, that same nothing-about-it-pleasant laugh I heard that night. It’s bitter and thin, like it could shatter and cut me at any moment. His gemstone eyes narrow at something in the distance - something ebony-colored and edged with silver and faintly in the shape of a building.

“Everything, little beast.”

-3-

There are so many parts to the grounds my eyes can barely keep up with it all - a miniature pond in one corner, complete with a little waterfall and a river that snakes through an herb garden packed high with blooming lavender and velvety sage bushes. Old stone statues of gorgeous, half-naked warrior women loom in a shadier corner, covered in what looks like blue-glowing moss, a blanket of the soft stuff carpeting the ground around the womens’ feet. Does moss even glow like that?

I jump and nearly cling to Dane’s coat again when I spot the statue in the center of the women - a low-set, dragon-like creature with a thick mane of flowing fur and bat wings and a gaping maw with razor-sharp rows of teeth. It’s bigger than an eighteen-wheeler truck, its shadow engulfing me when we walk past. Its long thorned tail curls around itself, and I realize all the women are fighting it - throwing spears or shielding themselves or leaping for it with a sword drawn. The hate in the dragon-thing’s slit pupils is so lifelike it feels like it’ll lunge in and snap my head off if I look at it for too long. So I don’t.

As we get closer to the building in the distance, it gets clearer - black roofing edged with silver, vast windows glinting. Three stories? No, it’s gotta be four or five. My jaw drops when we get close enough to see it in full; made of deep black stone, with pure silver pillars and windowsills. It’s got turrets, too - what do they call those? I forget, but there’s six of them spaced out like little towers and they’ve got perfectly rounded silver roofs. A fountain billows out front, crystal water pouring from the mouths of two intertwined warrior women.

It’s the most incredible house I’ve ever seen. It takes a slam dunk on any of the houses in Paringway Heights I stared at from my kitchen window, a slam dunk on any mansion ever made by human hands.

“If this isn’t a palace for royalty I’ll eat my greasy uniform,” I marvel. Dane doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t care. Probably the latter. He keeps loping straight towards the mansion. Follow him for answers, right? I jog after him, but immediately come to another stop.

There, spread out on both sides of the path and closest to the mansion, is a marvelous garden. I don’t know if ‘garden’ is the right word for it - there are eight plots of pristine green grass, each of them containing a single elegant glass dome-shaped building, wrought with iron spirals and delicate doors. And inside each building, poised in the very center, is a plant - all of them a giant spiraling vine thicker than my thigh. Some are darker than others, some lighter, some have smaller leaves or curlier leaves. But in the center of each curled vine rests a perfect rose about the size of a head of lettuce. Eight of them in total. Every rose is a different color - sea blue, butter-yellow, blood-red, sunset orange streaked with pink, even a pale, light purple and a spring green. The black rose has no thorns at all, but the white rose plant has thorns so big they’re the size of hunting knives, nearly covering the plant’s entire surface.

“I didn’t even know roses got that big,” I mutter.

“Hurry,” Dane barks, now way ahead of me. My knees creak like an old lady’s as I run to catch up. My converse crunch on the gravel as we get close enough to the house for its shadow to engulf me. Dane doesn’t slow down at the door, slamming it open without even asking if anyone’s home.

“Um, manners?” I ask. “My bad, I keep forgetting you were raised in a barn.”

Dane gives me a single scoff this time and walks into the foyer. Or at least I think that’s what they call fancy entryways like this. The inside is just as dark as the outside, the floor black marble with gold veins running through it, and the ceilings are so high I can hear my breathing echoing. Two grand staircases whirl around each other leading to the second floor, and there’s so many identical doors down long halls that I get dizzy.

Dane leads me down a hall with huge windows on one side, the gardens looking even more beautiful all spread out before us. The door at the end of the hall is wide open, and I can hear something familiar coming through it - heavy death metal.

But not just any heavy death metal. A beat that’s very familiar - a beat that knocked Sir Charles down, a beat that drummed into my skull over the course of three sleepless, hair-pulling nights. Dane turns to me just before we enter the room, leaning over my shoulder and flooding my senses with him - rosemary, that sharp jaw, his low voice.

“Don’t eat or drink anything. Don’t promise anything. If you do, you’ll never go home again.”

My heart skips. “What do you mean? That’s a joke, right?”

Dane pulls back and dusts his leather jacket off before walking straight into the room, two of his fingers twitching at his side and beckoning me forward. I walk in, the refined room completely at odds with the grungy death metal blaring in it. Pale white walls, with sky blue curtains and a stunning pale wood floor, polished so hard it shines like a mirror. The sunlight from the windows suffuses the floor with light, and the floor in turn sheds the light everywhere else - making this the cheeriest, lightest part of the mansion I’ve seen thus far. A white grand piano sit in one corner next to a golden harp, a few fancy white leather couches and chairs scattered around.

Dane walks up to the man sitting in one of those chairs. The man seemingly doesn’t notice him, his eyes closed as he nods along to the music like a conductor. I take this second to memorize his face for the police; skin lightly tanned and very smooth, the sort of smoothness only people without my anxiety issues and constant acne have. His hair is a dark brown and slicked back neatly, and he wears a pure white suit with a little green pocket kerchief over his breast. He’s handsome, definitely, in a graceful-older-man way, but he’s got none of Dane’s wild feral edge or his height. The only jewelry he has on him are his gold cufflinks, but his air of refinement is pretty much palpable. He’s older than Dane for sure, but younger than my Dad by what looks like a few years.

We stand there in awkward silence as the death metal plays and the man lilts his head to it, savoring it like a fine symphony. I put my hand to the metal choker around my neck, trying to loosen it, but it won’t budge. It’s like it’s super glued on or something. The man’s eyes fly open suddenly - a mild brown color - a smile blooming on his face like he’s genuinely happy to see us. He snaps his fingers, and the music stops abruptly.

“Dane! I didn’t expect you back so soon,” The man’s voice is even and calm, like flowing water over smooth rock. “And is this the lovely lady?”

Dane doesn’t say anything, his broad lips pulled in a straight, indecipherable line. I’m waist-deep in shit, aren’t I. Worst case scenario? This guy had Dane bring me here to kill me. Best case scenario? This guy had Dane bring me here to give me a million dollars. I could still run - I didn’t see any guards walking around, no electric fences or guns. But my hands are shaking so hard - I don’t think I’d get very far with how tired and scared I am.

Yeah, I said it. Scared. I always thought I’d be calm and cool in these types of scenarios - like if someone mugged me, I always imagined I’d be able to talk my way out of it with some clever quips or fast thinking or appealing to their humanity. But now I’m just quivering facing down this super rich guy who has unknown plans for me.

The man must have stellar empathy or perfect mind-reading abilities or maybe I’m just obvious, because he smiles warmly and says;

“Please, Miss James. There’s no need to be frightened - I merely brought you here to discuss a business proposition with you. One I think you’ll find very agreeable given your circumstances.”

‘Circumstances’. He says it like I’m unfortunate, trapped, and that condescending bullshit breaks me out of my scared funk.

“You don’t know anything about my circumstances,” I blurt. Dane’s gemstone eyes shift to me sharply. The man looks surprised, but almost immediately starts to laugh.

“I think I know quite a bit more about you than the average person - ”

“Stranger,” I correct. He nods patiently.

“Of course - I’m a stranger. Where are my manners? I’m Vilmor Van Grier, but you can call me Vil. And you are undoubtedly May James, are you not?”

I square my chin. “Yeah. Not to be rude or anything, but I need some answers. And pretty quick.”

I see Dane’s fist tighten at his side. Vil just chuckles.

“Don’t we all?” He spreads his hands to a chair next to him. “Please, sit. Dane, you may leave us. Be sure to call in Quinn on your way out.”

I sit on the plush chair and Dane starts to leave, his leather jacket whirling behind him and every cell in my body wants to scream for him to stay. He might’ve choked me once but he’s the only familiar thing in this place. Vil stops him with a call;

“Where is your bow, Dane? I thought we discussed improving your manners at great length before you left.”

Dane freezes nearly to the door, his back to us. He starts to walk out again when Vil repeats himself, his voice suddenly a sword, sharp and serious, none of the detached politeness from just seconds ago;

“I asked you; where is your bow?”

Like he’s a rusted puppet on old strings, Dane turns one-eighty degrees. He walks back over to Vil, standing in front of his chair, but his steps are jerky and unnatural and totally void of his predator-like gracefulness he had before and his face - I suck in a sharp breath to keep myself from screaming. There, in his left eye socket just below his harsh dark blonde eyebrow, blooms a pure white rose.

“What in the flying blue fuck -“ I exhale. Am I still on those mushrooms? It hits me like a monster truck doing one hundred on the highway; I saw this before when I was losing consciousness - Dane’s white rose in his eye, and the other guys’ black rose. Was I drugged back then too? No! There’s no way I’ve been drugged twice without knowing it - I can’t keep the dynasties of Ancient China straight for shit, but I’m smart enough to keep my drinks safe at the very least!

“Bow,” Vil says that one word and it sounds like a rumble of thunder, like a huge bell being struck in total silence. As if on cue, Dane bows, bending in half slowly and haltingly. But his head stays up, his gemstone eye burning out at Vil with a hatred so strong I can practically taste the acid venom in the air. The temperature in the room feels like it drops to ten below in a split-second, and I shiver and rub my arms. Is the A/C broken? Vil just looks at him imperiously, down through his nose, as if Dane is nothing but a footstool, a piece of furniture, and the only movement for a tense second is their steaming clouds of white breath in the cold room.

The moment passes when Vil smiles, and Dane straightens instantly, all of the rustiness in his movements gone as he whirls and storms out of the room. I catch one last glimpse of his face in the frosted mirror as he passes - his white rose eye is gone. Slowly, so slowly, the room warms up again.

“I’m sorry about him,” Vil turns his smile to me, none of the imperiousness in it anymore. “He can be troublesome, sometimes, and he’s certainly the most willful of the bunch.”

“The bunch,” I repeat.

“Shall I explain it to you?” He offers.

“No - ah, that’s fine. I just wanna go home, if that’s okay with you.”

“And you most certainly can,” Vil agrees. “As soon as you’ve heard me out regarding my business proposition for you.”

Just then someone comes in through the door Dane left through. He’s tall and lean with broad shoulders and younger than Dane, so maybe my age? But the most stunning feature is his shockingly bright and lustrous sky blue hair that hangs around his cheeks in soft curls. His face is much easier to look at than Dane’s, no harsh brows or glass-cut cheekbones, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less handsome - he’s just got a long, gentle face, like an elf’s, with sleepy eyes and an elegant, perfect bell-shaped nose. If Dane is like a beautiful honed sword, then this guy is like a beautiful polished shield.

Vil spreads his hands. “There you are, Quinn. Would you like anything to drink, Miss James? Quinn is exceptional at mixing drinks. He’s the bartender at my club.”

“Club?” I absently say, mesmerized at Quinn’s lithe movements as he wheels a silver cart to our side. He’s dressed in a butler’s uniform from a movie or something - all brass buttons and long coattails.

“Surely you’ve heard of it,” Vil presses. “Seventh Circle, down on Second Avenue and Smith? It’s the talk of the town.”

Quinn pulls out a delicate little glass with two long fingers, and in a graceful whirl he drops two sugar cubes in, pouring steaming coffee and rich brandy into it. A flick of his wrist, and he stirs it once with a cocktail stick, handing it to Vil.

“Sorry, I don’t party much,” I swallow, looking at Quinn’s hands ready to make another drink. Dane warned me not to drink anything. “And I don’t drink much, either.”

“You sound like a very serious woman,” Vil sips his brandy-coffee. “I admire that.”

“I’m nothing special. Just, uh, poor.” I admit. Vil laughs.

“And that brings me to a perfect segue-way for my business proposal. How would you like to work for me?”

Let’s see - work with a guy who owns a huge mansion, a huge garden, who dresses like Satan at Fashion Week and apparently has some sort of weird ability to order prideful-scary-freaky Dane around? No thank you.

“Your salary will be twenty thousand dollars a month,” Vil adds. My entire world collapses like a stone thrown at one of the glass rose houses outside. Twenty. Thousand. Fucking. Dollars?!

“W-What?” I make like a fish and gape my mouth a few times but keep it together somehow. “Doing what?”

Vil looks up at Quinn. “Let the thing in, will you?”

Quinn bows without a word, eyes flickering to me for a second. He’s got the gemstone eyes, too, like Dane and black-haired guy, except his are a blue so pure it’s hard to look at, pale and smooth like glacier ice. They practically glow. Quinn leaves, and I sit in awkward silence with Vil until the sound of claws scraping the floor get closer. And closer. And heavier. The sound of whining, too.

“That’s -“ I start nervously. “That’s a big dog you got.”

“Oh,” Vil smiles. “He’s not mine.”

The door bursts open, and I get one second of a wet nose and hot breath on my shoulder before something slams into my chair from behind, hard, and sends me flying. I brace myself for impact, but when nothing happens I squeeze my eyes open.

I look up to see Quinn’s chin, his pale blue eyes looking not at me, but at the thing in front of us. He’s holding me in his arms - what is it with these gem-eyed guys and bridal-styling every girl they meet?

“I caught you,” Quinn says softly. Unlike Dane, whose voice is always brimming with either sass or horniness or both, Quinn’s voice is near-emotionless. “You would have hit your head.”

I look over his shoulder to the wide expanse of hard, fancy wall just inches from us.

“T-Thank you?” I try. I catch sight of my chair that’s clattered to the floor, and the giant green dog eating it -

I shove my hands into my eyes and rub. Hard.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

“No, you aren’t.” Quinn offers helpfully. I let out a strangled groan just as Vil starts to chuckle.

“He’s your creation, Miss James. Look on him and despair.”

A low dog’s growl, and the gunshot sound of cracking wood. I jump in Quinn’s arms, and ease one eye open just a smidge - there, tearing apart the chair I was sitting in apart with its huge jaws, is a giant green dog. Wolf is probably more accurate a term. It’s twice the size of the white grand piano in the corner, from tail to tip. The huge paws it uses for leverage to rip another piece of wood off the chair are as big as tires, the claws there black and just one is as long as my entire hand. Its gargantuan green tail thumps on the wood floor, and its fur -

“Are those…thorns?” I hiss.

“Yes. Cactus thorns.” Quinn agrees. Irritated and definitely dreaming, I wiggle out of Quinn’s arms only to immediately jump back in them when the wolf perks its huge head up and leaps over to me.

“Whoaaaaa fuck no!” I shield myself with my arms as a soft, disgustingly slimy pink tongue lashes over my face. “No way! He’s got…is this real spit?”

Even through my muffled words, Quinn answers. “Yes.”

The dog keeps licking me, goosebumps pimpling my skin and his breath smelling like genuine dog ass. I catch glimpses of the dog’s teeth through my arms and almost piss myself - they’re the size of a great white shark’s teeth!

“How - How the fuck did you guys make this?” I shout to Vil. All of a sudden I hear the dog whine, and the licking stops. When I ease my arms down enough to see again, the wolf-dog-thing is sitting politely on its haunches in the middle of the room.

“As I said,” Vil clears his throat. “You made him, Miss James. Not me.”

“I did?” I squint. Quinn puts me down, and when I look between him and the dog he shakes his blue-haired head.

“Mr. Van Grier has him subdued. Don’t be afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I pettily mock-grumble as Quinn passes me. He pats the green dog’s head as he works his way back to his place at the silver drink cart. I edge slowly over to Vil through the slobbery wooden remnants of my chair, the dog whining as I get close but never moving a muscle, only following me with his huge, sad brown puppy eyes. “Listen Vil, the only things I make are bad decisions. So. I’m not capable of making that…thing.”

My eyes roam over the dog’s fur now that I’m closer - it’s fluffy and dense and not too green, more like a sage color than neon. But the top coat of fur is silvery, with fine, pointed strands that are definitely, definitely thorns, except lying flat. I frown. Those silvery thorns - they look so familiar. The dog’s got a metal choker around his neck like I do and I feel a flash of indignation. Why the fuck am I collared like this dog?

“You are too modest, Miss James,” Vil chuckles, and empties his drink. “You show great promise.”

“What.”

“You buried a cactus in a plot of dirt,” Vil says cuttingly. “He had a name, didn’t he?” I swallow my nerves. How did Vil know that? “What was his name, Miss James?”

“Sir…Sir Charles.”

The dog instantly lets out a happy bark. I turn my head over my shoulder in increments, like a broken puppet. The wolf-dog wags its tail the second my eyes set on its face.

“Sir Charles?” I whisper. Another huge, happy bark. Every system in my body shuts down and I scramble backwards, clutching at the mantlepiece of a nearby fireplace. My eyes dart to Vil, then to the dog, then to Quinn. “I’m dreaming.”

“Saying it twice doesn’t make it true,” Vil says calmly. “You are not.”

“I’m definitelyyy asleep right nowwww,” I sing-song, nervousness pitching the ends of it up and bringing it crashing down. “Holy shitttt I’m sleepinnggg and dreaminggg of some crazy stuffffff!”

Quinn won’t take his eyes off me, and for a second I swear I see a pale blue rose blooming out of his left eye socket. It starts to fall into place, like a puzzle shaken loose and into the right formation by an earthquake. The eight roses in the eight glass houses; white, blue, black - Dane, Quinn, that dark-haired guy. Sir Charles as a cactus, Sir Charles as a huge dog with spines.

“W-What,” I breathe, my lungs trembling as I force out the words at Quinn. “What are you?”

Quinn turns his curly blue-haired head slowly to Vil, who nods. Only then does he look back at me, and for the first time I see his slender bow-like lips pull into a ghost of a smile.

“You’ve called us many things throughout history - demons, nature spirits, vampires. But the one I like the most is the word ‘fae’.”

-4-

I black out. Or I black in. I can’t tell, but when I wake up, I’m in my own bed.

I’ve never been happier to see my shitty, falling-apart futon bed in my life.

“Oh thank you God,” I snuggle as deep as I can into the lumpy bedding. “Thank you so much. It was a dream.” I breathe in and out, slowly, repeating it to myself. “It was a dream. It was definitely a dream.”

I put my fingers to my throat, but there’s no silver choker there at all. Just faintly-bruised, almost-healed skin. So Dane choking me was real, but everything with the field of tall grass, the garden, the roses, that mansion and the cactus dog - those weren’t real.

“I’ve had some weird exam dreams,” I exhale. “But that one takes the cake. And the pie. And the whole damn bakery, while we’re at it.”

I check my phone - ten fifteen on a Saturday morning. I’m still in my work uniform, as greasy as it is, which means…what? Did Dane really come to my work? I think he did, and then I tried to run off across the parking lot and tripped -

I beat my palm with my fist in brilliance. That must be it! I must’ve tripped and hit my head. Maybe Marie helped me home? I text her frantically, and stare at the phone waiting. And waiting. Screw waiting - I get in the shower and wash every speck of that dream off me. My stomach growls as I’m toweling off my hair, so I pop in a piece of toast and check my phone while I wait. Lo and behold - a text from Marie.

No, she says. Last I saw u u were leavin with that hunky blonde cousin of yours yesterday. He said ur mom wanted u.

After that? I text back. Did I trip or something?

Girl, I aint u. I dunno what happened! All Im saying is the last I saw u was when u left work with ur cousin. I covered for u too lol

Thanks, I text. I’ll see you tomorrow.

See u soon sweetie xoxo

So I didn’t trip. I munch on dry toast and drink a bit of old apple juice as I try to dredge up my memories - I tripped, and then what? It’s just a blank. Well, okay, it’s not a blank, but I’m discounting everything that happened after because that shit was bonkers bananas. There’s no way it actually happened. Something else must’ve - I tripped and maybe Dane helped me back here? I told him I live downstairs under his friend’s apartment the first night we met. So he knows. I check my pants pocket - yup, my apartment key’s in there. It must be that.

But the guy who choked me - coming to my work to apologize, and then putting me in my bed when I hit my head? That’s suspiciously nice of him. My body slyly gives another answer, but I push it out of my skull. No way. I checked down there - clean as a whistle. If a whistle was highly acidic and bled every month.

But right now, Dane being a good dude is all I’ve got in the way of excuses.

I’ve got a whole day off to ponder it, but it turns out pondering a lot doesn’t exactly help. In fact, it fucking harms. I start to doubt my own memory so hard I get whiplash. And without a way to contact Dane, I can’t confirm anything. I decide to get some air and go out to the mailbox, check for a few bills. But there’s nothing. Nothing but a single envelope, made of thick parchment paper and addressed with gold ink.

I freeze. No name, no return address. Just my address, in perfect cursive handwriting. My gut instinct is to throw it away - but gold ink? And the way the envelope is so heavy - something important is in here. I shake the envelope, smaller pieces of paper rattling around. I squeeze it, and it has a distinct give to it.

Money.

I dash up to my apartment and tear the envelope open the moment the door’s shut.

There, on the card table, sits two stacks of hundred dollar bills.

My heart decides to quit working right. I back away slowly from the table. Is this the part where someone jumps out and yells ‘surprise’? Two stack of hundreds is twenty thousand dollars.

Twenty…my brain stutters. Twenty thousand dollars.

A piece of paper fell out of the envelope as I backed up, and with shaking fingers I pick it up and read the handwriting in gold-outlined ink.

Dear Miss James,

You may remember me - my name is Vilmor Van Grier, and we met yesterday evening.

I get that far before I rush over to the trash and open it with the pedal, dumping it on top of my day-old applesauce. I watch with some sick satisfaction as the gold lettering runs as the apple’s juices soak through it. I turn back to the table and let out a yelp like someone’s murdering me.

The letter. Sitting there. Right there in front of me. No stains, no running ink.

“What the cheese-stuffed fuck -“ I dash over to the trash can, but the letter is gone. In horror I slowly walk back to the table, reading the next sentence from three feet away.

The twenty thousand dollars I’ve included here is your monthly payment. If you choose to keep it, I will naturally assume you’ve accepted to work for me. If you wish to return it, however, please come to my club, the Seventh Circle, on Second Avenue and Smith, tonight at eleven p.m. Please tell the bouncer you are here for the gin rummy, and he will let you right through.

Sincerely yours,

Vilmor Van Grier

“No.” I say flatly, immediately starting to pace the floor. “No no no no, NO. This isn’t happening. Except it is,” I whine, then run over and punch one of my pillows on the couch. “Damnit! I just wanted it to be a lie. A dream. Is that too much to ask?”

The dog - Sir Charles. That means he was real. The roses in Dane and Quinn and the dark-haired guy’s eyes - those were real too, weren’t they?

“Holy sweet mother of Jesus,” I hyperventilate into the pillow. My eyes catch the stack of bills on the table, playing innocent when they’re anything but. “I’m in for it. If I don’t go, I’m Vil’s employee. If I do, I’m walking right into Vil’s club. Either way, I’m getting a faceful of Vil that I never freaking wanted!”

I have to return it. The last shred of my clear, logical mind yells that I have to return it and it’s right. I do. No way in hell am I working for Vil.

But god, it’s a lot of money. Enough for Mom and Dad to never give me anything for college as long as I live. I’d never have to be a drain on their time and money and energy ever again. I could even move out of this shithole place, get somewhere all my own. Somewhere nice, with a real kitchen, with plants or a pet, and I could stop eating Ramen every night and I could get a laptop, maybe -

I beat my head into the pillow. This is just what Vil wants. I’m not succumbing to his tricks, period. What I have right now might be garbage, but it’s my garbage. It’s good enough. I’ll just go to this club, pop my head in, return the money, and leave. That’s all. And thank him for the opportunity, I guess, because it never hurts to be polite with possibly-Satan.

****

I have exactly one dress. It’s a pale cream sundress with daisies on it that I bought for my graduation party. I barely fit into it anymore (thanks freshmen fifteen), but at least the beige flats I bought with it still fit. Everything else I own is five years old and is either a shirt with a cartoon character on it or sweatpants with ten holes in the crotch, so those are out. Daisy dress it is.

I pull my hair up in a quick ponytail and swipe some eyeliner on. I managed to dig up a cracked, old pink tinted lipbalm from my purse and it isn’t lipstick but damnit - it’s the closest thing I’ve got.

I jingle my purse nervously on the bus until an old woman with a lined face sighs in my direction tiredly. She’s probably just gotten off her shift, too, judging by the hair net.

“Long day?” I try a gentle smile. She nods.

“Hoo boy, you don’t know the half of it. They cut my damn paycheck too, and now Georgie’s college - ” She shakes her head. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to blab to ya.”

My heart twinges a little - she could be my mom, with a cut paycheck and a kid in college to help out. The twenty thousand in my purse suddenly feels super heavy.

A man as rich as Van Grier wouldn’t miss a single hundred dollar bill, would he?

My mind’s already made up. I rummage in my purse, wrapping the hundred dollar bill inside a five, and when my stop comes I slip it into her hand and smile.

“I know it’s not much, but maybe it’ll help Georgie.”

She gawks at the five. “Oh I can’t take this -“

“Please.”

The woman stares at it, then smiles up at me, all the tiredness in her face evaporating. “Thank you, honey. God bless your heart.”

I get off the bus and watch it putter into the night, feeling a little bit lighter, and then I start off down the road.  Seventh Heaven is on Second Avenue, which is a busy road, but Smith is out of the way of downtown, just on the outskirts where the city turns to shipping containers and abandoned rave warehouses. I get hit with a couple existing-as-a-woman-taxes when a few ‘hey beautifuls’ ring out from the local drunks lingering outside sleazy strip clubs, but I always cross the street before I pass them, and spending a year or two on a college campus sort of makes you master the whole ‘walking quick’ thing.

Finally, after what feels like forever, I get to Second and Smith. It’s a run-down area, but I spot a trail of young, well-dressed people around the corner lining up. Not well-dressed like fancy ballroom-goers, but dressed so chic it hurts to look at - blazers and buzz-cuts and rompers and all pierced everything. Sure enough, I crane my neck to see the building they’re trying to get into and above the door a red, back-lit sign in simple-yet-classy font reads; SEVENTH CIRCLE. Three bouncers in black suits flank the doors, all of them the size of sumo wrestlers and just as thickly corded with muscle. I blink - is it just me, or are they all wearing the same silver chokers from my maybe-not-dream? But I blink, and then the glint of silver around their necks vanish.

“Hey, Annabelle! Get in line,” A girl with bright-pink hair yells at me, and I jump, her friends laughing as I skitter to the back of the line behind a kissing couple. I pick at my sundress - I really do look like an Annabelle compared to this painfully fashionable crowd. I set my chin and just scribble it down in my future-goals notepad; get a ‘hella tight’ - as the kids say - wardrobe.

I check my phone - nine thirty, and it feels like the line hasn’t moved at all. I got here early to make sure I was on time, but now I’ms tarting to think I should’ve gotten here at sunset. Vil might be a weirdo, but he isn’t a liar - his club really is popular. The thumping music pierces through my chest, people coming out to smoke or call cabs. One group of girls walks out and hovers near where I am in line, smoking cigarettes on the curb.

“Did you see them?”

“Their eyes were dreamy. They work here, right?”

“Duh, you saw the bartender.”

“The bartender wasn’t even the cutest one,” A girl snickers. “That title goes to the white-hot white-hair hottie.”

“Shut the fuck up, Melissa,” Another girl shrieks with laughter. “He’s way out of your league.”

“Wow, maybe try being my friend for once?”

“Who paid for your drinks? That’s right - I did!”

“All of them aren’t here though,” A third girl muses. “Last time I came, there was an orange-haired guy and a red-haired guy, but it was like, stylish colors, you know? Professionally done. They were super hot, too. Like, fuck-me-in-an-alley hot.”

I frown. Vil said Quinn was the bartender here, so…a white-hair hottie can’t be Dane, can it? Yes, my whole body aches in agreement. It definitely can.

“Oh shut up,” I grumble at myself. The couple in front of me turns around and looks me up and down, and I panic. “Sorry, not you. Um. Talking to myself.”

They turn back around and I breathe relief. I’d do anything to get out of this line right now, but so would everyone else. I check my phone again - nine forty-five and the line’s only moved a couple people. At this rate I’ll be late, and I get sick just thinking about what bizarre stipulations Van Grier will make.

“Hey, it’s you!”

I keep my eyes riveted to the door, willing people to move faster.

“You! Hey you!”

Boy, someone’s really ignoring their friend, I think, and stand on my tip-toes to see over the couple’s heads. Maybe I can tell the bouncer the password when I get a few more people up the line? Lean in and shout it to them?

“Sundress girl!”

Sundress - that’s me! My stomach pitfalls and I whirl around to see the olive-skinned, dark-haired guy from the first night jogging up to me. He flashes me a smile, silver-flecked obsidian eyes crinkling warmly on the sides. His luxurious long hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail tonight, and he wears some band t-shirt and artfully ripped jeans.

“Fancy meeting you here,” He laughs breathlessly.

“Yeah,” I nod, ignoring the stares from the line, and glares from the girls on the curb. “I’m here to meet Van Grier.”

The guy’s smile fades rapidly. “That old coot got to you, huh?”

“I just have something of his. Something I have to return.”

The guy’s eyes light up again. “Oooh, you’re the ‘package’ he was talking about expecting! Well what are you waiting in the line for?”

I flush. “I thought - I didn’t want to seem rude -“

He laughs, deep and resonant. “Probably for the best. That coot loves it when people get belligerent - gives him an excuse. C’mon, I’ll get you in.”

Hesitantly I duck under the velvet rope and trot after him, keeping my head down to avoid the stares. Part of me just wants to look up and stick my tongue out at all of them, but that’d be a dick move, and I’ve given myself an allowance of approximately one dick move a night. Or two, or three, my body whispers. If Dane’s around.

“Fuck off, libido,” I grumble, the loud music drowning out my words the moment we walk between the bouncers without a single issue. Dark-haired guy just flashes him a smile and jerks his thumb to me, and we’re in. Just like that. The dimness engulfs us, and I take it all in. A massive dance floor positioned in the center of the club writhes with bodies, and from there the rest of the club branches out - couches and booths with comfy-looking leather seats and plexiglass tables. Inside the plexiglass flames dance - not real flames, but holograms, maybe, but it makes it look like everyone’s drinking on top of flame altars. A giant fish tank glows with real live koi fish, all sorts of jewel-tones standing out against the muted seaweed and rocks. The fish tank is the bar, actually, the bottles of very expensive-looking booze stacked against the tank on transparent glass shelves. The fish swim behind them, distorting their bodies through the bottles, which I guess is the intended effect, because it looks fucking awesome. I see Quinn standing behind the bar, making drinks with quiet, effortless grace. And the ceiling - it’s crowded with thousands of strands of crystals that refract the strobe lights from the dance floor, throwing the light around like rainbow snowfall. There’s a second level, where people can stand on balconies and watch the dance floor below, their faces lit by the crystal reflections.

It’s the most opulent place I’ve ever seen. But that isn’t saying much, because the fanciest place I’ve ever gone to was the Cheesecake Factory for my aunt’s birthday. The dark-haired guy throws his arm around me and talks in my ear to bypass the music.

“Those bouncers are pushovers, but don’t tell anybody. I’m the real security. And Dane. But mostly me.” He winks at me, the silver in his eyes glittering like falling stars in the strobe light.

“Dane’s here?” I ask, trying to mask the nerves in my voice. He nods.

“Yeah, pretty much every night. I swear the club’s his favorite part of human - I mean, uh, this city.”

Quinn’s soft voice echoes in my memory; “But the one I like the most is the word is ‘fae’.” Dane had used the word ‘human’ a few times to differentiate, too. But they can’t be. Faeries are just that - faerie tales. The giant cactus dog, the lifeless gardens, the roses in the guys’ eyes -

“The coot is right up there,” The guy points to the second floor, where a tinted glass lounge guarded by two extra bouncers reads ‘VIP’. “But when did you say you had to meet him?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven? Shit - you got here a whole hour ahead, early bird!”

“Like I said,” I stamp my foot a little. “I didn’t want to be rude!”

He laughs. “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Altair.”

“May,” I say. He grins lopsidedly.

“I know. C’mon, let’s kill an hour. I’ll show you all the good spots.”

Altair grabs my hand and guides me through the crowd, his palm warm and rough, but soft in its own way. I get looks from everyone - it’s true that Altair stands out, not because of his height or his good-looks, though those don’t hurt. It’s something about him, like an invisible magnet that draws the eyes. Fairy dust, perhaps? My brain snickers. Quinn has the same quality about him - I haven’t been to many bars, but I know people don’t normally just stare at the bartender as he works. Everyone stares at Quinn, even though all he’s doing is mixing drinks with pure grace and methodical skill. He’s not dressed in a butler uniform anymore, but slacks and a casual, open-collar Hawaiian shirt that somehow looks stunningly good on him.

True to his word Altair shows me the good spots - like a booth just behind the fish tank bar that’s bathed in refracted light from the water. He asks if I want anything to drink, but I shake my head - Dane’s warning still lingering.

“You don’t drink?” He asks.

“No, I’m just nervous,” I admit.

“Eh, well, that’s why alcohol was invented in the first place!” Altair smiles. “I bet I can get you something you like right away. All you gotta do is tell me your favorite dessert.”

“Dessert?” I frown. “Look, it’s okay, really, I don’t want to make you spend money -“ Altair suddenly leans in over the table, inspecting my face. I startle. “W-What’s wrong?”

“Did Dane tell you not to drink anything from Van Grier?”

My heart jumps into my eardrums. “No. I just don’t like booze.”

“You’re lying,” Altair frowns - a rare thing, I’m starting to learn.

“How do you know?” I fire back.

“I just do,” He shrugs. “It’s sort of my thing.”

“Your…fae thing?” I blurt, and instantly regret it. Altair goes stock still, then slumps back in his chair.

“Oh thank the Bright Lady. I hate keeping up the charade, especially in front of cute girls like you.”

I go twenty shades of red and two shades of green. I must look like a particularly hideous Christmas tree. “So it’s true? You guys are really -“

“Monsters.” Altair finishes for me, smiling brightly. “Yup. Genuine magic, mystery, and mayhem, at your service.”

I stand up instantly, but the dizziness hits me too fast. I stumble back in my chair and Altair puts his warm hand over mine.

“You okay, early bird?” His face swims in my vision.

“Yeah, I’m just -“ I hold my forehead and stare at the table. “Faerie tales are for kids.”

“Yeah, you guys sure have made up a lot of stories about us, huh? But I guess we’ve encouraged them. Or at least we did in the beginning, when the Bright Place was still wide open.”

“The what?” I struggle.

“The Bright Place,” He chirps. “You know, the reality above this one that contains all the fae in the world? Dane said he took you to Van Grier’s place, so you must’ve seen some of it.”

The endlessly grassy field. The mansion.

“That was…another reality?” I hiss. “No, okay, you’re lying, because the only reality is this one. My life isn’t a science fiction movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, okay? It’s normal. It’s the usual.”

“Riiight,” Altair follows. “So you don’t believe me. Even after everything you saw?”

“I -“ I let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know what to believe, okay? All I want to do is give Vil back his money, and leave. That’s it. That’s all. No hocus pocus, no leaving milk on the doorstep, no dust that makes me fly - just…normal. I’ve got college to worry about, and that’s enough as it is.”

Altair stirs his own drink thoughtfully - a vodka soda with an orange wedge in it.

“Human college is expensive, right? You could pay for it with Vil’s money, if you worked for him.”

“You don’t think I haven’t thought of that?” I snap, then deflate. “Sorry.”

“No no, it’s fine,” Altair smiles. “I like a girl with a little bite in her.”

I fight my blush with all my might this time, and it mercifully stops at my neck. Altair stirs his drink the other way.

“It’s not so bad,” He admits softly, so soft I have to strain to hear him over the music. “The terms are set, and he lets you know them all beforehand. For humans it’s usually four or five years, and then they’re off the hook and rich as sin. We never see them again. Probably for the best that way.”

Five years. Rich as sin. I shake my head and ask;

“Do you work for him?”

Altair’s grim twists sardonically. “Not exactly. Our agreement is a little more…one-sided, so to speak.”

“And I’m guessing you’re not allowed to talk about it.”

“Exactly.” He touches his throat, and I gape as a band of silver appears there. “This little doo-dad makes sure I can’t say anything about certain important things.”

“Dane put one of those on my neck!” I shout. Altair nods.

“You have to ground a human to transport them to the Bright Place. If you try without a grounding, well. They don’t exactly make it one piece, let’s put it that way.”

I flinch, then go still as I feel soft fingers encircle my neck. Altair inspects the skin there with his intense, star-studded gaze.

“He really did a number on you, huh? Sorry I couldn’t stop him sooner.”

He means Dane, my bruise. “It’s fine - it’s nearly gone.”

“Some bruises don’t ever fade, sweetheart.” His voice is so sad as he says it, but he keeps his smile on. I’ve got the urge to confide in him everything all of a sudden - my troubles at home, uneasiness around Dane. Speak of the devil and he shall appear; I spot someone with short, white-blonde hair pinning a woman against a shadowed wall, the two of them entangled in a torrid, messy make-out session. She’s got her hand halfway into his white button-up shirt he’s rolled up at the cuffs, he’s got one leg of hers hitched up around the sharp bone of his hips, her short shorts leaving nothing to the imagination as his black leather pants jut against her. His broad mouth kisses up and down her tan neck, slow, languid kisses moving ever downward, until he gets to her collarbone beneath her bohemian blouse and holy shit if that was me I’d explode on the spot, I’d be useless jelly, I’d be a star supernovaing but there is no way in frozen hell that’s ever going to happen to me, Dane or no Dane -

“Hrmmm?” Altair’s voice barely breaks me out of staring. “You’ve got something for him?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” I scoff, staring at the fiery table again. Altair taps his temple.

“Oh no, you don’t get off that easy. Fae stuff, remember? I can see it - you’ve got it bad.”

“He’s just - he’s just so stupidly good-looking,” I snarl, pissed he can read me but more pissed at myself for what’s being read in the first place. “You’ve gotta believe me, I’m not usually this sort of girl. I don’t - I don’t want to rabidly jump the bones of every guy I see, okay?”

Altair laughs. “Don’t gotta defend yourself to me, early bird.”

“But I do, because it’s stupid! It’s so stupid - he’s manipulative with people and rude and crass and incapable of knowing what a healthy apology looks like and also a fae I guess even if I don’t know what that really is - but my dumbass body keeps turning into a pile of mindless mush whenever he’s around and I hate it!”

I stop my mini-rant before it blows up into a full-sized one, breathing hard. Altair blinks, then claps me on the shoulder before standing.

“Stay here. I’ve got just the thing.”

“It better not be a drink,” I threaten.

“It might be a drink, but trust me, it’ll help,” He teases, and then lopes around to Quinn’s bar, leaving me to mentally fist-fight the wild urge to look in Dane’s direction again. That lady he’s kissing is extremely beautiful - all perfect hourglass curves and a soft mouth and fox-like blue eyes, a mane of naturally blonde hair. They look so good together, goddamnit. She could be his co-star in a commercial for sexy perfume or something. Just as I start wondering if my boobs will ever get that perfectly round, Dane’s turquoise eyes slide over to the side - directly on me - his mouth still on the girl’s tanned skin. He pauses, and I freeze like a deer in a truck’s headlights caught red-handed. That’s not the saying, idiot brain - just look away, look away for shit’s sake before he notices it’s you -

He straightens, pulls his mouth from the girl and gives some excuse to her, and starts to lope over.

“Fuck.” I chant. “Fuck fuck fuck fucky cheese and beans on toast, we gotta go.”

I grab my purse and stand, but in a blink Dane flops into the chair opposite me, putting his black leather boots on the table with a resounding ‘thud’ and combing a hand through his hair.

“Going somewhere, little beast?” He asks with a wicked smirk.

“I have a name,” I say, half-strangled. Not by him this time, but by my own nerves. His whole presence presses down on me, that gravity force-field he emits practically buzzing in my blood like a nasty strong sugar high.

“You have a moniker,” He corrects. “Which is what I’ll be using with you until you fuck up and Van Grier has me kill you for it.”

I resist the gut-instinct to look scared. “Sorry to burst your murder-boner, but after tonight I’m not gonna have anything to do with Vil. Or you. Ever again.”

He snorts. “You’re more naive than that dress you’re wearing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Excused,” He asserts, then whips his boots off the table and leans in. “If you think for a second Van Grier is going to give up on you after you brought that thing to life, think again.”

“You mean Sir Charles? I didn’t! All I did was bury him -“

“Some humans have the Brightness in them,” He interrupts, drumming his long fingers on the tabletop like he’s explaining it to a child testing his patience. “Some don’t. You call them witches, warlocks, magicians, whatever. You have it. Van Grier has it, too, but not the way you have it.”

I stare at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“We can see it around you,” Dane sighs. “Any fae worth their salt can. It’s a glow. Yours is irritatingly gentle and Van Grier’s is…” He trails off. “He can force us to obey, but he can’t force us to fight. That’s where you come in.”

Dane inches his fingers across the table, worming them underneath my palm. My organs start doing the electric slide at the feel of his fingertips on my skin, but he looks totally composed, flashing me a crooked smirk lit in rainbow by the strobe lights.

“You can’t kill a fae, or threaten it with death. But tie a human and fae’s life together with the Brightness, or with that idiotic trap called love, and if the human dies the fae does too. Just like that.”

He pinches the skin of my palm softly, more like a nip than anything, and I’m half-horrified and half-amazed to feel my breasts respond like they’ve got a will of its own, rising up at the mere thought of getting teased like that. Dane pulls away.

“So you see why it’s a problem,” He says. “Having you around.”

“I’m so fucking lost,” I groan. And turned-on. And disgusted at myself. And totally out of my element. But I don’t say those.

“The Bright Place is -“ He starts to explain, but it happens so fast I blink and almost miss it - silver appears around Dane’s neck, a choker glowing white. It lasts for only a second, but Dane gnashes his teeth, a shudder running through his body as he clenches and unclenches his fist.

“Are you alright?” I try. Dane’s eyes cut me to the bone.

“D-Do I look alright, you moron?”

“Fine,” I sniff. “I was just trying to help.”

I frown at the dancefloor instead of at him, wishing something would break and ease the pressure in my chest. Dane exhales after a moment, his sword gaze sheathing itself.

“I know. As you can probably tell, I’m not used to being offered help, or knowing how to accept it without -“

“Lashing out?” I offer. “Turning into a raging douchebag with the manners of a sewer rat?”

“Yes.” He grits his teeth. “That.”

It’s my turn to lean in across the table.

“Here’s a good place to start, for free, on the house from yours truly; don’t call people morons. They typically don’t like it.”

“Are you trying to convince me you’re not a moron for wearing that dress to this club?”

“This is the only dress I have, Mr. Fashion Police.”

He blinks rapidly, then narrows his gemstone eyes, the strobe polishing them to deadly gorgeous slits. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously.”

“She’s telling the truth, you know,” Altair’s warm voice butts between our cold tension, and he takes a seat beside Dane. With a smile, he slides a pink drink with a cherry in it to me. “Kampai!” He raises his own, glass to mine, and drinks. I look between my drink and Dane warily.

“Is it safe to drink here?” I ask.

“Altair isn’t the type to roofie,” Dane deadpans. Altair instantly spurts out a bit of his drink.

“Dane, you asshole!”

“I said ‘isn’t’,” Dane rolls his eyes.

Altair looks at him suspiciously, then says; “You don’t kill them, right?”

“Of course I don’t,” Dane scoffs. “I just beat them until they can’t shit straight anymore.”

“Good to know I’m not the only victim of your anger issues,” I frown at my drink. Dane just traces his finger on the table absently and glowers. Altair wipes his mouth with a napkin before he speaks;

“Dane’s got a nose for sin. He’s in charge of keeping track of criminal activity in the club. And everywhere Van Grier goes. But mostly in the club. It’s mainly just guys trying to take advantage of girls.”

“Guys?” Dane snorts. “Men who take advantage of others for their own gain don’t deserve to referred to with something as mild as ‘guys’. Call them what they are - walking, breathing scum.”

“That’s the first thing out of your mouth I’ll agree with.” I pick the cherry in my glass out, tying the stem of it with my fingers. “But it’s weird, because I could’ve sworn I saw you in the corner ‘taking advantage’ of someone before you came over here.”

“Jealousy isn’t a good color on you either, little beast,” Dane inspects his nails. “Make no mistake - all women want fae. And all men too, while we’re at it. It just so happens I prefer the women, as Altair here prefers the men.”

Altair rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and I gape at Dane.

“You really do have the manners of a sewer rat!”

“What?” Dane sneers. “What did I do this time, Your Beastliness?”

“You can’t just go around outing people without their permission!”

“Outing?” Dane narrows his eyes, then looks to Altair. “What is she talking about?”

Altair pats my hand reassuringly, that same warm smile on his face. “It’s nice of you to worry about me. But don’t. I’m fae - much less susceptible to the pain and injury my human partners might endure in a similar circumstance. The worst I get for it is a mournful cry or two from lady fae, and a bloodminister harping at me about ‘producing an offspring’ or some garbage like that. I dunno what he says exactly, I’ve started tuning it out.”

Altair goes still, his broad shoulders sagging minutely. “Started. Past tense. Haven’t had to tune one out since I was captured.”

“Captured? By who?”

“Who else?” Altair’s dark, star-studded eyes glance up at the VIP room’s tinted windows. He opens his mouth, but I see a glint of silver around his neck, and he abruptly closes it. Maybe he can’t say it without getting a bolt of pain, like Dane clearly did. Just him looking in that direction means only one thing; Van Grier.

Dane slams his feet on the ground as he stands, making me and Altair jump.

“I’ve had enough of talking.” Dane’s gaze rivets to the blonde still waiting for him in the corner, her eyes smoldering in our direction. He calls over his shoulder. “If you need me, Altair, don’t. I’ll be busy.”

I watch his lean frame part the dancefloor like a sea, people instinctively knowing to get out of his way. He saunters back to the girl and I tear my eyes off just as she wraps her arms around his neck. Altair shakes his head.

“I think he’s the one out of all us who’s taking the capture the hardest. He was glorious. We all were, but him most of all. You should’ve seen him - he was like fire, white fire that came out of nowhere and swept away all the evil in the Bright Place. And now…” Altair sighs. “Now he comforts himself with sex and booze and blood.”

“You guys,” I whisper. “You guys aren’t really supernatural.”

“Like the TV show?” Altair perks up. “I love that TV show. I love TV in general - humans have done such a good job making things up to consume their limited life spans with.”

I’m dead silent. Altair leans in suddenly, smelling like copper and rainwater and the salt of the sea, the little smile on his face almost playful, but somehow sad deep beneath that.

“That man in the corner,” Altair murmurs. I look where he’s pointing, to a guy in a green shirt and jeans. “He’s about to walk over to the bar, to the girl in the bright pink dress, and ask her to dance.”

“You can’t really know that -“

The guy starts walking to the bar, stopping in front of the girl in the pink dress and I feel like an ice-hand’s grabbed my heart. They talk, and I watch in dumbstruck awe as they move to the dancefloor together. I turn to Altair, fear clinging to me.

“You -“

“Yes,” He cuts me off, the stars in his eyes glittering like windswept diamonds. He looks so wild, like an avalanche or a tidal wave, something unstoppable and greater than me, greater than any human. “We really are supernatural.”

“And captured?” I manage.

“And captured,” He repeats softly. “Caged.”

I look over at Dane, for once my body shutting up and my brain ruling - I hadn’t seen it before, but now I do; he grinds against the blonde girl with a feral desperation, his teeth at her throat like he’s trying to get…lost.

This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea and I’m going to pay for it, aren’t I? I’m not the girl who decides to do the brave thing - I’m the passive-aggressive coward who hides in her apartment hating her upstairs neighbors. I’m the prideful girl who hates the idea of leaning on others for help, who has to do everything her way or it doesn’t feel right and she gives up. I’m the coward who’s never kissed a boy, or a girl. I’m the coward who stays in her room and studies and selfishly tries to make things better for herself.

This is a bad idea. I’m a coward.

But neither of those stop me from thanking Altair for the drink, and starting towards the VIP booth with shaky legs.

-5-

The bouncers blocking the door pull down their sunglasses (really guys? Inside a club?) and peer at me over the rims. Both of them have the same green eyes, but it’s not the sameness that gets me - it’s the gem-like quality to them, brighter and somehow sharper than regular human eyes. The bouncers must be fae, too. Go figure - I guess this entire club is run by them, more or less.

For a second I wonder if they’re captured and under Vil’s thumb, too, but then one of them grunts to me;

“Get out of here, little girl. This isn’t a place for you.”

I probably do look like a little girl in this dress. But I draw myself up to my full unimpressive height and raise my chin.

“I’m here for the gin rummy.”

The bouncers shoot looks to each other, then nod to me and open the door.

“Hurry up. And don’t make him mad.” One bouncer frowns.

“Or you’ll have to deal with both of us,” The other bouncer leers at me, and I quickly dart past them and into the safety of the room.

Except I see Vil sitting there on a leather sofa sipping a brandy and I realize I’m not really safe at all, am I? He smiles, motioning for me to sit down with one tanned hand, and I do.

I decide to start with the obvious.

“You’re a wizard,” I say. Vil raises one brow over his drink, then puts the brandy down on the ivory coffee table between us.

“That’s one I haven’t heard in a while,” He chuckles. “Usually it’s something along the lines of ‘bastard’ or ‘freak’.” I open my mouth but he interrupts me seamlessly. “‘Wizard’ isn’t quite the word for people like us, Miss James. It doesn’t fit. We have no wands, no incantations, we don’t fly on brooms or attend Hogwarts. All we have is the Brightness, in all its glory and its limitations.”

He leans back. “Because you’re here, I assume you wish to return my money and be rid of all this. I can understand - I was the same as you, when I first found out. Terrified, and overwhelmed.”

He’s got that part right, at least.

“What would I do, working for you?” I ask. Vil’s face lightens.

“Well, your contract would be for significantly less than the usual - I need your abilities for no more than two months. You would, of course, be living at my manor - the one you visited previously - for the duration of your contract.”

“I have school, and work,” I say instantly. Vil waves his hand.

“We can get you to and from your school easily. But you must remain on my premises for your work for me to come to fruition. If you’re too far away for too long, the projects would wither.”

“Projects,” I repeat warily. He takes another swig of brandy before speaking.

“Yes. You see, every Brightness works a little differently. Mine is apt at…force.” He smiles with all his searingly white teeth. “I can bend fae to my will, as you’ve no doubt recognized by now.”

“The silver collars?”

“Indeed. I can make those, and if a fae attaches them of their own free will, I can command them to do anything.”

“Anything except fight.” My words tumble out of my mouth and I kick myself. Vil’s mild brown eyes flash, but his smile reigns supreme.

“I see you’ve been talking to Dane. Yes, the lesser fae such as my bouncers I have no issues commanding to fight for me. But Dane and the others are…special.”

“How special?”

“Aren’t you a curious one?” Vil chuckles. “They are the sort of fae born only once in a lifetime. Not quite gods of the Bright Place, but very close. More importantly, I need them to fight for me.”

“Why? Against what?”

Vil stands, taking his brandy to the tinted window and looking down on the dancefloor below. I twist around on the couch to keep him in my view.

“The Bright Place was sealed off around the turn of the century,” He says. “By people like us - humans with Brightness, who thought it dangerous to let humans interfere with the Bright Place. It’s only recently, about five years ago, that their misguided attempts have been reverted.”

“By you?”

“No,” Vil grips his drink with white knuckles. “By someone with much stronger Brightness than I. A woman. She is afraid of it, and intends to seal it off again. But I cannot have that.”

I’m quiet, fiddling with the hem of my dress. All of this is fucking unbelievable but here I am, listening to it like it’s truth.

“The Bright Place can be used,” He insists. “Like any tool. Like any tool of mankind, it can be used for our greater good. The waters there can heal diseases of all kinds. The crops grow regardless of soil quality. World hunger and cancer would be a thing of the past.”

“But it’s the fae’s home,” I say. “Not ours. What if they don’t want it to be used?”

Vil turns his smile to me, something about it cold. “Snakes do not want to be milked for anti-venom, Miss James, and yet we do it anyway. Because we must. Because lives are at stake, because we can improve the world, one drop of anti-venom at a time.”

“But they aren’t snakes!” I jump to my feet. “They’re sentient! They talk and have complicated emotions and -“

“Twenty thousand dollars a month, Miss James,” He interrupts me and turns back around to the window. “No doubt Dane has told you I intend to link you to the high fae. He is correct. But I will not hurt you - so long as they fight against that woman for me. And with the sudden threat of mortality, I’m sure they will.”

I twist my hands in my dress nervously.

“You will be my gardener,” Vil continues. “You will tend the high fae and the lesser fae as I cannot - for your Brightness is suited to it.”

“To…what?”

“Nurturing, of course,” He smiles at me again. “I can only bind with my Brightness, but you nurtured that cactus so well the Bright Place gave it a soul. That’s no small feat. Think of it as a work-stay arrangement - you will have a place to live, a salary, and utmost freedom, as long as you do your job. You may keep the initial twenty thousand, and you will gain forty thousand more by the end of your term with me.”

The stacks in my bag feel heavy like coal. Sixty thousand dollars is a helluva lot of money right now, or ever, really. That’s two years of college - the rest of my college, as a matter of fact. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have to help at all. It’s tempting. It’s terrifying. But all I can see on the back of my eyelids is Dane’s neck, collared - Altair’s face, full of despair.

I don’t know the half of what I’m getting myself into, do I?

Fuck it. Fuck it on a shitty waterbed - I’ll do it.

“I’ll do it,” I agree. “But I need more than your word you’ll let me go at the end of two months.”

He laughs. “My dear Miss James, I cannot break my word. My Brightness is to bind, remember? It binds me, too.”

“Prove it.” I demand. His laugh turns to a dark chuckle.

“Very well. I promise I will never harm your left hand.”

He strides over to me and swiftly shatters his empty glass over the ivory table. I scream at the sound and scrabble away, but he grips my left arm like a vice.

“Let me go!”

“I promised,” He says dully, and shoves the jagged, broken glass towards my hand. He’s going to cut me, holy shit he’s gonna actually cut my fingers off -

Just before the glass bites into my skin there’s a flash, like the silver collar made on Dane when it hurt him, and the glass dissolves into sand right before my eyes. Vil lets go of me, brushing beach off of his hands.

“See?” He reaches for my left hand with his own, and I’m too stunned to stop him. He strokes my hand gently, then squeezes it. Soft at first, then harder, and harder, until it hurts - and like clockwork, that flash again, and he staggers back from me, his hand that squeezed mine sizzling slightly like it’d been roasted over a fire.

“I can never hurt your left hand as long as I live. I promise you, Miss James, I will release you from my service at the end of two months.”

“And promise me -“ I gulp. “Promise me you won’t try to control me like the fae.”

His face erupts in a smile. “Oh, you ignorant darling. I can’t bend anyone to my will but fae. That silver collar I put on you the first day was just to keep you quiet, and transportable. Our powers of Brightness never work anywhere but on fae.”

“Promise me,” I insist. Better safe than sorry with maybe-Satan.

“I promise I won’t try to control you with my Brightness,” He says finally. “Is that all?”

“I guess I can’t make you promise to not kill me or the high fae,” I say. Vil’s grin is almost civil. Almost.

“Indeed. If it helps, think of me as a terrible boss - a necessary evil to getting what you want. Now - will you do agree to the contract?”

I breathe in, somehow knowing the second I agree everything will change. College, worrying about Mom and Dad - it all seems so simple compared to this.

“I…do.”

There’s another flash of light, and I feel something cool around my neck. I touch it - that silver collar again.

“This will allow you to move between our world and the Bright Place easily,” Vil says. “Simply touch it, and a high fae will come to you soon and bring you across either way.”

He stands, and makes for the VIP room door. “You will report to my manor at approximately ten a.m. tomorrow morning. Pack light - I will provide most of what you need to live and work comfortably.” He pivots, then pivots back. “Oh, and Miss James - you may tell no one of this. That collar assures it.”

“Like anyone would believe me, anyway,” I grumble. He smiles.

“Have a pleasant evening, and I will see you tomorrow.”

****

Altair calls me a cab and doesn’t judge me, which is nice of him on both accounts, and when I get home the urge to blow a fraction of my twenty thousand by ordering celebratory pizza consumes me. But the more I think about it, the less hungry I actually am. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve just sold my soul away to the devil. Maybe it’s the fact the Bright Place is definitely real and Vil has powers and so do I, I guess? He’s waging war on a lady who definitely has the right idea about sealing the Bright Place off, and I’m going to help him do it. I basically just signed up to be a supervillian’s sidekick.

When I was a kid and read comics and watched shows about wizards and superheroes, I’d always assumed I’d be on the side of truth and love and justice and all that. I might be on the bad guy’s side, but the bad guy’s side is paying a lot of money, and it’s the only side that’ll let me try to free Dane and the others. If I can free them, get them out of those collars and their binding, then Vilmor Van Grier won’t have any power, anymore. He talked a big game about helping people with the Bright Place, but he can’t fool me - he wants it for himself. He’s clearly already used some of it to make himself rich as sin.

I look at my phone - a missed text from Mom. I can’t tell her. I can’t tell anyone. I’m all alone.

But that’s nothing new, huh?

****

“Your duties will begin at nine am every day,” Vil leads me through the halls of his Bright Place mansion and I run like a bride on a treadmill to keep up. Quinn - who came to fetch me when I touched my collar this morning outside my apartment building - trails behind us quietly in his butler uniform.

“I can carry that for you,” He offers softly, and I jump a little. He means the giant backpack slamming against my legs - packed with my textbooks and notebooks.

“Thanks,” I say. “But this is how I get most of my exercise.”

His face remains flat and docile, like what I said wasn’t even a joke at all. Right, note to self; humor’s not gonna work with this one.

We pass the hall that faces the garden outside, and I stop at a tall window when I spot movement. There, on the lawn, wearing nothing but leather pants and an air of insufferable confidence, is Dane. He holds something metal, and I squint and realize it’s a freaking real-ass sword, sharp blade and cloth-wrapped handle and all. When he isn’t running his annoying mouth, he’s really nice to just watch. He steps and spins on the lawn, his long legs covering a shit ton of ground, and with all the grace of an albino cat he thrusts the sword into imaginary opponents, parrying their blows. Those blue-green gemstone eyes are so narrowed and focused - forget the blade, he could cut me with a look alone, and the way his one stray lock of white hair falls into his sweat-dewed eyelashes is infuriatingly magazine perfect. The sun shines down on his marble-skinned, sweat-slick chest, the long expanse of his torso imprinted with a flawlessly defined six-pack. It isn’t steroid-deep like a body-builder’s - he’s too lean for that - but it stands out enough to make my whole chest throb like I’m having a heart attack, and if I squint I can imagine his defined arms wrapped around me and lowering me to the warm grass, imagine my nails clawing down his wing-like shoulder blades as he thrusts that sword right into my sheath if you know what I mea -

“Miss James!” Vil shouts, dunking my sleazy daydream in a ice bath. “Tardiness will not be tolerated!”

I slap my red-hot face a few times and jog down the hall, leaving a silent and probably-disgusted Quinn in my wake.

Vil shows me the pool - a massive, celadon-tiled square of sapphire water beneath a glass ceiling - and adjacent to it is a smaller bathroom walled with rich mahogany and shelves of hand towels and all sorts of fragrant dishes of dried herbal mixes. Weird glass orbs float in the air, and when Vil claps they light up, spreading a soft glow onto the only thing in the middle of the room - a spotless claw-foot tub.

“This is a room where you’ll spend much of your time,” He says.

“I’m not that stinky,” I protest. Vil shakes his head, but I swear behind me I hear Quinn give a soft snort. I turn, but he’s stone-faced as ever.

“This is a bathing room for fae, Miss James, not humans. You will have your own bathroom in your room.”

“Then why am I gonna spend time here?”

“Collaring a fae becomes…a chore,” He says. “Humans require food and water and sleep to live. Fae require two things - blood, and Brightness.”

“B-Blood?” I stammer.

“I will take care of the blood,” He assures me. “As I have been taking care of the Brightness, too. But my Brightness is a restrictive one, as I’ve said before.”

“Hey, just an fyi; you’ve totally fucking lost me,” I comb my fingers through a dish of dry rosemary and sage.

“When you collar a fae, they are cut off from receiving Brightness from the Bright Place as they naturally do. They soak it up as a plant soaks the sun, but collars prevent that. So I’ve been providing them what little Brightness I can. It’s not enough, to be sure - which is why more expressive fae like Dane are so short and angry with everyone as of late. They are, to put it plainly, starving.”

“Okay, and my Brightness is…better, somehow?”

“Yours isn’t better,” He corrects with a frown. “So much as it is…looser. It flows off you in waves without you even knowing, or controlling it. It’ll be simple to feed the fae here.”

“Feed them.” I repeat. “In a bathtub.”

Vil smiles tensely. “The best way to encourage the Brightness transfer is through thorough physical contact.”

“Um.”

“You will bathe each fae under my control once a week, here, in this tub. It is specially designed to amplify Brightness absorption, so it must be done inside the tub itself. There are eight lesser fae including your cactus dog, and as of right now only four active high fae - the rest are dormant, and will need to be handled by you in their flower state.”

“The roses, you mean?”

He smiles. “Yes, exactly. The roses. The white, black, blue, and green are active, so the rest will need your attention. For the dormants you will not require the tub, simply going out to their greenhouses and stroking their petals and vines will be enough. I will give you a list, and it will be up to you to figure out a scheduled time for each fae. When you’ve done that, give it to me, and I will relay the information.”

“Wait a flaming hot cheeto second,” I blurt. “So I bathe them? Like, scrub them down? Touch their naked -“

“Yes. Please, Miss James, don’t be so juvenile. This is your job, and it is their sustenance. Do take it seriously.”

I tamp my blush down. “R-Right. Of course.” I look around for anything to distract me. “But that tub is way too small for Sir Charles. How will I -“

“The tub expands or contracts based on its fae occupant. Let us move on.”

He leaves and I scrabble after him, trying not to look Quinn straight in the face, or the crotch, or anywhere I’m going to see, apparently, which is everywhere.

“Sorry,” I mutter to Quinn. He tilts his blue-haired, curly head as we walk after Vil.

“For what?” He asks.

“I’m gonna see, um. All of your whole business.”

“I don’t mind,” Quinn’s voice is so gentle it feels like a feather-touch to my eardrums. “I’m looking forward to not being hungry anymore.”

And now I feel like the moron Dane calls me. If these guys are hungry, and I can do something about it - I shouldn’t be so ashamed and nervous about doing it. It’s just food to them - something necessary.

Vil shows me the grand dining room, filled with more magic glowing orbs and a long, fancy black wood table. There’s a kitchen that smells mouth-wateringly like chicken fat and fresh bread and when I round the corner it scares the shit out of me - there’s a pot stirred with a wooden spoon, except there’s no hand on the spoon. A rolling pin with no attached hands rolls out a wad of dough on a floured countertop. The moment we walk in it all stops, and Vil just smiles and says “Continue”. Everything picks back up, moving all on it’s own, floating logs of wood even being funneled into a cast iron oven that opens and closes by itself.

“A house fae,” Vil explains. “He’s very shy - never reveals himself to strangers. He barely reveals himself to me, even if I command him.”

“Hello?” I try into the empty kitchen. “It’s nice to meet you. That soup smells, um, really good.”

No response. Vil leaves and motions for me to follow. He points out his rooms, which I’m forbidden to enter, and Dane’s, Altair’s, and Quinn’s, and a fourth room belonging to someone named ‘Sythiel’.

“The green rose high fae,” Vil clarifies. “He’s out on a mission for me, in the human world. I doubt you’ll see him.”

“Doesn’t he have to feed on Brightness, though?”

“He’s getting it from elsewhere,” Vil says breezily. “Let me show you to your room.”

Across the way he opens the doors into a house. It’s a room the size of a small house, and my jaw hangs like a loose cabinet - luxurious blue carpet, a four-poster bed with gauzy curtains like I dreamed about having as a little girl, the glowing orbs in the air adding to the fairy-tale charm. Vil teaches me how to turn them on by clapping a certain way, and says if I have trouble I should just stand near them until they start to glow. A huge cherrywood dresser and table, elegant blue-lace chairs and a couch so fluffy it feels like a bed. And the windows, holy shit the windows - they’re twice my height and edged with white silk curtains, giving me a perfect view of the overflowing garden. The bathroom’s even nicer - all gold taps and a spotless ceramic tub sunk into the wall by the window and I nearly faint - the idea of taking a long, slow, hot bath with that beautiful view to my side instead of a quick shower while staring at old, peeling laminar nearly has me crying.

“T-This is amazing,” I clear my throat. “Thank you.”

“Thank yourself,” Vil says. “You agreed to it. And Quinn, of course. He takes care of most of the cleaning around here, so he’ll be looking after your room.”

“There’s no need, I’m pretty handy with a vacuum and a dust mop. I can do it myself -“

“You can’t,” Quinn says, his voice inching towards forceful for the first time. “Not like I can.”

Is that pride I hear in his voice? Vil hands me the list of fae names and asks for my schedule by tonight. He smiles happily.

“Welcome to my home, Miss James. Welcome to the Monster Garden.”

“Monster Garden?” I start. He nods.

“That’s what I’ve taken to calling it. That’s what I thought the fae were when I first came to the Bright Place - monsters. It’s rather fitting, don’t you think? A garden full of bloodthirsty and beautiful creatures.”

He contemplates this, then pivots and leaves. Quinn follows, but not before turning in the doorway.

“Dinner is at eight,” He says.

“Are there any keys?” I ask. “To my room?”

“There are no locks.”

“Can I get a lock? I don’t exactly relish the idea of sleeping in a house with -“ I stop myself. Quinn smiles that faint ghost of a smile I saw before I passed out last time.

“Fae cannot enter a room without permission. Unless you give permission, you will not be bothered.”

“And Vil - I mean, Van Grier -“

“You are his employee. I’m sure he will not harm you.”

The way he says it with such cool, quiet confidence has me all riled up in an instant. “Didn’t he capture you, too? Why do you trust him so much?”

It’s the first time I’ve seen Quinn’s pale, sky-blue eyes darken. The swirls of darker blue in them take over, until his gaze is like looking at two monstrous, intimidating storm clouds.

“I trust no one. I am simply doing the best I can with my current circumstance.”

“I didn’t mean it like -“

“You would be wise to remember that we are all prisoners, here,” Quinn says. “Even you. And not all of us can afford to rebel as Dane does.”

He leaves in a whirl of blue curls and butler coat tails, and I sink down on the bed with weak knees. Even me, huh?

I drown out the doubts in my head by putting my stuff away - textbooks at the beautiful antique desk, tampons under the sink and toothpaste and toothbrush on top of it’s pink marble counter. I stuff my clothes in the dresser, the few shirts and jeans I brought barely filling one drawer. My old, ratty pairs of underwear look morbidly out of place above the delicate dresser knobs carved and painted into gold seashells. I brought the daisy sundress, more out of pity than necessity.

Vil had said I’d have no reception in the Bright Place, and I don’t. If I want to send a text or call people I’ll have to wait until I go back to the human realm for school. I could go now, I guess, but the idea of bothering Quinn after our little confrontation, or Altair, or especially Dane - no. My little millennial brain can wait a few hours to refresh my apps.

“I can hear you, you know,” A purring voice reverbs. I leap off the bed and clutch my phone to my chest. There, leaning in my doorway like it’s the easiest thing in the world, stands Dane - still shirtless, though significantly cooled off. His white-blonde hair looks like he dunked it in water, slicked back with it.

“W-What?”

“I’ve got a nose for sin, remember?” Dane makes air quotes over Altair’s words. “Every time you think about fucking me, I can hear it. I heard you at the window.”

My spine goes ramrod straight. Conversely, my insides dissolve to jelly. Don’t think about it, or him, or it and him together. Fuck fuck fuck he could hear me thinking about him? This whole time? Every lewd scrap? Think about cold squid, or taking out the garbage, or doing taxes - anything but him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sniff. God, I’m the world’s greatest actress and I didn’t even know it until now.

A long, shadowed smirk spreads on his lips, and his gemstone eyes glitter maliciously. “Playing innocent is pointless, little beast. I know exactly how filthy the inside of your slow brain is.”

“Fuck you,” I snarl. Okay, maybe not the greatest actress. But it’s not my damn fault - something about him just gets under my skin. Under my skin, and over it, and into it - no! I yell at myself internally like a puppy that just chewed shoes again. Bad me!

“You could, you know. Fuck me.” Dane spreads his hands with a smirk, then laces his thumbs in the belt loops of his leather pants, dragging them down his hips just an inch more, those gorgeous v-shaped indents between his muscle and bone making me physically dizzy. “If you wanted. I’ve decided your unique personality makes up for your inferior body.”

Decided. Inferior. What a shithead. I bristle; “I’d rather fall in a pit filled with black mambas than ever touch your nasty, arrogant ass.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” He chuckles, the sound like midnight honey. “I know all your human romance novels and movies have told you otherwise, but you don’t have to like someone to fuck them. Hate works even better, sometimes.”

“For the last time - screw off. Before I make you take me to the human world.”

I hover my fingers over my silver collar threateningly, but he just sighs.

“You prefer shoddy human motels, then? The walls are too thin for my liking, but - fine. I’ll make concessions for you. I won’t be the one screaming my name, after all.”

Dane’s wicked smirk sends my heart through the roof of my mouth. And that’s when I get it.

“Wait - back at the club,” I start. “You said all women want fae. And all men. So what I’m feeling - this is just that? Something you fae have that draws us to you?”

Dane makes that ‘tsk’ again, narrowing his left eye with it. “And here I thought you’d stay stupid forever.”

Hope springs eternal, or in my case, temporary. “Can’t you turn it off? Turn the dial down to three instead of eleven - on me, at least?”

“If I could turn it down at all, my life would be considerably easier,” He drawls. “No more humans falling over themselves and crowding my head with their selfish desires  - you included.”

I flinch and boomerang back angrier. “It’s not like I can help it! You tried to choke me, you call me an idiot every chance you get - if it wasn’t clear, I despise your guts! If you weren’t magic or fae or whatever, I wouldn’t even give someone like you the time of day!”

He’s not human, not like me. He doesn’t flinch. His face goes frosty and unreadable in an instant, a cold fury welling in his eyes. I’m scared for a split-second, but then I remember Quinn’s words - fae can’t come in uninvited. And it must be true, because he just lingers at the doorframe even though he looks like he wants to come in and strangle me all over again.

“Get out,” I snarl.

“I was never in to begin with,” He snarls back.

“Then just go away. I’m sick of looking at you.”

Later on, when it’s nighttime and I’m soaking in the bathtub full of roses after a fancy meal of lamb and lemon potatoes served by the invisible house fae, I’ll regret these words. In the softly-candlelit bathroom they’ll echo back at me, and I’ll realize they were too harsh. Even for him. I’ll wave off the way I saw his face fall off a cliff and into the sea - suddenly absent of any emotion at all - and I’ll pin it on him taking a hit to his overblown pride, and nothing more.

Because he’s fae.

Because he’s Dane.

Because he’s untouchable.

And he can’t possibly know what it’s like to be hurt.

-6-

I sleep like the dead in my bed - it might as well be made of clouds. I’m woken to the sound of a little bell ringing, my door opening and a silver cart pushed just over the doorframe - enough for me to grab a cinnamon roll and a mug of hot chocolate from it. I nearly shriek when a piece of melon on the cart rises up as if in offering, but then I realize the invisible house fae must be here. Of course! He’s in charge of the food. The melon drops at my surprised throat-scream, and I pick it up instantly.

“I’m sorry,” I throw my eyes to approximately where the fae must be. “I forgot you were invisible for a second.” A pause, and I take a whopping bite of cinnamon bun, the frosting sticking to my chin as I smile. “These buns are awesome, by the way! Oh, and let me try that melon - I bet it’s sweet as hell.”

When the house fae leaves, the cart tinkling behind him, I take another bath. Except I can’t soak, this time, because I’m on a schedule.

And I’m dreading it.

I made Altair my first feeding ever, because I wanted it to go down as smooth as possible. And with me seeing as few boners as possible. Altair only likes guys, so there’s no way in hell either of us should feel awkward…right?

Wrong. Of course I’m wrong. I can’t get simple questions on exams right, why the hell did I think I’d be right about feeding a fae with my touch-energy or whatever?

Altair stands there in the doorway of the bathroom just off the pool, in a plaid shirt and dark jeans, his long hair left loose today and a blush evident on his olive cheeks.

“I knew this’d be weird,” He chuckles nervously. I stand up from the ivory stool beside the tub and bob on my feet.

“Um, yeah. Hi. Weird doesn’t actually begin to cover it.”

Altair’s broad lips crack into a grin. I hadn’t realized how much wider his jaw is than Dane’s - if Dane is a wasp, then Altair is a bumblebee, mostly-harmless and adorable and much beefier. Did I just say adorable? Crap - I hope he doesn’t mind-hear that.

“Let’s pretend I didn’t, shall we?” Altair walks in, closing the sliding door behind him. “Do you want me to change, or -“

“You have to be naked. Vil said that. I already asked if you could keep your underwear on but he said no.”

Altair laughs brightly, beginning to unbutton his shirt. “You look so disappointed about it.”

“Well -“ I sputter, my fingers dancing over the dishes of herbs on the shelves. Vil said the Brightness will lead me to the right one for each fae, and to just go with my gut, so I pick lavender and honeycomb and black sea salt. Something soothing. “ - I’m not really a dick-seeing expert.”

“A sexpert, if you will,” Altair offers, and I blurt a laugh.

“Who taught you that word? God, humans make up the weirdest shit, don’t we?”

“I think it’s cute,” Altair insists. The sound of heavy jeans and a belt hitting the tile floor echoes. He sees my hesitance to turn around, and says; “You okay?”

“Since you’re gonna read my mind anyway; no. I feel like jumping out the nearest window.”

“Look, here.” I feel him looming behind me, his body heat seeping into my back. Something soft like silk falls over my eyes, and he ties it around my head snugly. A blindfold. “There. Now you don’t even have to look.”

“But -“

“I’ll lead you over, and then you just go by feel. Easy enough, right?”

He leads me to my stool and turns the water on. I lay my hands in the water and dump the herbs in, the smell of melting honey and sharp lavender flooding my nose.

“Wow, that smells so nice. And really strong.”

“When you deprive one sense, your others get stronger,” Altair agrees, and I pull my hands out as I feel his ripples as he steps into the water. There’s a splash as he sinks down, the tub just the perfect size to accommodate him. Vil was right - it does adjust. I can feel the lip of it - it was much smaller before Altair walked in.

The water is so warm, the steam pillowing my face. Altair’s hands lead mine to his shoulders, the gentle drip of water the only thing I hear as he moves.

“Start here, would you? My shoulders are starving.”

Right - starving. That’s why I’m here, to feed him.

“Let me know if it’s working,” I say. I stretch my palms over the hard bones of his shoulders, and not quite sure what to do I pass them back and forth aimlessly. I feel nothing different at all, other than his soft skin beneath mine, but instantly Altair gives off a low moan.

“Bright Lady - that’s much better. A little slower?” He pleads.

The idea of someone as handsome as Altair pleading with me sets off some fire inside me, and I go as slow as humanly possible, letting my hands rest on every tender bit of skin I can reach - cupping his neck, running my hands through his luxuriously long hair, scratching his scalp as I go - when I was a kid I loved it when my Dad would scratch my scalp, and so I figure it’ll only help. Maybe fae are different, maybe they hate it - but Altair’s occasional soft moans tell me otherwise.

“You’re treating me like a king,” He laughs hoarsely. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Is it…not supposed to be like this?”

“No, no - don’t get me wrong; this is great. It’s much closer to the real Bright Place than Van Grier ever gets. He does it too quick, too surgically. When we fae absorb from the Bright Place it feels like an embrace, like it’s kissing our whole body. I’d just forgotten how tender it can be, that’s all.”

I feel him guide my hands down to his chest. “Here. That’s where all our vital organs are, so it’s where we get hungry the most. Spend a lot of time here, and you’ll make any and every fae you touch very full and very happy.”

“Right.” I’m so glad I can’t see what I’m doing, because I’m sure I’d combust. Altair has a spate of hair on his chest, but most of him is smooth. He’s got more muscle than anyone I’ve ever met - his pecs rounded and hard, his torso wide and deeply-cut with abs.

“That’s the spot,” He moans as I touch in the very center of him between the lowest ribs, where a solar plexus would be. “You’re the real deal, May. I can feel it flooding me - it’s so warm and potent. I’m so damn glad we found you.”

“You found me?” I quirk a brow, glancing my hand over his lower stomach and resting my fingers on the flatness there. Any lower and I’m in crotch territory, so any excuse to stall is great.

“That night, you know? The one Dane went overboard on you?”

“That was coincidence.”

“Oh, for sure. But I felt it, just like Dane did. Your Brightness. We walked away from you feeling a little less hungry and that’s how we knew. So we told Van Grier.”

Suddenly it makes sense. “And then Dane came to my work, pretended to apologize, and tried to kidnap me.”

Altair laughs. “More or less.”

“And why were you so worried about me sueing you?”

Altair’s smile is small and ashamed. “Courts are a big deal for fae. If a fae goes to the human realm, we’re bound by their court, just like we’re bound by the Bright Lady’s courts here in the Bright Place. If you sued Dane he’d have to stay until the whole thing was done.”

I pause at his stomach, and Altair must sense my hesitance, because he takes my hands off.

“I can spread what you’ve given me to the rest of my body,” His voice has a wink in it, even if I can’t see it. “All fae can. So don’t feel like you have to go lower than that with any of the others.”

“Oh thank the Lord and baby Jesus,” I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for hours, and Altair chuckles and I hear him get up from the tub, the sound of water cascading off him.

“I’m decent,” He says after a while. I take my blindfold off only to see him standing in clothes again, but not the clothes he came in. He’s wearing a perfectly-tailored black outfit, a pair of loose pants and a fitted sleeveless tunic with dizzying silver embroidery on it, moons and stars and the whole galaxy seemingly stitched into the fabric. And the fabric - good God - it’s like liquid night, silky and flowing and yet so rich and opaque. The tunic has a hood, the silver galaxies stitched there too, and I squint and realize they really are galaxies, and they’re moving, spinning and whorling in place. His whole outfit is…alive. His black hair is done in a low, elegant ponytail that suits his high cheekbones, a silver clasp in the shape of a rose holding it back. His olive skin glows from within - like he’s been running for hours and eating nothing but kale shakes times a thousand. The silver stars in his black eyes are brighter than ever as he smiles.

“Surprise.”

“W-What happened to you?”

“This is my true form,” He laughs, rotating slowly once to show me the back, where two tails of his vest grow long and the threaded galaxies on it spin wildly. “Impressive, isn’t it? It’s made of dark matter and stardust. It’s hard to keep up without eating proper Brightness, though, so I haven’t been able to do it for a couple years. Do I look good?”

“You look…” My throat is so dry I can barely speak. “You look unearthly.”

“Well I am, technically.” He winks and strides over, pulling me into a bear hug. “Thank you, May. You don’t know how much it means, to be whole again.”

He’s so beautiful and so genuinely grateful - this beautiful creature, grateful to me of all people - that something like tears prickle my eyes as I bury my face in his shoulder.

****

Altair takes me to class after his feeding, though he ditches his true form for his regular plaid shirt and jeans. My vision blurs just like it did in my work’s parking lot, the colors settling differently and unblurring and just like that we’re a block away from my school.

It’s hard to imagine such an ethereal prince lies under Altair’s lumberjack shirt, but now that I’ve seen him truly I can’t get it out of my head. His skin still glows, just not as bright. But his eyes twinkle as he leads me through the crowd on campus rushing to the next class. People’s heads follow us, girls doing double takes and guys doing triple-takes. Not for me, of course, but for the dark-haired, easily-smiling, jovial fae walking next to me. When he ruffles my hair affectionately as he drops me off outside my class, I can practically hear the sighs of our onlookers.

“Who’re you feeding next?” He asks.

“Sir Charles after class,” I say. “Can you come get me, or -“

“No, I have to help Van Grier with something,” He frowns. “Quinn will be around, though.”

“Cool,” I groan.

“Did you guys get into it?” Altair asked. “I noticed he was feeling spicier than normal. You didn’t…piss him off, did you?”

“Can he be pissed off?”

“Oh yeah. It takes a lot, but unlike the rest of us, he never forgets. He’ll forgive, but forget about forgetting.”

“Greeattt.”

“Yeah, he’s vengeful like that. I think it’s because he doesn’t get enough sleep.”

“He doesn’t?”

“Nah. We don’t need sleep, but it’s nice to rest once in a while, you know? But Quinn barely ever rests. His way of dealing with the capture, I guess.” Altair thumps me on the back. “Don’t worry - one feeding and he’ll get over it. I’ll see you later. Study hard, okay?”

It’s an uphill struggle on a tricycle just to focus on what the professor is saying - lecture has never been my strong suit. Nothing in college has, really, except taking tests. I can cram days ahead of time and take a test like nobody’s business, which is why I’m still in college to begin with, frankly. God bless the standardized test, warts and all. At least, as long as I don’t accidentally allow any fae to wander into my room, I can study in peace back at the Monster Garden. Not that there’s an exam anymore, but - no noisy upstairs neighbors, no police sirens wailing at all hours, just me and the antique desk and a cozy mug of the house fae’s delicious hot chocolate.

I catch myself thinking this shit and shake my head - if this wasn’t all so real, I’d definitely think I was in a coma and dreaming all this up. I touch my fingers to my neck absently - the silver collar disappeared the moment we stepped foot in the human realm. No one else can see it, and it’s not in my reflections. I know it’s still there, I can feel its weight against my skin - a constant reminder it’s all real.

“Hey there,” A voice pulls me out. I look up to see a girl - Jasmine, I think her name is - standing at my seat. She’s really pretty, in that strawberry-blonde, freckled, cute snub-nosed way. I’d always sat in class behind her and marveled at her gorgeous hair; it looks like the color of a spring sunset.

“Hi,” I clear my throat. “Did you need something from me?”

“I’ve seen you around. We’re in a few classes together, aren’t we?” Her smile is adorable.

“Yeah.” My heart flutters - I didn’t even know she noticed me. She offers her mint-nailed hand.

“I’m Jasmine Williams. But you can just call me Jas.”

I take her hand shakily. “I’m May James. But you can call me Your Highness.” I pause, and she blinks. “Joke. That was a joke. You look more like a Highness than I do, honestly.”

Jasmine laughs, her greenish-gray eyes getting warm. “Thanks.”

The professor calls the class, and everyone shuffles out of the lecture hall, eager for food. Jasmine shoots me a look.

“Hey, you wanna get something to eat with me?”

The me before twenty-thousand extra dollars would’ve had to turn her down - eating out just wasn’t an option, no matter how cheap it was. I had a tight budget that involved ramen and more ramen and frozen vegetables, sometimes, and peanut butter and bread. But now? Now I can go with her and pretend to be a real college student.

“Sure!” I smile. She takes me to this little pizza spot on campus I never knew about and lets me order half of the pizza, and together we scarf down cheese and talk about everything from shitty professors to our favorite books to how fast we’d dump a guy if he ate pizza like the guy in the corner is doing - piece by piece with a spoon. A spoon of all things!

“The man’s a monster,” I hiss around a pepperoni.

“Not a very good-looking one, either,” Jas giggles, delicately picking off a mushroom and eating it. I watch her eat, then look down at my own piece of pizza. My mouth bursts with flavors and my heart bursts with happiness all of a sudden.

“Thanks, Jas,” I say. “No one’s ever really - I’m bad at friends, so. I’m sorry in advance if I say stupid shit. Just let me know if I fuck up and I’ll do my best not to do it again. Not that we’re, um, friends already, I’m not saying that -“

“Hey,” She grins. “It’s cool. You’re fine. I’m sorry, for not asking you to hang out sooner. Turns out you’re a hidden gem.”

I blush up to my neck, and she teases me for it the whole time we’re paying the bill.

On the curb we exchange phone numbers, and Jas waves as she heads back to campus. I wave until my arm is sore, then stop just in case my enthusiasm seems like overkill. I don’t want to scare the only person who’s approached me away just yet.

I’ve got one more chore to do before heading back to Monster Garden - work.

I called my boss when I got on campus and asked him to adjust my hours to fit my feeding schedule for the fae. This week is the last week of school before summer break, and I might have another job under Vil’s thumb but I’m sure as hell not going to spend all my free time at Monster Garden. I plan to spend all sixty thousand dollars of my two-month money on tuition, which means I still need to pad up for living expenses. Vil promised to pay my rent while I was out of my old apartment and not dock it from my pay, which I thought nice until I considered six hundred dollars a month must be peanuts for him.

Working is easier than studying - I’ve done it so much it’s like breathing, and my hands move automatically, stacking burgers and lettuce and frying potatoes with mechanical ease as my mind races with all the new stuff that’s been crammed into it lately. I have to feed Sir Charles, and then tonight is Quinn. Tomorrow I have no work and it’s the five bouncer fae from the club. Saturday is work in the morning, then the invisible house fae, and a fae I haven’t met yet named ‘Barnabus’, who’s apparently in charge of keeping the garden safe. The next day is the dormant high fae, and then in the evening, Vil said he’d perform the ‘linking’ ceremony; the one that’ll let him threaten the high fae with death if they don’t fight against the lady who wants to close the Bright Place off again.

My stomach twists, all the pizza mushing up in it. I forgot - in all the soft beds and perfect baths and good hot chocolate I forgot I’m going to become basically like a high fae voodoo doll. He might be paying me, but Vilmor Van Grier isn’t a nice guy.

And then there’s Dane.

I set Dane for last, because I wanted to be as tough and experienced as possible before I got to him. The blindfold method might work for Altair, and probably Quinn too, but I know it’ll look strange to the lesser fae, who are used to Vil just feeding them without one. And if I dare wear it in front of Dane he’ll never let me live it down - it’ll become another piece of ammo in his belt to use against me. But I have to. It’s like the neighbor upstairs said - I’m a fucking prude. I can’t function if my eyes are so caught up avoiding stuff. And feeding is important to the fae, so I want to give it all of my attention, not divide it or give it out sloppily and half-assed.

At work, Marie asks if I’ve started using new makeup, and when I tell her I haven’t she laughs and says I must be eating well. After my shift’s over I round the corner and touch my collar, and after a minute or so Quinn walks out of the shadows, escorting me wordlessly. He clearly hasn’t forgiven me yet, and he definitely hasn’t forgotten.

Sir Charles is a dog-wolf-cactus, and therefore a lot easier to wash than a humanoid mostly because I don’t need a blindfold. And surprisingly, even though I was nervous about such a huge animal being rowdy, he behaves himself perfectly, sitting on his haunches in the tub that’s expanded to an enormous size to accommodate him. I pick a coriander, red pepper, and blue sage mix, and wash him down good. His spines are softer than I expected, and as long as I don’t run my hand the wrong way against his fur, I’m fine. His soulful brown eyes bore into me, his tail the only thing moving so excitedly it splashes water.

“Hey, buddy,” I smile up at him as I’m petting his chest. Altair said the torso was a good place to feed fae, right? “I’m glad you’re alive, you know.”

Sir Charles thumps his tail even harder and whines a bit. I laugh and carefully, slowly, stroke his velvet nose.

“When you fell off the shelf I thought you were done for.”

I’d checked the place where I buried him, today, and found nothing. Vil said Sir Charles’s plant was somewhere in the garden, so I make a note to find it when I go out to feed the dormant high fae before the linking ceremony. Sir Charles’s huge pink tongue on my face snaps me out of it, and I stagger back and fall straight into the tub’s water, coming up smelling like red pepper so strongly I start to sneeze.

“Boy, a-CHOO! You pushed me - a-CHOO! - don’t scare me like that!”

He just whines and licks me again, and I shield my face with my arms. At first my heart thuds wildly, afraid he’ll accidentally bite me with those huge teeth, but his licks are much more gentle this time than they were when we first met. Is he being careful…for me?

The licks start to tickle, and I yelp and manage to pull myself out of the tub sopping wet. I laugh as I grab a towel and sponge down, ordering Sir Charles to get out right now for being a silly dog. He just wags his tail and barks, shaking his whole huge body out and flinging a storm of water droplets everywhere.

Through the haze of doggy water drops on the sliding glass door, I swear I see someone standing there watching us - someone with white hair and a looming height. Dane? What is he doing here?

But just as soon as I notice him, he walks away. I snort. If he’s hungry, too bad. He’s gotta wait his turn just like everybody else.

Dinner happens in the dining room with the long table, and this time Vil joins me and the invisible house fae. The house fae serves roast duck stuffed with cranberries and orange peel, a side of white asparagus with some awesome stinky and awesomely tasty cheese. He (or is it a she? Or neither?) fills our silver glasses to the brim with cinnamon and star anise mulled wine, perfectly strong and spicy for the chilly fog that’s engulfed all of Monster Garden. The windows of the dining room are pure, misty white, the trees standing out like dark ghosts and the high fae rose domes glittering with condensed dew.

Vil eats with perfect proper etiquette, and I eat like Tarzan if Tarzan was raised by pigs instead of gorillas. I look up at the invisible fae pouring me more wine and smile.

“Thanks for all this. You’re a really awesome cook.”

The fae doesn’t say anything, but I swear I see the mulled wine jug stutter a little.

“Fae don’t need to eat our food, right? Just blood and Brightness. So you must’ve studied human recipes really hard to make all this great stuff.”

“Indeed,” Vil wipes his mouth with a napkin. “House fae can pull food recipes from the memories of any human they meet. I brought him to as many Michelin-starred restaurants as I could so he could learn.”

“It’s a he?”

“Perhaps. House fae have no true gender, but some choose to pick up habits or the accouterment of a certain gender they feel close to. I’ve caught this house fae going through my ties and wearing each one quite enthusiastically.”

I snort a laugh, spraying an unladylike spate of duck crumbs. “Oops. Sorry.” I cover my mouth. “It’s just the thought of an invisible tie floating around is really cute.”

Vil smirks, draining his glass. The house fae glances a spare napkin over my crumb mess, and it disappears, the tablecloth spotless white.

“Thanks,” I smile. The napkin bobs a little, and then disappears.

“How are you settling in?” Vil asks.

“Just fine - I mean, more than fine, this place is like something out of a dream.”

“Isn’t it?” He looks around at the vivid oil paintings of hunts and kings and battles, his chin balanced on the backs of his folded hands. “I didn’t build it, but I found it. You can tell it’s fae architecture by the roofs - very old stuff, their newer buildings look nothing like this. It was a ruin, but with a little hard work, I refurbished it and made it a home.”

He pauses, taking a bite of a caramelized orange peel. “I saw Altair earlier today. I sent him on an errand for me and he looked quite amazing. You did good work.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t really do anything -“

“The Brightness is subtle like that,” Vil agrees. “But beware, Miss James; never forget you have it. Or you will start to think your accomplishments are solely your own.”

“And get a big head?”

“Precisely. I didn’t carve out a mansion in the Bright Place without a good deal of humility. There are fae who can eat your Brightness, or suppress it. So it would be wise of you to learn something of defending yourself, especially as…” He trails off. “Especially as the fight draws near.”

“Near?” I poke a duck wing.

“That woman trying to close the Bright Place off isn’t the only one I’m fighting,” Vil says dourly. “The other high fae aren’t pleased I’ve stolen eight of their own. Barnabus has managed to keep them back, and your cactus dog will surely help, but a time will come when all hands will be needed on deck.”

My palms get slick with sweat clutching my silver fork. “I don’t want Sir Charles fighting and getting hurt!”

“He must,” Vil quirks a slender brow. “You may have created him, but I collar him. He obeys my demands.”

“He’s not - he’s a gentle boy -“

“He’s a fae you created out of your own Brightness,” Vil interrupts me ruthlessly. “All fae have power; he is suited to fighting as a hawk is suited to flight. He will defend his master to the death, and his master is me.”

The silver fork in my hand shakes, and I get the sudden urge to fling it across the table and have it stab Vil right in the smug, beach-tanned face. Vil leans back in his chair gracefully, completely unruffled.

“Continue your work with the feeding. I will be gone for a few days - but I will be back for the linking ceremony. Be sure you are ready.”

My boss. He’s just a shitty boss, I keep reminding myself. A shitty boss that holds every fae I know under his shitty iron thumb. I nod like a good obedient employee of capitalism, but my brain works overtime - he’ll be gone for a few days. A perfect opportunity to sniff around, try to find a way to free the high fae.

“I’ll have you know something about the high fae’s abilities,” Vil continues. “All of the information they collect with it comes directly to me. If you think about stepping out of line, I will know.”

I squeeze my fork tighter. Could he hear me just then? No - Altair told me on the way to school today that their abilities only work if they’re in close proximity. And Altair is nowhere to be seen, which means Vil just got very lucky with his guess.

“I’d never,” I try to sound light and unaffected. “Sixty-thousand is too much money to afford stepping out of line.”

Vil watches me with his mild brown eyes, then nods with a small smile. “For you, I suppose it is.”

We eat in silence until a dessert of tiny vanilla cream cakes comes out, sprinkled with chestnut dust and swimming in a little pool of coffee-chocolate sauce. Halfway through the cakes, Vil looks up at me again.

“When is your cycle?”

I sputter chocolate down the front of my sweater. The house fae whisks his napkin over my front and it disappears instantly.

“My, uh, what?”

Vil sighs. “Your menstrual cycle. When does it begin?”

I’d check my phone app but there’s no signal here. “Uhm, I think the end of the month. Like the 28th?” A frown carves his dignified face. “Something wrong with that? I can try to hold it in.”

He brushes my joke completely aside. “Fae are different than humans - like many animals on Earth, fertile fae only bleed when they are ready to reproduce. The problem lies in the fact human and fae menstrual blood smells nearly the same to seed-producing fae.”

“You’ve lost me again.”

He leans forward on the table. “Fae breeding seasons are short, but violent. The moment your period begins, every high fae in a hundred-mile radius will be drawn to you. Sometimes with…devastating effect.”

My face drains to ice-cube temperature. “Dane, Quinn, Altair -“

“Altair may be able to temper his instinctual reaction than most,” Vil agrees. “And while Quinn’s sense of duty is strong, it’s not stronger than nature. Dane will be your biggest problem - he gives in to his instincts too easily, and he’ll no doubt be completely under its sway.”

“W-What do I do?” I grip my napkin. “I go home right? For that one week?”

“No. The fae need you here to feed them.”

“But my period - I can’t feed them when they’re going bonkers!”

“It’s only the high fae who can smell you,” Vil assures me. “Which means only those three. Asking them to sit still for a feeding from you while you bleed pheromones in their direction is too risky and too cruel, even for me. So I will feed the high fae that week. They went around starving for three years, they can do it again for seven days.”

He leans back in his chair. “I will also issue a command that none of them are to go near you. The silver collars will reinforce it. To be safe, give none of them permission to enter your room, ever. Your room will be your haven. I’ll have the house fae deliver your meals to you there.”

“But how will I get to work?”

“Cancel ahead of time.”

“What? I can’t just -“

“It’s either that or be ripped to shreds,” Vil says coolly. “Make your choice.”

“Altair took me to school - “ I protest. “Tons of girls must’ve been having their periods there but he didn’t do anything.”

“Their craze only takes hold of them in the Bright Place.”

“That doesn’t -“

“You will also do well to remember that any feelings you have for the high fae are a consequence of their natural state of being - they attract humans to them as a flower attracts bees. Do not mistake that attraction for your own urges, or you will find yourself under their spell. And trust me - under a fae’s control is a very bad place to be.”

I start to argue again, but Vil stands abruptly, throwing his napkin on the table and leaving through the oak doors. He stops in the threshold, his face turned over his shoulder.

“Take care, Miss James, not to underestimate my monsters.”

-7-

Quinn helped me back from work today with nothing but chilly silence. He comes to his feeding the same way - with absolutely no emotion on his elegant face. He strips down slowly, and I quickly choose an herb mix for him; chamomile and cocoa butter and almond extract. I pull the blindfold on and settle at the ivory stool, waiting. This is my third feeding, and I feel sort of like I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Until I hear Quinn laugh.

It’s not a quiet snort, but a full-on laugh. And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard - musical and sweet and strong. Quinn is…laughing?

“What is that ridiculous thing you’re wearing?” He manages. My cheeks get red-hot.

“It’s…humans aren’t good at the whole ‘get naked’ thing, okay?”

“From what Dane has told me, they are.”

I roll my eyes then realize no one can see it. “The people Dane interact with are definitely used to it, but I’m not. I don’t, uh, the only naked person I’ve ever really seen is me. And sometimes not even that because it’s hard to look at my weird body straight on in the mirror.”

Quinn is quiet, and I hear him getting into the water slowly. Finally, he says;

“I think you look fine.”

“How would you know? I’m wearing all these clothes.”

He’s silent, and my hands freeze in their search for his shoulders.

“Wait a fucking minute - don’t tell me…your ability -“

“I can see through physical objects.” Quinn says softly. I shriek and cover my chest with my arms, and he sighs. “Volume, please.”

I try to stop hyperventilating, forcing my hands to find his shoulders. No one else has seen my naked, full-grown bod - not even my parents! The second I turned thirteen I stopped changing in front of anyone but the eyes of God. But now Quinn - I shudder. I feel like someone’s violated my privacy completely.

“Fae are comfortable with nakedness,” Quinn says. “I assumed you would be too. I apologize if I upset you.”

“But wait - you’ve gone down to the human realm before, right? Haven’t you talked to any of them? Seeing someone naked can be pretty private to almost everyone.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything. And that’s when I put it together.

“Am I, like, the first human you’ve ever spoken to?”

My hands inch up to his neck just in time to feel him nod. His skin is milky-smooth, almost as soft a baby’s. And while Altair had little imperfections like scars and hair, Quinn has none of that.

“While Dane and Altair consorted with humans,” Quinn says. “I’ve stayed here.”

“Why?”

I hear the water splash in the tub as Quinn squirms. Squirming? From the fae king of stoicism? And he laughed too - there’s more to him than I ever thought.

“None of your business,” He says, matter-of-factly.

“Alright. I get it, you know.” I lace my hands through his blue curls, shocked at just how perfectly wavy and velvety they are. “Humans suck. We’re loud, and ignorant. Nothing’s ever good enough for us. We tear down trees, we ignore people who need help, we fight with each other so hard we commit atrocities. So I get it, not wanting to be around us. We suck super hard.”

I sink my hands back to his shoulders, and I feel him instantly relax against the tub, all the tense, lean muscle in them going soft. He’s smaller than Altair by a long shot, and thinner, and yet he’s still ripped with muscle - more like a male ballet dancer than anything. The smell of chamomile and almond seeps into my nose, relaxing me, too.

“I haven’t seen much of the Bright Place, yet, or any fae other than you guys,” I continue. “But I’m willing to bet fae are a lot less stupid than humans, on average.”

“Sometimes,” He agrees quietly. “Sometimes moreso.”

I steel myself for the hard part. Food, I think. He needs food. It might be sensual for a human to do this to another human, but he’s a fae. To him it’s just food.

I run my hands down his chest gently. His milky-smooth skin is incredible to touch, no hair anywhere. His whole body is like when I used to put my hand outside the window on the freeway and let the wind slide around my hand - supple and so delicate I’m afraid if I push too hard he’ll bruise. All of him is delicate; his ribs, his collarbones, all of it held together by his thin, corded muscles.

Quinn isn’t Altair - he doesn’t make much appreciative noise. But when I reach the tight sides of his torso, he makes the smallest, sharpest intake of breath, and then he exhales with a whisper of a prayer;

“Bright Lady.”

I feel that surge of weird pride well up in me again. I’ve found it - the spot he’s hungriest in, and I rest my hands there for a few minutes, stroking him in slow, easy circles, the sweet water kissing my fingertips every time I reach the lowest part of his skin.

Finally, I run my hands all the way up him, and pull away.

“Okay. I think that’s enough, right? You can spread the rest to your other parts?”

Nothing. Just silence. He’s still mad for sure.

“I’m sorry, Quinn,” I say. “About what I said the other day. I know you don’t forgive people easy and you don’t have to, with me. I just want you to know I said it without thinking, like a big dumbass. So. It won’t happen again.”

Still, nothing. He must be really pissed. I take a deep breath.

“Okay. I’ll just, um. Go.”

I get up, pulling my blindfold off once I’ve turned towards the door. Quinn still says nothing, and half-worried half-confused I turn my head the slightest bit over my shoulder.

He lies there in the tub, his arms over the edges and his eyes closed. His breathing is even, and he doesn’t move. Is he…sleeping? He isn’t naked anymore, a gorgeous periwinkle-blue robe encasing his whole body. It flows out of the bathtub like a wave, not wet in the slightest, as if it repels the water instead of soaking it up. The blue of the robe moves like Altair’s clothes did - fading in and out with darker blues, deep violets, and steely grays, like every layer of the ocean coming together and drifting apart again. It’s cut deeply down his chest, showing off his skin in a drastic V-shape all the way down to his belt - a slender thing studded with sapphires that shift their colors just like his robe; floaty lavenders, bright teals, pure Prussian blues and stubborn slate grays. Each gem glows in a different rhythm, some fast, others slower than a lighthouse. The gentle light they’re giving off practically hypnotizes me. His blue curls shine, a tiara of smooth silver circling his skull and coming to a stop on his forehead, where a round, brilliant sky-colored sapphire sits.

His true form.

Carefully, I walk over, making my steps as soundless as possible. Altair said he barely gets any rest. Seeing him asleep now, in his true form, makes me so indescribably happy. I’m helping. I thought I wouldn’t do anything here other than make the high fae miserable by acting as Vil’s voodoo doll, by forcing them into a death-pact to fight - but right now I’m helping, aren’t I?

His sleeping face is so innocent, so pure and childlike. Reverently, like he’s a god and I’m a worshipper, I lower my face to the top of his head and kiss it gently before I leave him to rest.

****

After a dinner of lobster bisque and crispy, soft garlic bread with just me and the house fae at the table, I slide into my own bathtub. I look out the window - the night sky is so crazy beautiful here; with constellations I don’t know the name of and fours sprays of stars like banners streaking across the bowl of black, reminding me of four vibrant Milky Ways, almost. Red stars cluster together on the horizon, two extremely bright blue stars almost directly overhead. And unlike the human realm, shooting stars happen constantly - diamond flashes of light here one second and gone the next.

I miss the view out of my apartment window. Is it weird to say that? The Bright Place is so incredible, and Monster Garden even more incredible, but I miss the feeling I got looking out my own apartment window. Here, I’m looking out the window as the hired help, and none of the things around me are my own. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe I should just shut up and enjoy the view. I told Quinn humans are never satisfied, and it’s really true.

I should just enjoy the quiet moments like I can. Before the fighting starts, like Vil said. Before I’m turned into a voodoo doll of death.

I get out of the tub and put on my old, stained terrycloth robe. I’ve had this thing for fucking ever, but I can’t bear to throw it away. It’s my jam-stained baby.

A knock…on my door? At this time of night? I hear a familiar whine and scuttle over and open it to see Dane standing there, in all black leather again, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks very not happy to see me. And next to him is someone very happy to see me - a green cactus dog.

“Sir Charles!” I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him, the cool silver of his collar against my cheek. “Who’s the best and cutest cactus dog in the world, huh?”

Sir Charles barks, and I answer him with a boop on the giant wet nose.

“That’s right! It’s you!”

Sir Charles barks happily, and Dane clears his throat to get my attention. I pretend not to notice and motion for Sir Charles to come in, but he hesitates at the doorway, whining with his ears flat against his head.

“You have to tell him he can come in,” Dane deadpans. “With your words.”

I look right in Sir Charles’s big brown eyes.

“You can come in, buddy.” I snap my eyes over to Dane. “But you, Mr. Rude Ass, can’t.”

“As if I’d want to come into your stinking hovel,” He sneers.

“Then why are you here?” I cross my arms over my chest, mimicking him and hiding any part of my chest from his view. Every fiber in my body screams for me to rip my robe off and jump his bones, and the longer I think it the bigger his languid smirk gets. Right - cold squid. Taxes. Getting dental work done. Think about anything but him and the sinfully beautiful way his Adam’s apple swells out from his throat - cold slimy squid tentacles. Cold slimy goddamn squid tentacles, May.

I know it’s working, because Dane’s smirk starts to fade into a single straight line.

“When is it my turn?” He demands, his gem eyes burning out at me so brightly I swear I’m getting flayed open by the heat alone. It’s easier to look at the doorframe near his face, not at his actual face.

“I assume you mean your turn to get fed,” I say. “Didn’t Vil tell you? He said he’d inform everybody.”

“Well he didn’t,” Dane snarls. “Because I’m his favorite toy to punish.”

“Because you don’t do what he says.”

“Because I do everything he says,” Dane steps into me, and I take a step back before his smell of leather-rosemary-gin can overpower me. “Whether I want to or not. Now when. Do I. Get fed?”

He says it crisp and clear and with such a powerful underlying tone of want it makes me shudder.

“Tomorrow is the five bouncers,” I manage. “The next day is Barnabus and the house fae. The next day is the -“

“Linking ceremony,” He interrupts.

“ - and the dormant high fae.”

“So where am I?”

“Last.” I swallow. His eyes flash at me.

“Why?”

“Because you -“ My skin tingles with the idea all his intensity is focused on me right now. I have his answers, and it makes me feel powerful for a split-second. “Because learning to wait could be good for you.”

His snicker is inflamed, less amused and more irritated and all of it coated in a thick layer of pure sex. “I’m usually the one teaching the lessons, not learning them.”

“A true teacher never stops learning,” I counter. He adjusts and leans on the doorway, one arm up and the other rubbing his forehead.

“How in the name of the Good Bright Lady -” He spits it like a swear. “- are you so fucking excellent at frustrating me? Do you practice in the mirror? You must practice. No one in the history of eternity has been this good at destroying my patience.”

“You have patience?” I play innocent. His severe brows shoot up and then come back down, a bitter frown drawing his lips.

“This is because I choked you, isn’t it? This is revenge. This is you making me wait and starve while everyone else glows because I hurt you. I apologized, remember?”

“Apologizing doesn’t make it go away,” I snap. “I’m afraid -“

The word snap-freezes in my throat. Dane’s cat-like, narrowed eyes widen ever-so-slightly. What am I doing, telling him how I really feel? He’ll just use it against me.

“You’re afraid of me,” He says, quieter this time. “But I was afraid that night, too, when I choked you.”

He’s making this all about him, still? I open my mouth to argue when he pulls his sword from seemingly thin air. I stagger back, but with strangely deadened eyes he takes the blade and offers it to me, handle-first.

“Take it.”

“What?”

“Take it. Slit my throat,” He insists. “Make me feel the pain you felt. It’s only fair.”

“Nothing about that is fair,” I argue. “That’s just….fucked up!”

“You prefer to do it with your hands, in exactly the same way I did to you?” He exhales, and before my eyes he drops to his knees, offering his long, beautiful throat up to me. “Here, then. I promise you I won’t fight back. Revenge is yours.”

“No.” I stagger back.

“It’s the fae way to settle it,” He argues.

“Well it’s not my way!” I shout. “I don’t want revenge. I just want a real apology, and for you to not be an asshole all the time!”

There’s a silence in the hall before Dane rises to his feet again, his sword disappearing into thin air. “What would a ‘real apology’ look like to you?”

“I don’t know! That’s for you to figure out.”

“I can’t figure it out if you don’t at least give me a clue,” He demands, eyes narrowed to gem-slits again. “Your human expectations are foreign and utterly mystifying.”

“You’ve slept with enough humans to know what a human apology looks like!”

He smirks lazily. “I’ve certainly never needed to apologize to any of them for it. Just one hint, little beast - it can’t be that hard.”

“An apology - “ I smack my forehead. I can’t believe I have to explain what a proper apology is - this is a kindergartener-learning-humanity level thing. “ - is when you show someone you care. That you care enough not to hurt them again.”

“But I don’t. Care about you.”

Even though my brain knows that’s true my idiot heart still deceived by his fae-pheromones caves in a little. “I know that! But you have to at least pretend. At least make a show of caring, even if you don’t!”

“So you’re fine with an insincere apology, then?”

“No! No one is! I just want you to show me you aren’t full of shit all the time, okay? You don’t have to care about the person, you just have to care about being a halfway decent living being who doesn’t go around hurting people! You asked for a clue - that’s all I’ve got!”

He muses over this, a glint of that serious look I saw on the lawn when he was practicing his sword play creeps into his eyes. Is he…actually considering my words?

“Just care about being a good person,” I sigh.

“I’m not a person,” he says instantly.

“Fae! Sewer rat! Big-head asshole! Whatever!”

Dane’s chuckle is dark and deep. “Alright. I’ll see what I can scrounge up out of my own withered soul. But no promises.”

“Like I’d trust you to keep a promise in the first place,” I scoff. He walks away, calling over his shoulder;

“Maybe I will, someday, if you keep yelling at me like this.”

I scoff again and close the door, flopping onto a silk-covered couch with a massive sigh. Sensing my distress, Sir Charles comes over and sits by the couch, and my hand lazily moves over to pet his giant, fluffy head.

“Fuck that guy, Sir Charles.”

Sir Charles barks once in agreement, tail wagging fast.

****

I know none of the fae sleep like I do, but I inch out of my room in the dead of night anyway and tiptoe down the hall to Vil’s room. He’s probably got it locked and probably some weird Brightness on it to keep me out, too, but if I don’t at least try, I’ll hate myself. There’s gotta be something in his room - a clue of some sort that’ll point me in the direction of breaking the fae free from their collars.

But Vil is, as always, one step ahead of me.

Altair sits in front of his room, in his true form, looking more intimidating than ever. If I get too close he’ll hear my thoughts, so I slink off back to my room before he has the chance to see me.

Vil’s room is a no-go. But there’s gotta be some other place in Monster Garden where Vil keeps secrets. Someone as smart as him wouldn’t keep them all in one place.

The next morning I lead the house fae to the library, and I eat bacon-fried mushrooms on sourdough toast, and down cups of honeyed peach tea while I scour the bookshelves. The library is incredible - like every other inch of this place - high vaulted ceilings, the bookshelves and tables and chairs all made of the same breathtakingly polished mahogany. A stunning stained-glass globe of Earth spins in one corner, another stained-glass globe in the opposite corner with alien topography. I ask the house fae what it is, but he just spins the globe silently - maybe it’s the Bright Place?

I’m looking for books on fae and Brightness stuff, but Vil’s stocked the shelves with only human books. Or so I think, until I get to a far shelf tucked away on the side. All of these books have strange golden lettering on their sides - and it moves. Definitely fae stuff. I pull them out one by one and try to read them but it’s all gold lettering that shifts constantly, like restless caterpillars looking for food. The house fae is no help - he either refuses to read them, or just plain can’t. Maybe he doesn’t even have a voice.

“Thanks for the help, anyway,” I smile at him as we part ways - me to the feeding room, him to the kitchen. “Have a good day, okay? Your feeding’s tomorrow - don’t forget!”

The silver cart skids a little, and starts down the hallway.

I roll up my sleeves and slap my hands together. “Okay, May. It’s time to rock.”

Feeding five fae in one day is a lot, but I can do it. I’ve got more confidence than none, and that’ll have to do. The bouncers are waiting for me when I get there, in their usual suits and all lined up on chairs - their huge muscled bodies making the furniture look like kid’s chairs. I nearly laugh, but stop myself and smile instead.

“G-Good morning, gentlemen.”

They all just grunt. One of them on the end manages a grumpy “g’monin’.”

I call in the first guy, picking out an herb tray of sweet basil, shredded strings of coconut, and dried hazelnuts. Where Sir Charles was spicy and the high fae were complex, these guys feel more down-to-earth, with simpler, richer scents. I’m starting to get what Vil meant by ‘letting my gut choose’. I thought I was picking randomly this whole time, but every time I go over to the herb shelf one scent sticks out for my nose more than others, a different one with each fae. Like right now, I don’t even smell the strong coffee and marjoram scents of the herb tray next to the one I picked - all I can sense is the hazelnut mix.

I whirl around too late - the bouncer is already buck-ass naked. I fumble around for my blindfold, but do a quick double-take; I didn’t see anything at his crotch. His huge, strong belly is smooth, and below that, there’s just…nothing. No genitalia at all, just that same smoothness.

The bouncer grunts. “What are you lookin’ at?”

“N-Nothing. Here,” I lead him to the tub, which has expanded considerably. “After you.”

He settles in the warm water, and I sprinkle the mix into it.

“Smells good,” he says.

“Yeah, tell me about it. Every time I put a scent in I practically start drooling.”

“You’re gross,” He laughs, the force of his belly moving splashing the water around.

“And you’re super strong,” I marvel, my hands passing over his shoulders. “I can’t even feel your bones!”

“Damn right,” He puffs his chest proudly. “Shield fae like me are all muscle, all the time.”

“Do you usually not have, um,” I struggle for words, but he somehow gets me without them.

“What do I look like, a prissy high fae? Nah - we don’t need those to make babies.”

He laughs again, and the sound is so self-satisfied and natural I can’t help but laugh, too. There’s so much I don’t know about fae it’s pretty comical - my human brain struggles to leap over the idea of making babies without bumping uglies. I’m good at taking tests but absolute shit at imagination - when I was a kid I played with cardboard cut-outs because I thought barbie dolls were too complicated.

The bouncer hates me scratching his scalp, and when I just put my hands on him and rest them there like I do for the high fae he complains he can’t feel anything. But he seems to like the feeling of a massage, and he super likes it when I knead my hands into his belly, the mass of muscle there pliant and yet stronger than steel. I’ve noticed the lesser fae take much less time to feel full - Sir Charles was only a few minutes, and this bouncer stands out of the water after only a few minutes too and laughs, clapping me on the shoulder.

“Thanks. I feel like a million bucks.”

“Anytime,” I smile, and turn my back to give him privacy while he changes. “Call in the shield fae, will you?”

He nods, and the process starts all over again. Hazelnut and myrrh, this time, with a bit of dried truffle. And he too hates it when I go for his scalp, demanding I start at the stomach. He likes his massage much harder than the last guy, but pretty soon he’s thanking me profusely and calling in the next fae. Hazelnut, coconut, and white pepper. Massage the dang belly! Hazelnut, apple, and truffle, massage the stomach, but lightly! My hands start to ache like I’ve slammed them in a drawer too many times, and when the fifth shield fae finally walks out laughing and patting his stomach, my fingers are curling in on themselves with what feels like total rigor mortis.

“Okay,” I groan, resting my hands in the hot, fresh water that the tub refills with instantly every time someone leaves. “C’mon tendons, you can do it. Uncurl. Uncurl that shit. Work it.” My fingers twitch. “Okay, work it one millimeter at a time, I guess.”

“Enjoyed it that much, did you?” Dane’s silky voice echoes around the feeding room as he walks in, all white leather on today, while I’m in sweatpants and a messy bun. It should look ridiculous on him - cartoony - but he looks like a fucking supermodel, like he just walked off a Parisian catwalk and he’s on his way to smoke a cigarette and fuck a wine bottle, or a baguette. Or both.

“Now a wine bottle could be interesting, but I don’t think I’d fit through the neck,” He muses, and I shake my head to empty it out.

“What do you want?” I ask. “I’m sort of busy being exhausted.”

“We’re going to the human realm.”

“We are?” I raise an eyebrow. “Because I thinking it’s more of a ‘take a hot bad and go straight to bed’ sort of day.”

He snorts. “Did it really drain you that much?”

“No, it’s just my hands, and my arms,” I wince as I pull my fingers out of the tub. “Turns out massaging five fae in a row gets you good.”

“Massage?” Dane glowers. “What are you doing massaging them? All you have to do is put your hands on them and they receive the Brightness.”

“I know, but -“ I can’t meet his gaze. “It’s already an uncomfortable experience. So I just…try to make them more comfortable. That’s all.”

“You’re a Brightened, not a masseuse. Don’t waste your time - no one cares if you try to make them comfortable or not.”

“I care!” I retort, so loud and instant I almost scare myself. Dane takes a step back in his white boots, like I’ve slapped him. I mutter; “I care.”

Dane rolls his eyes. “Fine, I get it. You care. Less caring, and more coming with me to the human realm.”

“Why? At least give me a reason before you kidnap me again.”

“You’ll see when you get there,” He says cagily.

“Notttt good enoughhhh,” I sing-song. My horrible voice makes him flinch.

“It’s part of my apology, alright? So just come.”

All the cells in my body start chanting ‘come come come’ like a particularly slutty football crowd. I pull my hair from its messy bun and sigh.

“Okay. Let me put on jeans first.”

“No need.”

I raise a brow. “I’m putting on jeans before we leave.”

“Just -“ He kneads the bridge of his nose, then thrusts his hand out to me. “Just trust me. No jeans.”

“People are gonna think I’m a bridge troll if I go out in these!” I protest, motioning to the massive rip in the knee and the old chocolate stain on the pocket from where I forgot half a bag of Hershey’s kisses before I threw it in the dryer. Dane suddenly lunges for me and I dance behind the tub.

“Give -“ He reaches out for me. “- give me your - “ I duck to the side and he ducks with me. “ - hand, you little gremlin.”

“Oh, so I’m a gremlin now, not a beast?” I stamp my foot. “I’m not going out in these and that’s final!”

“And humans say fae are vain,” He scoffs, and when I make a mad dash for the door he traps me, both his arms on either side of me and the smell of rosemary instant. My fear is still very real, my throat throbbing where he choked me, but I’m so close I can feel his body heat through the white leather jacket, see the perfect kissable hollow of his throat -

COLD SQUID. TAXES. STOP THINKING ABOUT HIS BODY PARTS WHEN HE CAN DEFINITELY HEAR YOU.

“Or,” Dane’s smirk grows long and languid and he leans in, so close I feel his breath on my ear. “We can stay here. And I can make an apology to you the old fashioned way.”

Before I can think his broad hand is on the small of my back, pulling me flush against him, his other hand lacing under my chin and tilting it up to edge our lips closer. His eyes glitter down at me, emerald streaks vivid and almost toxic against the blue.  I can feel every hard ridge of him - his ribs, his chest, and something lower, a ridge, something steel-clad and pressing from my thighs to my belly button -

And that’s the story of how I reflex-kneed a fae in the balls for the very first time.

-8-

Dane’s eyes stop watering about halfway down First Avenue.

“I warned you,” My voice is high and thin as I desperately try to hide my chocolate-stained pants with my sweater while still avoiding Dane in a four-foot radius in all directions. “I said I was scared of you.”

“You didn’t warn me about your knee surgery,” He snarls. “In which you clearly got your human bone replaced with diamond.”

“Y-You’re being dramatic,” I avoid a pair of sharply-dressed businessmen eyeing us suspiciously. We’re in the expensive part of town, with all the Givenchy’s and Prada and other name brands, and while Dane fits right in, I look like the disheveled girl off the street he picked up.

“I’m being dramatic?” Dane’s voice turns to glass knives. “You’re the one who kneed me so hard the entire galaxy flashed before my eyes.”

“You were -“ I blush ten shades of red and hiss. “You were pressing your dick on me!”

“And according to your thoughts, you weren’t entirely not-enjoying it,” He drawls.

“Hello? Earth to not-Earth Mr. Fae? You’re the one with freaky human-attracting pheromones. For all you know I could’ve hated it! Any thoughts you read are under the influence, and not my real feelings. Have you ever thought about that? That maybe all those girls you sleep with at the club are actually not genuinely into you, just your magic spell or whatever?”

“Of course I’ve thought about that,” He scowls. “And then I stopped. Because it made my head hurt.”

“But not enough to make you grow a conscious, apparently,” I sigh. “Where are we even going?”

“There,” He points to a store with a sleek black front and a name I can’t even pronounce. “And for your information, even if I didn’t have my glamor, women would still flock to me for my looks. So I don’t see the issue, here.”

“Of course you don’t,” I groan. Liking someone for who they are obviously isn’t a thing in the fae realm, and even less for someone like Dane, who thinks all you need is hate to fuck. “Nevermind.”

I walk into the store, the smell of expensive perfume hitting my nose first. The inside is all white tile, with perfectly lit displays of sleek clothes that look way too small for me. A woman immediately walks over and smiles at me sweetly, that too-sweet please-get-out-of-my-store smile.

“I’m afraid we’re closing early today, ma’am.”

“Are you?” Dane slides between us, flashing his own deadly-cool smile at the woman. “That’s a shame, because I came here specifically to get her some new clothes.”

He plucks out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and fans himself with them lazily, staring the woman dead in the eyes as if daring her to say anything more. You can see the exact moment his ‘glamor’, as he called it, hits her - her eyes glaze over and her postures softens instantly as she waves us in with a smile.

“That’s just fine. Let’s get you started with your measurements, shall we?”

While she’s wrapping me up with measuring tape, I hear Dane call out to the back of the store;

“Quinn? You still here?”

“Yes,” Quinn’s blue curls appear over a rack as he straightens, coming around with a heaping armful of clothes. He sees me, that same mild expression on his face as always, neither happy or mad to see me. “I thought you might try these on first.”

He plops them on the couch in front of me, and the lady immediately whirls and starts to thumb through them, trotting off to replace the too-big or too-small ones with ones that’ll supposedly fit me. She works so fast she’s a blur, and I marvel at how quick she can walk in heels.

“Quinn, you’re here too?” I ask.

“Obviously,” He drones. “I wasn’t going to let Dane take you here and dress you all himself - you’d come home with a full wardrobe of club clothes.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Dane fingers the hem of a dress on a rack absently. Quinn gives me a look, and for once I know what it means on his usually unexpressive face - it’s the ‘my point exactly’ look.

“You brought me here to buy me clothes,” I say slowly. “Because you think buying someone expensive stuff is how you apologize?”

Dane frowns. “Is it…not?”

I breathe out so fast my bangs flutter. “You can’t just buy your way into an apology!”

“But it helps,” Quinn offers.

“Listen,” Dane starts. “Quinn told me it’d soften you up -“

I scoff and cross my arms over my chest.

“ - But that’s not the only reason I’m doing it. Your dress. The daisy one. The one you wore to the club.”

“What about it?”

“You said it was the only one you had.”

“Yeah, and?”

He runs a frustrated hand through his nest of white-blonde hair. “I might not know human apologies, but I know a girl shouldn’t be forced to wear only one dress every time she wants to look nice.”

“I have my work uniform, too -“

“You should have more than just one daisy dress, and a work uniform,” He interrupts smoothly. “You should have things that you like wearing. Things that make you happy.”

Happy? Clothes had been such a low priority for me ever since I graduated - food and tuition and rent was where I put all my chips. I only ever spent money on clothes when I needed new underwear, or socks, and I made do with my high school shirts and jeans, even if I had to squeeze now to get into them. It’s true my shirts were so faded you could barely see the logos anymore, and all my pants had a hole somewhere, but shopping here?

“This is too expensive,” I catch a glimpse of a single shirt’s tag and my eyes bug out. “Can’t we go somewhere cheaper?”

Quinn sniffs. “I’d rather not -“

“We can,” Dane says. “After we find you a dress, here.”

“But it’ll be way too expensive. I’m not blowing my wages on this place -“

“I’m buying it,” He asserts. “Consider it part of my apology.”

“I told you, apologies aren’t made with money.“

“Fine. Consider it not part of my apology. Consider it a gift. From a…“

“Friend?” Quinn offers.

“Enemy,” I say. Quinn grins in his quiet way, and Dane chuckles.

“Alright. A gift from an enemy it is.”

If my life was a movie, there’d be a dress-picking montage here. But it isn’t, and so it’s a whirl of Dane demanding I come out in every unflattering slip of silk he picks out. I expect him to scrutinize me, or make fun of the way my arms look or how lumpy my butt is, but all he does is ask if I like it or not. If I say no, he sends me back into the changing room with a new pile of dresses, picked out by Quinn, of course.

“We’re going through every single one in the store until we find one your picky ass likes!” He calls.

“We’re gonna be here a long time,” I shout back.

“That’s fine. I’m not the one who has to get changed a thousand times over.”

“Oh I’ll kill him,” I mutter to a new dress. “I’ll kill him and bury the body in this pile of clothes.”

I never went to my own prom - I got the whooping cough the day before and thought my world as going to end because I missed it. But the world didn’t end, and my parents didn’t say it, but I know they were slightly relieved about not having to buy me a prom dress. For some reason this feels like prom dress shopping, but with even more stress attached to it. I don’t want a prom dress, which is what all these look like - I just want something simple that fits me well, and is a pretty color.

I pull the new dress up and I immediately notice how nice it feels - it hugs my body perfectly in all the right places and flows on all the other places. And the color isn’t bright or bold; a simple pinkish-cream fabric that’s so soft it feels like I’m petting one of those cashmere goats. I’ve never been a fan of pink but this color is so sweet and light it steals my heart away. I pull it over my shoulders, the sleeves like long, graceful bells, and I swear at no one - it’s got a zipper.

“Can someone help me?” I call for the lady who’s zipped me up every time, but this time it’s not the lady at all. It’s Dane, his broad shoulders and tall frame looking almost constricted in the tiny changing room, bringing with him that intoxicating smell of gin and rosemary.

“Turn around,” He demands, and I groan.

“Can’t you just get the lady -“

“You’re going to see me in all my naked glory in a few days, anyway,” He starts. That’s what you think, bud. “Seeing a bit of your back skin won’t kill me.”

“If I knee you again, it’s your fault,” I flush as I turn around. “Because I’m not giving you permission to touch anything on me but the zipper.”

“I get it, Your Beastliness.” His long fingers find the zipper easily, and he pulls it up to the top in one fluid movement. “There.”

I pivot, the skirts flowing with me as I do. Holy shit - in the mirror it looks so beautiful. I look like a totally different person; the half-sheer fabric makes me look like a dream, the tiny sequins in the low-cut bodice making vines and roses that glitter in the light whenever I move. It’s neckless, showing off my shoulders, which I think are the nicest parts of me, and the sleeves are floatier than angel food cake and I love it.

I turn again, expecting to see Dane gone, but he lurks, looking me up and down.

“This one,” I steel my chin. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care if it makes me looks childish or naive or whatever - I want this one.”

There’s a long moment when he doesn’t talk; and between the silence his gemstone eyes roam my whole body, the whole length of the dress and back again. I feel like he’s eating me, somehow, consuming me down to the bones in that piercing predator way he had when we first met and I’m suddenly aware of how close we are - a few inches more and he’d be pressed against me again, all warm and hard.

Shut up, brain, I internally sigh, tired of my own shit by now. You’re just high on his pheromones. Fae-romones? Perfect pun. Ten out of ten stars to me.

“If you don’t get out right now, I’ll yell,” I stop congratulating myself and threaten Dane. This snaps him out of his weirdness, and he flashes his eyes up to mine and then away, strangely jumpy.

“Change out of it, then, and bring it to the counter.” His voice is hoarse, but he quickly clears his throat and darts out of the changing room. I peel the dress off slowly, thinking - do fae get colds? Probably not, right? Vil would’ve told me if they did.

When I’m decent I walk out with the dress in my arms, showing it to a curious Quinn. He nods approvingly.

“The color will suit you. And the cut is very flattering for your neckline, considering you have a large head to account for.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re super good at compliments?” I lilt. Quinn makes that pleased-with-himself little smile again.

“Just you.”

I pile the dress on the counter and the lady rings it up, making doe-eyes at Dane the whole time. Quinn’s glamor must not be as strong, but they definitely still hit her, because she smiles at him dreamily, too, when he takes the dress bag.

“I can carry it, you know.”

“Your fingers are shaking,” Quinn argues. “You’ve done enough today, I think.”

“I’m warning you - I don’t appreciate being treated delicately.”

A shadow passes over Quinn’s face. “It’s an inevitable reaction to want to protect something precious, is it not?”

I gulp. “I’m not -“

“You are a pure, unadulterated font of Brightness,” Quinn argues gently as the two of us watch Dane hand over the cash to the lady. “That is rare to find. I didn’t believe your Brightness to be so strong when I first met you, but my feeding proved me wrong.”

“I’m flattered -“

“Don’t be,” Quinn deadpans. “You are simply very important to me.”

I’m struck speechless, and then a laugh bubbles up in my throat. “You fae are so fucking weird.”

“Let’s go,” Dane nears us, stuffing his cash away in his leather pants pocket.

“Where?” I frown.

“You tell me. Wherever it is, it better have something to replace those rags you’re wearing.”

“You made me come in these rags in the first place!”

“Not yet,” He drawls, voice like sugar and razors.

“You’re disgusting,” I blurt. He laughs, scaring a passing businessman.

“Likewise, little beast.”

****

I manage to steer the two high fae away from First Avenue and up to Fourteenth, where there’s a clean and tidy thrift store I’d always longingly browsed on my days off. Quinn complains quietly about the quality of the clothes, but then he finds the vintage section and shuts up, paging through their peacoats eagerly. Dane boredly picks up anything he can find - old cowboy boots, a clock shaped like a mouse eating a piece of cheese. I half-expect him to pick up the girl working at the counter who’s shooting him some serious lovestruck looks, but he just follows me around picking up weird shit and putting it back down.

Satisfied with my basket full of new(ish) shirts and a few well-fitting pairs of jeans and sweatpants, I head to the counter. Dane tries to pay again, but I use the cashier girl’s crush against him, insisting I pay instead. She takes my money first and glowers at me, clearly unenthused Dane’s willing to spend money on me at all - bingo. Faeromone-induced-jealousy manipulator, thy name is May.

I call Mom and Dad before I head home, lying through my teeth about how well I’m doing at work, how I’ve got a secretary job at a health clinic, now. It’s part of my master plan - if I told them I didn’t need help with college all of a sudden they’d get suspicious, so I’m laying the groundwork now. Jasmine texted me, too, asking if I was free on Sunday to get lunch and I text her back with ten thousand excited emojis.

I’m so caught up in texting Jasmine I only faintly hear Quinn and Dane talking on the curb.

“Isn’t he one of them?” Quinn asks.

“No. Just a boy hanging out with the wrong crowd. Altair and I told him to go before it started,” Dane says.

“He looks so terrified,” Quinn sounds remorseful, and that’s what makes me look up. There, on the other side of the street waiting at a bus stop, is someone I recognize. Not at first, but the more I stare the more it comes back to me - a guy with a red mohawk that’s half grown-out, flopping to one side. A pierced eyebrow. I’d seen him in the apartment building, smoking outside my upstairs neighbor’s door. He was their friend, I think. He’s looking over at us. No, not all of us - just Dane. His eyes are wide with something I can only describe as sheer fear, his lips trembling and his skin drained to a pale greenish color.

“It’s a pity I can’t wipe his memory,” Dane muses. “Or I would.”

“Wipe his memory of what?” I ask. Dane doesn’t look at me, Quinn shooting me a sideways glance for just a second. “Why is he so afraid of you?”

No one answers me but a police siren. When it passes, I don’t let them get off easy.

“You were at his friends’ party, weren’t you? That night we met.”

Dane still doesn’t say anything.

“Did you know those guys moved?” I ask. “My landlord told me they just up and left out of the blue in the middle of that exact same night. You and Altair wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”

Dane finally makes a sound - a scoff - and the wind ruffles his white-blonde hair.

“Quiet, little beast. Before you dig too deep.”

If he won’t give me answers, I’ll just have to go to the source. I start crossing the street, but Dane calls after me;

“You won’t like what you hear.”

I resist the urge to shout back that I haven’t heard anything out of his mouth that I like so far and ignore him, sidling up to the guy with the mohawk. When I get close enough to talk he jumps away, to the opposite end of the bench.

“Don’t! Don’t get any closer. Y-You’re the girl from the downstairs apartment, aren’t you? And you’re with him,” He stutters.

“Who?” I ask.

The guy’s terrified brown eyes lock on Dane’s silhouette in the distance. “The guy who killed my friends.”

My whole world feels like it shrinks to a cold pinpoint. “What do you mean?”

“He killed them,” The guy swallows. “I don’t know how, but he and his friend killed my friends. They told me to leave the party and I did, I was so scared - and since that night I haven’t been able to get a hold of any of them. Not Tommy, or Alan, or Mendoza -“

He squeezes his eyes shut.

“Maybe they just…went on vacation?” I try.

“All of them? All of them at that party except me?” He wrings his hands. “No way. I called their parents, their girlfriends - but no one remembers them. No one except me. That silver-haired guy did something. I know it sounds crazy, but he killed ‘em and made everyone forget. You gotta get away from him - he’s dangerous.”

Lit from behind by the dying sunset, my eyes work their way up Dane’s shadow, to his boots, his long legs, his sinfully cut torso, to the hollows of his collarbone and finally - at last - his feral, unreadable, face.

-9-

“I’m your Brightness source, aren’t I? The least you could do is tell me what’s going on,” I shout, trying to keep pace with Dane as he lopes ahead of Quinn and I over the garden path. We pass the dragon statue, its huge teeth and wild eyes amplifying all the unsettling feelings that’ve come loose in me.

“There are some things your voracious human brain doesn’t need to know,” Dane calls back, his voice an irritated gout of flame in the cold night.

“Then I’ll just get Quinn to tell me.”

Dane rounds on us all of a sudden, holding one finger up at Quinn. “You will not tell her, or by the Bright Lady I will cross teeth with you.”

It must be a serious fae threat of some sort, because even stoic Quinn looks surprised at it. He inclines his head, blue curls bobbing.

“As you wish.”

“So no one’s gonna tell me?” I throw my hands up. “I’d love to know if you and Altair are actually gruesome murderers or not.”

“Which is exactly why you can’t know,” Dane throws my dress bag onto a chair roughly. “You’re here for one reason, and one reason only - to feed us. Our pasts, our presents - none of it matters. In the wild of the Bright Place we were able to survive fairly, but here, in Van Grier’s world, we have to hunt or we deteriorate. That’s the bottom line.”

“So you’d rather kill people than ‘deteriorate’?” I frown. “It doesn’t kill you, right? Vil said he can’t kill you, unless he links you to a human.”

“We don’t die,” Quinn says softly beside me. “But we can lose our minds.”

“Blood and Brightness,” Dane snarls. “Without Brightness we starve, but without blood we go mad.”

“Going without blood is much worse than going without Brightness,” Quinn agrees.

“Then you…you and Altair really did kill them.” I look at Dane, my stomach sinking, but before I can say anything more his head snaps up and his gaze is so sharp and furious I swear it cuts across the skin of my cheeks.

“You’re here to feed us. Judgments, opinions, meddling - anything else from you doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is your Brightness.”

It hurts. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does. Quinn doesn’t even try to deny it, just standing there with his passive face glued to a distant oil painting as Dane’s cruel words ring. I knew that’s how he thought of me all along - how they all think of me - but hearing it said in the open is more devastating than it should be. I clench my fist and draw an ounce of strength from it, enough to storm away with my bags - leaving the dress he bought me behind in the cold chair as a last, petty ‘fuck you’.

I throw everything on the bed and collapse face first on it, my whole body trembling.

Dane refused to admit it, but that’s as good as an admission. He and Altair killed my upstairs neighbors. They killed people. People I knew - hated, but knew. And how hard could I really hate someone, when all they did was play loud music and smoke? They weren’t bad people, they were just…people, in all their terrible, contradictory, fucked-up glory. I didn’t like them, but the thought of them dead -

A soft padding alerts me to Sir Charles coming in, and a soft ‘whuf’ as he puts his head on the bed beside me. A huge wet spot nudges my side. At least I have him. At least one fae in this place likes me for who I am, not what I can give.

I roll over to face him and cling to his warm, soft fur for a scrap of comfort among all the monsters in the garden.

****

In the morning I have work, and when I call for a fae it takes almost twice as long as usual. Finally, Altair comes to my rescue, whisking me away to the restaurant. As our shoes beat the morning pavement, I debate asking him about the upstairs neighbors. But the second I think it, I see his usual smile fall into a grim line.

“I’m sorry, May,” He starts. “Dane made me promise not to say anything about it.”

“Goddamn him!” I kick a stone as hard as I can. Altair sighs.

“I think he thinks he’s doing what’s best for you. Which is weird because Dane doesn’t actually care about anyone but -“

“ - Himself,” We both finish, and despite how serious the subject matter is, we manage to grin at each other.

“Why would he think it’s best for me?”

“Because humans don’t take well to the idea of us killing them,” He says. “Fae are more used to it, I think, because we live so long and have more time to incorporate it as part of our culture.”

“And because the blood from it is necessary to keep you sane,” I add.

“Yes,” Altair’s dark, star-streaked eyes get a little dim. “That too.”

“But,” I reach far back in my mind, to what Vil said. “The Bright Place was closed off from the human world at the turn of the century. So what did you guys do for blood during a hundred years without access to humans?”

“What we’ve always done. Kill each other.”

I blink at how casually he says that. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Each other,” Altair insists. “That’s our traditional source of blood.”

“And you…bathe in it like Lady Bathory?”

“We have to drink it,” Altair winces as I wince. “See? I told you humans don’t like hearing about it.”

“Vampires,” I muse, remembering what Quinn told me about all the names we have for fae. “That’s why Quinn said we call you guys vampires. How do you guys dictate who gets killed? Or is it random?”

Altair opens his mouth, then freezes. “Oh no, May, you’re not fooling me with that.”

“With what?” I play innocent. “It’s not like I’m asking you to betray Dane’s trust and tell me about my neighbors - I just want to know how you determine who dies in general. Call it morbid curiosity, or a desire to make sure I’m not next in line for the chopping block.”

“Please, May,” Altair sighs. “Not today. Or ever. Just let it lie, okay?”

“So you think I’m better off not knowing, too?”

“No,” He stops at the doors of the restaurant and ruffles my hair. “I just think if you don’t know, it’ll be easier on your soft heart, is all.”

“You’ve got a softer heart than I do.”

“Maybe,” His smile returns ever-so-slightly, and he waves. “Have a good day at work. I’ll come get you after.”

And he does, and when we get back I settle in the feeding room, the house fae coming in quietly and invisibly. I pick his herbs - dried lily and pink Himalayan salt and bergamot. It’s strange to see the house fae’s body in the water, the imprint of his legs and butt very clear there. He’s small, maybe half my size, with huge feet and hands he keeps to his sides. It’s even stranger to feel him - he’s done a great job of making sure he and I never physically touched or collided while we were together.

“The more I think about it, the more you’re like Dane’s opposite in every way,” I laugh. “He dresses like he wants to be seen, you keep yourself invisible. He talks too much, you don’t talk at all. He always tries to touch me, and you don’t invade my space in any way. You respect me as a person, he doesn’t. You’re way better than him.”

The hands in the water give a nervous flop, and I brush my fingers over his long ears - real fae ears, the sort I expected to see on pretty much everyone here in the Bright Place, and yet saw on no one at all. Even now, I can only feel them - the tips of them long and soft but still pliable.

There’s a high, soft squeal, like a mouse surprised, and when I move to the other ear it happens again and I realize the house fae is doing it.

“Oh, so you like your ears being fed, huh? Good to know. It’s the least I can do after all the times you’ve fed me.”

The house fae is definitely the most polite fae I’ve fed, and when he leaves the same way he came - invisibly and quietly - I wait for Barnabus. He’s late, so I pace the feeding room back and forth and think.

Dane doesn’t control me. He tried to choke me, he’s been nothing but rude to me the whole time I’ve known him - he doesn’t get a say in what I can or can’t know. And that’s final. Accepting my upstairs neighbors were killed by Altair and Dane is one thing - knowing why they were killed is another. There has to be some metric by which the fae choose their blood; but deep down I know that’s just the human in me talking. I don’t want to think the fae choose random people to kill to survive, or even random other fae. That’s…too cruel.

It just shines a big fat spotlight on the fact the fae are so different from me, and I know so little about them. If I could actually read the fae books in the library I might get somewhere, but unless I get some Brightness that lets me do that or I get really smart overnight, that’s not happening.

The door suddenly bangs open, and an invisible hand grabs mine.

“Whoa, what’s going on?”

The house fae says nothing, but he yanks my hand towards the door, making high-pitched squeaking sounds. Something must be up - he’d never grab me otherwise.

“Okay, lead the way.”

The house fae tears out of the pool room and down the halls, running straight for a dead-end wall.

“Uh, Mr. House Fae?” I pant. “I’m a college sophomore - I don’t have that kind of insurance!”

He doesn’t veer off course, and I try to pull away but his hand is insanely damn strong for his size. I shut my eyes and dig my heels in and pray.

Nothing. Nothing hits me, and I open my eyes to another long hall in front of us. I whirl around as the house fae yanks on me to start moving again - there’s the wall we should’ve crashed into. But behind us, now.

“Did you make go through that?” I whisper. The house fae just squeaks so loud it hurts my ears and pulls at my hand, so I keep running with him. Whatever’s wrong must be very wrong.

The trail of blood on the marble floor of the main hall tells me it is. It seeps through the front door, spattering on the marble walls and statues and coming to a stop in one giant pool, where a huge, hulking thing that looks like a rock rests. But then I see it’s got legs, and arms - skin like granite and moss growing in spots.

“A fae?” I wade through the blood pool - still warm. “Hello? Can you hear me? Where are you hurt?”

“Hurt,” A gravelly voice so deep and loud it shakes the flowers in their vases and my heart in my chest. The rock thing shifts, massive arms weakly trying to lift itself up, but collapsing under its own weight, sending a spray of blood and pebbles up. “Everywhere.”

Shit - this isn’t good. I don’t know crap about healing fae - only feeding them. I turn to where I think the house fae is - he’s left little footprints in the blood.

“Go get the high fae,” I say. “Quick!”

The bloody footprints sprint away down the hall, and I put my other hand on the rock fae.

“It’s okay, he’s gonna be back with help. Just hold on.”

“Who…” The gravelly voice struggles. “Are you?”

“I’m May,” I smile.

“The…Brightened feeder,” The voice sighs. “I am…Barnabus.”

“Nice to meet you, Barnabus. You’re, um, just in time for your appointment.”

A low rumble that almost sounds like a laugh vibrates the marble. I do my exam-trained best not to panic as we wait and he slowly bleeds out. Vil said Barnabus keeps Monster Garden protected from other fae - is that how he got these wounds? Protecting us?

“What in the Bright Lady -“ Altair’s voice. I whip my head around to the three pairs of footsteps coming down the hall; Dane and Altair, the house fae trailing behind them.

“Barnabus!” Dane’s eyes go wide, and he collapses in the blood next to the little rock outcrop that must be Barnabus’s head. Dane darts his gemstone eyes over to me with a snarl. “What happened?”

“I don’t know! The house fae came and got me - I found him like this.”

“Dane,” Barnabus groans. “Shadow fae.”

Altair walks around Barnabus with a serious look on his face, waving something like a glowing ball of light in his hands over Barnabus’s rock skin. Dane slams his fist in the blood puddle at his knees.

“Fuck! Why the hell are they coming after you?”

“Strange,” Barnabus croaks. “Collars.”

“Collars?” I frown. “Like ours?”

Barnabus shakes his head, and I can see his face now - his eyes two literal gemstones; two beautiful tiger’s eye gems. His mouth is a long gash in the stone, rimmed with orange crystals like a geode seam.

“Copper,” He says. “Copper and…spiky.”

“A Brightened,” Dane hisses, thinks, and then leans in to Barnabus. “Are you sure the collars weren’t platinum, with indents?”

“Sure,” Barnabus asserts. “Copper and spiky.”

“He’s been drained of almost all his Brightness by the shadow fae,” Altair says, extinguishing his light orb by crushing it in his hand, the light scattering in all directions. “Dane, we need to get him in the tub and have May feed him immediately. And he’ll need blood if he’s lost this much already.”

Dane rises to his feet, his long tan coat stained with blood on the ends and his beige leather pants likewise ruined. He narrows his eyes at Barnabus.

“Then I hunt.”

“Not alone,” Altair insists.

“Alone. You get him into the tub - it’ll take you and the house fae to do it. I’ll pray at the altar and find him blood. Just make sure he gets fed.”

“Dane, it’s too dangerous,” Altair argues. “If there’s a Brightened out there commanding shadow fae -“

“There’s no time,” Dane barks. “Bring him to the tub, and then patrol the perimeter. They could still be nearby.”

My own blood starts rushing like a pump - danger? Definitely danger, right? If a fae comes in here and tries to hurt me, or anybody else - all I know how to do is knee them in the balls. I never even got in a cat-fight in high school. Goddamnit, I should’ve taken that ten-dollar judo class! I expect Altair to argue with Dane’s commands, but he just gnaws his lip and finally bends, pulling Barnabus’s arm over his shoulder as the other arm rises, the house fae pulling that one up too. Dane shoots me a venomous look.

“If you fuck up, I’ll have your head.”

And with those gentle words of encouragement he draws his sword and furiously marches out the front door, leaving bloody footsteps behind.

****

I follow Altair and the house fae as they drag Barnabus’s huge body down the hallway to the pool. The house fae stops every so often and leads Altair to a wall, and with a wave of his bloodstained, half-invisible hand, we can all walk right through it. I expect it to feel cold, or at least hard, but it feels like nothing at all - just a wall one minute and a hall the next.

Both Altair and the house fae struggle audibly, their breathing getting ragged.

“Is telekinesis not a fae power?” I ask, trying to pick up one of Barnabus’s huge stone legs to help and utterly failing. He’s almost as heavy as my student debt loans. Keyword here being almost.

“I’m not the best at it,” Altair grits through his teeth. “And even if I was, I’d be afraid of subjecting him to a violent magic while his body is in such a fragile state.”

We finally get to the pool room, and I dash in front of them and hold the door open. Except Barnabus is definitely not going to fit through the usual glass door. The house fae has them covered - phasing Barnabus’s huge shoulder through the glass door and the walls attached to it.

I lunge ahead and make sure the tub is full, and my stool is ready. The house fae phases Barnabus through the wall and the tub instantly expands to a massive size and fills with hot water. Altair helps Barnabus into it, the rock fae’s body making a huge splash.

“May, hurry,” Altair says, a rare nervousness in his voice. And that makes me even more nervous. I look over the shelves, but I can’t smell anything distinct - is it because Barnabus is so weak? Or on the edge of death or something? That thought gets my anxiety working overtime.

“May -“

“I’m trying!” I interrupt Altair. “But nothing’s jumping out at me. And he needs the herbs, Vil said that. You need them for the feeding to work and if I don’t pick the right one he’ll die, won’t he? He won’t get fed and he’ll die and it’ll be my fault -“

I feel a hand on my shoulder, broad and warm. Altair smiles next to me, dark hair and olive face drenched with sweat.

“I know you can. Dane knows you can.”

“Dane’s going to take my head off -“

“He wouldn’t have left Barnabus’s feeding to you if he didn’t trust your abilities,” Altair corrects me gently.

“But -“

“He would’ve force-fed Barnabus some of Vil’s emergency Brightness. But he didn’t. He left him to you because he thinks you’re good.”

“And stupid.”

Altair chuckles. “Mostly good.”

I hear a soft squeak on my other side, the dried blood on the house fae’s feet showing me exactly where he stands. A pale pink face suddenly fades in, lined with a thousand wrinkles and framed with two long elfish ears. His bright blue eyes blink out at me, all four of them - almost like a spider - his faint pink eyebrows drawn as tight as his little bow-like red mouth.

He’s showing himself to me. To encourage me.

He’s counting on me. Barnabus and Altair and even Dane. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Smell. Smell alone, my gut alone, nothing else. No thoughts, no worries, just scents. I can smell coffee and honey and pepper and -

It hits me like a hook in a fish’s mouth; there! An overwhelmingly strong scent of oregano and tarragon and bay leaves and I reach out for the dish, dashing over to the tub and dumping it in. The scent disperses almost immediately, and I put my hands on what I think is Barnabus’s stone belly and splay my fingers wide. The urge to go fast is killing me, but I remember what Altair said; Vil does it too fast. It should be like an embrace, like a kiss all over. If I go fast it might not sink in, so I force myself to go slow and steady, covering as much as I can see - his stomach, his legs, his arms and thick neck. His tigers eyes are unmoving and dimmed, so dim I can barely see the beautiful streaks of amber and gold there. He’s not humanoid as much as he’s human-adjacent, like someone who’d never seen something walk on two legs before took a boulder and roughly chopped it into the shape of a monstrously bulky man. His skin is rough and cool no matter where I touch - worn smooth by rain and cracked apart in places by frost like any rock might be. He’s got moss patches everywhere, and in the center of his chest is a strange, closed bud. The moss that patches his skin feels pitted and tender, and I yelp in surprise when it starts to grow right before my eyes.

“Holy shit -“

Moss tendrils slither over my hands, not keeping me in place or stopping me or anything, but more like a passing handshake, or a curious poke.

“May, look,” Altair’s voice interrupts. I look up to him, where’s he’s pointing to - the giant bud in the center of Barnabus’s chest has come apart, unfurling slowly to reveal a deep orange flower with a cheery yellow center. And like it’s a cue, Barnabus’s tigers eyes flood back to life, all the color and luster in them returning at once. They swivel in their sockets, focusing on me.

“Oh,” His deep voice makes the water in the tub ripple like crazy. “That’s better. Thank you.”

Altair pats the top of Barnabus’s head. “You’re back, buddy.”

“Yes,” Barnabus sits up in the tub, the water sloughing off him and splashing all of us. “I’m sorry for worrying you. And getting you wet.”

Altair and I laugh, all our relief coming out at once. A string of frantic, high-pitched squeaks comes from the side of the tub, and Barnabus reaches out one of his three stone fingers to the house fae.

“Hello, little friend. Don’t worry anymore. I feel very good.”

The house fae lowers his voice until his squeaks are just grumpy titters.

“I know,” Barnabus sighs, the sound like a far-off avalanche. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Altair insists. “Dane went to get you some blood. Stay here until he comes for you, okay?”

“Okay.” Barnabus nods. Altair looks to me.

“Watch over him, alright? I have to patrol the perimeter.”

He makes for the door and I call out; “Be careful!”

“Sometimes,” He agrees cheerfully, the door sliding shut behind him.

“I should go too,” Barnabus starts to stand up.

“No way! You heard him - you have to rest. You need blood!”

“But I don’t want to make Altair face the shadow fae by himself.”

“Neither do I,” I flick my hand around in the tub water. “But we have to. I can’t fight and you’re in no condition to fight, so.”

Barnabus considers this, then stands up. “I go.”

I don’t have super strength - I can’t make him stop. But I can fling myself around his leg and yell.

“You can’t go!” I clutch the stone tight. “If you die out there Dane will take my head off! Please! I like my head! It gets dandruff sometimes and these killer frontal lobe migraines but I’m paying a lot of money for it to learn cool things so!! Pleaseeeee, Mr. Barnabus!”

It takes a second, but Barnabus finally sits back down, the water sloshing up my jeans and down my bra when I don’t let go of his leg fast enough.

“Just Barnabus is fine,” He rumbles. “No mister.”

“Barnabus,” I try. “You’re not a guard fae, are you?”

He shakes his rock head, which looks more like a slow pivot than anything else. “No. Land fae.”

“Oh, neat. Well, thanks for guarding us all this time,” I squeeze the water out of my shirt.

“This is my land,” Barnabus rumbles. “Not guarding you. Guarding land. From before Silvertongue came.”

“Silvertongue?” I cock my head to the side.

“Man who talks well, with the silver collars.” He points to his own throat, and a sliver collar just barely sticks out from between the rocks of his neck.

“Oh, you mean Van Grier. He fooled you into a contract too, huh?”

Barnabus’s geode mouth pulls into a distinct frown. “Yes.”

“How?” I’ve never asked how - the high fae never offered to tell me. I guess talking about your enslavement isn’t high on the list for most sentient beings, so I backtrack. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just curious how he got so many of you. You’ve got to put the collar on of your own free will and all.”

Barnabus shuffles in the water, and next to him the blood-footed house fae makes a sound like someone hitting rock - he patted Barnabus, maybe? I perk up enough for the three of us.

“Vil’s giving me money. So I can go to school and get a degree in what I want.”

“What’s that?” Barnabus asks, his tigers’ eyes curious. “A degree?”

“It’s a little piece of paper that you sweat blood for,” I say. “You study really hard and take a lot of tests and show some experts you know what you’re talking about in a certain subject. Like, um, math! Or history! And then they give you a piece of paper that you can show other people that lets them know you know what you’re talking about.”

Barnabus’s geode mouth makes a big ‘o’, the orange crystals glittering like teeth. “I see. But…paper? They should make it out of stone. Lasts longer.”

I laugh and lean against the tub, the last of my nerves working out of me. “I agree.”

“What do you want to get a degree about?”

“Psychology, mostly!” I exhale. “With a minor in law. Psychology is the study of the human psych; you know, our feelings and reactions to things, and how we remember stuff. Law is just….laws.”

“You like laws?”

“I like learning about them, mostly. And helping people. So.”

“You helped me,” Barnabus says. I wave my hand at him.

“Don’t mention it. It was your feeding time, anyway.”

“I was in a dark place,” He mutters. “I couldn’t hear or feel. And then I heard your voice. I was afraid you’d run away, but you went very slow and waited for me. Thank you.”

I was going to feed him fast, but I didn’t. I fought against my gut instincts, and hearing him say that makes me think it was the right thing to do. I’m so glad I chose right. I’m so glad I was able to chose at all, instead of being frozen by fear. I smile at him, a single wisp of a hot tear in my eye.

“You’re welcome.”

-10-

The house fae tries to go get me something to drink, but I won’t let him leave - too afraid the shadow fae are roaming the mansion to let him out of my sight. He could probably easily go through the wall, but he doesn’t, staying with me and Barnabus as we talk about Earth and human oddities, like trains and cookies and toasters. He can’t seem to get over the fact the toast jumps out on its own, even after I’ve explained what a spring is to him. I keep one eye on the door, every shadow and unexplained noise is a fae coming to kill us, but I try not to show it on my face, try to keep up the conversation if only to keep myself distracted.

My phone’s clock still works, mercifully, and I constantly check it. Ten minutes. Twenty. When Dane walks in a half-hour later, he’s covered in red. His tan outfit is soaked with dark, grim splatters of blood, but the places where he bares his marble skin - his biceps, his stomach - the blood there is so bright a red it hurts to look at. I recoil back instinctually. His chest heaves like he’d run here, and he wipes some blood off his chin with his fist, gemstone eyes skittering over me and settling immediately on Barnabus. Barnabus makes a slow geode-smile at him.

“Dane! Welcome back. This girl fed me.”

“I can see that,” Dane looks at the blooming flower in Barnabus’s chest. “Is the madness loud?”

“A little,” Barnabus shakes his head. “But talking with May has kept it quiet.”

Dane darts his eyes to me. “The only place you’ll be safe while we clear the perimeter is your room. Go. Don’t let anybody in.”

I want to snark something to him about how he sounds like my dad, but I’m so exhausted - my arms and legs feel like lead and my throat is sore from talking - that I just stand up and shuffle out past him. There’s no corpse behind him, so whoever he killed - whoever Barnabus is going to drink - is somewhere else. I can hear the house fae’s feet pattering behind me, and in a daze I barely make it to my room, the house fae righting me when I stagger and giving me his short shoulder to lean on. Once we get to my doorway though he stops, and I flash him a smile.

“Thanks.”

The house fae makes a faint chirp, and I push into my room. Sir Charles’s head shoots up from where he was sleeping on the rug, and I’m instantly grateful he wasn’t out fighting against those shadow fae with Barnabus. He noses my hand and I pet him with one tired stroke. I make it as far as stripping my filthy, blood-stained clothes off, filling the bath up, and sliding into it before my eyes start to rear back in my head. The steam, the hot water against my sore muscles - it all starts to fade to black.

“…beast….little beast! Wake…wake up!”

I groan, my eyes fluttering open to the sound of a voice and Sir Charles whining. Outside the window it’s night, and I’m freezing my ass off. Why is everything so cold - I look down into the cold bath. Right-o. Guess I’m the sort of girl who falls asleep in the tub, now. Sir Charles sits next to me, wagging his tail and flattening his ears to his head.

“Little beast!”

I follow the voice to the open bathroom door, and beyond it my open room door, where Dane’s tall frame stands, a single gemstone eye glaring out at me.

“What are you doing in there? The house fae said Sir Charles told him you’ve been in there for hours.”

Still drowsy and exhausted, I wave a hand for him to go away. “So what? Close my door, you perv.”

“If you’re going to sleep, get in bed.”

“You’re not my dad, dad,” I mutter, my eyes rolling back in my head again, and I lean on the enamel. I hate admitting it but he’s right - I should get out. I’m cold and pruney. But my body is so goddamn heavy - heavier than trying to lift Barnabus’s foot. Sir Charles nudges my hand, and I can’t even move it to pet and reassure him.

“You’re really going to sleep in a cold bath?”

“Why do you care?” I try to lift myself out with my arms, and I should care if Dane sees my naked ass but at this point I’m too tired and that should’ve been my first tip-off that something’s wrong, but it’s not because I’m dense as brick. My arms give out, and I slump back into the water.

I hear a footstep, and then a sizzling, and then Dane’s voice comes out all wrong - weird and desperate.

“Give me permission to come in.”

“No, because I’m going to get my period and then you’ll kill me.”

“Do you have it now?”

“No.”

“Then let me come in. You’re obviously not capable of getting to the bed on your own.”

“I’m not an old lady,” I snap. “I can do it. Just give me…a second…”

The blackness starts to creep again. Why am I so tired, and tense, and heavy? My brain tries to grasp at something from school - shock? Everything happened so fast, and I wasn’t even the one who was attacked - I didn’t see anyone attacked, I just kept watch in the feeding room. Maybe this is part shock, but not all of it; I’ve never in my life felt this tired before, not even when I was doing lacrosse for seven hours a day.

“I can’t get out,” I groan. “I’ll just drain the water and sleep here.”

“Don’t be moronic,” Dane snarls. “You’ll catch a cold! Let me in and I can help!”

“Fuck you,” I murmur, mustering all my energy just to pull the tub’s plug. I’ve got to look so fucking pathetic to him right now. “You can’t trick me.”

“It’s not a trick, Bright Lady damn you!”

With all that’s left in me I get to my knees, clinging to the side of the tub and pushing myself up. I’m almost there - one step and I’ll be out -

My foot slips on wet ceramic.

I feel myself falling in slow motion, but the second I hit the tub time speeds up; my ribs catch the worst of it, and my own cry sounds distant in my ringing ears. Pain like white lava in my ribs, and I curl up in the tub and cling to myself. Sir Charles loses it, whining and scrabbling his paws against the tub, like he’s trying to help me out of it.

I’d love help. I’d love for Dane to be anyone but Dane, to come in here as anyone but his cocky, arrogant, asshole self and help me out of this cold hell and to the warm, soft bed. I want nothing more than exactly that -

Someone drapes a towel over me, the dryness a welcome relief from the damp, and then I’m being lifted, the heat of someone pouring into my side as they carry me in a towel cocoon in their arms. I squint through the rapidly-forming bruises on my ribs - white hair with one lock hanging over the forehead, gemstone eyes, a profile like a dagger and a jaw like a razor.

“Dane?” I mutter. “How -“

“Intense want can be as good as permission,” He says, voice rumbling through his chest and into mine. “If you silently want a fae bad enough, they can breach the premises. For a limited time. It wears off, so don’t give me any shit.”

“Too late,” I bury my nose in the towel and chant; “Shit shit shit shit.”

“Thanks,” He scoffs.

“I’m heavy, aren’t I?”

“It’s taking all my fae strength just to keep both of us upright,” He drawls lightly.

“Screw you.”

“Are those the only two words you know? Fuck and screw?” He puts me down on the bed so gingerly I’m almost fooled into liking him as a person for a second. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were the dashingly handsome fae who haunts a particular club for the finest women the city can offer.”

Sir Charles trails behind us, silently. Dane’s making jokes - is he not mad about me wanting to know stuff about their blood-getting anymore? I manage to get enough energy to be ashamed of how I look - half-swaddled in a towel, most of my naked bod on full display for him to see and make fun of in all its freshmen fifteen glory, in all its torpedo-boobs-since-middle-school glory and too-big hips and—

But he isn’t saying anything. He isn’t even smirking or making lewd comments like he usually does. My eyes travel down the hem of his black leather pants - he’s taken a bath and changed out of the bloodstained stuff, at the very least. He’s wearing a white dress shirt, the cuffs rolled up and the top buttons undone and his white-blonde hair slicked back, that stubborn forehead lock tamed for the moment. A few silver rings adorn his fingers, and he smells like rosemary more than anything else.

“Going somewhere?” I ask tiredly. The azure parts of his eyes are brightest today and they glimmer down at me, his long lashes so incredibly dark compared to the rest of his hair. I’m so tired his glamor doesn’t even get my blood throbbing - but I’m not tired enough that I can’t appreciate how beautiful he is.

“I wish I wasn’t.” He says it without an inch of his usual lascivious purr. There’s something like….honesty? From him of all fae? And while I thought His Horny Highness would drink in the chance to look at naked flesh - any naked flesh at all - his eyes haven’t roamed once from my face. He’s staring at just my face and for some reason it’s making me squirm.

“O-Okay well,” I clear my throat. “There’s the line. You’ve crossed it. Again. Get out.”

He jerks the comforter and sheets back from under my legs and throws them over me, the silk and cotton and goose down a warm, welcome whisper on my bare skin.

“Thank you,” He says. “For feeding Barnabus.”

“You care a lot about him, huh?” I ask wearily.

“He helped me, when I was…younger.”

“And stupider. And probably prettier.”

My eyes flutter shut, but I hear him laugh - soft and gentle (gentle? Not him) - and then nothing but black.

****

ALTAIR

After today’s scare, we all need a drink.

Dane perhaps a bit more than the rest of us.

I watch him slink to the bar, where Quinn’s been working all night. He wasn’t there for the scare because he was setting up shop here, but Dane and I filled him in when we first set foot in Seventh Circle. Quinn might pretend he’s not interested in anything, but all eight of us high fae were forced in this together the moment we agreed to Van Grier’s contract. The second the roots of our rose plants touched Monster Garden’s soil, we all had to start caring.

Quinn’s never been good at it. Dane cares too much. And me? I like caring. I like it in a way none of the other high fae do - Sythiel can’t stand me for it, and neither can Axel.

Sythiel. I rub the rim of my white russian and wonder where that green-haired bastard is right now. Off doing some mission for Van Grier, no doubt. Sythiel’s ability to locate Brightened on Earth is probably invaluable for hunting down Giselle - the Brightened who Van Grier considers his ultimate enemy. Right now, Sythiel’s somewhere on Earth fighting her and her army of Brightened, but for once I wish he was here with me, drinking and laughing at this table like the old times. Our binding under Van Grier has never been pleasant, but there’d been times it felt a little easier, and drinking at Seventh Circle was one such time.

Now it’s only Dane and I. Well, just me, really, because once Dane finds someone pretty he’s missing in action for the rest of the night. I wish I had his balls - he makes walking up to totally random strangers look easier than a spring breeze. He’s currently attached to a gorgeous brunette with legs to die for, the two of them sitting in a corner booth, and while they aren’t doing anything up top I’m absolutely positive she’s got at least her foot on his crotch and the moment I think that he dives into her neck fiercely, scraping his teeth on her with more desperation than usual.

“Oh Dane,” I sigh. “The day you learn restraint is the day I’m dead.”

I don’t know who the altar showed him he had to kill to help Barnabus, but it must’ve been bad. Dane would never tell me it’d been bad, of course - he might be easy to anger but he’s terribly slow to lean on others emotionally. I’ve seen him do it a grand total of twice in five eras. The eight of us used to joke he was a cyborg from a human TV show that’d gone haywire and gotten unpredictable.

Whoever he killed, it was bad. And I know it because I know that face of his. He’s wound so tight around himself one wrong move and he’ll shatter. I don’t know how he let himself get this bad - usually he takes care to unwind here at the club with a human, or by himself in god knows what forsaken corner of this city doing Bright-Lady knows what. He’s as diligent about it as Quinn is about running the bar, or I am about lazing about and doing nothing at all.

I’ve never seen him this worked up - not in the five eras I’ve known him.

I decide to wait until his chosen lady for the night gets up to use the bathroom. I watch her sparkly sequined dress go, and slide into her seat.

“Get out,” Dane sighs, nursing his seventh gin and tonic of the night. It takes a lot to get a fae hammered, but he’s putting work into it.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are you going to make me guess?”

“If I was a human you could just read my mind,” He snorts.

“But you aren’t. So I’d appreciate a little help.”

“Bright Lady, you’re so fucking nosy. Have you always been this nosy?”

“You’re just mad I can read you without needing my powers.”

He buries himself in another belligerent sip of his drink, his eyes flashing out at the dancing crowd over the rim of the glass. All of us are pretty equally handsome in my opinion, but Dane shines brighter than all of us in places like this - dark places that carve out his cheekbones and sharp, thick, brows where he keeps all his sloppily-disguised emotions. Where I melt into the dark, he burns bright in it. He always has.

“Brightness overdraw,” He finally grunts.

“Come again?” I tilt my head and fiddle with the end of my sleek braid.

“Brightness overdraw,” He repeats impatiently. “If a fae is near death they soak in far more Brightness than they need to compensate.”

He’s undoubtedly talking about Barnabus. “Where did you learn this?”

“The house fae showed me some Old Helnesa rune books. Apparently Van Grier has some in the library. The house fae pulled one out and showed me that particular passage when that girl didn’t come out of the tub for six hours.”

“You can read Old Helnesa?” I blink.

“You can’t?” He frowns. I stutter suddenly;

“W-Wait, six hours?”

Dane nods and downs more gin, lazily sliding the ice around with his tongue in a way I’m sure drives the ladies wild. “Barnabus didn’t know it, but he took nearly all her latent Brightness in one feeding.”

“And he’s a land fae,” I muse. “He needs a lot to begin with.”

“The book said -“ Dane bites down on an ice cube, hard, flinching with it. “ - it said severe Brightness overdraw can kill a Brightened feeder.”

My heart nearly stops. May - our strange, sweet, naive May - dying? I stand abruptly but Dane pulls on my sleeve to get me to sit again.

“Don’t. She’s in bed. She needs rest.”

“And how do you know that?”

“The book said so.”

“No, I mean how did you know she’s in bed?”

He glowers at the leftover ice in his cup like he wants it to disappear. “I put her there.”

“She let you in her room?” I raise a brow. “You tried to choke her.”

“She wanted me,” He scoffs defensively, half-under his breath. “So I was allowed to walk in.”

And suddenly, all the pieces of the Dane-puzzle start to fall into place - his tightly wound body, his keener desperation than usual, the way he keeps glowering at his goddamned ice. But he can’t. He knows that. We both know that.

“She hates you, Dane,” I say softly. Dane leans back in the booth immediately, slamming his glass down.

“I know that.”

“She’s a human, Dane.”

“I fucking know that, too.”

He knows better. We both know he does. Dane isn’t the one to fall for humans - he uses them like tools, specific contraptions to ease his suffering. Axel is the one to lose his head over a pretty mortal body, Ioriss is the one to write love poems and songs for them. I lost my heart two times over two beautiful men long dead between the centuries. Even before we were captured by Van Grier, before the Bright Place was sealed off, Dane was the only one of the eight of us who never fell for a human. He never made our mistake. He loved a fae once, a long, long time ago. We all did, and her name was the Bright Lady. But he never strayed from loving her, never looked at another since her ascension.

Until…

“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” Dane rips into me. “Like you pity me.”

“I’m not. I’m just thinking. It could be a passing fancy,” I find my voice. “Like this young lady you’re here with tonight.”

Dane doesn’t say anything, and that’s how I know he’s really in trouble.

“She not even your type,” I mutter to myself half in awe. “She’s single-minded, and bizarre, and I can assure you with the clarity only mind-reading can afford me that she’s had no previous experience with intimacy -“

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Sometimes,” I smile. A sultry voice in my head starts talking about how sexy Dane is, which means his partner’s headed back this way. “Listen, it’s time for me to vacate, but we’ll talk about this later, okay?”

He just grimaces, and I get up and walk into the club feeling more apprehensive than when I patrolled the grounds today for shadow fae. Quinn motions me over to the bar, and I approach.

“That’s his eleventh drink overall,” Quinn polishes a glass methodically. “I’m cutting him off, but I need you to be here when I do.”

I sigh and nod, knowing what he means - Dane hates it when Quinn tries to do what’s best for him. And anyone, really, but mostly Quinn. He tries to fight him about it, on occasion. They’ve never gotten along, partly because they’re polar opposites and partly because they both loved the Bright Lady possessively and with all their hearts. And when two men love one woman, they never really forgive each other. It takes a great swallowing of the pride to forgive, and Quinn and Dane are the least capable of that out of the eight of us.

“He told May to feed Barnabus,” I say. “Not knowing it would -“

“Brightness overdraw.”

I frown. “How do you know that?”

“He’s got the book in his coat pocket,” Quinn puts the cup down and starts drying the next one. “I’ve been reading through the pages when drink orders get slow.”

“Damn,” I spin a coaster around with one finger as I pout. “Why am I the only high fae who can’t read Old Helnesa?”

“If I remember right, you were off conquering the northern shadow fae while the Bright Lady taught us.”

“Ah,” It comes back to me. “That’s right.” He slides me a whiskey sour and I sip at it. “If only things were as simple as back then.”

Quinn lets out a breath. “A hundred-year-long Unification was hardly what I’d call ‘simple’.”

“But it was straightforward, wasn’t it?” I put my glass down. “Unite all the fae in the world, get them to obey a single set of laws so they’d stop killing each other and ruining the land. We were on the side of good, back then.”

Quinn is quiet as a girl flounces up to the bar and orders a tequila sunrise, her thoughts practically shrieking about how beautiful Quinn is, how badly she wants to get his number. Quinn feigns obliviousness to it all as he usually does and mixes the drink deftly, the golden juice mating with the red syrup in a beautiful splash of color. He slides it to her and looks back to me with his ice-coated eyes.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in our eras alive, Altair,” he starts softly, and even with my fae hearing I have to strain to hear him over the thumping music. “It’s that good and evil are convenient labels we slap on things to make ourselves feel better.”

I look down at my sour, but he keeps on.

“There is only survival,” He says. “Surviving, no matter what the cost.”

“Even if we have to kill other fae for it? Van Grier’s going to link us to May and make us fight, Quinn. Is it still worth the cost even if -“ I swallow, the whiskey’s bitterness clinging to my tongue. “- we have to go back on our word to the Bright Lady to protect all fae? It was our final promise to her -”

“That promise is what bound us to Van Grier in the first place,” Quinn cuts me off coolly. I’m silent. It’s true - we all know it’s true - but that doesn’t mean I have to like hearing it said out loud.

“Van Grier has us,” Quinn says. “But Giselle has the courts. Van Grier can send Sythiel out all he likes, but it’s only a matter of time before they overpower us.”

“May could feed us all,” I interrupt. “Her Brightness is strong -“

“Even all eight of us active wouldn’t be enough to keep all the Bright Place’s courts at bay. You know that best of all.”

I do. In my early days, when the Bright Lady was still trying to recruit me to her cause, I fought against her with my court, and my court’s allied courts. I nearly destroyed her and her six high fae followers, and had it not been for the Bright Lady’s uncanny ability to worm her way into my heart, I would’ve.

“Then what do we do, Quinn?” I ask.

“We escape Van Grier’s binding.”

“How?”

His ice-eyes melt on the edges as he wipes down the counter with deliberate strokes. “I don’t know.”

A Brightened binding is stronger than the tides, than the rotation of the moon around the planet. It binds all fae who agree to it absolutely. It’s unbreakable.

We’ve bound ourselves to unbreakable chains.

-11-

MAY

I wake up and I’ve never been hungrier in my life.

Okay, that’s a lie - when I was a baby I was probably turbo-hungry all the time. But right now I come pretty close, as evidenced by the fact my entire stomach is trying to eat the rest of my organs via osmosis.

I sit up straight in bed, marveling at the fact being hungry actually woke me up for once. Usually, when things got too tight on the budget, I’d just go to sleep instead of eating, and that kept me occupied until morning. But even then I was never woken up by my stomach grumbling. As if on cue, a silver tray tinkles in the hall and my door opens, the house fae wheeling it over the doorway as an offering.

“Holy shit yes,” I hiss, stumbling out of bed and over to the tray, Sir Charles loping behind me. My legs still feel like they’ll give out under me, but at least I can propel myself forward on my own now. Whatever hit me last night isn’t gone, but it’s fading. I rip off the lid of the tray - slobbering down the lamb-and-mint sausage patties and sweet buckwheat porridge with chocolate shavings. I’m halfway through a glass of orange juice and a bowl of perfectly ripe strawberries when the house fae makes an inquisitive little squeal.

I can sort of guess what’s he’s asking. “Oh I’m fine now, thanks. I think I was just tired yesterday.”

He makes more squeals, but I don’t understand any of them. I finish the strawberries and smile.

“Thanks, buddy. You pretty much saved my life. And my dignity. Did you hear how loud my stomach was rumbling?”

The house fae titters more, and I smack my hand to my forehead.

“Shit!” I clamber over the silk couch and yank out a fresh pair of shorts from my dresser. “Today’s the whole dormant high fae feeding day, isn’t it? I gotta go!”

I feel a yank on my shirt when I dash outside my room and into the hall, and I stagger back to look at the house fae and his invisible hand crumpling my shirt up. He squeaks again, this time sounding a little sadder.

“Hey, I’ll be okay,” I smile. “It’s safe to go out now, right? And I’m just fine now, see?”

I flex like a body builder for him, striking tough poses with all my muscles so he doesn’t worry. It seems to work, because he lets go of my shirt and squeaks resignedly.

“You can come along if you like!” I shout as I shakily run down the hall, stopping every so often to re-balance myself on a table or a statue. Sir Charles follows me at a brisk trot, tail wagging like crazy. We pass the entryway, the blood trail all cleaned up. I try not to look at the fancy bag with the dress in it Dane got me, still sitting forlornly on the chair.

The house fae doesn’t come along, no footprints following me in the luscious grass lawn that leads from the house and into the garden, just Sir Charles’s paw prints and my own pair of converse.

Everything’s fresh and green, no sign of a struggle, no blood out here. Wherever Barnabus was attacked, it must’ve been farther out into the garden, at a different angle, and maybe even that’s cleaned up too. I stare out at the magnolia trees in the distance and wonder where Barnabus is right now - it should be easy to spot such a huge, distinct fae walking around, but maybe he’s got camouflage powers or something.

I’m alone in the garden. Well, not alone, but Sir Charles is too busy chasing his own tail to really be considered company. It’s a heart-stopping walk, in a good way, with all the flowers and fountains. A spate of maple trees in the distance have started to unfurl their huge green leaves, and the sunflower patch has grown so big and tall and vibrantly yellow it’s like staring into the actual sun.

I pick my way over to the eight glass domes, resting on a bench every so often to give my legs a break. The huge bruise on my ribs from falling in the tub last night makes it hard to breathe too deep, so I don’t. The tub, Dane wrapping me in a towel and pulling me out of it, the way his deep voice reverberated through my chest, the way he placed me down on the bed like I was made of glass instead of bone and flesh -

I shake my head and my cheeks are warm. Stupid beautiful afternoon sunshine.

Feeding - that’s what I’m here to do, not think about useless shit. I tell Sir Charles to wait outside the domes and approach them. White, black, blue, green - those are the four roses I don’t need to feed. I head over to the butter-yellow rose’s little glass house, and open the door by the delicate gold-plated handle. Inside it’s a lot warmer than outside, and moister. I fan myself with my shirt collar and walk towards the plant in the center of the circle of dirt.

It’s not as tall as the other rose plants, but it grows wide, spreading out over the dirt in all directions. I walk up to the yellow rose and marvel at how perfect it is - no brown spots, no withering, just a flawless sun-yellow rose as big as my head. It’s thorns are stubby and rounded, almost incapable of hurting me at all, but I still take care not to touch them. Who knows - the fae inside might hate his thorns being touched. So I reach up and tenderly stroke the first petal I see. Van Grier said to do the petals, which means the petals might be the torso equivalent of humanoid fae. One petal, two, my fingers shaking as I work, scared one sharp move might rip or tear the beautiful flower.

Doing every petal would be too much, but I don’t know how much or when to stop. It’s not like the rose can tell me it’s full with words.

Except it doesn’t need to.

When I reach the first petal of the inner ring of the rose, it starts to glow. All of the petals seem to unfurl a little wider, a little larger, and pulse with a warm white light.

“Wow,” I whisper. “You look like a bunch of giant, flattened firefly butts.”

The glow instantly stops, and I sputter.

“Wait! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that - you’re very pretty!”

There’s a beat, and then the glowing starts up again. I laugh - is this fae vain or what? I guess he can hear me - if it is a he at all.

“Okay, well, that’s it for this week.” I pat one of the vines by my feet. “I’ll see you later.”

Just before I turn to leave I hear a slithering and a soft pressure against my ankle. I’m extremely ready to kick it and yell snake, but I look down to see one of the vine’s grown long, a smaller, but just as gorgeous yellow rose budding right before my eyes.

“Oh wow. Neat trick.”

I try to take another step, but the vine instantly grows long around my ankle. Half-tripping, I pull my foot out.

“Is this…for me?”

As if in confirmation the vine grows up, offering the rose insistently. I bend and pick it, the stem giving away easily, and I turn my smile back to the big rose.

“Thanks!”

I tuck the rose in my flannel pocket and start over to the next dome. The orange rose with pink streaks mirrors the most heart-stopping sunset, and its petals feel so soft it’s like stroking velvet. It has these super neat curlicue thorns, and it grows in a perfect diagonal line upwards to the top of the dome. It’s got a much sweeter perfume than any rose I’ve smelled before - like overripe nectarines and strong, sugary lemonade.

“You’re awfully alluring, aren’t you?” I mutter as I stroke the petals. “Just who are you trying so hard to attract? There aren’t any bees or butterflies around, you know.”

Just then, the orange rose starts to glow like the yellow one did, but unlike the yellow one, a bunch of its petals suddenly fly off. Not fall - fly. I start to think I’ve done something wrong but the petals join up in pairs and start to beat like wings - perfectly imitating butterflies. A pink-streaked orange cloud of mock-butterflies floats around the dome glowing brightly, and my breath feels frozen in my throat like the first time I ever went on a roller coaster, or the time I got my first goldfish as a kid or the first time I held my college acceptance letter in my hands - pure uncertainty mixed with delight.

“Holy crap, alright sweetheart,” I whisper, one of the butterflies landing on my hand with a featherlight touch. “You’ve impressed me for sure.”

The petals return to the rose, settling back into their proper places like they never moved to begin with. The glowing fades and I make a bow before I leave.

“I’ll see you next week for another show.”

Sir Charles trots over to me and sniffs my yellow rose, and I pat his head. “You bored yet?”

He barks, except it’s more like a ‘bork’, and he tears off into the distance, completely ignoring my yells for him to be careful. Oh well - it’s hard to be really worried about him when a fully-fed Barnabus is patrolling around out there. I’m pretty sure Barnabus could crush anybody with his right hand Mortar and his left hand Pestle. Which I just made up. Note to self; maybe don’t tell go around naming fae body parts after human tools just because you think you’re clever. Addendum; Dane’s dick is now called the Eggbeater.

I whip my head around, paranoid he’ll be behind me and hear that, but there’s nothing. Just me and the garden and the roses. Which I’m grateful for, considering I don’t know how I’d act if he waltzed up right now. It was easy when he was just an asshole, but now he’s done something mildly nice for me and now it’s harder.

Who am I kidding? He probably just did all that last night as part of his apology he’s struggling with. He probably thinks we’re even now, and he’ll go right back to being an ass to me and everyone else in the conceivable universe.

I sigh and head towards the light purple rose’s dome. This one’s an odd one - it’s not low to the ground like yellow, and it’s not tall like white or orange or red. It grows round, as if it’s mimicking the dome itself - a perfect sphere of vines beneath a perfect sphere of glass. It’s almost uncanny how perfectly roundly it’s grown - and if I didn’t know it was sentient I’d probably think it’d been put under a case while it grew to maintain that dome-like shape.

The second I reach out to touch the petals the vines shrink in on themselves, enclosing the rose inside an impenetrable fortress of short, triangular thorns. It has so many thorns - even more than the white rose does, all of them crowding the surface of the vines until there’s no blank space left.

“This thing might as well be under the protection of the FBI, at this point. Hah,” I chuckle nervously to myself. “Get it? Point?”

The purple rose isn’t as nearly amused with my joke as I am. It has a faint scent to it, not totally invisible like the yellow roses’, but not as strong as orange. It smells softer, older.

“Hey,” I squat down to the dome’s level. “You okay? You’ve gotta be hungry, right?”

The dome tightens further, so tight I can barely see the purple petals anymore. The idea of putting my hand in that thicket of thorns makes me wanna hurl, but I don’t have much of a choice - if it won’t come out, I have to come to it.

“Okay,” I breathe in and hold it, sliding my hand into the only space big enough to reach the rose. The dome tightens on me, the thorns digging into my wrist like a bracelet of shark teeth, but I grit out; “Take my whole wrist off. That’s fine. But I gotta touch you, or I can’t feed you.”

I push forward, the thorns digging into my skin and I can feel them tearing away ribbons of it, thin lines of warm blood oozing up.

“It’s okay,” My voice is shaky, and I’m trying to comfort myself as much as the high fae. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t promise I’ll never hurt you, because sometimes I hurt people on accident -“

The thorns tighten, burning like salt in a paper cut. I grit my teeth hard.

“- b-but I can promise you, pretty thing, that I’ll never do it on purpose.”

More pain, the whole world is just burning teeth in my wrist but suddenly, it all gets faint. The dome relaxes its grip on me, thorn-teeth pulling out as it loosens just enough for me to touch its petals. I smile, relief and adrenaline coursing through me.

“Thanks, I appreciate it. I know trusting people is rough - shit, I still have problems with it too. You’d think at nineteen I’d be over it but nope; surprise! I’m still a Suspicious Sally. An Immature Isabel, if you will.”

It’s slow going as I work my hand through the bush’s tiny openings, and sometimes all I can do is stroke the petals with the very tips of my fingers. But finally, with my whole body aching from contorting myself to fit in the bush, I see the telltale faint glow in the pale purple petals. I stand up, brushing dirt off my front as I throw the rose a grin.

“Cool. I’ll be back next week, okay?”

It’s hard to resent a rose as pretty as this one, or any rose that’s actually a fae. They’ve been bound for three years now; I’d be ready to lash out at anyone too, especially when Van Grier was the one who fed me and he sent someone new in - someone who could be as equally cruel.

My mind flashes back to the night I met Dane and Altair - I did try to stab Dane with a broom handle, didn’t I? He insulted me first and choked me later, but still. I probably shouldn’t have done that to begin with. I should’ve been the bigger person and just walked away.

Too late now, I guess.

I step into the red rose’s dome last. Immediately I notice the difference between it and the others - instead of a bunch of vines growing all over the place, it has one single vine as thick as my whole torso spiraling up to the ceiling. Its thorns are huge and few and far between. There’s no way I can reach the blood-red rose all the way up there.

“Hey!” I call up to it. “If you could come down just a skoosh that’d make this a lot easier!”

The rose doesn’t move an inch. No, wait - it does, just one inch, down towards me, with a hundred more inches left between us.

“Great,” I flash an unenthused smile at it. “Thanks.”

I look around for some kind of ladder, but there’s nothing. The garden’s benches are stone - too heavy to drag in here. There’s not even a bucket of fertilizer I can turn over and stand on. Just as I’m considering calling Sir Charles in and standing on his back, the thorns catch my eyes. They’re really huge, so big I bet I could fit a foot on one of them. And if I was careful, I could probably pull myself up with the other thorns, if I avoided the very tips.

But it’d be a long fall down.

“I’ve gotta feed you,” I roll my sleeves up. “Because I’m getting sixty-thousand dollars and I’ve fed everybody else and if you think you - the last one - is gonna make me roll over, you better start thinking better with that flowery brain of yours.”

The rose is utterly unmoved by my threats, so I set my lip and start to climb. One foot, two foot. Red foot (that’ll be bloody and severed if you slip), blue foot (if you fall and break it). My arms are still weak but not so weak I can’t edge myself higher bit by bit.

“Why couldn’t you just be like orange?” I pant, so high up now I refuse to look down or to the side or anywhere but straight up at my red-petaled goal line. “Show me some cool butterflies instead of trying to make me take the plunge to my death? I’m not a fucking fae, you know - death’s sort of a big deal for me!”

No movement whatsoever, just that brilliant crimson rose swaying slightly with my momentum against the vines and mocking me.

“Fine.” I square my shaking shoulders. “Thanks for the workout. I needed it, anyway.”

I somehow get to the top, clinging with all my breakfast-strength to the vine for dear life. It’s thinner up here, and so are the thorns, but they’re still thick enough to balance on. My slightly bleeding wrist from the purple rose aches, but I reach my hand out and trace over the red petals and for a second I forget how hard I’m sweating and how tired I am - they’re like silk, sleek and ephemeral and the more my eyes drink in the red the more I’m hypnotized by it. It’s such a classic, strong color, the most red I’ve ever seen something be, like God himself painted this one with the pure idea of the word ‘red’, with the red of the very lifeblood of the planet itself.

“There, see?” I wheeze. “N-Not so bad, is it?”

It takes a second. But like a delayed, long-thought-out response the red rose finally lights up, and I’ve never been more relieved to see anything glow in my entire life.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I flinch at the deep, serrated voice. Dane. Knowing I can’t look down, I hug the vine and clear my throat.

“Hi to you too. How’s the weather down there?”

“Weather? You’re dangling twenty-five feet in the air on nothing but vegetation and you want to play coy with me right now?”

“I-I’m fine!” I insist. “What’s your damage? It’s not like I can’t get myself out of this.”

“Can you?” He snarls. “Can you without falling straight down and snapping your legs in half?”

Suddenly the vine shudders beneath me, and I clutch it and squeeze my eyes shut. Is this how I die, bucked by the red rose like a skittish horse? But when nothing happens I open my eyes again, only to see the long straight vine squat and in a perfectly curlicue, like a pushed-down spring. The ground is a foot away, and I jump off, collapsing to my knees with gratitude for the feeling of solid earth beneath my feet.

“T-Thanks!” I call up to the red rose, anything to put off facing Dane standing right behind me.

“At least Axel had a single shred of sense in him. You, on the other hand,” Dane scoffs, and I feel his arm tugging at mine. “Get up.”

“Stop!” I yank my arm from his. “Stop being an asshole again.”

“You -“ Dane sputters, then rakes a hand through his hair. When he talks again, his voice is tempered. Not any less angry, but a lot less inflamed. “You can’t do things like that.”

“Why not? I had to feed him -“

“If you die, you can’t feed anyone.”

“I wasn’t going to die -“

“You could’ve asked for help,” He cuts me off.

“From who?” I snap.

“Anyone! The house fae, Barnabus, anyone. Anyone would’ve been preferable to you climbing that thing on your own and risking your li-“ He stops. “ - your Brightness.”

“Why do you care?”

“Why do I care? It’s not just yours, you slow little beast; it’s everyone’s.”

“I’m not like some…some drug you can just pass around,” I retort, my whole body flushing with anger. “My Brightness is definitely mine, and I can do whatever I want with it, and if that means I wanna climb up a giant vine to feed a high fae then I’ll do it, and you can’t fucking stop me. You can stop me from knowing stuff about fae but you sure as shit can’t stop me from doing what I want!”

I’m so mad I’m breathing hard, and the smell of him floods me - strong gin, sharp and juniper and that distinct musk I’d catch on people coming in late during class and on my freshman roommate when she forgot to febreeze the room - sex. He probably just got back from whatever lady’s house he spent the night at.

“I would’ve helped,” Dane finally says through gritted teeth. “If you’d asked.”

“But I didn’t. Because you weren’t here. Because the idea of asking for help from you is impossible.”

“I helped you last night, didn’t I?” He counters.

“As part of your egotistical attempt at apologizing. Because you want me to speed up your feeding. There’s a bunch of reasons you’d help me and all of them are selfish.”

This makes his brows furrow even harder, his expression sharpening to that sword-like glare. But I won’t let it scare me. My blood races at the sight of that look, my body aching for him to press me against the glass dome and slam every bit of his flaming irritation into me - I cut myself off with a mental stone wall. I won’t let his glamor turn me on, here of all places, now of all times when I’m making myself clear.

“You try to decide what I can know, what I can do, what I can wear, even!” I regret the last one the second it comes out - he’s never done that. But I’m too far in to take it back and he’s just bought me the one dress and I really do like it, but it comes attached with so much of him. “I’m not your little doll to control just because I can feed you! I’m not going to tolerate being ordered around just because I’m a human and you’re fae! You’re not better than me!”

“I never said I was,” He snarls.

“Well you sure as shit act like it!”

There’s a moment where his gemstone eyes flash dangerously, and his glamor surges over my mental stone wall and all I want are his lean, long fingers undoing the button of my jeans, skimming the heat of my underwear over and over until I can’t take anymore and start to beg - he can hear me, can’t he? He can hear every second of this and I hate him for it, hate me for thinking it, hate him for existing, hate myself for meeting him in the first place -

It’s a kiss, my first kiss, but it feels more like an explosion of lips and teeth and tongue, his hand on my chin and my hands around his neck, pulling him in close, so close I can smell someone’s perfume on him and I hate it, hate the way he tastes like bittersweet rosemary, hate the way his tongue darts like lava into my mouth, searing me all the way down to my core and leaving a scorched path in its wake that aches with ash, wanting to be filled again and again. I bite into his lower lip, demanding more, thinking I can goad him into giving me more, even if I’m nowhere near as beautiful as the woman he’s slept with - the women he sleeps with - even if I’ve never done anything like this with anyone before I want to do it with him, even if I wish I didn’t want to I want to, holy fucking shit I want to -

He breaks off first - violently, like an earthquake splitting away from itself - and I stumble. By the time I’ve caught myself he’s gone, out of the dome, striding away on the lawn like hellhounds are on his ankles.

Everything catches up to me and I sink to the ground and lie there; a molten pool of a girl, the smell of dirt in her nose and the taste of rosemary on her bruised lips.

****

It takes me a good ten minutes to work up the energy to stand on my own two legs again. Ten minutes to trundle back to the mansion. Five minutes to make it to my room and collapse on the couch. Seven hours to get over what just happened.

Dane kissed me. I kissed him? I don’t know who started it, but we kissed.

I ran cool water over my lips to try to ease the throbbing at first, but even now they still hurt, faintly. A sick, twisted part of me relishes the pain - it’s the only reminder of what happened. Every time I accidentally lick my lips I relive the taste of Dane, the velvet feel of his hot mouth on my own. Just as hot as a human. Just as soft as a human. Not that I would know, but -

I try to dig my grave in the couch cushions and shove my head in there.

My first kiss - the thing I’d been thinking about since I hit thirteen, the thing I doodled about in old diaries and tried not to think about in high school - gone. Done. Over with. Given to a beautiful fae.

Under the influence of his glamor.

There’s no doubt all my feelings were just induced by his glamor. It took me over so suddenly and totally - I’ve never come (haha, me) close to feeling that way about anybody. The feeling in the rose dome hit me out of the blue like a ten-ton truck of bricks getting dumped over my head. Yeah, I’ve had the occasional sex dream about hot actor guys, and every time I masturbate it’s to some nameless hot dude. But sex dreams and fantasies have nothing on that feeling. I’ve never felt that way about anyone in reality, that all-encompassing fever-pitch of need and want.

It has to be his glamor. There’s no other explanation. His glamor sunk into me so deep today it pushed past how much I hated him.

He basically magically tricked me into kissing him, didn’t he?

Everything I said in the argument comes back to haunt me as I stare up at the gold-etched ceiling. I said some stupid shit. So did he, but that’s his deal. I can only apologize for what I said. Some of it wasn’t fair. Most of it was.

“Anyone would’ve been preferable to you climbing that thing on your own and risking your li-“ Dane stopped. “ - your Brightness.”

Risking my li? My life. Had he been…worried about me? Was I so mad at him I just assumed he’d been yelling at me for selfish reasons? No - he‘d corrected himself. My Brightness. That’s all he’s interested in, that’s the only reason he’d worry. He doesn’t give a shit about me, as long as I feed him.

Which I still haven’t done. Which is tomorrow.

And tonight is the linking ceremony. Vil will be home any minute - he said it’d take place at sunset, and it’s nearly seven. I check my phone, thanking the weather information that stocked days in advance; yup, sunset’s at 7:45. I’m still amazed weather information for Earth works for the Bright Place, but go figure. They must be linked up somehow.

With more pressing matters than the weather on my grubby hands, I bathe and choose the most comfortable outfit I can to prepare for whatever this ceremony is; a white t-shirt and a plaid skirt. It’s a little too 90’s, but it’ll do.

I know Vil’s home because Sir Charles vanishes from my room, immediately running out and not coming back, his tail between his legs. Vil’s probably called him. Damn - I hate Vil for it and the way he’s chosen to use it, but a Brightness with the ability to bind fae to your will if they agree to it is incredibly useful. I mean, mine is too. But his is objectively stronger overall. And crueler. I don’t want to be mushy and say feeding someone makes them your friend, but I feel like it’s a better way to go about asking fae to do stuff for you than, you know, ordering them to without their choice in the matter.

In the end, I didn’t discover anything about Vil while he was gone. No secrets, nothing that could help me undo his bindings on the high fae. And now that he’s back it’s going to be a hundred times harder to find anything, if there even is anything.

“There you are, May.”

I look up to see Vil standing in my doorway, his tan even tanner against his white suit and brown hair. He crosses the threshold easily - and I didn’t realize how weird it would be to see that after only keeping company with fae for a few days. Everybody else in this house has to linger in the doorway. Everybody except him.

“Hey, Vil.” I try to look relaxed. “How was your, uh, trip?”

“Just fine,” He seats himself across from me on a love seat. “I stopped in the garden to look at the high fae roses - I must admit I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. Did you see Barnabus?”

“Yes - he told me all about how you fed him after the shadow fae attack.”

“Right but…why did the shadow fae attack?”

“I’m still looking into that,” Vil muses behind his hand. “Though, as I told you before, many people aren’t happy I’ve bound the eight high fae. It could be an attack by the fae themselves. Or it could be Giselle.”

“Can she also order fae with her Brightness?”

Vil’s mild brown eyes flash up at me. “Her Brightness allows her to inspire them. Which, in many ways, is more useful than my ability to bind. Binding requires much feeding, which is why I hired you. Before you came, I was nearly taxed to my limit. But Giselle has no such limitations - she can inspire legions without having to take on the burden of their feeding. A very dangerous ability, to be certain. Then again, she can’t command them directly as I can.”

“So each Brightness has like, strengths and weaknesses,” I frown. “So what’s mine? The strength is obvious, but the weakness?”

Vil seems to consider it, then stands up abruptly. “You should prepare for the linking ceremony. It’s to take place in the garden, in the eastern pavilion.”

I won’t let him off that easy. “What’s the weakness, Vil?”

“Hrm?” He looks up, as if he was thinking. “Oh, my apologies. I have no idea what your Brightness’s weakness is. I’ve never met anyone with a Brightness like yours before.”

I deflate a little, and he waves his hand.

“Either wear something with a lower cut on the chest, or something you don’t care about.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’ll need access to your chest.”

“Oookay, that’s not ominous at all,” I mutter as Vil walks out the door. Something with a lower chest cut, huh? My mind immediately flashes to the dress in the hallway. It’s the lowest cut thing I own. Well, sort-of own. I still think of it as Dane’s, mostly. Not that he’d ever wear it. I imagine him in it and start laughing - he’d probably look better than me.

But my laugh lasts about as long as it takes for me to lick my lips and feel the bruise on them, and the kiss comes flooding back. He’s going to be at the ceremony, isn’t he? Fuck. Fucking shit on a cheese stick. How am I supposed to face him with that hate-kiss between us?

You could try ignoring him for once, I coach myself. Yeah right. All he has to do is walk into a room and my whole body goes on edge like a terrified cat puffing up. A cat that also happens to be in heat.

I’m still feeling bad about the unfair thing I said to him. He doesn’t try to control how I dress. That was just me projecting. Maybe, if I can’t apologize for that shitty comment directly at the ceremony, maybe I can show him I didn’t mean it.

But if I wear the dress, it’d be like accepting the it as a gift once and for all. Accepting that I’d put something he gave me on my body. It’s a stupid pride thing, I know, but when it comes to Dane all I can do is cling to my pride, or what’s left of it after his glamor ravages it.

“No, May,” I sigh. “You did wrong. So make up for it. You can’t tell a high fae how to apologize and then not do it right yourself.”

I’m right. Thanks, me.

No problem, me. PS. If you kiss Dane ever again I’m divorcing you.

****

The house fae comes to get me at 7:45 right on the dot. He squeaks a little when he sees me in the pastel pink dress, and as he leads me down the hall I feel something playing with the long train of the skirt.

“You like it that much, huh?” I laugh. The house fae squeaks embarrassedly and puts the skirt down, his huge feet imprinting in the carpet as he marches ahead of me like he’s determined to pretend to be serious. He leads me to the front door, where a beautiful blood-red sunset leaks into the sky.

I walk the rest of the way on my own. It feels like a walk to the gallows, sort of, if the gallows were a ring of four men in black suits standing in a circle under the big white marble pavilion covered in night-blooming jasmine. I swallow hard when I see them all wearing masks - regal, terrifying masks of gold that obscure their faces, stopping halfway for their mouths. But by now I’ve learned their body types, and their eye colors are too distinctive not to recognize. Altair stands on the left, shifting nervously from foot to foot, his black, star-studded eyes softening when he sees me. Quinn stands on the right, pale ice-blue eyes watching me boredly, like he’s over it already. Vil stands in front, holding what looks like a bouquet of roses in his hand - one light purple, one red, one green, one yellow, and one pink. And Dane stands at the stairs, welcoming me in like a grim specter, his dark suit hugging every plane of his lean body and his gemstone eyes unmistakable through the mask. And unreadable. They’re flat, empty, so different from the anger or disgust for me that’s usually there. My lips throb just looking at him, the memory of the kiss still jagged and fresh. He flickers his gaze once - up and down my body - and I wonder if he realizes what I mean at all by wearing this dress. Or is it a stupid thing to think, that he’d get it without me telling him?

If he does get it, he doesn’t let it show. Vil steps forward and clears his throat.

“Here, Miss James. Stand in the center of us.”

I walk up the stairs carefully, my converse padding gingerly past Dane like he’s a sleeping tiger. If we so much as touch I don’t know what will happen, anymore, even with three other people here. We might kiss again, or we might kill each other. No one knows - least of all me.

Every movement of Vil’s is calculated - he places the roses at my feet like a halo, and I’m the center of it. No one moves, Altair doesn’t even say something comforting. The ritualistic air of it all unnerves me, sets all my teeth on edge. I want someone, anyone to make a noise, to break the suffocating silence as Vil works.

He reaches out to me and touches my silver collar softly. And then he steps back, reaching into his suit jacket pocket and procuring a flask. He offers it to me.

“Drink this. The whole thing.”

“Is this part of the ceremony?”

“No. But you will need it.”

The ominous tone in his voice takes me from anxiety to full-blown panic. Booze is in a lot of rituals, right? Wiccan, Shinto, hell even Jesus made water into wine. In the old times people gave other people alcohol before painful things. My brain faintly puts two-and-two together, but by the time it does I’ve already drank the entire flask. The world spins pleasantly, and I don’t feel quite real anymore, like my body is half ghost, half not my own. Whatever was in there was strong. Maybe too strong. I manage to stay still and standing in the rose-ring, though.

“Altair first,” Vil says with practically no emotion. Altair walks up to me, his dark eyes shining through his mask with something like remorse. He leans into me, putting his hands on my hips as he says softly;

“I’m sorry, May.”

Before I can ask why his head descends to my neck, my shoulder, to my collarbone and then below it, in the center of my chest just above my dress’s lace edge. His lips rest there, and I try to move but I can’t - my arms and legs like stone, my head the only thing I can control at all. I tilt it down to look on in horror as a pair of long incisors - so long, so much longer and thinner and sharper than all those vampires in movies, like snake fangs - grow from Altair’s lips before my eyes, and I understand a split-second before it happens.

I should scream. I know I should - the pain is enough to warrant a scream. But all I can manage is an almost soundless gasp. The two points of his fangs bury deep in my chest, and it hurts so incredibly bad he has to be puncturing my heart. Faintly, I can feel his warm tongue lapping along the holes, drinking the blood that’s coming out.

Dizziness swarms my vision, so intense I barely register Altair pulling away from me, his chin smeared with my blood and his eyes flinching. The pain he inflicted suddenly lifts, though my dizziness doesn’t. Vil says something like ‘Quinn’, and I brace myself too late - his blue-curled head descending so fast and his fangs puncturing hard - mechanical almost - none of the hesitant gentle push of Altair’s. Pain all over again. His warm tongue drinks, and then he pulls away, pale eyes swimming in front of me with something like a shred of regret and one of his blue curls stained red. The pain subsides, and somehow it’s worse that it does before the next puncture, when it fades and the pain comes around again it’s like experiencing it for the first time - brutal and mind-numbing.

Nothing prepares me for Dane. As usual.

The tears have started in my eyes, either out of shock or fear at my impending agony - I can’t tell. They well up and spill over one-by-one, making it even harder to see his face. The streaks of azure and emerald in his eyes blur together, and I feel his hands on my hips and even here - even in the middle of total torture his glamor tries to pull me under - however faintly.

He takes his time, and I hate it. His fangs grow long before he ever reaches my chest, scraping them against my throat with soft but insistent pressure. He feathers his lips against my neck and brings them down and if I wasn’t forced still I would shiver but I can’t, and he pauses in the crook of my neck and lingers there. For a second it’s just me and him quietly breathing in each other’s scents and warmth and then Vil barks for him to keep going and the way he imprints two soft kisses on either side of my collarbones before sinking lower feels like an apology -

Needles puncture me down to my marrow, the twisting in my chest so hard this time it rockets up my brain stem and the world goes black on the edges. His tongue is white-hot, languorously sliding over my wounds and all at once the pain pierces through my paralysis and shudders my entire body violently, and his hands move from my hips to encircle me - steadying me, pulling me close against him. He lifts his head and rests his mouth on my ear.

“It’s over. It’s done. You’re safe - no one will hurt you anymore.”

And just like that the paralysis gives me back my body and I slump into him, the pain evaporating but the tears remaining and staining into his suit. The sunset over his shoulder is nearly gone, as is my grip on consciousness, and I faintly feel one broad hand on my head, stroking my hair soothingly.

“You did well, my little beast.”

-12-

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. But here I am, sick and tired.

Dane tries to carry me back to the house but I worm my way out of his arms and start off on my own. I pray he doesn’t follow me but he does, loping along at my side.

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“You’re very obviously not fine,” He counters. I look down at my slightly-bloodied chest, where six perfect holes make a halo around the center of my breastbone. They’re healed up and browned like old scars, like they’ve been there forever instead of just a few minutes.

“Don’t you have to go and fight that lady, now?” I snarl. “Just leave me alone.”

He’s quiet, but his footsteps never stop parallel to mine.

“You could’ve told me,” I whirl to face him. “You could’ve told me that’s what the linking ceremony was.”

“I couldn’t, actually,” He snarls, touching his hand to his throat where the silver collar rests. Van Grier must’ve made them keep quiet about it - but why? Probably because he thought I wouldn’t go through with it if I knew it meant getting bitten in the heart by three long-fanged fae.

I let out a heavy breath. “Right. Sorry. Getting mad at you over something you can’t control is shitty of me.”

He’s quiet again, and it’s weird but I don’t say anything. We’ve been through a lot today, we’ve bashed against each other a lot today, and maybe he’s feeling just as exhausted by it as I am.

“The dress,” He starts as we make our way up the mansion steps. “It -“

He covers his mouth with his hand, and I frown.

“Something wrong?”

“No, I - I never said it looks very nice on you. It does. So. There.”

It’d be a half-assed compliment from anyone else, but from the guy who’s been doing nothing but calling me ‘slow’ and a ‘moron’ with a prideful face this compliment combined with his awkward slight embarrassment (Dane? Embarrassed?) might as well be a diamond in the rough. Somehow his embarrassment rubs off on me, too, and I flush, finding words hard all of a sudden.

“T-Thanks.”

We walk together into the main hall, and the house fae appears instantly, tugging on my hand.

“What is it?” I start to panic. Dane clears his throat.

“He says its dinner time.”

I breath relief. “Is that all? Don’t scare me like that, my guy.”

I suddenly realize I’m ravenous and let the house fae drag me to the dining room. Nothing like a bit of rich food to cover up latent trauma, am I right? Dane follows, and when I turn my head back to him to ask why he’s following me when he doesn’t need dinner, he looks away.

“I could use a chair to sit in,” He says gruffly. I look around at the dozens of chairs pushed up against the hall and blink.

“Um. Okay.”

I sit at my usual place at the long table, the house fae bringing me tray after tray of deliciousness; deep-fried calamari with a citrus dipping sauce, lettuce wraps with ground pork and ginger and shallots, and an incredible dark seaweed salad that tastes exactly like the open sea smells. I dig in eagerly, everything messy and so delicious I forget Dane’s still here. Sitting across from me and a few seats down, he’s taken off his gold mask. I look up at him, expecting him to be disgusted, but instead he’s….grinning?

“You -“ He stutters, bursting into laughter. “You eat like a food goblin.”

“Thanks.” I frown into my lettuce wrap, trying suddenly to look graceful.

“No that’s - that’s a real thing,” He insists. “They steal human food and hoard it in hollowed-out trees, and when the tree gets full they sit down and eat it all in one night. They can’t digest it, so they just lay there for months while their bodies try to slough it off.”

“Huh. I admire the dedication.”

“You would,” He laughs again. Not a sneering chuckle, or a snicker, but that clear, full laugh that sends shivers down my spine.

“Hey, I happen to like food, okay?”

“So do I,” He says, in that certain way that implies he wants to know when he’s getting fed.

“Tomorrow, at ten a.m.” I sigh around a sip of water. He seems to relax a little more in his chair, leaning his silver-haired head back on the head rest.

“Tomorrow it is, then.”

Something lingers between us and I struggle to put a label on it. It’s not hate. It’s not his glamor either. I only know that right now, at this table, being in his presence suddenly isn’t like rolling around in thorns.

“I’m going to practice apologizing on you,” he says suddenly. Oh is he, now? I sit up straighter, but he just keeps staring at the ceiling with his head back.

I wait.

And wait.

And wait some more. The house fae brings out a plate of mochi ice cream, the adorable pink rice-dough packets brimming with sweet strawberry ice cream.

“I’m sorry.”

I dust rice flour off my nose and look up. No smirk, no sarcasm, not even a hint of belligerent bitterness. His voice sounds genuine - that same genuine I heard when he put me to bed from the tub.

“For trying to control you,” He continues, gemstone eyes still rooted to the ceiling.

“You weren’t, really,” I blurt. “Just the blood thing -“

“I was,” He asserts. “The blood thing especially.”

Dane, the arrogant fae I know and hate, admitting he was wrong? I’m almost tempted to pinch myself in case I passed out after the linking ceremony and this is a dream. One question rings in my head.

“Why?”

“Because I thought -“ He breathes out, his lock of hair fluttering. “I thought it would protect you.”

“My Brightness, you mean.”

“No,” He says simply. “You. Brightness be damned.”

My heart punctures through my ribs. And that’s when it hits me, and I laugh.

“Okay, yeah. I told you before; apologizing doesn’t mean you have to pretend to care about someone. Just care about being a good person -“

His head snaps down, gaze focused like an emerald-blue laser on me.

“I’m good at a lot of things, little beast - but I’ve never been a good pretender.”

I thought I knew what it was like to be afraid. But I realize now, sitting in this chair and staring at my half-melted mochi, a tornado of uncertainty and confusion swirling in my gut, that I never knew what fear really was. It’s submerging yourself underwater with a shark, it’s running into a burning building, it’s standing on a precipice and looking down, and right now it’s a long, long way to fall.

I don’t know what he means by all this. And part of me doesn’t ever want to know. I know how contradictory Quinn can be, how all fae can be. He doesn’t really mean what he’s saying, right? Or at least, it means something far less emotionally significant to fae than it does to humans.

To a human, just now it sounded like he admitted he -

I stand up, throwing my napkin down. “I-I’m super tired all of a sudden - I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He doesn’t stop me, but I can feel his eyes on my back the whole way down the hall, and it makes my heart beat harder than being struck by his glamor.

****

There’s a limit to how much my mind and body can take, and it was about ten miles back, a bright red line that I never should’ve crossed. But here we are, exhausted and sitting in this gorgeous bath that’s become my second home by now.

Away from Dane and his scorching eyes, it’s easier to be logical. He doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him. We’re essentially co-workers under the same shitty boss, but that’s about it. We have no shared interests, no similar hobbies, and today at dinner was the first time we conversed without ripping each other’s heads off.

So the fact I’m even entertaining the idea of what he said about wanting to protect me as true is bonkers bananas. It’s for my Brightness. It has to be. There’s no other option. I want to constantly jump his bones because of his faeromone glamor, and nothing more. He’s insufferable, he constantly interrupts me and makes fun of me and calls me little beast -

He called me ‘my little beast’ today.

I sink down in the tub and blow bubbles in the water grumpily, the hot water nowhere near as hot as my face. A thousand other things should haunt me in my sleep - the fact I was bitten in the heart three times today, for instance, the fact that the high fae are going to be forced to fight now because of the scars on my chest, the fact if Vil wants to threaten them with death he has to threaten me - but all that lingers are those three words. ‘My little beast’.

His. No one else’s.

It’s garbage of me to read too deep into it. It’s the sort of thing nervous girlfriends would do, and I’m neither nervous nor his girlfriend. Do the fae even have concepts of ‘girlfriend’? Probably not. It’s probably all orgies all the time. And if that’s the way they do things, more power to ‘em.

I sit up straight in bed at three in the morning, still thinking about it all. How dare he call me ‘his’, when I know he’s at Seventh Circle all the damn time screwing around? Maybe fae just don’t have a solid concept of monogamy? Or maybe my possessiveness is going off the charts for no goddamn reason at all? Yeah, the latter for sure. We hate-kissed. In the grand scheme of things, that means nothing.

I stare out the window at the moonlit garden outside and breathe out, long. Why the flying fish fuck am I letting a fae keep me up in the wee hours of the morning, thinking? Why am I losing sleep over someone who tried to freaking choke me? Who killed my upstairs neighbors and then made everybody forget they even existed?

Angry at myself, at him, at my stupid brain that can’t seem to get over the idea that he’s not an option and never will be, I roll over, chucking every thought that floats up into the dumpster of oblivion until I force myself to sleep out of sheer spite.

I thought the night was hard - the morning is way harder.

I nervously pace my room, chewing on a piece of raspberry jam toast from the silver cart. The house fae pours a cup of black tea and hands it to me, and I take it with shaking fingers, spilling some on the carpet.

“Oh shit,” I hiss. “Sorry.”

The house fae whisks it away with that magic napkin of his without a pause, making a tittering sound at me.

“No, I’m fine,” I sigh. “I’m just -“

I turn and look at myself in the full-length mirror. My outfit from yesterday - plaid skirt and white t-shirt. My hair brushed, my face greenish. God, why didn’t I go out and buy at least a little makeup after I got the twenty thousand from Vil? I look like death warmed over and left to rot in the sun.

“I shouldn’t be nervous,” I announce to the air imperiously, like it’ll help somehow. And it does, a little, but it only lasts until the timer on my phone beeps at 9:55 am. I jump to shut it off, and smooth my hair down. “Fuck. Fuck, okay. It’ll be fine. It’s just food to him. Just food. Just food.”

I repeat it quieter and quieter as I stiffly walk down the hall and make my way to the pool room. I thought I’d get there early and set up, but lo and behold, Dane’s outside the feeding room, sitting languidly in a chair. His black t-shirt and leather pants are simple, his combat boots loud as he stands up when I walk in.

“Am I too early?” He asks.

“N-No,” I manage, opening the door and slipping in. I grab my blindfold and pull the stool tubside, hiding my shaking hands behind my back. He follows after a second, running his fingers through his white-blonde hair and looking a little lost.

“Do I -“

“I pick out the herbs,” I blurt. “You just change and. Um. Get in.”

I hear the tub fill itself, the steam from the hot water making everything in here seem a billion times warmer, more suffocating. Was the room always this small? Dane pulls the hem of his shirt over his head and I dart my eyes away immediately - that sinful v of his pelvis laced with dark blonde hair all the way down is enough to send my head spinning.

No. No dirty thoughts, May. It’s just food. It’s just food, for fucks sake. Think about taxes. Horrible, awful taxes. Student loans. A weak job market waiting for you after you graduate - anything else! Anything other than the way his chest is smooth all over and sculpted where it counts and the way that v is like a delightfully svelte runway to his - HERBS. Herbs. I close my eyes and focus on the smells. Myrrh, tarragon - no, that’s too faint.  The metallic sound of him undoing his buckle, the thought of what he’s freeing with his long, graceful fingers and holy shit I need to change my fucking underwear already? This is so stupid, I’m so stupid for doing this, fuck the fae, fuck magic, fuck this stupid fucking fae magic that turns my body on its head. Taxes, goddamnit, taxes!!!!!

I desperately start filling out a tax return form in my head, line by line, number by number, the scent of cloves catching me fast and hard. Strong cloves and sweet orange flower and refreshing mint - not rosemary? How weird. I expected rosemary, but then again none of the other high fae have smelled like their feeding herbs. The combined smell is heavenly, heavenly enough to make me forget to put on my blindfold before I turn around.

I forget, but at least he isn’t facing me? No, that doesn’t make it any better because he’s fully naked in front of the tub, his ass and long legs and the graceful arc of his spine above it, and I blink because there, on the expanse of his beautiful back, sits scars.

Scars tissue, white and mangled, in dozens of perfect circles all centered on his back - some low, some higher up, but all of them the same size and circular, like he’d been -

“Impaled,” Dane answers my question for me in a tense, quiet voice.

“B-But - there’s so many of them -”

“Van Grier decided I wasn’t being respectful enough,” He murmurs. “Ash wood stakes hurt more than bullets for a fae.”

Stunned and brimming with sudden rage, I look away numbly as Dane lowers himself into the tub. I tie my blindfold and take five measured steps to my stool, feeling around for it and for the lip of the tub. I sit down and expect to hear him scoff, but he says nothing and that makes me even more nervous, somehow. All I can hear is the gentle water rippling around his body. The silence is killer, so I tilt the herbs over the tub’s edge and the smell soothes me a bit.

“He’ll pay for this,” I grit out.

“That’s what I’ve been hoping for these last three years,” He answers, sounding tired.

It dawns on me then. “Is that why - when I poked you with the broom -“

Dane’s quiet, and then; “It doesn’t excuse what I did to you.”

“No, but…“ Jesus Christ, if I had known, if I’d been impaled over and over as viciously as he had and someone lashed out at me with something resembling a wooden stake - he’s right. It’s not an excuse. But it makes more sense than before. Before I’d just pinned it on his anger issues, but lashing out at a perceived repeated threat - that’s more like PTSD.

“Enough living in the past,” He says, dully. “I’m starving.”

“R-Right.”

I push my rage at Vil to the back of my mind and focus on the task at hand. I can feel Dane even without touching him - just by being a foot or so away I can feel him like a pressure on my skin, a constant, pulsing block of heat just inches away from me. The scent of the bath’s cloves and his own rosemary scent combine into something heady and stronger together than alone. My hands shake, and I desperately try to still them before putting them on his shoulders, sliding them up the tub to steady them, over the lip of the enamel and onto the skin of his shoulderblades. Sharp shoulder blades, sharp and yet wide enough to feel like wings. His skin is so hot under my fingers, so much warmer than any of the other high fae, burning like smooth metal heated over a bonfire. I reach his shoulders and stay there for a second, feeling the way the muscle and bone come together and rise up into mirror images of each other. He isn’t soft like Quinn, or rough like Altair - he’s sleek, everything proportioned beautifully and in gradual increments of marble skin. I inch slowly up to his neck, thick and strong and ribbed with tendon on the side, and I can see it clearly in my head; that one tendon that always flares when he sets his jaw angrily.

He hasn’t made a single noise, not a single movement or a sigh like the others. He just sits, and suddenly I get nervous I’m doing it wrong, too fast, so I slow down even more, letting my fingers explore under his jaw, over the ridge of his Adam’s apple and up to his ears, faintly pointed and long. Nothing. No groan of approval, just heated silence.

The second my fingers slide into his hair I’m the one who makes a noise of surprise - it’s so incredibly soft. Nothing like Quinn’s or Altair, but soft compared to how it looks, always messy and spiking up every which way. I expected it to be straw, but it’s silk.

“Something wrong?” He asks, voice weirdly quiet, yet still echoed by the room.

“No, it’s just - it’s so soft.”

“I’m not a cactus like that dog of yours,” He drawls.

“No - you’ve definitely got more of a tumbleweed situation up here.”

He goes quiet again, and I stop faintly laughing at my bad joke. Maybe I’m just pissing him off. Feeding isn’t supposed to be like this - the fae are supposed to relax, not get more rigid. I can feel him tighten as I slide my hands back down, the heat of my palms pulsing into him and his own heat pulsing back to me in a constant feedback loop.

“Now would be the perfect time to get revenge,” He says. “If you wanted to choke me.”

My fingers stop at his neck, barely fitting all the way around. I squeeze experimentally and feel his throat make a hoarse, low laugh.

“Such small hands. So delicate.”

I squeeze slightly harder and lean in. “Don’t you dare make fun of me.”

“Hmmm,” His whole voice rumbles thoughtfully against my palms, but he doesn’t say anything more. Nothing to indicate if I’m doing it right or not, nothing to give away where his sweet spot is, if he has one at all.

I’ve stalled long enough. I have to face the music. It’s just food. Damn it, May, it’s just food!

With a deep breath in, I slide my hands down to his chest. His collarbone is so elegant and prominent, like two mountain ridges leading down to the generous slopes of his pectorals. Is his skin getting warmer or is this me losing it? He’s built so well it’s almost unbelievable - a perfect slight showing of his ribs just before his abs begin to weave their way down his tapered stomach. I try to keep my hands open but the urge to run my nails down them is too incredibly strong. These abs, good God in heaven almighty what I wouldn’t give to…to do anything on these abs. Sit on them and grind my brains out, pour something sweet down them and lick them clean, kiss them one by one as I work lower -

As I pull back, my hand brushes something molten hot and long and far away from his stomach like it’s standing straight up and it can’t be his leg because it has a velvet tip and this is it, this is the end, this was my worst fear and my most desperate desire, this is where the world ends and I have to go bury myself in seven hundred feet of dirt and mud before I combust and level the entire mansion but the instant my hand brushes against that core of heat the sound of water abruptly sloshing fills my ears, and the softest moan cracked down the middle resounds loud in the empty room; “M-May -”

I snap-freeze, pulling my hand away. We both snap-freeze, like a flash blizzard, like two deer in the same headlights, and then comes the cascading sound of water as Dane surges out of the tub. I hear the frantic metallic clink of his buckle as he grabs his clothes and makes for the door and I jump to my feet unsteadily. He called my name - he called my name like he meant it and I lunge like a madwoman in the direction I know the door to be in and my body collides with his back, with his wet, hot skin seeping into my shirt, the hard lines of his shoulder blades pressing against my blindfold and the scent of his bare flesh flooding me.

If I make the wrong move he’ll break free and run. I know that with a certainty, I know that by the way he’s gone rigid beneath me. Carefully, so slow I barely move at all, my hand wanders around his waist, skirting the v.

“Little beast,” He pants. “If you do this, there’s no taking it back.”

“I know,” I murmur against his skin.

“If you do this, I -“ I find him, harder than steel and swollen and he sucks in a hiss. “I’m a fae, and you’re a human.”

I know that. He knows I know that. Wordlessly I slide my hand up, to the velvet head and back down and his hips buck himself into me.

“This isn’t,” He struggles, his breathing ragged. “This isn’t you. This is my glamor. You deserve better than -“ I stroke once, hard, and his spine goes stiff against my cheek. “ - than being fooled into touching someone you hate.”

My heart’s beating so fast I can’t hear myself think anymore - my brain swimming with him and only him, his smell, his smoothness, how hard and hot he is. He’s right - faintly in my brain I know he’s right, I can’t tell what’s the glamor and what’s my own desire anymore. Was there ever any difference?

“Would it really be so bad if I gave in to it?” I murmur, squeezing him rhythmically. His hips buck again and his whole body trembles.

“Y-Yes,” He manages. “I want you lucid, I want you, I want you but without the glamor you’ll never look my way and I know that -“ I speed up and his deep moan resonates in my chest. “You deserve to choose. You, of all the humans I’ve met…you d-deserve to choose your own happiness, and it’s not -“

He rips away from me, leaving me cold and unsteady in an unseeing void.

“ - with a fae who forces you into this.”

I hear the door slide shut, and then, nothing.

Nothing but my own confusion and a rapidly cooling series of regrets.

-13-

Me and Jasmine’s lunch date is at three pm and I’ve never been happier to leave the manor than I am now. I call for a fae knowing there’s no way in hell Dane will answer it, and he doesn’t, Quinn instead showing up at my doorstep. We walk out together, and as the world blurs and we leave Monster Garden behind Quinn clears his throat.

“Are you alright?”

I blink at the question coming from him of all fae. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You’ve been digging your nails into your palms for seven minutes, now. Doesn’t it hurt?”

I look down at my clenched fists, and slowly unclench them, the moon-shape indents there aching. The world melts back in around me, from the vivid greens of the garden to the dull expanse of gray cement that is the city. I check my phone quickly - he’s dropped me off a few blocks from the Korean barbecue place we agreed to meet at, which is nice. I can just walk there, maybe walk off some of the intense shame before I meet Jasmine and she reads it on my face.

“ -ay? May!” Quinn’s voice, and I jump and turn to face him.

“Y-Yeah?”

“Flushed face,” He mutters to himself, inspecting me like I’m a pinned butterfly under a microscope. “Listless gaze. You’ve fed all of us, except Dane, which means you fed him today. Probably this morning, since you’d want to do your work before going off to meet a friend.”

“So?” I frown, pushing into the crowd on the sidewalk to get away from him. He follows insistently, easily ducking and weaving through the people to catch up with me. We stop at a crosswalk light, Quinn hanging on the traffic light pole just behind me.

“Did something happen during his feeding between you two?”

The avalanche of pure shame crumples in on me, and I put my head down and dash across as soon as the light turns green. But Quinn doesn’t give up so easily, trotting beside me with easy stamina.

“Let me guess - his glamor won out over your willpower.”

“Can you please go psychoanalyze someone else?” I snap. “Someone who needs it?”

Quinn laughs, faint and cool. “Oh you definitely need it. You and him both. It’s a miracle your mutual insecurities haven’t made you kill each other, yet.”

“When did you get so chatty?”

“When I realized our brave leader was smitten with you.”

He’s spouting nonsense, but even so I ask; “Leader?”

“Obviously,” Quinn frowns. “No one likes to admit it, but Dane’s the one with the best leadership skills out of the eight of us. Even if he’s harsh about it.”

“I thought you and him don’t get along.”

“We don’t. Just like you and him don’t.”

I’m quiet, walking around the corner beneath a giant neon nail salon sign.

“That was a test, of course,” Quinn seems to bounce with every step - too chipper almost. He’s enjoying this. “To see if you refuted it or agreed. You did neither. That means you’re still deciding whether you do or don’t.”

“He’s a fae,” I say patiently.

“True.”

“Sexual attraction and sexual attraction only isn’t exactly the building block for a healthy relationship.”

“Even less when one side is influenced in that regard by magic,” He agrees.

“I don’t sleep around.”

“Clearly.”

I ignore his jab, even as it makes my eye twitch. Just what about me screams ‘clearly’? “Which means I don’t want just sex.”

“From him?”

“From anyone,” I glare at an innocent passing fire hydrant. “That’s not my style.”

“Then what is your style?”

I flinch and hesitate at my own next words. “Love, I guess.”

“And you think that isn’t Dane’s style?”

“No, of course not. He just wants to sleep with me like he does every human woman.”

“If he ‘just wanted to sleep with you’, he could’ve done that already,” Quinn muses. “When he put you in the bed that one night.”

My lungs deflate. “How do you know about -“

“You’ll argue that he’s not a total monster to take advantage of such a weakened woman, which is fair. Not completely accurate, but fair.”

“Why -“

“The real question,” He barrels on past me with one finger raised. I’ve never heard him this talkative before. “Is why did he reject you this morning?”

“Okay, that’s it,” I reach the restaurant and bat at him. “Get out of here, Sherlock, before I Swatson your ass.”

“Bad joke,” Quinn’s lips purse. “But good talk.”

He walks away, and I watch him incredulously until his blue curls disappear around the corner.

The Korean barbecue place is nearly empty, and Jasmine waves me over with a perfect freckled smile. I’m stiff at first, this morning lingering with me until Jasmine talks about school, about work, and the mundane things start to fill in the yawning chasms of confusion. We sear meat on the little grill and dip it every type of sauce imaginable, and Jasmine orders me an awesome Korean soda that instantly becomes my new favorite - bright green, and tasting like vanilla and strawberries.

What I did still hovers over me, but talking with a friend about everything besides that helps. Part of me wishes I could, but the collar probably won’t let me tell her about all the specifics, like glamor and the fact Dane’s a fae.

So I generalize it.

“Say there’s this guy,” I start. “You really hate his guts, but he’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Okaaay,” She giggles. “Go on.”

“He sleeps around like crazy. He’s an ass to you when you first met, but he’s started being civil to you, lately. Nice, even.”

“Right.”

“And say things get, um, heated -“

She giggles and slips putting the next piece of beef on the grill, quickly repositioning it with chopsticks.

“ - but he walks away from it. What does that, um, mean?”

She chews some peanuts thoughtfully. “Well, it could mean a few things. Maybe he wasn’t feeling it.”

“He. Erm. Was. I think.”

“Okay,” Jasmine laughs. “Then maybe he just didn’t want things to move that fast.”

“They move that fast with everyone else!” I argue.

“Maybe he just didn’t want things to move that fast with you.”

I frown at the beef and take it off. “Because…”

“You’re so slow!” She practically shrieks with laughter, and I shush her and she leans in to whisper; “Because he likes you, blockhead.”

Smitten. Because he likes me. Quinn and Jasmine’s words just don’t add up. I’m hearing them, but they go in one ear and I really do feel like I’ve got a block up there, because the idea never settles, never seeps in to form a cohesive image. Dane liking me just….isn’t. It isn’t a thing.

People keep saying it and I keep denying it because there has to be another answer. But if that’s really the only one…

“We’ve known each other for like, a week and a few days, tops,” I say. Jasmine smiles.

“It doesn’t matter how long, if it’s the right person.”

I stick my tongue out. “I’m not a romantic like you.”

“I think you are,” She singsongs. “I think every girl is. Just in different ways. Maybe your way is different than mine, but I’m pretty sure it’s still there.”

Romance? While I’m feeding fae under a contract with maybe-Satan with my freaky-cool magic Brightness in a totally weird land full of it? I ponder this, looking around the restaurant. A man at the booth over has his head buried in his menu.

“What if I hate him,” I say slowly. “But he likes me?”

“If you really hated him, you probably never would’ve asked me about him. You would’ve just ignored him entirely in your brain.”

These are the two sentences of hers that leave me speechless. The waiter comes by with our bill and Jasmine cheerily pays for all of it, saying it’s her treat to help heal my ‘romantic woes’. I thank her but even as we leave I’m only half-aware of the traffic and the crowd on the sidewalk and Jasmine talking to me about her labs she has tomorrow. We part ways at a park, her bus stop in one direction and my fae stop in the darkest alley I can find.

“Here,” She pulls something bright green out of her bag. “I snagged one of those sodas you like so much. For later. In case you’re feeling down about this guy, or about work or…whatever.”

I take it reverently. “Is it weird to say this is the first edible gift I’ve ever gotten from someone that I really like?”

“You mean you really like me?” She teases.

“No, I mean - the soda, but you too, uh -“

“I’m just kidding.” Jasmine smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Just promise me you’ll drink it whenever you’re feeling down.”

I grin for the first time in what feels like ages. “I will.”

“Promise?” She presses.

“Promise!” I make a little salute and Jasmine, finally satisfied, turns and leaves, waving over her shoulder as she goes. When she’s gone I duck into an alley behind a tattoo shop and put my fingers to my collar, calling a high fae. I wait. And wait.

I watch the crowd pass outside the alley’s mouth, businessmen and the homeless and women in comfy sweaters and stylish sunglasses. All these humans, and they have no idea the Bright Place exists. I was one of them not too long ago. Maybe some of them have an idea - and I wonder just how many of the people passing are Brightened. How common is it, to have Brightened powers? And how many people actually figure out they have them? Probably not many, considering Brightened powers only work on fae. You could accidentally use your power if you coincidentally meet a fae, but you might not even realize it.The Bright Place has only been opened for a few years - there’s probably not many fae here on Earth at all. They’d stand out too much.

Speaking of standing out - I spot a flash of pale green out of the corner of my eye - there in the crowd one minute, and gone the next. What a weird color; someone’s shirt, probably, or a crazy hat.

Quinn rounds the corner a couple minutes later, and takes me home wordlessly this time, until we get to the very steps of the mansion.

“It’s going to be me escorting you from now on,” He says.

“Just you?” I quirk a brow, and he nods.

“Just me. Dane and Altair have been commanded by Van Grier to the front.”

My body instinctually knows the answer to the question my mind asks; “The front…of what?”

“The battle. Against Giselle.”

A battle. It’s hard to imagine, as a girl from America who’s never seen active combat. I grew up in the suburbs, not even the city. The closest I’ve ever come to violence was Barnabus nearly dying. But Altair, and Dane - they’re off to kill other fae. To kill their own people, against their will. Because of me. Because I agreed to the contract. The guilt claws at my heart like a thousand hungry dogs. I suddenly trip over a step, eating it hard on the stone. The feeling of my right knee grinding against the cement is like razor sandpaper, and it’s justified, isn’t it, for what I’ve done? What I agreed to, blinded by greed. I nurse the wound with my sleeve, mopping up the blood there.

“Shitcakes,” I hiss, looking up at Quinn’s hand he offers to me. I blink at the red stain spreading on his white pants, just above his right knee. I look to my wound, then to his. “What the -“

“The linking ceremony, remember?” He says evenly. “Every wound you get from now on, we all get. Even the dormant high fae.”

He points to the nearest rose dome, where the red rose stands tall. I squint, and through the glass I can see what he’s pointing at exactly - one of the crimson petals has a hole worn through it all of a sudden.

“Oh no,” I whisper. “I didn’t know -“

“Now you do,” Quinn says simply, and disappears into the mansion.

****

A week isn’t supposed to pass in a blur, but it does. Miserably. Mostly because I’m miserable, and I know it. It’s hard not to know it when a bunch of fancy mirrored hallways show you your depressed face all the time. I look like hell, and I feel like hell. But at least only Sir Charles is really around to see me look like hell.

I feed the shield fae and the house fae and Barnabus again, Sir Charles too. I try to practice feeding Quinn without a blindfold, because I’ll be damned if - when Dane finally gets back - we have a repeat of what happened. I didn’t even get to feed him properly - he never shifted into his true form like Quinn and Altair did when they were satiated. Without a blindfold it’s a lot harder on my heart rate, but I manage. If I just focus on how beautiful Quinn is, how amazingly perfectly nature(?) has built all the face, I can momentarily forget he’s a guy. He’s just a gorgeous magical being until I get to the stomach and the pelvis is right there taunting me. But I get him fed properly, tease him about not falling asleep again, and with a single pout he wordlessly sweeps out of the room in his gorgeous sea-robe.

I avoid Vil whenever I can, and thankfully he’s too busy with the ‘battle’ to really seek me out. He’s usually in his room buried behind a pile of papers, not even coming down to eat dinner most of the time, the house fae bringing it up to his room with his silver cart instead. Which leaves me free reign of the house, even if it’s a hollow reign. Quinn spends the day cleaning and the nights at Seventh Circle, so busy with his work I hesitate to even ask him to hang out. Not that he would - he’s not the casual, laid-back ’hanging out’ type. Him and Dane have that in common, too.

The guilt only gets worse as the days go on, and pretty soon I start losing sleep over it - thinking about Altair fighting, about Dane bleeding. They get my wounds but I don’t get theirs, which is a small blessing. But it’s a heavy blessing. I try to bury myself in studying - re-reading my old textbooks and taking the mini-exams there, or walking the gardens and talking to Barnabus, and while those distract me the guilt is always there in the back of my mind, nagging like a worm at an apple.

I get done cleaning my knee wound and re-bandaging it for the day - the least I can do is take care of this shit properly now that I’m in charge of the feeding and the health of eight high fae. As my knee wound started to heal, so did the hole in the dormant high fae’s flowers. It’s almost gone, but that doesn’t erase the fact it happened to begin with. I catch myself turning book pages carefully in the library to avoid paper cuts, walking around big cracks in the ground to avoid tripping.

One morning after a heavy rain, everything outside smelling fresh and new, I find Quinn in the library dusting books. Not just any books, either, but the moving gold-word books I can’t read.

“Hiya,” I start.

“Good morning,” He answers dully.

I watch him dust the moving books. “Can you read those?”

“Some,” He says. “Others are dialects too old even for me.”

“How old are you guys, anyway?”

Quinn thinks it over, inspecting the spine of the book carefully with his pale blue eyes. “Time moves synchronously in the Bright Place with Earth, so I’m…” He pauses. “…seven hundred years?”

The room spins around me and I grip the back of a nearby chair to steady my wobbly ass. “Seven hundre-“

“Dane is much younger. Altair is much older. We were all born at different times, but the Bright Lady brought us together in one. And that’s part of why she was so -“ He stops himself. “Nevermind.”

“She was so, what? Special? Is there a book I can read on the Bright Lady or like, fae history? I just realized I don’t know squat.”

“And it should stay that way,” He agrees mildly. “Because in two months you’re leaving and never coming back, anyway.”

“How do you know I won’t come back?” I sniff.

“Because, like most humans, you aren’t the type to stay unless it benefits you somehow.”

His words should piss me off, but they sound so…sad.

“You’re right,” I put my hands behind my back and waltz around the library. “I probably won’t stay. I have a college degree to earn and a life to live, after all.”

I see Quinn’s eyes go flat, but he hides it carefully behind the work of dusting the books. “And pray tell - what are you going to use that almighty college degree for?”

His faint edge of a sneer doesn’t escape me. “I dunno. I’ve always wanted to teach. But I wanna do psychology, too. I have to decide soon, because the path sort of branches junior year. All I know is I wanna do something that helps people.”

His scoff is so quiet I barely hear it, but the library echoes it just enough.  “Sorry,” He coughs. “Dust in my throat.”

I let it slide, but I can’t help but wonder.

“Why are you so worried about me leaving, anyway?” I ask. Quinn straightens in his butler uniform.

“I’m not.”

“And you expect me to believe that, after every contrarian thing I’ve heard you fae say?”

Quinn busies himself twice as hard with dusting, a cloud of it puffing up from the books. I’m not going to get anything else out of him, am I? I turn on my heel and start to leave when I hear him speak up;

“You’re not so bad.”

I turn. “Come again?”

“Van Grier is bad,” He says, meeting my eyes with his. “You’re not. So when you leave us with him alone again, it will be harder. It was harder. Before you came.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.

“All humans were out to use me,” He says. “Until you showed up. And instead of taking and taking you just…gave. Give. You just keep giving like an idiot, without thinking of the consequences.”

“Like what? Putting you to sleep?” I tease, and he frowns.

“Brightness overdraw.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, sorry.”

“When a fae is close to death, they absorb more Brightness than usual to compensate,” He says. “Absorbing more from the Bright Place is fine - it has plenty. But if it’s a Brightened feeding them, with limited Brightness, then the mortally wounded fae can overdraw from you.”

I blink, not getting it at all.

“And kill you,” He presses.

My heart skips. “Is that - is that why, when I fed Barnabus, afterwards I was so tired -“

“Yes. If you feed a fae too close to death again, you could kill yourself.”

I collapse in the nearest library chair. Vil had to have known, right? That’s why he pretended not to know - because my Brightness has deadly consequences.

“Brightness feeding is rare,” Quinn continues. “Brightened human powers usually just manifest in the ability to bind fae. That’s the most common. We didn’t know - us high fae. We didn’t know that when you first came. The house fae found it in one of these books, and told the rest of us.”

“Dane included?” My voice sounds strained. Quinn nods.

“The house fae told him the night you exhausted yourself.”

I shade my eyes with my hands, my mind racing. I don’t want to think about that night, so I think about anything else.

“So people like Vil just waltz in here and abuse their power,” I say. “While people like Giselle try to seal the Bright Place and keep people like him out?”

“More or less. We’ve seen it come and go in cycles - the humans always fight over the Bright Place. Kill each other over it.”

“And you just let them.”

“We could intervene,” He muses. “But they would just keep coming. We’ve tried to wall the Bright Place off before, but humans always find a way in. Brightened will always find the Bright Place, sooner or later. That’s one of the few laws of this world that always remains the same.”

“And you deal with it like the weather - inevitable and unstoppable.”

He nods. I stare at the polished wood of the table I’m leaning both elbows on, my face reflecting back at me all distorted. Quinn’s seen this cycle happen for seven-hundred years. Dane’s seen it for less, but how many less? That’s still hundreds of years, I assume.

“Aren’t you tired of it?” I look up. Quinn’s pale blue eyes match the cloudless, ceramic-blue sky outside the window over his shoulder.

“I was. Until you.”

“I appreciate it -“

“Don’t,” He cuts me off dully. “Don’t appreciate it. Just don’t leave, instead.”

“I have a life, Quinn -“

“So do we,” He interrupts. “But we can’t live them.”

He touches the silver collar around his thin neck, and it glints in the sunlight. I look around nervously, like Vil is right behind me. Saying it out loud would be a bad idea, I’m pretty sure - even if Altair isn’t around to read minds Vil could still just rely on old-fashioned microphones. So I rip a piece of paper off the giant scratch pad by the globes and fish a pen from my pocket. When I’m done I slide it over to him, and he reads it;

‘How do we get the collars off you guys?’

He scribbles back, with a fancy old-style quill from what I thought was just a prop inkwell.

‘Tonight, after dinner. Find me in the magnolias’.

****

Of course Vil decides to come down for dinner that night. Of course he sits right across from me and eats his almond-crusted salmon and charred broccolini and white carrots with excruciatingly slow bites. I’ve never hated a fork so much in my life than the one that makes the agonizing journey from his lips to his plate and back again. He sips wine like it’s a dessert, enjoying every second of it. Great. Now I can’t inhale my food and leave like I’ve got somewhere to be, or he’ll suspect me. So I eat slow - not as slow as him - and his lips curl into a tanned smile.

“How are things going with you, Miss James?”

“Just fine,” I take a sip of wine, too. Just a sip. I don’t want to drink enough to say something incriminating, but I don’t want to look worried or uptight. “School’s over officially, so.”

“Yes. Perhaps you should take up a hobby? Let me know if you decide on something, and I can provide you the materials for it.”

“Seriously?” I raise my eyebrows. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course,” He laughs warmly. “You’ve done much for me already, my dear - you set the high fae in fighting order. Any small thing I can acquire to make your stay more comfortable is a well-earned reward on your behalf.”

“Sure, I’ll, um, think about it.”

Both of us are dead silent, the only sound the clinking of our silverware against the china.

“I don’t need to remind you that fae are dangerous, Miss James. Do I?”

My head shoots up. Is he onto me? “No. I mean - no, I get it. They have snake fangs and drink blood. That’s a pretty clear no-no sign, if you ask me.”

He chuckles. “Indeed. It’s just…Dane’s ability to recognize sin is very sensitive, and I have access to it, however faintly. I hope I don’t need to tell you that humans who engage with fae never come out the other side for the better - no matter if it’s your own free will or the glamor.”

I gulp, my cheeks going red. He’s talking about the feeding thing, isn’t he. He drains his wine glass and smiles with all his teeth at me.

“After all - they are immortal. You are not. They are monsters - you are not.”

The whole of my stomach curdles up. The way he says those heavy things so casually, like they mean nothing to him - he’s the monster. He’s the one who tortured Dane with ash wood stakes. I grip my fork and beat back the urge to rip into him. This isn’t the time. There’ll be a time and this isn’t it.

“I know, Vil,” I say as evenly as I can muster.

“Do you?” He chuckles louder. “Good. Because if I sense you consorting with any of the fae in a sexual way again -“ He inspects a serrated steak knife carefully, and then turns his smile back to me. “Well. Let’s just say there are many ways to interrupt a romance.”

“It’s not -“ I gnaw my mouth, fear trickling down my spine. “It’s not that. It won’t ever be that.”

“Of course it won’t. Because they are mine. They are my fae, and they will never be yours.”

The possessiveness in his voice is so weird - but it’s raw and true and leaks from him unbidden. He watches me with his mild brown eyes like a fox watches a rabbit hole - for hours on end. Seemingly satisfied, he finally, finally, puts his napkin down and stands. He adjusts his tie as the house fae picks up his dishes and piles them on the silver cart, his voice all business again.

“Oh yes - Dane and Altair will be returning from the front in two days time. They will need a feeding.”

“Alright,” I disguise my nervousness at the idea of seeing Dane again in my napkin.

“I’ll be sending Quinn out to take their place. But he can’t go alone - the high fae always work better in pairs. Sythiel is occupied in the human realm, so I’m thinking of waking a dormant high fae.”

“Which means what?”

“You’ll need to feed them immediately after they’ve awoken,” He says. “Fear not - I’ll let you know before I bring them to the feeding room.”

“Right, okay. Two days.”

“Two days. Try to make space in your feeding schedule for a new addition,” He agrees. “Have a pleasant evening, Miss James.”

“You too.”

When I’m sure he’s gone my instinct is to immediately book it to the magnolias in the garden, but I stop myself. What if Vil’s still watching, somehow? What if he’s ordered the house fae to watch me, report on where I go? I thank him for dinner and head up to my room. Twenty minutes of acting like I’m reading, and then I can make the excuse I want some air. That’ll seem natural enough, right?

I wait and read, the words just papering on the outside of my brain instead of really seeping in. When the halls are quiet, I make my way to the front door, certain every shadow is Vil waiting to spring on me. But nobody stops me - and I pause in the front door.

It would be easy to turn around, to go back to my room and play Vil’s game until two months was up and I got the forty-thousand. My whole life spreads out before me in a blink - I go to college, I graduate, I make Mom and Dad so proud and relieved they don’t have to pay for anything, I get a job somewhere and steadily make my way up, all on my own. Without anyone’s help. The fae will stay here, trapped under Vil’s thumb but I could go back to the way my life was before - easy and simple and without magic and biting rituals.

But if I step out of this doorway, if I meet Quinn and try to free them, I could get hurt. Vil’s threat was clear tonight; he’d hurt me if I tried to do anything he didn’t want me to do - touch his fae, break his rules, try to break the fae out of his rules. Creep. What a fucking creepo -

I shake my head. No - I might standing at a crossroads but the path before me is clear. I can’t let a creep like Van Grier torture these beautiful, wild, unknowable fae. They don’t deserve to be caged like animals. No one does. If I can free them, getting hurt is a small price to pay.

I’m not the sort of girl who’s afraid of pain, but I’m very, very afraid of regrets. Those wounds haunt you for much longer.

I try to make it look like I’m taking a leisurely walk through the garden. I can’t see Barnabus’s huge frame bumbling around, which means he’s probably underground. I found out he could do that the first day I went looking for him out here - his whole body rising up out of the dirt as easily as water. He says it’s easier to ‘hear’ what’s going on while he’s down there.

Hopefully he won’t hear Quinn and I.

I make it to the magnolias and search for Quinn’s blue hair, thinking it’ll stand out against the pink. He’s nowhere to be seen, but I hear a faint bird’s call in the distance.

Birds don’t come to the Monster Garden.

I follow the sound warily, my feet taking me beyond the garden’s perimeter and to the sea of grass. The sound’s coming from inside the grass, and I wade into it, unable to see over the top of it. My vision is just a curtain of lush green grass in every direction, parting with my body like the Red Sea.

The bird call again, this time loud and to my right. Am I even following the right noise? Is this really Quinn? Or am I about to be eaten by a shadow fae tricking me?

The grass starts to blur into one green banner, and I recognize this blurriness now - this is the same way it blurs when one of the high fae takes me to the human realm.

Black, gray, white swirls, and then the world solidifies into view - there’s no more grass, my feet standing on what looks like fine white sand. And all around me are twisted, black rock formations, like a volcano spewed lava straight up in big plumes and the lava cooled in mid-air. The shapes are like nothing I’ve ever seen; at some angles they look like people screaming, at some angles they look like snakes curling around each other, and at others they just look like plain weird rocks. And that’s it, for miles until the horizon - just white sand and a forest of black rocks as far as I can see. Just like Monster Garden, there’s no sound at all, no birds or animals or even bugs. And the worst part is the sky is a dark slate gray, with no sun or moon or stars to be seen.

“Quinn?” I whisper hopefully into the non-existent wind. It smells like old rusted metal here, hanging in the air like a miasma.

A flash of blue, and Quinn emerges from behind a rock and I’ve never been so happy to see a human - uh, fae - in my life, and I rocket towards him and hug him tight.

“Oh thank God - I thought I was dead and in hell.”

“Limbo would be more accurate,” He says flatly, removing my arms from around his torso with mechanical precision. “This is the nether realm - the border in-between the fae realm and the human realm. It’s what we take you across every time you have to go to work, or some such.”

“Why is it so…naked?” I wrinkle my nose at the rocks.

“Who knows,” He sighs. “It was created long ago, when the fae realized humans would only try to pillage and plunder.”

“So this whole reality limbo thing was created?”

Quinn nods, soft curls bobbing. “By the First Fae, millennia ago. But we’re not here for a history lesson - come. We must make this quick, before Vil realizes I’m missing.”

The idea of a fae powerful enough to create a whole realm - I shudder. That’s like, God-status, isn’t it? I shake my head and follow Quinn’s steps over the sand, the two of us weaving through black rocks and almost immediately I’m lost - every way looks the same. But Quinn apparently knows where we’re going, because soon the rocks start to get smaller and smaller, and finally they’re nothing more than pebbles littering the space around a house.

A house, standing in a perfect circular clearing among the tall rocks. It’s made of white wood with black trim, a little path of rocks leading up to the front door. I’d call it a hut, but it’s a bit bigger than that; more like a cottage you rent on a campsite for a weekend when you don’t want to rough it. Quinn turns to me abruptly as we walk up the stone path.

“If she asks you a question about yourself, do not answer unless I tell you it’s alright. I’ll do the talking.”

“Uhh, sure. Is this ‘she’ like, dangerous?”

“All fae are dangerous,” He mutters. “But this one most of all.”

Suddenly nervous I pick at my sweater as Quinn knocks on the door. It looks like a human house, so why is it here in the middle of nowhere? How did she build it, and with what wood?

The door opens, and my eyes widen. There, in the doorway, is the most brilliant splash of pink I’ve ever seen. A little old woman wrinkled to the bones and with bright blue eyes smiles the sweetest grandma smile up at us, wearing an extremely eye-searing pink cashmere dress, with a darker pink sweater on top and a giant pink bow pinned to her mass of white, curly hair.

“Quinn! Oh it’s so nice of you to come see this old bag of bones,” She reaches up and squeezes his cheeks together like a little kid, and I swallow my laugh when her attention turns to me. “And who is this shining young lady?”

“My friend,” Quinn clears his throat. The woman nods knowingly.

“Of course - a friend. Well, do come in you two, I’ve just put a pot of tea on.”

She motions for us to come in, and the second I cross the threshold I’m stunned by how pink it is - pink furniture, pink walls, pink shag carpet. There’s a pink grandfather clock and a bright pink set of stairs leading up and pink-framed pictures hanging on the walls of what looks like her kids and grandkids. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’d just stepped into an eccentric old grandma’s house instead of a fae even Quinn’s scared of.

The woman leads us over to a small living room with - you guessed it - bright pink couches. The pink table holds little pink teacups and she eagerly pours two more cups, offering me a plate of pink cakes as I sit.

“Oh no, thanks. I just ate,” I smile.

“So polite!” The woman squeals, looking to Quinn. “Where did you find this one?”

“I didn’t, actually - Dane and Altair found her.”

“How quaint! I love the romanticism of pure chance, don’t you?” She smiles at me, two of her teeth missing but the rest remarkably well-kept. I flash a look at Quinn, but he nods in approval, so I answer.

“Oh yeah, definitely. Keeps things interesting.”

Her laugh is so warm and sweet I can’t help but smile when I hear it. I never knew my grandparents, but I like to think they’d be like her. Minus the rabid obsession with one color, obviously.

“Now Quinn,” She says. “I’m not so vain as to believe you’ve come here with company just to see me. I’m very pretty, but not that pretty.”

She bats her eyelashes at him, and he makes a forced smile - the professional one I’ve seen him use when he’s bartending.

“Am I that transparent?”

“Clear as a bell,” She chimes. “Oh, how rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Caelthea.”

“This is Miss James,” Quinn introduces me, and I nod. Miss James is what Vil calls me. Does he not want to say my first name or something? Caelthea looks equally confused, and a little hurt.

“Come now, Quinn. I’d never. Not with something as cute as her. It’d be a terrible waste.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything to that, drinking his tea with a dignified sip. Finally, Caelthea sighs, disheartened. I almost want to blurt my name at the look on her face, but I hold myself back.

“Very well. What’s the issue this time then, hm?”

Quinn puts his cup down, brushing his curl out of his eyes as he leans forward. “I want to break a binding.”

Caelthea raises one sparse eyebrow. “The price for that is a high one.”

“I’m aware,” Quinn agrees. “And we’re prepared to pay it.”

I do a double-take at him - we? Wait one hot second, what price am I paying?

Caelthea looks me up and down appraisingly, business-like instead of soft grandma, and then takes a sip of her tea, her hands like gnarled tree branches.

“Just the one binding?”

“Just one.”

“Whose?”

“Dane’s.”

Her eyebrows raise even higher this time, and she grabs a cake and stuffs it into her mouth in one impressive swoop. She thinks as she chews, wiping crumbs off her pink dress carefully before saying;

“A binding is equal to a life. You’re aware of this?”

“Yes.” Quinn’s hands clench on his lap, and my heart skyrockets into the roof of my throat. A life? Does she mean -

“Darling,” Caelthea turns her blue gaze to me. “You know Dane too, don’t you? I can remove his binding, it’s true. But it comes at the cost of a life.”

Not mine. Quinn didn’t bring me here to kill me, did he? I can’t breathe all of a sudden, but Caelthea reaches out her gnarled hand, resting it on my knee.

“Not yours, sweet thing. Your firstborn’s.”

The word echoes in my head like my skull’s gone hollow all of a sudden. “Firstborn,” I repeat. “Like…a baby?”

She nods. “The first baby you birth will be mine.”

“But I’m not…not especially planning to have kids. I’ve got a career, and -“

“You will have a child,” Her voice isn’t commanding, or imperious. It’s just…there. Even and soft, like it’s the undeniable truth, like it’s already come true. “I will break Dane’s binding, if you agree to the terms I’ve set before you.”

I snap my eyes to Quinn and he stares into his teacup plaintively. I haven’t even - I haven’t even planned my life that far. I’m only in college; love and a husband and a house and a family - all of that seems ages away. Decades away. It hasn’t even crossed my mind other than a vague ‘oh, that’d be nice when I’m old and successful with a lot of money and a job I adore’. Love’s always been on the back burner for me.

My brain feels like it’s draining out of my ears, the whole concept of me being a mother shrinking everything to one panicked pinpoint. This is like something out of a faerie tale, no pun intended - a firstborn promised to a fae. Would they live here in this little pink hut for their whole lives? Or would Caelthea just eat them whole with butter sauce?

She must see the worry in my eyes, because she smiles comfortingly. “It’s alright, dear. I promise I will take good care of them. They will grow strong, and headstrong, and strong of Brightness. They will be loved, and they will find love. I can assure you of that.”

“Can I…” I swallow. “Can I have some time to think about it?”

“There is no time,” Quinn presses. “Van Grier is looking for us as we speak.”

“But -“

“I know,” He squeezes my hand suddenly, his skin cool and smooth and his thin, beautiful face tortured. “I know it’s difficult. For you most of all. But you are the only one who can make this end of the bargain.”

“It’s true,” Caelthea says sadly. “Humans are my only currency.”

I stare at the swirling sugar crystals in my tea, following their spiral as my own life spirals. My future child - given to this fae.

“What happens if Dane’s bond is broken? Other than him not getting tortured anymore and ordered to kill fae.”

“He can turn on Van Grier,” Quinn says immediately. “And kill him, thereby voiding every other binding he’s made with other fae.”

“I-I could,” I blurt. “I’m not under Vil’s control, I could just kill him instead of this -“

“Could you?” Quinn snaps, and the truth rises in me. No. I couldn’t. The mere idea of taking someone’s life turns my stomach. It always has. I’ve lied awake at night with random thoughts popping into my head, and asked myself if I’d be willing to kill someone. And the answer I reached in my bedsheets was always no, every time. I’d regret it. Forever.

“Dane’s a fae,” Quinn says. “Dane kills to live, and Van Grier has tortured him for years. He would do it without hesitation. I’ve researched every other option, Miss James. And this is the only one in which you don’t die for us.”

“One of my kids is just stuck here,” I say. “For all their lives.”

“Not all,” Caelthea chimes. “Just until their seventeenth birthday.”

“And then they’d be free to go?” A spark of hope. Caelthea nods.

“Free as a bird, to go to whatever realm they wished. You could even see them, if you so chose.”

So it’s not the baby’s whole life - it’s seventeen years of being raised by Caelthea in this strange wasteland, in this stranger house. But after that we could be together. It wouldn’t be forever, and that’s what convinces me. That, and the image burned in my brain of Dane’s back, and his scars.

“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll do it.”

Caelthea claps her hands as Quinn relaxes next to me. “Fantastic! Let me just go draw up the paper work, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

She disappears in a cloud of pink sparkles, and I slump against the couch cushions feeling like I’ve made yet another mistake in my life by signing a contract.

“I just hope this contract isn’t as underhanded as Vil’s,” I breathe.

“She’s very fair,” Quinn says. “Always has been.”

“Always. So you’ve been here before?”

He nods. “I needed her services, once upon a time.”

“And did you offer up another human for it?”

“No,” He says wistfully. “She offered up herself.”

His words are heavy with a past I can’t see, something monumental and weighted lingering in every syllable and it hits me just then like a punch to the gut - the high fae have lived for so long, so much longer than me. I’ll never know what almost-eternity is like, or what it’s like to have so much past it wells up inside and only leaks out in your memories. Caelthea’s return breaks the quiet, and she plops down a single pink parchment sheet in front of me, placing a pink ostrich quill beside it.

“Sign on the bottom if you would, darling. After you read it thoroughly, of course.”

So I do. Top to bottom, line between line, I read. It’s in clear, easy-to-understand language, nothing like my law classes. My baby lives with her until seventeen, and then they’re free, and in exchange Dane’s binding will be nullified completely, upon completion of a ‘ritual’.

Every swirl of ink as I sign feels like the end of the world, somehow.

Caelthea sees Quinn and I off, waving madly as we walk back into the rock forest. I turn to him when the last scrap of the pink hut disappears behind the wall of black rocks.

“Who is she, anyway?”

Quinn’s strides are hard to keep up with. The world around me blurs all its colors together as he transports us, but I hear his words clearly and crisply as ever.

“A death fae.”

-14-

If I wasn’t so freaked out about everything else, I would’ve been freaked I just visited a death fae. All the pink threw me off, but I should’ve known when she said ‘humans are my only currency’. Of course. Fae rarely die. But we die all the time.

And my kid’s gonna live with her. Grow up with her.

I clench my fist under the water of my bath. Quinn and I got back and I immediately sought the refuge of a good soak. I’ll miss this when I’m gone in two months.

No - not two months anymore. Dane’s going to kill Vil soon. He doesn’t know it yet, though, and he can’t know it. Murder is a sin. Quinn said if we tell him the plan, his sense for sin would relay it to Van Grier and everything we bargained for would be over.

But that’s not the worst part.

I sink down in the bath and let the water try to drown me. But underwater it’s easy to hear my own thoughts beating in my veins, so I surface again, the memory lingering.

“So what’s the ritual entail?” I walked alongside Quinn through the sea of grass. “Do you have to bite me, or something, like the linking ritual?”

“Rituals usually include only the people directly involved,” He sighs. “You and Dane, in this case.”

“So Dane has to bite me.”

“Not quite ‘bite’.”

He went quiet, and an unease started to claw up my throat. “Are you gonna explain, or…?”

Quinn flinched minutely, but immediately regained control. “The payment for the death fae’s services involves your womb. Death fae crave life. These sorts of things are…cyclical. Rituals reflect the payment.”

“Meaning what?” Cold sweat creeped down my neck. “Just tell me, goddamnit, I’m not as smart and old as you are!”

“Don’t make me say it,” Quinn muttered under his breath, and that mutter stops me dead in my tracks.

“Holy shit.”

“May -“

“Sex.” I creaked out the words like an old tree in the wind. “It’s sex, isn’t it?”

“You’re already under his glamor all the time anyway,” Quinn hastily covered. “He can’t know what we’re up to until the ritual is complete. Your mind will be clouded by the glamor, so he won’t be able to read the murder in it. It’s a flawless plan.”

“Oh yes, a flawless plan that involves me getting dicked down by a fae I happen to not like so much!” I half-shrieked, barely keeping it together. “I have to do this, holy shit you tricked me into doing this!”

“I didn’t trick you,” He corrected coldly. “It was right there in the contract.”

“It said ‘ritual’, not ‘ritual fucking’!”

“Then you should’ve asked for clarification.”

“Excuse me for being a little busy,” I snarled. “Worrying about my future kid! Vil was right -  he’s a shitbag but he was totally right; you fae make sure humans never come out the other side okay!”

“It’s not - “ His whole face flushed, like he’s a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You want to, don’t you? Even if you hate him.”

“Earth to not-Earthly fae? That’s his glamor making me want to. Also, newsflash; he knows that. He’s the one who rejected me because he…” I gulped. “Wants me lucid. So this whole bit about me seducing him for this ritual is over! It’s not going to happen! Even if I manage to swallow my pride and approach him, he’s going to stop it before it ever begins!”

“You have to at least try,” Quinn insisted. “You’ve already paid the price -  what’s the human saying? ‘You might as well get your money’s worth’?”

“Oh you’re a peach,” I threw my hands up.

“I’m a peach who’s being shipped off to war,” He murmured. “To kill my own people. The people I promised to protect.”

That punctured me like a water balloon, all my rage spilling out into the ether. We walked back in silence, my mind spinning. And here I am now. Debating and torn. It’s wrong the fae are bound to Van Grier - the way he treats them is wrong. And I could fix it, if I just swallow my fucking pride and have sex with Dane.

That haunts me better than a ghost for the next few days.

I have a dream so vivid that night I can feel every inch of it - the wind on my face, the smell of the flowers in the garden we’re standing in. Monster Garden. Just before the red rose dome. And it’s ‘we’ because it’s Dane and I, his face beautiful and somehow gentle and that’s how I know it’s a dream - he’s never looked at me gently in his life.

But if he did…

I’d treasure it. I know it in my dream with absolute fucking certainty - if he was gentle to me, kind, I’d treat those moments like gems, hoard them away inside myself.

It’s weird, I say to him in my dream. I miss you. The shape of you.

That much is true - I can feel it resonating with my dream-self and my real self watching the dream. I sort of…miss him? I miss being mad at him, and seeing that crooked smile on his face because of it. I miss hearing him purr in my doorway, unable to come in but still bothering me. Fuck, I even miss him calling me an idiot. But why? That doesn’t make any sense.

My dream-self leans up, nervous and afraid but desperately wanting nothing more than to kiss those broad, soft-looking lips.

And then I wake up. And I hate the part of me that wishes the dream could’ve gone on a little longer.

Vil knocks on my door one morning, and I start up from my place doodling on the bed - he’d gotten me some gorgeous moleskins and inking pens, and I’d been doing nothing but sketching Sir Charles in my free time. Sketching let my mind run free of all my problems, but his single knock brings me back down. Sir Charles perks his ears up, watching as I walk over to the door.

“What’s up?” I try to sound as light as possible - it’s hard to act natural around someone you’re planning to murder, but so far I’ve managed it.

“It’s time,” Vil smiles at me, his white teeth blinding against his tan. “The pink rose is in the feeding room, waiting for you.”

“R-Right.” I put my moleskin down and puff my chest out. “I’m on the job.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Vil nods, pleased, and walks away. I watch his back, thinking about how he’s destined to die and I have total control over it. I almost feel bad for him, but then I remember Dane’s scars, the way Vil threatened me with a knife not-so-subtly, the way he called the fae ‘his’ and how it made me sick.

I make it down to the feeding room and walk in, instantly whirling to put my blindfold on.

“What are you doing?”

A woman’s voice. I lower the blindfold hesitantly and turn. There, standing completely naked in front of me, is the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous lady I’ve ever seen. Her bright pink hair almost reminds me of Caelthea’s house, but it’s a little fainter, with orange streaks on the bottom like a sunset. Her thin arms cross over her perfect breasts, Her legs longer than a supermodel’s and the scowl on her heart-shaped lips just as artsy as one. Her round face glows in the steam from the tub, and her eyes have that same jewel-quality to them, though hers are dark amber with faint gold sunbursts in them. Her skin is the color of rich, dark earth, though it’s got a faint gold sheen to it that I swear has to be magical.

“You must be the feeder,” She frowns. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“Y-You,” I start, her authoritative voice making me jump like a trained dog. “You have to get in the bath for it to work.”

“Ugh,” She sighs. “Fine.”

I pick the herbs that jump out at me - a strong, bright scent of frankincense and lilies and lemon peel. She sinks into the bath one long leg at a time, and I pull the stool up nervously behind her. I hesitate to touch her, but she sighs again.

“I won’t bite. I’m just hungry and angry about it.”

I put my hands on her smooth shoulders. “Humans have a, um, word for that.”

“Do you?” She scoffs.

“Yeah. Hangry.”

“Hangry,” She considers it as I ease my hands up and down her swan-like neck. “I like it. A lot quicker to say.”

I laugh under my breath. Of course she’d like it - she seems like the impatient type. But being impatient also means she doesn’t hold back; her sighs of contentment ringing out when I feed a good spot. She’s the most responsive fae I’ve fed for sure - she especially likes her shoulderblades, and I rest my hands there for a while.

“You really are the real thing,” She moans. “Bright Lady damn you, why didn’t you pop up sooner?”

“Sorry,” I smirk. “I was a little busy believing fae were just made-up by bored medieval humans to blame the chicken pox on.”

This gets a genuine chuckle from her. “Well, you aren’t all wrong about that.”

“I’m May.”

“Estella,” She offers her wet hand, and I shake it. “Did I do that right? That’s how you greet each other nowadays, right?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a middle finger.”

“Middle finger,” Estella muses. “I swear you humans pick the weirdest body parts to obsess over.”

“Sometimes it’s not a body part at all!” I lean in. “Sometimes it’s a concept, like death, or time, or unrequited love or how expensive avocado toast is.”

Her chuckle this time is louder. “Okay, I get it. You’re one of those humans who think you’re clever.”

“Me? No. I’m stupid as hell.”

“Modest, too,” She whistles through her teeth. “I hate to admit it, but Van Grier found a good one.”

We laugh and get quiet, my hands inching over her shoulders. It’s so much less anxiety for me to feed a woman fae - her breasts don’t faze me at all. I’m too busy marveling over how amazing they are, how amazing her whole body is. I’d give a lung to look even an inch like her. The Bright Place really does make fae perfect.

“You -“ She starts. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you smell like him.”

“Like who?”

“Dane. Rosemary and g-“

“- gin,” I finish for her, and Estella’s laugh ripples the water.

“Yeah. That.” I sniff at myself, but she stretches her arms over her head. “You can’t smell it. Not like I can.”

“Is…is that your sense?”

Her amber eyes flick back to me. “You’re sharper than you look.”

“I try.”

She leans back in the tub and lets her pink hair fall in a curtain over the lip, and I rake my hands through it as she talks.

“I can smell the connections between people and fae. Animals too, if I try hard. And you reek of Dane.”

I frown. “Th-That doesn’t mean anything.”

She laughs. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

I move to her stomach, the flat plane of it so different from the men fae, so slender and picturesque, like she’s every woman who’s ever posed for a naked painting by a famous artist.

“You remind me of her,” Estella murmurs, her eyes closed as I thread my fingers through her hair.

“Who?”

“The Bright Lady,” She says. “Just being around her made me feel like everything was going to be alright. You’ve got the same sort of feeling, I think. I’m sure the others have felt it, too.”

“Two of the others, maybe,” I grumble. “The third one, not so much.”

She cracks one amber eye open with a grin. “What, did he call you an idiot one too many times?”

I go still. “How did you -“

“Because he did that to me when we first met. He did it to Altair, and Quinn, and Axel. Everybody. The Bright Lady most of all. He’s an ass about it but we love him for it.”

I watch as she waves her delicate hand through the water listlessly.

“I’m surprised he called a human an idiot,” She muses. “He usually just fucks them without talking to them at all.”

The fragrant steam puffs up against my face, warming my goose-fleshed cheeks. Estella splashes water playfully up at her toes, laughing again.

“He gave the Bright Lady a nickname, once, and I remember I felt so jealous. Over both of them. He’s my brother and she was my everything. But at that moment I wanted a nickname from him too, you know? He never gave me one, the bastard. I bet if I try now he’ll turn me down again. He loves doing that.”

“What -“ I clear my throat finally. “What was the nickname?”

“Little monster?” She frowns. “No, little demon? Definitely not. God, it’s been three hundred years -”

“Little beast?” I whisper. All my organs sink like lead to the bottom of me. Estella sits up and looks back at me over her shoulder, her pink eyebrows drawn tight.

“How do you know that?”

I’m dead silent, too heavy to talk. My tongue even feels like lead.

“Oh no,” Estella murmurs. “Oh no, he didn’t. May, tell me he didn’t.”

My silence is answer enough for her, and she stands up instantly. I barely see her true form out of the corner of my eyes rooted to the floor - a brilliant orange dress with pink underlay that vibrates in and out of existence, floaty like chiffon and dusted with quivering gold.

“I’m going to rip his balls off,” She growls. “How could he? And a human - “ She cuts herself off. “Thank you for the meal, May. But I’ve got some rage to express healthily before I self-destruct.”

I nod limply, the sound of the door opening and closing a relief.

****

If I wasn’t grateful for my moleskin sketchbooks before, I am now. I doodle the garden outside my window, curled up in the window seat with a mug of the house fae’s hot chocolate and a blueberry scone and trying desperately to not think about anything. But the brain - or my brain, at least - loves to do the opposite of what I want it to.

Little beast.

I didn’t even know I liked the nickname until Estella told me it wasn’t mine. The moment I realized Dane had used it for someone else before me, I felt like I’d been stabbed square in the back. Still do, my back aching with the imaginary wound.

Sometimes it takes the absence of something to make you realize you miss it. And I missed Dane calling me ‘little beast’. I thought it was all mine, I thought it was unique and different and maybe, just maybe in the very depths of my soul I’d never admit to, I thought it was endearing. I thought it marked me from the rest of the humans in his eyes. The women at the club could have his glamor, but I had a nickname.

And now I don’t even have that.

I know the Bright Lady is special to them all, somehow. They use her name like a prayer, a swear. But I thought she was a god - their god, and yet Estella talked about her like she was a tangible person. Like she knew her and…loved her.

For the next few days I hang out with Estella. She likes to sun herself on the lawn in a tiny orange bikini, and on rainy days she makes do with the window seats in the library. I bring her drinks from the house fae’s silver cart and while my skin doesn’t tolerate the sun as well as hers, it still feels nice. When she drops me off at work she asks me to bring back some human magazines and I do, and we pour over them together as she asks me incessant questions about who every celebrity is, what every fashion item is called, and why the hell all the kids these days are shading their eyes with their forearms and sticking the other arm way out. It takes me a second to realize she means dabbing, but when I do I absolutely lose it.

She tells me Vil didn’t let her out as much as the others over the three years they’ve been bound - mostly because her connection sense wasn’t deemed as useful to him. She says he barely even listens to it at all and I reel in how ironic it is; if he does die, it’ll be because I decide to have sex with Dane. If Vil listened to Estella’s sense better, he’d know exactly how I feel about him.

Even if I still don’t know how I feel about him.

I ask questions about the Bright Lady, and fae history - things Quinn didn’t want to tell me. She tells me most of it; that the fae courts warred with each other a long time ago, killing each other and ruining the Bright Place with their powers. But the Bright Lady, a fae from a small village with no particular magical strength, pulled together eight high fae under her banner, and went around trying to peace-talk the other fae-courts into unifying the land. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and they had to fight. But eventually all the courts recognized the Bright Lady as a powerful agent of peace. She might’ve not had much magical ability, but her strengths lied in her genuinely good heart, her negotiating skills, and her great empathy for everything and everyone. They all loved her in different deep ways - Altair like a mother, Estella like a beloved sister, Quinn possessively and Dane obsessively.

But, Estella tells me with darkened eyes, the Bright Lady knew the peace wouldn’t last forever. So she sacrificed herself (something immortal fae never do) to become ethereal - a force of the nature of the Bright Place itself. And now she watches over all fae.

“We made a promise to her,” Estella flips through a magazine slowly, her eyes racing over the words even a they fill with tears on the rims. “To protect all fae in the Bright Place, no matter what. And that scum Van Grier used it against us.”

I start. “He what?”

“He came to all eight of us and lied,” She frowns. “Told us someone in our group was planning a war. We didn’t believe it at first, but it’d been three hundred years since the Bright Lady left us. We were heartbroken, still, still dealing with it in our ways. Poorly, of course, because we’re fae and we live forever and why deal with emotions now when you have forever to deal with them?”

She takes a sip of her daiquiri and breathes out.

“We were so suspicious of each other we just…we all wanted to prove we were still faithful to our promise to the Bright Lady. He offered us what seemed like a peaceful solution from a neutral third party; if we all agreed to his binding, if we all really wanted to protect the fae we’d put aside our pride and unite again under one banner, his banner…” She trails off.

“And then the fae who didn’t agree to it would’ve been the ‘traitor’ planning ‘war’,” I muse. Estella nods.

“Exactly. It was a show of good faith that just went so, so wrong.”

“He took advantage of you,” I hiss. “And he’ll pay for it.”

She blinks with her eyes like big gold coins, and looks up at the mansion warily. “Shhh. Don’t hate him too hard. He doesn’t listen to my connection much, but he still listens.”

I quell my shaking hands and sip my own pineapple soda, pushing the heart-shaped sunglasses Estella leant me higher on my nose.

“You would’ve liked her, I think,” Estella says, clearly trying to distract me from my dark thoughts. “And she would’ve liked you.”

“Why?” I grunt, bitter for no reason at all. “I’m just a human.”

Estella laughs, rolling over on her stomach. “A human who cares. The only thing she didn’t like was apathy. And I can tell you don’t have an apathetic bone in your body. Which is probably why you and Dane -“ She stops. We’ve talked enough about Dane that she knows my feelings on him are complicated. “Why you and Dane butted heads so much.”

“Because I care and he doesn’t.”

“Because you both care,” She corrects. “Way too much.”

If there’s one thing Estella can do to me that no other high fae can, it’s get me out of my own head. She claps her hands and the stone women in the fountain nearby suddenly move like they’re alive, turning to us and spraying the two of us with the water coming out of their hands. I shriek and Estella shrieks, and Sir Charles comes bounding over and barks like crazy, snapping at the water gleefully.

But it isn’t all fun and games.

Vil reminds us of that constantly, and tonight at the long dinner table most of all.

“You will leave immediately for the front when Dane and Altair return,” He looks over at Estella sitting at my side. She watches me eat my filet mignon and braids a piece of my hair idly.

“I know,” She says lightly.

The sudden violent thump makes us jump in our seat, and even Quinn, who’s dusting a statue in the corner, looks surprised. Vil’s fist is firmly on the table, his face eerily calm compared to the loud noise he just made.

“Take this a little more seriously, would you?” He smiles out at Estella, and she lets my braid drop instantly.

“Yes,” She nods to him, voice lower. “I will.”

It kills me to hear her usual lively voice so flat. I flashback to when Dane refused to bow to him the first time I came to Monster Garden, and how Vil forced him to do it. I hide my shudder under my woven poncho - what else has he forced them to do for such proud high fae to act so subservient?

“And you, Miss James,” Vil turns his mild brown eyes to me. “When they return you will head to the feeding room immediately. They’ve been away for you for too long, and will require Brightness.”

“Right.” I swallow a bite of glazed carrot that nearly goes down the wrong pipe with how furious I am.

In my bath upstairs, I really think about it. Not like daydream or lightly consider, but well and truly think about it, like the hardest problem on a quiz. No sentient being should be enslaved to another. It’s wrong. Just because some Brightened humans have the ability doesn’t mean they should use it, but even after Vil’s dead people like him will still pop up, won’t they? People will always try to control things for their own gain. Vil isn’t special - he’s just one human in a million that let his selfish desires override his ‘being a good person’ mandate. There’ll be Brightened who try to do the right thing, like this Giselle person he’s fighting, but there will always be bad apples. Quinn made it clear the fae just accept Brightened humans invading periodically as reality. But if there was some way to guard the border, if there was some way to teach other Brightened, show them that fae aren’t inherently something to be afraid of.

Vil calls this place Monster Garden because he was afraid of the fae at first. He thought they were monsters. All the things I’ve seen from fae - I could see how they could seem like monsters. But I’ve seen them act more human than me, sometimes.

Humans can act like monsters too, Vil. You’re living proof of that.

If I could show other Brightened, when they first come to the Bright Place, that fae aren’t as scary as they think they are, that magic and magic contracts aren’t things to be taken lightly - that would make the Bright Place a better, well, place. It’s because humans don’t understand fae and vice versa that we have problems.

I stop scrubbing my back. The same could be said for me and Dane. It’s because I don’t understand Dane and he doesn’t understand me that we have…problems.

I’m drying my hair in my pajamas when the house fae squeaks in my doorway excitedly. I hear Estella faintly call from the hall; “They’re back!”

They.

I rush over to the window, and sure enough Altair’s dark figure and Dane’s pale one are striding across the lawn and to the front door. Estella rockets to my doorway, hanging in it and bouncing on her heels, her pink hair bouncing with her.

“C’mon! Let’s go say hi!”

“In my pajamas?”

“No better time!” She grabs for my hand, stretching over the threshold, and yanks me into the hallway laughing. We tear down the lengths of carpet, her legs much longer than mine and I struggle to keep up.

“I haven’t seen them in years,” She laughs. I smile, happy for her, but at the same time sad for the other dormant fae in the garden. How long have they been asleep? How long has it been since they’ve seen the others?

I hate the fact my heart starts to pound the moment Dane’s lean silhouette walks through the front door. The very moment my eyes find his broad shoulders and his flyaway white-blonde hair my entire body feels lighter, deeper, more at home even though I wasn’t the one who left to begin with.

Altair sees me and Estella and sweeps both of us into a hug, spinning us around in his huge arms.

“It’s my two favorite ladies in the world!” He crows, pecking me on the cheek with a kiss, then Estella. “When did you wake up?”

“Just a few days ago,” Estella laughs as he puts us down. I wobble a bit with dizziness, and an arm catches me in the side. Long fingers, hot skin. I look up to see Dane beside me, just how I remember him; a face like a sword, sharp and hard to look at even now, his emerald-streaked blue eyes glinting down at me with the slightest dark circles under them and his broad lips pulled into a lopsided smirk.

“Watch where you’re tripping, idiot.”

Don’t think about Vil’s planned murder. It doesn’t exist. There’s only Dane. Only think about him. I give myself a single second- just one second to savor his dark, sable voice, to like a part of him instead of hating it. I can feel the glamor rising up like high tide but I’m still in control. I’m still me and what I’m feeling right now is what I really feel. I listen to my body, desperate to hear what it thinks before the glamor takes over; my heart thudding so hard it hurts, my mind a chaotic mess but thankfulness running through it like a clear, strong thread - thankfulness that he’s back and unharmed and the same way I remember him. My arms ache, the urge to feel him -

I cut myself off. That’s enough listening. It’s time to talk.

“I have a name, you know,” I sniff.

“Not a good one by any means,” He agrees. “Who names their child after a month of the human calendar?”

“A lot of people, it turns out,” I bristle. “Who names their fae kid after a pastry?”

He blinks. “What?”

“A danish.”

“What’s that?” He looks completely lost, and I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing his brows knit hard over his eyes.

“That’s it,” I announce. “Next time we’re in the human realm we’re going to a bakery and we’ll see how much you like being named after  a cream-filled diet-ruiner.”

Altair and Estella laugh, and I expect Dane to scowl harder. But his eyes flash up to them, then to me, and ever-so-faintly his scowl pulls into the smallest of grins as he says;

“It’s good to be back.”

My entire digestive system does a backflip at the same time my heart does a front flip. Estella staggers like she’s been shocked with a taser.

“Dane! Since when did you get all sentimental? I must’ve been asleep for longer than I thought!”

“Shut it,” He growls, but that only makes Estella and Altair laugh louder and I try to hold on to the moment, but the second Vil walks down the stairs to us the laughing stops and all the joy evaporates.

“Altair, Dane,” Vil nods at the two of them. “Thank you for your service. Estella, please head to the entrance of the garden. Quinn will be with you shortly for deployment.”

Estella flashes me a look, and before I know it I’m bundled up in her thin arms, her whole scent like sweet grapefruit and primrose.

“I’m going to miss you, May.” She mutters. I hold her close and tight.

“Come back safe, okay?”

She pulls away from me and pats my cheek. “I always do. You’re the one I have to worry about - I don’t need any extra cuts on the battlefield just because you decided to help the house fae chop vegetables that day.”

I laugh, though it sounds watery. She squeezes my hand and tip-toes to kiss Altair and Dane on the cheeks.

“You boys be nice.”

“Definitely,” Altair agrees with a brilliant smile.

“No promises,” Dane drawls.

She waves and struts out the front door with her head held high and I’m in awe of her all over again - she’s fought who knows how many times in her hundreds-of-years-long-life. She’s a seasoned veteran, but this time she’s being forced to fight against her will and even still she manages to ooze gorgeous, haughty pride. I would be terrified. I would be useless.

The fae are much stronger than me. Than any human I know. Mentally and physically and spiritually. For a second I’m almost afraid of it, of them, like a rabbit is afraid of the sheer concept of a hawk, but I steel myself.

Vil’s fear consumes him. I won’t let it consume me. I’ll turn it into respect - I’ll fight my human instincts, my mortal gut, like anybody with a working sense of empathy would.

I am afraid. But I won’t be afraid.

“Miss James, please feed Altair and Dane immediately, as we agreed,” Vil insists. I look up into his mild brown eyes.

“I want to see Quinn off, at least.”

A spark of something like that cruel possessiveness I saw in his eyes when he said the ‘high fae are mine’ shows through again. I’m not going to get to see Quinn off, am I? Not if I want to keep Vil off my scent.

“A-Alright,” I start, bowing my head slightly. “I’ll feed them now.”

Vil’s face melts into a smile. “Thank you.”

Dane mumbles for Altair to go first. The dark-haired fae happily agrees, and we make our way down to the feeding room as a trio. I catch Altair up on everything that’s happened since he was gone - minus the whole death-fae pact, of course.

I see Altair’s eyebrow twitch, confusion and worry there, and my throat tightens up. Shit. Think about anything else - something so strong it’ll drown out any hint of the plan. Taxes? No, he’s still frowning. Anything else. Quick!

I look over at Dane and do the only thing I can think of. It’s strong. It works fast.

I surrender to his glamor.

Instead of fighting it, pushing it away like I’ve done this whole time, I give in and it floods me and my whole body feels warm, my thoughts swimming with how handsome his jaw looks, how badly I want him to kiss me again with those broad lips, how lean and limber he looks under his black jacket and leather pants and how perfect all those muscles and bones and sinew would look pressed against mine, pressed into me and drawing out of me and into me again -

“Uh, May?”

Altair’s voice is barely there, but I snap my eyes to him and smile. We’re inside the feeding room, and I’m frozen in front of the herb shelf, my entire body throbbing.

“Sorry,” I manage, and choose the lavender and honey and black sea salt that defines him. I can feel Dane watching from outside the sliding glass door, and I glance at it before I put my blindfold on - sure enough, he’s leaning against the doorframe, back to us. But he turns his head over his shoulder and our eyes meet for a split second and my body screams to fall to my knees in front of him and beg for him to fuck me - I skitter my gaze away instantly. Dangerous. C’mon, May, hold it together.

I put my blindfold on and sit at the stool, the smell of honeycomb and lavender flooding my senses. Altair’s body is tense, his muscles wound tight, but after a few minutes of lacing my hands around him he relaxes, head lolling back.

“Damnit, May,” He sighs. “If only you knew how good it feels to be full again.”

“I do, sort of,” I manage. “Like when you’re hungry, and you eat a really good home-cooked meal, right?”

“It’s so much more,” He presses. “It’s like falling asleep in a warm patch of sun on a cool day. It’s like, I don’t know - I’m not Ioriss, I’m bad at words. It’s like falling asleep after working your body hard all day.”

“Satisfying?” I offer.

He nods. “Definitely that.”

There it is again - that prickling at the back of my neck. Dane’s looking at me, isn’t he? I don’t dare look, because if I so much as turn his way I’m pretty sure I’ll abandon Altair entirely and start grinding on Dane like a mindless cat in heat and then all Altair’s respect for me will fly out the window. Not that I can lock eyes with Dane at all with this blindfold on. Altair was right - take away one sense and the rest get amplified. Dane’s eyes are points of heat roaming over my body.

And his feeding is next. I shudder violently, and Altair sits up.

“You okay?”

“Y-Yeah. Just fine.”

Altair’s feeding is over too soon. No matter how long I try to drag it out to avoid the inevitable he gets out of the tub. I take off my blindfold - he’s glowing brightly and darkly in the stardust cloth of his true form. He ruffles my hair and winks.

“Alright, I get the picture. I’ll leave you two alone, now.”

I almost call for him to come back, but no sooner has Altair walked out does Dane walk in. I keep my eyes on the herb shelf, the floor, anywhere but him as he brushes past me to change - the space left between our bodies crackling with unseen static.

Stiffly, I walk over to the herb shelf. Cloves and sweet orange flower and mint claw at me, begging to be picked up. The sound of Dane’s clothes hitting the floor rings like someone’s struck a bell inside my chest. I tie my blindfold, even if my whole being insists I don’t need it, insists it’d be better without it. I used to be so timid, so afraid of it but now I want to see him, every fucking glorious part of him -

I hear him enter the water, and I walk over the usual five steps and feel for the edge of the tub, my fingers shaking as I tip the herbs in. I feel around for the stool and collapse on it, reaching out for the heat of him.

We can’t have a repeat. Some small part of me, drowning in the glamor, cries out that we can’t have a repeat of last time. But even as I think that my hands are sliding greedily over his shoulders, the feel of him so silky, so real and tangible after being away for so long - I dive into him, every curve of his neck, every swell of his muscle, I linger hungrily, like I’m trying to memorize him, like I’m trying to fill a void I never knew I had, a void shaped just like him.

I run my hand down the seam of his abs, gently, slowly despite the fact I want to do nothing more than go as fast as possible, feel as much of him as fast as possible. He twitches ever-so-slightly, his muscles jumping under the sensation like a wild beast being pet for the first time. I can’t help my soft laugh.

“Don’t be afraid.”

It’s a blur of movement and the sound of water as I’m pushed to my feet - off the stool - my spine pinned against the hard wood wall of the feeding room. I can feel Dane’s long fingers as he pulls my arms wide, pressing his own arms against them on the wall, our hands palm-to-palm and every inch of his damp body burning hot against me. His hips, his chest, and a long, steel-cut length straining just below my belly button.

“You are the one -” His voice comes out so ragged, his breath warm on my neck. “- who should be afraid.”

It’s the glamor. It has to be. That’s what makes my whole body seize up at his words, what blurs my thoughts as something hard offers itself between my legs and I press into it mindlessly, grinding my hips in instinctual circles against it. It’s the glamor that makes me cry out in loss when it retreats, only to celebrate again eagerly as his long fingers slip over my pajama shorts, sliding beneath my soaked underwear and caressing the skin there.

“Strange,” He murmurs sardonically against my neck. “I thought you hated me. What’s all this, then?”

“T-The glamor, remember?” I pant.

“I thought so, too. Until I heard you -“ His teeth scrape my throat. “That night, in your bed, alone. You thought about me, so strong and bright I heard you from a thousand miles away.”

“W-What -“

“I thought it was a hallucination from an enemy fae,” He laughs, the rumble in his chest vibrating against my skin. “Made to trick me. But no - I reached out and there you were; free of my glamor, thinking about kissing me, about telling me you -“

He slips his fingers over that perfect, tender spot, and I gasp.

“ - missed me.”

My dream. He heard my dream. He moves up to my ear, and I can feel his lips smiling against the shell as he says;

“It turns out I missed you, too.”

He speeds his pace, his two fingers gently rolling and squeezing and it’s not how I do it but it starts welling up in me all the same -

“I thought about you every day. About arguing with you. About your smile.”

That molten wave starts to crest and I arch my back into him, pleading for more soundlessly and all of a sudden it stops, his fingers still as his smile against my ear grows lopsided.

“I thought about teasing you.”

I buck my hips, desperate for him, but he just laughs and presses his lips to mine, the soft sweetness parting for his inquisitive, gentle tongue. It’s nothing like the rose dome kiss - so thoughtful and tender I can feel myself melting into a dizzy glaze.

“I thought about this exact moment,” His fingers begin to weave again. “A hundred times.”

It’s here, just over the horizon, thundering through my nerves and I can’t stop my moan.

“I’m going to -“

Everything stops again, instantly. I feel his hand pull away this time and he kisses the hollow of my throat.

“No, you aren’t. Not yet. Not until I’ve had my fun.”

And just like that, he’s gone, his warmth missing and the door to the feeding room sliding closed on a flustered, blindfolded me once again.

-15-

I stare at the ceiling of my room the next morning like it has all the answers. But it doesn’t. Just because it isn’t college-area, popcorn-finish apartment ceiling doesn’t mean shit. Ceilings are just ceilings - staring at them never works. It never solves anything.

But boy howdy do I try to make it solve my entire life.

It took me a while to get back up to my room - I was so dazed my Dane’s touch I felt like I’d been laying in the sun for too long. Heatstroke? Definitely a certain kind of heat. Ha ha me, you’re so brilliant. And so incredibly stupid.

How could you let him corner you like that? You knew it’d be trouble when you fed him, and you gave into it! What, is your spine made of jello? What happened to that pride you were clinging onto all this time?

“What good is pride,” I mutter. “If I actually like him?”

I missed him. Yesterday made that abundantly clear - the second he walked into the mansion, before his glamor could even get to me, I felt it. I missed him. All of him. His irritating way of calling me an idiot, his smirks, his broad shoulders and his long fingers and his cheekbones like cut glass and the way his arm shot out to keep me from tripping.

The little things. I missed all of those once-insignificant little things. When did they become significant? What was the tipping point, where my hate turned to longing?

“If you think any louder the whole mansion will hear you.”

I sit up to see Altair in my doorway, his smile bright and his dark hair pulled into a sleek braid and his sweater ugly but more beautiful on him than it has any right to be.

“Leave me alone,” I groan into my pillow. “I’m in the middle of a mental crisis.”

“You know what I’ve heard are great for humans with mental crisis?” He chimes. “Walks in nature!”

I groan again, but he chuckles.

“C’mon, it’s not far. You wanted to see the altar, didn’t you?”

I sit straight up in bed. The altar - the thing Dane went to for Barnabus’s blood. I throw on a jacket and latch myself onto his arm as we walk, urging him on faster. A figure with white hair approaches down the hall, and I freeze. Dane. Altair throws him a smile.

“Good morning, Danish.”

“Ugh,” Dane flinches. “Don’t.” He looks over to me, his pained look slightly amused. “Look what you started.”

“I started?” I find my voice even though the blush from yesterday’s memories starts to bloom on my cheeks. “You were the one who called my name -“

“We’re off to see the altar,” Altair interrupts me all of a sudden. His silver-pointed eyes are suddenly set and serious as he stares at Dane.

That’s right - Dane didn’t want me to know about how they choose blood. The altar is part of it. Dane’s faint amusement fades, replaced with steel and iron. There’s a tense moment. He could stop us again. He could demand Altair don’t show me it and I’m sure Altair would listen. I’d be left in the dark, still, with one word from him.

But Dane just looks at me for a second, long and deep.

“Alright,” He says finally. “Go, then.”

Altair smiles, looking between him and me, and then dropping my arm out of his. “You’re so easy to read, Danish.”

“What?” Dane glowers.

“I get it, she’s yours. I won’t lock arms with her.”

“No -“ Dane starts, and I swear I see his face faintly glow red. “Do whatever you want.”

“Your thoughts told me otherwise,” Altair teases, then winks at me. “He was getting very jealous.”

“Shut up!” Dane punches his shoulder, and Altair laughs louder and ruffles his hair and for a moment it’s like I’m watching two quarreling brothers instead of two eternal, powerful fae. Altair breaks off first, trotting ahead and calling for me to catch up.

“I’ll be back, um, soon,” I say to Dane. He doesn’t say anything, but I feel something touching my pinky, and look down to see his pinky moving for mine, catching it finally and curling around me and the motion is so small and tentative my heart flutters like a hummingbird’s wing. He breathes out.

“I’m going to practice my apologies again, right now. I’m sorry. In advance.”

“For what?”

“For what you’re going to see at the altar,” He says. I frown, but he lets my pinky go and walks away, a rueful smile on his face. “I didn’t want you to know, because I thought you’d close yourself off from people. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry, you’re freaking me out.”

“Isn’t that what I do best?” He smirks. “Go on. Altair’s waiting.”

“You can’t order me around.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” He laughs, then fixes me with his smoldering eyes and a light tone. “Except when I do.”

I blush ten shades of red and dash out the door after Altair before his glamor and my own body propel me to him.

“I’ll be waiting for you, little beast!” I hear Dane call behind me.

The altar isn’t far. It’s past the eastern pavilion where the linking ritual took place, past the sea of grass on that side. I follow him diligently, trying my hardest not to get lost by clinging to his dark shirt. Finally, we hit trees - huge, old oak trees as big as redwoods, and while I’m busy marveling at how many years they’ve been alive (since the dawn of time?) Altair leads me over a hill and I see it for the first time.

The altar.

It’s made of bright red crystal, shining so damn brightly from the sun lances that pierce the oak branches I have to shade my eyes, but eventually I adjust. It looks almost like two wings, the jagged crystal forming a halo of almost-closed feathers encircling a stone bowl on a pedestal. Surrounding the bowl is a ring of stone pillars, ancient and covered with moss, and Altair ducks between them and comes to a stop before the bowl.

“Be sure not to touch it,” He warns. “The bowl, the pillars. Any of it. It’s made for fae - and stuff made for us usually doesn’t react well to humans.”

I nod and walk over, peering over the edge into the bowl. There’s nothing but smooth stone there. Altair shoots me a grin, and then pulls out a silver knife from seemingly nowhere.

“This part’s a little gruesome. Might wanna close your eyes.”

I shake my head. “No I - I wanna see. I need to see, to understand.”

He laughs and mutters under his breath; “College students.”

He slices his hand across the palm and I wince, but Altair doesn’t so much as blink. Either he feels nothing or he’s just used to it, because he spreads his palm over the bowl and lets the blood drip into it. One drips, two, three, and then the red crystal halo around the bowl springs to life, glowing with a bright crimson light. It’s beautiful, if a little eerie, the light covering everything within the pillar ring in bloody light, Altair and me face included. But Altair’s not done - he stares into the bowl as he touches the red crystal halo, moving parts of it this way and that until he says;

“There. This is it. Come look.”

I walk up hesitantly beside him and stare into the bowl. It’s filled with blood now - not from his hand, because I can see his wound’s closed up now. But the blood acts like a mirror, or a screen, showing us a very familiar apartment door; 207. My upstairs neighbors’ door. I can hear that heavy death metal music faintly booming from the bowl, and the door opens. Inside are a bunch of guys hanging around, but I only recognize two of them, the two that rented it; the red-head guy and a guy with long brown hair.

The two that are dead, now.

“Can you call Vanessa?” Brown-hair guy asks.

“Naw, she stopped answering my calls.” Red-head says.

“What about your downstairs neighbor?” One of their friends cackles. “I saw her when I was smoking outside through her window - she’s hot.”

“Shut up.” Red head frowns, and I feel sick to my stomach.

“I’m serious! Listen, I’ve done it before, okay? It just takes one of us to ring her doorbell and then she answers, and we walk in. It’s not hard, and if she tells anybody we can say she begged us to do it.”

I watch in horror as the four of them share looks, and then grins, and then they erupt into laughter.

“Fine,” Red head sighs. “But no hanging around - in then out.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” The long-haired guy puts his tongue between his fingers and waggles it, and I stagger back from the bowl like I’ve been physically hit. I feel Altair’s hand on my back, and my instinct is to lurch away, but I catch a glimpse of his star-studded eyes through my panic and instantly relax. He’s not human. He’s fae.

“It’s sort of like Dane’s ability,” Altair says softly. “Except very accurate. And timely. If we need blood, the altar shows us humans or fae who are plotting evil. It’s not an excuse, but -“ He frowns. “It’s the system that’s been established for as long as I’ve been alive. Since before me, made by the First Fae.”

“They were going to -“ I swallow. I’d come that close to -

“Yeah. But listen, they didn’t,” Altair tries a smile. “Me and Dane got them and met you and - it worked out.”

I feel my legs wobble, and I walk out of the pillar circle and sit on a small stump. “Sorry I’m just - I can’t do this as fast as you can.”

“Do what?”

“Process everything.”

“Oh I take forever to process serious stuff, too.” Altair agrees, sitting beside me on the leaves, his smile crooked. “Literally.”

I get the joke, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Altair lets me sit in silence, and together we watch the majestic oaks creak and groan in the sun. This is what Dane didn’t want me to know, and I get it, now. It weighs heavy on my mind, a dark spot there staining deep.

I didn’t want you to know, because I thought you’d close yourself off from people.

“He really does care too much,” I mutter at the ground. Altair looks up.

“Who?”

“Dane. The world isn’t a pretty place. I know that. He doesn’t have to try to protect me from it.”

“That’ll never stop him from trying. That’s just how he is.”

“Yeah,” I smile at the leaves, the way the sunlight dapples through them. “I think I get that, now.”

I see Altair grinning at me out of the corner of my eye, but then he stops. He looks over his shoulder, and all of a sudden his regular clothes are replaced with this true form, and he stands up, radiating shadow.

“May,” He murmurs. “Come here.”

“What’s wrong?” I stand, but he motions for me to be quiet, to take his hand. I do, my pulse thrumming. What’s he looking around so nervously for?

“We have to get back to Monster Garden,” He says softly. “As fast as we can.”

I nod to show him I understand - it must be something awful if he’s this afraid. He pulls me by the hand through the woods, the trees going from peaceful and serene to suddenly looming over us with long shadows. I swear I feel the air go still and get thick, like an invisible, heavy fog. Even breathing feels harder, my panting coming in labored as I try to keep up with Dane.

Something flickers to the side of me, and I tilt my head to look but it’s gone. That was movement. But nothing lives in the Monster Garden - no animals, no birds. Only -

“Shadow fae,” Altair whispers. “And we’re too far out.”

“Can’t we do that melty thing you high fae do to the world and get back fast?”

“That’s only for crossing realms, not traveling within realms.”

“Then what do we -“

The shriek of something inhuman rakes across my eardrums, and my vision is a blur of Altair’s dark matter clothes, of the stars within them, of the leaves of the ground and his shouting as red blood splats across the tree trunks. There’s a moment where the dark matter cloth parts, and I see it in perfect clarity; there, standing tall among the trees, is a massive thing on stick legs and with stick arms, made entirely of moving darkness. It has no face, just two yellow-glowing eyes where its face should be, suspended above its rail-thin shoulders. Another shriek, and another one rises up from the tree’s shadows, rising so fast I blink and it’s moving towards us fully-formed. Both of them have something coppery glinting around where their necks should be. Collars?

“Bright Lady,” Altair swears. I feel something hot dripping down my side where he is and look down - red seeping into my clothes.

“Holy shit, you’re bleeding!” I scrabble, my Senior high school lifeguard training flashing through my brain fuzzily as I press my hand to his side. Pressure first.

“We have to run,” He insists. “They caught me by surprise. Bright Lady - I shouldn’t have discounted them.”

I can’t see how bad the wound is, but his olive face is turning greenish on the edges, and he winces with every step. I lean him into me and act like his crutch, and we hobble through the woods together.

“I thought high fae were -“

“Powerful?” Altair winces. “We are. But shadow fae are dangerous to even us. They drain Brightness, so the longer you fight them the worse off your odds. And there’s -“ He looks back over his shoulder at the screeching. “- Way too many for me to deal with alone.”

We reach the sea of grass, and plunge into it, stomping desperately through the strands. Altair’s body leans this way and that, showing me what direction to head in. The shrieks behinds are more than two - four, five now, all of them sounding furious and hellbent on destroying us.

“Why are there…so many?” Altair wheezes. “They never travel in packs like this.”

“Are these the same ones that got Barnabus?” I pant.

“Definitely,” Altair agrees. “They never travel in packs, unless -“

“Unless what?” I urge him on.

“Unless they’re bound by a Brightened.”

All my skin prickles cold - a Brightened? Is that who attacked Barnabus, almost killed him? Is that who’s after us now?

“One of Giselle’s?” I ask.

“Probably. Keep running, if we can get to the edge of Monster Garden we’ll be safe - the rules of invitation apply to all fae, not just high fae!”

“Won’t Barnabus have to -“

“They surprised him at the border,” Altair flinches. “But he’ll be safe inside it with us -”

“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.”

His voice breaks as he murmurs; “Let me make sure.”

His lips on mine clear the world - his gentle pressure too little for me and I kiss him harder, biting at his lip and throwing everything in me at him; all my worry, all my relief, all my joy at seeing him again. He responds instantly with more fire than I could ever muster, rising to meet me with his hands on the side of my face, kissing so fiercely I feel like he’s stealing my very breath from my throat. My hands find his shirt and his hands find my jeans and there’s a moment of furious ripping and tearing of cloth, and when we’re both bare he pulls me against him, hard.

“I thought you were gone,” He whispers against my throat. “The idea of living without you -“

“I know,” I manage, the tears rolling over my cheeks at just how close we came to being separated forever. “I know.”

He kisses them away and it melts me, and I reach down the seam of his abs to find him, find the heat there, and he hisses. He presses me backwards, my knees catching the bed and the two of us falling into the soft blankets. I grind my hips greedily against his and he fills me in one swift, slick thrust and my moan spills over instantly, his lips cutting it off as he presses them to mine.

“If this is a dream, I never want it to end,” He rests his forehead on mine, gemstone eyes gleaming into me. I smile up at him.

“I’ll try not to wake you, then.”

He begins to move, achingly slow circles as he smirks against my ear. “Oh it’s too late for that.”

Movies don’t really do it justice, I think. I think - as I lie in bed exhausted and spent hours later, Dane tracing tender, ritualistic circles on my skin with his long fingers - that movies try to make it seem clean and easy. None of it is clean, thank god, and it’s certainly not easy.

“I love you.” I grin at Dane, and he kisses the space between my shoulder blades, his fingers wandering lower as he murmurs;

“As it turns out, I love you, too.”

It’s not a simple thing, loving someone else. Sometimes you hate them. Sometimes you can’t stand to be away from them. Sometimes you’re not even sure about what you’re feeling at all. It’s not clean. It’s not easy.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way, with any other fae.

****

Dane realizes, after our third round, that his collar is gone.

I didn’t see it go, because I was a little…occupied, but in the vice grip of pleasure I could’ve sworn I saw a glimmer of silver around his neck, fragmenting up and into the ceiling like powder snow moving the wrong way.

I explain everything to him, slowly, carefully. Quinn’s idea, my firstborn promised to Caelthea, how we banked on him to see Van Grier’s death through.

He dresses, button-by-button and rolling his sleeves up as he listens. And when I’m done, he pauses at the foot of the bed.

“Are you mad?” I ask, my voice trembling. He turns, walking over and bending to kiss me on the forehead, coming away with a smile. Not a smirk, for once - but a real, golden smile that suits his sword-sharp face like nothing else.

“No. How could I be? You gave so much. You freed me tonight, in more ways than you’ll ever know.”

He moves to the door and I reach out for him, but he squeezes my hand.

“There’s business to take care of. You stay here.”

He says that, his sword appearing from thin air halfway out the door and his true form fading away his normal clothes.

If you’ve seen the moment the sun comes up in a sunrise, you’ve seen Dane’s true form. His whole body is encased in white fabric so blinding it looks like snow under high noon, jagged streaks of gold slithering like heat waves along the cloth. It’s a long coat, no shirt beneath, baring his marble chest to the world, the brilliantly gold buttons shaped like suns with a thousand rays. His pants are white beneath the coat, the long tails of the coat floating and undulating like they’re suspended on air. Gold drips from his fingers and up to his wrists - two sheaves of gold armor for his hands, the fingertips wickedly sharp. A gold crown studded with flawless pearls rest on his white-blonde head, his single forehead lock falling into his gemstone eyes. His eyes blaze; the emerald and sapphire there burning out like green and azure flames.

He flares for a second and then he’s gone, his white coat tails turning the corner.

He knows as well as I do there’s no way I can just sit here. I dress slow, knowing the slower I go the less I’ll see the actual violence. I listen, my ears on point for anything, but all I hear is the gentle ticking of the grandfather clock, and then a thud from down the hall.

The act is quiet, but the aftermath is loud.

“H-Help!” Vil’s voice fills the hall, too weak to get very far. I walk out and see him leaning against a wall, his white suit stained with blood from a neck wound and his hands pressing against his throat as if he’s trying to keep it all in.

“Miss James,” He croaks, brown eyes wild for once. “You must help me!”

“Must I?” I ask and watch him stagger forward, off the wall and to his knees. I flinch as more blood spatters across the rich carpet, but I steel myself. This is what he deserves - for torturing the fae, enslaving them for so long, for seeing them as nothing but objects.

“You and I are Brightened,” He insists, all his grandeur and poise shattered as he drags himself towards me. “We are the same!”

“I’m nothing like you,” I feel my face harden. Dane emerges from Vil’s office many doors down, his expression cold and resigned, his blade dripping with blood.

“You - “ Vil looks up with dawning horror on his face. “You were the one who made the deal with the d-death fae to do this, weren’t you?”

I say nothing, willing myself to remember this moment. I’m just as guilty of his murder as Dane is.

“You betrayed me!” His face turns red, not with blood, but with pure rage. “I gave you everything - a home, a salary, an opportunity. I opened your world, expanded it beyond the human realm, and this is how you t-thank me?”

I don’t interrupt him. How can I? These are the last words he’ll ever say in his life. And yet he’s wasting it on putting the blame on me.

I lean in, just barely closer to him, squatting down to his level.

“Do you know why you’re dying right now?”

“Because of you!” He snarls.

“Because you treated living things like toys,” I say. “Because you thought, just because you had power here in the fae realm, that gave you the right to enslave others.”

“Power is made to be used!” He shrieks, his spittle mixing with the blood on the carpet.

“Power is made to be taught,” I correct him. “It’s made to educated, so that the person with it never misuses it for their own gain at the expense of others.”

“You self-righteous -“

“Thank you, Vil,” I smile at him, tears coming to my eyes. He’s still a human. I’m still responsible for his death. “For teaching me the most important lesson.”

Dane strides up behind him, and I look away. Vil screams, and keeps screaming until the blade finds him, and then it’s over.

Dane drops his sword and pulls me to his chest, and I cry against him in that bloodstained hall.

EPILOGUE

THREE YEARS LATER

I tried to convince Mom and Dad they really didn’t need to fly all the way out here to see my graduation, but they insisted. I can see them now, sitting in the stands of the stadium, Mom waving her arms madly and Dad holding up a hand-made sign of his that reads; “MAY JAMES I’M SO PROUD OF YOU”. It’d make me tear up if it wasn’t so cheesy.

I adjust my graduation cap, the tassel in it flickering too close to my nose. Jeremy, a guy I partnered with for most of my labs and who’s last name seats him right behind me, leans over and jokes;

“At least the gown is comfy, huh?”

I laugh and put my hand on my swollen, seven-months pregnant belly. “Yeah. He’s definitely comfortable in there.”

As if to assert just how comfy he is, he kicks at my stomach. Hard.

“Ow!” I hold it. “You little shit - just you wait until you come out. You’re gonna be grounded from day one.”

Jeremy laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. It’s been three years of him and I struggling through our teaching degree. Yeah, that’s right. I said teaching. I switched halfway, ditching law and focusing entirely on teaching, with a minor in psychology. It’s a weird combination, but for what I wanna do with it, it’ll do just fine.

Next to Mom and Dad I see a shock of white-blonde hair, sapphire-streaked green eyes so bright and distinct I could spot them from a million miles away. He’s wearing a sweater and jeans (it’s weird to think three years ago all he would touch is leather), his broad lips pulled into a little smile as he and Mom talk. She doesn’t know he’s a fae, of course, and neither does Dad. I managed to convince them he’s a male underwear model which, when you think about it, isn’t too far from the truth. Mom and Dad were worried up until the point Dane offered to lend them money for their mortgage, and suddenly they weren’t so worried anymore. Leave it to the past generation to focus only on how much a guy makes before they agree to let their daughter date him.

I sigh, wiggling my swollen toes in my flats. I’d give anything to be back at Monster Garden, putting my feet up and drinking some of the house fae’s delicious lemonade. Pregnancy is a bitch, but at least it’s a well-fed one; my every craving immediately solved by the breathtaking culinary  skills of the house fae. Sir Charles even helps by fetching cushions for me, and crosswords, and my phone, and whatever my pregnancy-brain farts out on and forgets to bring to my room. Barnabus insists I keep a little green moss covered rock in my room at all times, to ‘help with getting the baby used to him’.

The guest speaker finally steps down from the podium, and the diplomas finally start being given out, the long walk up and the cheers from the crowd nerve-wracking. The hardest part is behind me, I assure myself. Five years ago, when I first stepped on campus, I never imagined myself standing here. I knew it would happen, or at least I hoped it would, and after everything I’ve gone through - the financial scares at the beginning, meeting Dane and the fae, killing Vil and freeing them, paying off my loans and keeping my head down and working my ass off - I feel like I deserve every moment of celebration.

Even if I feel a little sad about it.

I put my hand to my belly and smile thinly. I’ve visited Caelthea a few times since getting pregnant, and she insists I can’t name him. His name is up to her. But I have a name for him in my head.

“You’ll be alright, won’t you, little beast?”

Jeremy’s name gets called and I cheer wildly for him. I glance up at the stands to see Mom and Dad now surrounded by tall, graceful, beautiful people with all colors of hair. Red-haired Axel and blue-haired Quinn argue about something, my Dad trying to referee it. Altair and Estella and bright blonde Vanaris all laugh at the argument. Lavender-haired Ioriss speaks softly with Dane and green-haired Sythiel. Dane’s eyes sparkle, amused, as Sythiel pats him on the shoulder.

All of the high fae, free. All of them together, with my parents, at my graduation.

After Vil died, all the dormant fae were woken up, Quinn and Estella came back from the battle, and Sythiel eventually came back to the fae realm. I fed them all, slowly this time so I wouldn’t overdraw, and together we rebuilt a life from nothing. Seventh Circle is still up and running, and they all chip in to keep it operating. The shield fae who act as bouncers insisted they remain at the club, and so we hired them. Quinn is still the bartender, Dane is the general watchdog. Ioriss showed a talent for DJing very quickly, and Estella with all her flair is amazing at setting up events and pushing PR. Axel, loud and gregarious as he is, is the general hype-man and mood-maker, and Vanaris loves to tag along and make the shenanigans even bigger and crazier. Sythiel and Altair don’t show up much, preferring each others’ company, and I couldn’t be happier for Altair.

And me? I sat in the VIP booth for three years and did my homework.

The money from the club paid for my college, and the rest I used to help Mom and Dad’s mortgage, and the feeling of being able to do that had me walking on air for the next six months.

I think back on everything as I wait for my name to be called. Giselle had been a huge problem, at first, when Vil first died. She wanted to close the fae realm off completely, but I invited her to Monster Garden to talk. It was tense, all her Brightened facing down the high fae as they walked through the marble halls. Giselle herself was a gorgeous, intimidating woman, six feet tall with a heart just as big, which I realized once we sat down and actually started talking. We both hated Vil. We both thought Brightened tried to take advantage of fae. I told her about Jasmine, about how wrong it was to treat fae like disposable soldiers just because she could bind them. And Giselle pointed out to me we couldn’t leave the fae realm wide open, no matter what.

So like adults, we compromised.

“May Renee James.”

My head snaps up, and I get out of my seat with some difficulty and waddle up to the stage, to the Dean, who shakes my hand and smiles at me as he hands over m diploma. I hold it up and cheer, and I see Mom and Dad jump up, the more animated high fae waving madly - Estella the most excited of all. But Dane - his eyes burn out at me, so warm and filled with pure pride and love I feel my heart skip. Is that normal, someone making your heart skip after three years? I hope it is. I hope my heart skips forever for him.

And just like that, graduation is over. Mom and Dad and the high fae take me to dinner at a fancy steakhouse, and I try to explain to my parents again who these bright-haired people are - Dane’s family. We eat and drink until we’re stuffed, the high fae pretending to eat just for appearances sake, but Axel starts to psychosomatically get drunk off how drunk my Dad is, and then Ioriss gets the giggles, and Vanaris shepherds them both off with the ‘work’ excuse. Altair and Sythiel kiss me on either cheek and bid me goodnight, Altair winking at me as he walks away. Estella and my Mom drive Dad back to the hotel, my Dad crying the whole time about how proud he is of me. Quinn groans and says he’s too tired to stay out much longer, the grump, and he leaves.

Soon it’s just Dane and I.

We walk arm-in-arm down the moonlit street, the street lamps throwing amber light on his high cheeks.

“So,” I start.

“So,” He grins.

“Do you think they like you yet?”

“Your parents? Absolutely not. But I forgive them. It’s hard to like someone as beautiful as me without being jealous.”

I punch his arm, and he laughs and abruptly pulls me into a kiss, pushing me against the brick wall of a nearby store. His lips are so hot, his tongue sweeping at my mouth, promising more sweetness to come later tonight.

“I’m so happy for you,” He smiles down at me, his hand moving to my belly. “And you, little guy? Well, let’s just say you’ve got an interesting life ahead of you.”

“He’ll be fine,” I murmur. “He’s got your confidence, after all.”

“And your stubbornness,” Dane adds with a twinkle in his eye as we start walking again, the colors melting around us as he ports us back to Monster Garden. It’s funny to think that after everything, I’m the only one who still wears a silver collar - just to make sure I port properly. Dane’s used it more than once in bed against me, but like the twisted girl I am, I enjoy it.

“I hope he doesn’t have your legs,” I groan. “Or he’ll have to beat the ladies off with a stick.”

“Not his dick-stick, I assume. Another stick.”

“You’re disgusting.”

He laughs. “What? I can’t wish for my son to have all the same endowments I do?”

I shake my head, laughing softly. My laughter fades quick, though, and I feel Dane’s pinky circle around my own, his hand encompassing mine and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“He’ll be fine,” He repeats my words back at me, like he’s trying to assure me. These seven months have been nothing but me worrying about how well I’m eating, how well the little beast inside me is doing. I’ve put off thinking about how I have to give him to Caelthea, but every time he kicks it’s getting harder. Every day I wake up, it’s getting harder.

Seventeen. I’ll be able to see him once he turns seventeen. That thought helps me sleep at night.

It’s not forever.

Nothing is forever.

We pass the empty rose domes, now filled with vegetables and fruit trees. When Vil died, things started living again - bees and birds and frogs, but all fae realm versions, of course. The bees are bright green and bigger than my pinky and look more like dragonflies, the birds have six pairs of wings and blink in and out of existence, and the frogs have furred tails and turn an opaque copper color when surprised.

The mansion, though, is the same as ever, save for one addition; a sign, just out front, in bold, curly silver lettering;

THE JAMES ACADEMY FOR GIFTED INDIVIDUALS

It was Giselle who gave me the idea in the first place. She said she would close the border everywhere, and In convinced her to keep it open at Monster Garden. She said she wished I wasn’t the only one who understood just how amazing fae and the fae realm were. That’s when it hit me - I didn’t know I had Brightened powers until I came to the fae realm. But every Brightened started out as a kid, didn’t they? The best time to teach someone was then - when their minds were still open to learning. Vil’s age was too late - he was already set in his ways, set in his fears. But if I could teach Brightened from an early age - not too young, but not too old, high school would be ideal - then I could gradually introduce them to their powers and the fae. Altair and Sythiel are working on a crystalline device a lot like the altar as we speak; something that can pinpoint Brightened powers in the human realm. If we can get that working, then sending a letter out, getting our reputation for great education out there - it would all fall into place.

I still have a lot to do; teachers to hire, more rooms to build in the mansion, because if it’s a boarding school we’ll need a lot more rooms. I’ve talked to the house fae about setting up a cafeteria and expanding his kitchen, to Barnabus and the shield fae about handling security if there were a lot of students here. Sir Charles would be the mascot, obviously. Estella’s volunteered to make the uniforms, and Ioriss has offered his incredibly gifted services as an artist to be the art teacher. Altair loves the idea of being a teacher, too, and even Quinn wants to chip in - as administrative expert, of course.

It’s far off, but someday, I hope this dream of mine will come true.

Someday, I hope fae and humans can live together, in peace.

I stand in front of the sign and look up at the mansion, Dane walking ahead of me. He stops and turns, flashing me that lopsided grin I love so much.

“What are you waiting for?” He asks, extending a hand to me.

“Nothing,” I smile, waddling up to him and taking it. “Nothing at all.”

AFTERWORD

This little ditty of a book was something I’d written a long, long time ago – about seven years, to be exact! I wrote a book about fae who were more like vampires, and then when I realized how awful it was, and how everyone was writing a vampire/fae book, I quickly shoved it in a drawer and never let it see the sun again. Thankfully, I’ve gotten just a bit better at writing since then, and I decided to pull this old manuscript out, polish it up, finish it, and send it out into the world. Dane and May really sizzled on the pages for me, and I hope they did the same for you. In the future, maybe there’s a YA book about their son and the new school for Brightened kids on the horizon? I’d like that very much.

Thank you so much for reading this silly little book of my heart, and I hope you have a wonderful journey in the reading world, and in life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sara Wolf is a twenty-something author who adores baking, screaming at her cats, and screaming at herself while she types hilarious things. When she was a kid, she was too busy eating dirt to write her first terrible book. Twenty years later, she picked up a keyboard and started mashing her fists on it and created the monster known as the Lovely Vicious series. She lives in San Diego with two cats, a crippling-yet-refreshing sense of self-doubt, and not enough fruit tarts ever.

Her other series include the LOVELY VICIOUS series, and the upcoming YA/Fantasy BRING ME THEIR HEARTS. You can find her at the websites below for more exciting news and books;

www.sarawolfbooks.com

www.twitter.com/Sara_Wolf1

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6862831.Sara_Wolf

www.instagram.com/authorsarawolf

Table of Contents

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Epilogue

About the Author