Page 35 of Cursed Shadows 2

Three gazes swerve to the human man down the way, and each of us must look every bit fae in our glares alone, because he flinches as though we’ve all struck him with daggers and spears.

Then Bee curses under her breath, a word I would never speak without my face burning hotter than the sun, then steals the tray into her hands. She throws us both a withering look about the human man, and I smile.

Maybe she’s not so bad.

Might have been different if I’d met her in our realm, if she’d stayed in the Light Court. I adore my Eamon so much and so much more. But sometimes I wouldn’t mind having a female friend.

I wonder what sort of friend she would have made as I watch her approach the human men. And as we finish up our night in these lands, I wonder if I will ever have another friend who isn’t Eamon.

I do worry.

I worry he will meet someone he loves and leave to be with them. I worry he might return to the dark lands and leave me behind or abandon me for a place in the Midlands.

I worry so much—and it all ends with me alone.

Maybe that’s why I hold on so tightly. Too tightly, I suppose.

But Eamon doesn’t complain, not even as we leave the bar and head back to the bridge, and I literally hold onto him with a vice grip. My hand is firm on his, fingers threaded, and my side pressed up against his, as though if I keep close enough then this strange, large and loud and bright human city won’t devour me.

I think of Daxeel. My lost love. How you would hate this city. How you would further hate the humans for the stink of poison in the air—how I am so grateful to have loved you.

Maybe one day, you will love me again.

10

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Maybe it’s that this is the second last phase before the first passage that not many fae flood the Hall this Breeze. Some might be getting in more practice on the battle blocks, studying the scripture of the passage in the archives and the library, or even getting more rest than usual.

Whatever the reason, all that hot, jovial atmosphere I’ve gotten used to in the Hall—one filled with laughter and shouts and the slams of bottles on wooden tables—feels somewhat dead. It might be the Breeze, but we’re close enough to the First Wind that only having a dozen contenders in here with us reminds me too much of the tavern in my village, the one with old males who have too many stories of tired wars and long-gone battles.

Dull and tired.

Splayed out on the couch, Aleana has her legs sprawled over my lap, and she swirls around the honeywine. She watches the buttery liquid slosh against the clear glass. “Will you come down to Kithe?” she asks, but before I can answer her, she goes on, “You should meet Kalice.”

I frown on the name for a beat. “Your neighbour? The human?”

She hums, turning a finger around and around a glossy lock of inky hair. Looks freshly washed, trimmed and smoothed with all the right oils, and so I suspect her phase spent in town was to get her hair treated at the baths with her mother. It’s her eyes, those pale shards of glass, that carry the weariness of her sickness in their slightly reddened hue, the dark circles blemishing the skin around them. So unlike the sharp kohl lines of her brother’s lively eyes.

Aleana nods. “She’s my only friend in Kithe. But she nevergoes anywhere,” she says with a sigh, and at the sound, Rune’s gaze cuts to her, lingers for a beat, then he looks away with a twist to his mouth. “She’s not dull—she’s afraid here.”

I tilt my head, the frown still creasing my forehead. “Did she grow up in the human world?”

The pout she gives, mixed with a sharp shake of the head, is her answer. “She’s a changeling.”

A human babe stolen from the human realm. Maybe even swapped for a sickly fae newborn, probably a kinta.

“You should meet her,” Aleana decides, firm.

And I don’t quite understand the reason for it all, this sudden desire for me to meet her human neighbour or come to Kithe where I know I’m not welcome, at least not by Daxeel.

I study her elegant lethargy for a few heartbeats, how she draws her distant gaze to the ceiling above, her back melted into the plush cushions of the couch.

I flick my attention to Rune as he shifts in his chair. All sopping wet from the outside he not long ago left to find warmth and drinks here in the Hall, he looks ever uncomfortable. His hardened face is aimed at the short brown table placed between us, but his mind seems faraway.

I look to Eamon who gently turns a page in his romance book. It might be papered in black parchment, the cover hidden from anyone who looks his way, but I know that is a book he has stolen from some human he has recruited into our realm, and this is his fourth read of it, he likes it so much. I recognize it by the scratches down the spine, the ones I left when I tried the book. It wasn’t to my taste. Too much pointless action, not enough focus on the characters.

“Eamon,” I reach out my hand for him, but he’s not within touching distance. Still, he lifts up his gaze from the pages. “Remember Belladonna?”

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