Page 65 of Cursed Shadows 2

Feels like I’ve been stuffed into a green bottle, one filled with thick forestry. The floor is a deep-green marble with gold swirls and cracks. Leafy bars are hidden behind staircases and tucked into alcoves with tall velvet stools pressed up against them.

But it’s the balconies above that snare my attention, and I pay no mind to the human man who let us enter, the one who murmurs a welcome and bows his head.

Beyond the balcony barriers, I see that the rooms above have no walls lining them. Where walls should be are tall glass pools filled with all sorts of fish of red and orange and yellow and white and black; floating green moss rocks; midnight blue weeds that sway with the current; and slimy grey grindylows feasting on the heads of fallen fish.

Aquariums.

I’ve never seen one before, these glass water prisons.

It’s an extraordinary thing to behold. That shows in my faint smile as my neck arches back so I can get a good look at every single creature I can spot swimming on the other side of the glass.

Bottle blue and forest green—that’s the theme of the Gloaming. And it’s a warm, welcoming embrace of comfort, yet something otherworldly. It takes me a moment to piece it together. This place feels like home because it’s meant to.

The fish, the plants, the colours, the dark corners, the cosy warmth of illuminated alcoves, the upper levels with games of darts and rock toss, the shelves of leather-bound tomes that come from both lands—

The Gloaming is a blend of both Licht and Dorcha. It’s awelcome hometo fae from both lands.

And it’s a reminder of where I am. Kithe, a blended town in the Midlands, a town where we mix together as one.

Before Daxeel can steal me out of the wonder, I count at least a dozen aquariums, some grand, some small—but then the warmth of his familiar touch clutches my wrist.

I blink at Daxeel, at his unreadable expression.

Then his mouth twists into a mocking smirk. “Would you rather I leave you to stay down here with strangers?”

With a frown that reaches from my brow to my lips, I throw a glance around me—and notice that only me and Daxeel still linger at the entrance. Weaving through speckled throngs of folk, the others are halfway across the bar already, headed for some metal spiralling stairs.

I don’t apologize, and I certainly don’t thank him for snapping me out of my daze. But I don’t pull my wrist from his grip either.

“I hadn’t seen grindylows before,” I confess.

It’s true, to a degree. Some drawings here and there in archives, sure, but grindylows favour the waters with bridges submerged in them, bridges to the human realms, their preferred prey—specifically human children. But the only water bridge I’m ever near is the one at the High Court, and all the merfolk and selkies in there give me the chills, so I never got close enough to get a good look at those morning hunters, the grindylows.

Now that I flicker my attention back to one of those creatures feasting on bone, I find my fascination fast quenched, and my nose scrunching with mild distaste.

“They’re a bit…slimy,” I mutter, almost to myself, almost like I forget who is standing with me, holding firm onto my wrist.

He traces my stare. “Should they be dry water creatures?”

He mocks me with the sharp glint in his eyes that he aims my way, like a sword swung. But his grip hasn’t loosened, not with dozens of other fae swarming the ground floor of the Gloaming, and our group already climbing the spiral staircase.

“Merfolk aren’t all that slimy. Wet, but not like… that.” I jerk my chin at the grindylow who picks his nose with what I am certain is a human fingerbone. “Not like a cadaver that’s been left to soak in wild waters for years.”

That’s exactly what its grey and bulbous skin reminds me of. Those bodies that sometimes wash up at sea. Silly humans, enslaved or what have you, thinking they can escape. They always wash up.

“Maybe you’ll like the drinks better than the water life.” Daxeel’s gravelly voice thickens with amusement. “Or maybe you’ll find a body in your honeywine.”

At my affronted look, he just stares at me for a moment.

Before he can hide the small smile that dares to ghost over his lips, he’s pushing through the strings of fae and dragging me with him. And just like that, his fleeting moment of warmth is gone.

Daxeel’s face is as cold as it often is, eyes unreadable, but his hand on my wrist is a command. He guides me through the lower level to the stairs that lead all the way to the third floor.

I pass a fae who drinks from a glass chalice, but her grey drink bubbles gently, then another who sips from a crystal tumbler that is just smoke. She sips the smoke vapours, and I make a face at the otherwise empty glass. Whatever sort of magick these drinks are, I don’t know, but I’m certain it’s out of my allowance range.

The bottom floor must be for commoners, I think bitterly. Commoners—exactly what I am. At least those folk down there can afford to drink here at the Gloaming, because I’m certain that without Daxeel and his wealth, I wouldn’t be able to afford a mere mead. But then dokkalf culture means I won’t pay for a thing, that the males will take care of it.

Daxeel’s gold isn’t something we ever spoke about. I only really learned from Eamon about the family’s wealth.

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