Page 16 of Moonlit Desires

Morning is a rumor. In Lyra’s apartment, time has stopped: there is only the hush of static from the battered radiator and the quick, shallow breathing of Maya asleep on her couch. Lyra stands guard at the window, clutching a chipped mug so hard she imagines it will shatter, as if a single sound might be enough to wake the city’s predators. The air tastes of salt, old coffee, and the acidic afterburn of adrenaline.

When Maya wakes, it is sudden, gasping, as if returning from underwater. Her eyes dart around the small room before finding Lyra—her face drawn, almost haggard, beneath the lines of fatigue.

“Was it real?” Maya croaks.

Lyra’s mouth is dry. “All of it,” she says, and sits on the edge of the couch, close but not touching.

Maya closes her eyes, like she’s calculating the perimeter of what she remembers: silver fire, the wolf, the moonlit blood that wouldn’t stop. When she opens them, it’s not with fear but a steadiness that makes Lyra’s heart ache.

“I thought I was hallucinating,” Maya says. “But I’m not, am I? You’re… fae.” She doesn’t say it like a question.

Lyra shakes her head. “Not exactly. Or not until recently.” She wants to laugh but her voice cracks instead.

Maya glances down, flexing her hand as if testing whether it’s still hers. “I dreamed you were a queen, once. That your voice could shatter glass. But I always thought that was just—” She breaks off, staring at Lyra with a weight that is more than friendship, less than confession. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have believed it.”

Maya’s smile is humorless, the edge Lyra knows best. “Try me.”

Lyra tells her. She talks until her throat is raw: about the Moon Court, her mother, the curse, the guardians, even the mark that burns and glows beneath her skin. She tries to explain the storm-eyed hunters, the rescue, the pendant. She is careful not to mention how it felt to see Maya strung up in a net of blue fire, her heart thrumming with the certainty that she was about to die. She says nothing about the way the world seemed to narrow, that nothing existed in the lighthouse but the silver threads in her hands and the memory of Maya’s laughter at closing time.

Maya listens. She has always been Lyra’s best audience. When it is over, she leans her head against the back of the couch and closes her eyes again.

“I always knew you were hiding something,” Maya says quietly. “But I thought it was a dead boyfriend. Not a magiclineage.” She smiles, and for a moment, the tension in Lyra’s chest unwinds.

But then Maya opens her eyes, and the world is grave again. “So you’re leaving.”

Lyra nods, unable to meet her gaze. “It’s not safe. Not for you, not for anyone around me.”

“I could come,” Maya says, so soft Lyra nearly misses it. “You don’t know what it’s like here without you. Even the bar feels hollow.”

Lyra’s hands ball into fists. “You can’t. The journey’s not meant for mortals, Maya. You’d die before we even reached the Court.”

The silence is almost cruel. After a while, Maya pushes herself upright, wincing at the stiffness in her ribs.

“Fine. But promise me something.” Her voice is steel now.

“Anything.”

“Don’t forget who you are, Lyra. Even if you turn into one of them. Even if you grow wings or horns or whatever the hell fae queens have. Promise me you’ll remember Lythven, and the people who kept your secret even when they didn’t know what it was.”

Lyra’s vision blurs. She swallows hard, then leans forward and hugs Maya—tight, desperate, as if by sheer force of will she could anchor herself to this moment forever. Maya hugs back, whispering “idiot” into her shoulder, and Lyra knows it means I love you and I’ll miss you and Don’t you dare die, you bastard, all at once.

After, Maya helps herself to coffee, mugs still stained with last night’s lipstick and blood. “When do you go?” she asks.

“Tonight,” Lyra says. “At the lunar threshold. They say the boundary opens at midnight.”

Maya nods. “You need anything before then?”

Lyra hesitates, then manages a crooked smile. “Just one last night at the Barrel. For old times’ sake?”

____________

She expects the guardians to protest, to argue that the city is too dangerous, that Storm Court spies will descend on them the moment Lyra shows her face. Instead, Kael simply nods, jaw set in a line of stoic acceptance.

“You may be queen soon, but until then, you are still my charge,” he says, blue eyes flat as lake ice. “We will accompany you.”

Thorne mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “Can’t let her out of our sight for a minute.” Riven offers a sardonic tilt of her head, the moonlight painting her hair with ghostly blue. Ashen just gives a small, sad smile, hands trembling imperceptibly as he buttons the cuffs of his shirt.

---