Page 18 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
Kieran was stuffing his face.
He held the entire piece of chicken up in the air, speared on the end of his fork, as he devoured it. Cheese and creamy sauce dripped on his plate.
“This is better than sex,” he sighed, closing his eyes. His mouth was so packed with food that it took me a moment to even process what he had said.
The mental image of him having sex popped into my mind before I could stop it. I turned my gaze to Nya, as if the image was a real thing that I could look away from.
“That’s saying a lot for you,” she snapped. She was still glaring down at her food.
Something in her expression was like a cold shower, washing away the image of Kieran having sex. And the decidedly less enticing sounds of Kieran inhaling his food, for that matter.
It made something in me crack.
“Nya,” I said quietly. “Please trust me. It really is safe to eat. I know you all think you’ve put me out by showing up at my apartment, scaring me half to death, threatening me, forcing me to help you, and…I mean, that does all sound terrible when you spell it out like that.” I swallowed. Whatdidit say about me that I wasn’t terrified of them? I continued, “But it’s really not. I live alone, and things are pretty uneventful. You aren’t putting me out as much as you think.”
She seemed to consider my words. “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Does your family live nearby?”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
The answer was on the tip of my tongue.My mother and father served as Enforcers, and gave up their lives for the good of Cyllene I was three years old. My sister died in a house fire when I was ten.I opened my mouth.
“My mother and father were Enforcers, and they died in the line of duty when I was three. My sister was executed by The Council, the entity that governs Cyllene.”
“The Council executed your sister?” Nya repeated, her eyes widening momentarily. Then she blinked, and whatever I thought I had seen on her face was gone. “So you just, what…live alongside the people who killed your sister? Fear for your life every day?”
There was no judgment in her tone, only genuine curiosity. I think that’s why I found myself speaking truthfully again.
“I don’t fear for my life, really,” I said. “I mean, I guess I must to some extent. I was scared the first time you two showed up here. But aside from that, I don’t think I care enough about my life to be that fearful. I just do what I have to do to get by. Put one foot in front of the other, move from one day to the next. Because it’s what my sister wanted. It’s…it’s what she, uh…she—”
It’s what Irene begged for, in her last moments. She begged for my life.
The words were stuck in my throat. Every syllable I forced out was released on a wave of white-hot terror, like a faucet that couldn’t release water without pushing out dirt and grime from the pipes. I tried to swallow, but the muscles in my neck weren’t cooperating.
The clink of Kieran setting down his fork was the only sound in the room. It was shortly followed by the low rumble of his voice. “You don’t have to say it,” he murmured. “Whatever it is. We get it. Trust me, we get it.”
Nya’s dark gaze shifted just over my shoulder, and I knew she was exchanging another look with him. When her eyes returned to me, they were full of warmth.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” she said finally. “And your parents. All of it.”
It took a moment of quiet self-soothing, of reassuring myself that I wasn’t going to have to talk about Irene’s death after all, before I could find the ability to respond. “Me, too,” I said finally. “It’s not easy being alone.”
“No. It’s not.” Nya’s response was as soft as my own.
She picked up her fork and knife and began to cut into the chicken.
I lowered myself onto the carpet and leaned against the strip of wall between the desk and the balcony door. As my body continued to come down from the panic, the gravity of what I had just shared with two Strangers hung in the room between us. Why did I tell them the truth? Was it a betrayal to Cyllene to share something like that with people from Outside?
These were people whose mere existence disgusted The Council, disgusted Cyllene citizens. Wild, animalistic people, and many of them exiled criminals. As intensely as Cyllene feared magic, the city would celebrate if magical beings actually did the job they had been expected to do and wiped the Strangers out of existence.
Nya and Kieran didn’t speak as they polished off everything on their plates. I knew that Nya had to be as hungry as Kieran, but she still cut her food into polite, bite-sized pieces and swallowed each mouthful before moving on to the next.
Kieran continued to cram as much as possible into his mouth at once.
