24. Eva

24

EVA

A ll the beautiful places in Faery that Eva had missed were even more beautiful when she showed them to her mates.

The wish falls were crimson in this season. "Be careful," she warned. "The stones are slippery, but if you wish unwittingly, it will still come true." Scarlet water scattered over stones like wine and feathery rainbow ferns grew in fringes all around the little intermittent pools. Singing reeds whispered little songs of promise and pretend, spinning stories from fish dreams.

But more beautiful than the sight of it was the way that Margo looked around in wonder, and how Bruno breathed in deep, reveling in the chocolate scent of the afternoon fog and the cedar smell of the evening rainbows.

Eva watched them more than the marvels, drinking in the dear planes of their faces and the flicker of their expressions. How had she ever thought that Margo was stone-faced? Was it possible that she'd only known Bruno a few short days? They were so familiar and right, and they followed her fearlessly up into the tree canopies and across the rope bridges over the ravine of broken dreams.

They slept the first night in a mossy grove and Eva woke when the stars were being strung for the morning constellations, feeling a familiar tug as she opened her eyes and found herself somewhere else .

The Queen was no less lovely than ever, and Eva braced herself for the aching pull that never came. She was beautiful, naked except for her flower-adorned hair, but Eva knew what love was now, and had no need for empty faery splendor.

"You know your thrall has no power over me now," she reminded the Queen. "Why did you bring me back?"

"I missed you. I missed what we had. Did I truly never mean anything to you?" The Queen's expression might have been artfully pained, but Eva couldn't be sure. Even without magic, she still had the power to hurt Eva's heart.

"I never had the freedom to find out," Eva pointed out. "You were my Queen. We were never equals, even before you enchanted me."

"But you adored me before," the Queen insisted. "You made me a dress of starlight flowers and sweet grass that made the court weep."

"I loved making that dress," Eva admitted. "It was inspired, and I was the happiest person in Faery when you wore it and then when you let me take it off of you."

"Then why wouldn't you stay with me? Why couldn't you love me that much without magic?"

"What we had wasn't love," Eva told her. "I'm not sorry I left."

"The human world is ugly and uncaring," the Queen argued. "People there suffer and starve. What could it offer you that I can't? "

"Happiness," Eva said simply. "My own whole happiness."

"You said you were happiest making me the dress of starlight..."

"I said I was the happiest person in Faery . The merriment here, the parties, the glitter—it's all shallow and fake . All this magic, and no one ever makes anything. You only noticed me because I was different. I wanted to do things with my hands, not spinning illusions like everyone else. I never wanted illusions, and that's all we ever were! It's real in the human world, and it's not always pretty, but it's always real…and real is better than pretty."

"I could give you back your power," the Queen said. "You could have your wings and magic back. Keep the troll and the bear as your pets, and rule at my side."

"They aren't my pets," Eva said patiently. "They are my mates."

"How is that different?" the Queen asked, and although her voice was angry, Eva thought that the question was genuine. "Your mates. Aren't you forced to love them just as much as I ever did?"

"Not even a little," Eva said immediately. "It's a calling, not a compulsion. It's the difference between a hankering for a cupcake and an addiction to drugs. My body, my heart, my soul, they want them, not because of the consequences of not having them, but because I know how much better and happier I'd be with them."

"Cupcakes aren't healthy," the Queen pointed out. Eva observed that she seemed sulky, but she hadn't shut down the way that Eva kept expecting her to.

"Sometimes a craving is for something your body needs. Sometimes, it's an indulgence. It's always a choice. I never had a choice with you. I never knew what I actually wanted for myself. "

"You chose to leave."

"I needed to know who I was without you in my chest forcing every heartbeat to your rhythm. I'm not sorry I did it, even though it hurt worse than anything I'd ever done in my entire life. I found out who I was without you, and I found people who loved me without strings and clauses and Codes."

"Did you love me?"

"Did you love me ?" Eva countered. "Or did you just love having power over me? Did you ever once wonder if I was happy? "

The Queen vanished in a puff of glitter and a hum of angry bees, and Eva woke up cradled between Margo and Bruno, exactly where she ought to be.