7. The Fall

In The Squire, Micah hung up on Andrew and dropped his phone in his pocket with fingers that trembled. He went back into the bar, the cacophony of voices absorbing him like an oil spill. He could barely breathe, cinder blocks of emotion on his sternum, cheeks burning.

Micah made it back to their table, which was, unfortunately, the same one where he'd first sat across from Andrew. Ingrid and Chamomile had their arms linked, temples touching as they whispered to each other.

Reaching out, he ruffled Chamomile's hair. She flinched and gave a yell of protest.

"Where'd the kid go?" he asked.

Ingrid swatted his hand off Chamomile's head and then pointed with two fingers toward the bar near them. Sam leaned over the bar talking to a familiar bespectacled bartender; he looked uneasy, and the bartender's eyes were on Ingrid and Chamomile. Micah sauntered over to Sam and hooked his arm around his shoulders, making him jump.

"Whoa!" laughed Sam. "You're quieter than usual. You good? You guys talk?"

"I wouldn't say that improved things," said Micah. He nodded to the bartender. "Another round, please."

"Sam's going home," the bartender said harshly. Her eyeshadow was faded and sweating into the creases of her eyelids, which were hooded as she glared up at Micah through the flashing lenses of her glasses. Micah was trying to remember her name, but he kept coming up empty.

"Um." Micah blinked, defensive, glancing at Sam, whose freckled cheeks were bright pink. "All right. That's fine, buddy. You could've just said."

"I got freaked when you left," Sam said with what Micah was sure he intended as an easygoing laugh. He sounded more strangled, uneasy, like he was afraid of retaliation.

"Aw, why? I thought you liked Chami."

"Well, yeah…" Sam glanced over at the pair of faeries, who were having an animated and hushed conversation with each other. "But Ingrid is so scary. She did so much to scare Andrew. I don't know if I can ever totally forgive her."

Micah paused. "Andrew has."

Sam looked up through glasses that flashed opaque. "I think he"s a better person than me. More evolved."

Micah snorted, saying nothing. Andrew couldn't be that much more evolved. He was too cowardly to even admit to Micah he wanted a break. But…would he have done that if he hadn't been pushed? On the phone, he certainly didn't sound like he wanted distance.

Confusion lanced painfully through Micah's stomach.

"And anyway," Sam added, "I'm pretty tired. But I paid your tab and I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

Micah bit his tongue on an acerbic comment—likely you're such a baby, huh?—and said instead as he pinched Sam's cheeks, "Of course, little guy."

Sam slowly moved away from his fingers with a tilt of his head. He said carefully, "You're different when you drink."

Micah let Sam go and watched him leave with his hands on his hips. At their table, Chamomile tittered behind her hand before she resumed braiding a lock of her hair into Ingrid's curls.

Looking back at the bartender, Micah asked, "How much did he pay?"

"Sixty," said the bartender disapprovingly.

Micah pulled up the money transfer app on his phone and sent seventy to Sam with a frowning emoji attached.

"Where's Andrew?" asked the bartender, her arms crossed.

"Oh," exclaimed Micah. "That's right. You were here the night we met." Andrew said he'd known her as a kid. "You don't like me."

"I don't trust you," she corrected. "That's all." She filled a pint glass with beer, passed it across the bar at the opposite end, and then returned to him. "Andrew?"

Frowning, Micah hesitated, not sure what could be gained or lost from telling her anything. But the alcohol loosened his lips, and he found himself answering, "His mom's living up on the North Shore. He went up there."

The bartender blinked, her lined lips parting. "Liath is alive? And he went to see her?"

Micah shrugged. "Guess so."

"Interesting." She bent to retrieve a bottle of Patrón, filled a shot glass, and pushed it toward him.

"Why ‘interesting?'" Micah demanded. She was definitely feeding him alcohol to make him talk more, but if he was talking about Andrew, maybe that was for the best. He took the shot and tipped it back, making a face as it slid into his belly. "I figured they used to be close."

The bartender snorted. A server slid behind the bar and called for her—her name was Kate, apparently—but she waved her off. "Andrew and Liath? I wouldn't say so. That boy's got a mouth on him when he's angry, and she made him mad. A lot. She was no peach, either. It was like watching two bleeding people rub salt in each other's open wounds."

He frowned. Even this summer, Andrew's irritability had felt muffled and restrained. It was difficult to imagine him spewing hatred. He was always so careful with his words. But…maybe Liath was the reason he was like that now.

Kate raised a salt and pepper eyebrow. "You didn't know?"

Defensive, Micah crossed his arms and bit out, "He never talked about her! Made a point not to, actually."

Her attention slipped away from him as she looked over his shoulder, her jaw going slack. Micah followed her gaze. The table behind him was empty; Ingrid and Chamomile were nowhere to be seen. Micah sucked his teeth. "Bitches."

"It's for the best," said Kate. "They don't belong in here."

Sharply, he turned back to face her and said in a harsh whisper, "Excuse me? What is that, some kind of magical racism?"

Kate shrugged. "You try to fit in. They don't, and they draw attention." She gestured behind him, first at the empty table and then more broadly around it. She was right. Though The Squire was lively enough for late on a Thursday night, there was a ring of unoccupied tables around theirs. As if their otherness could be sensed, and Ingrid and Chamomile had scared everyone off.

Micah sighed. When he turned back to the bar, there was another shot in front of him, but Kate had moved away. He watched her prepare a handful of drinks as he inhaled the shot's bitter agave aroma.

Now he was alone, shaken up again with thoughts of Andrew, and…oh, yes. The violent desire to make that Tom person afraid. That was a fun new character development. When he was in the Redwoods, any angry impulse he'd ever had was miniscule and brief. When he was sixteen and found out Sivarthis had only been intimate with him so he could report back to his mates and laugh at Micah's expense, for example. But to be angry at a faerie in the Queen's Guard who was a foot taller than Micah with muscles Micah didn't even think should exist, that would be like engraving his own tombstone.

Not so here. Micah was stronger than Tom. Bigger. And more dangerous. To have that urge to strike terror into a stranger made him feel like a stranger to himself and every emotion he thought he possessed. But right now, that kind of feral energy was a friend to him. He was angry at Andrew, alone in a bar, and absolutely lost.

He shook his head, picked up the shot, and slammed it back.

Time to self-destruct.

"Jeeze, Micah," said Julian, rubbing his eyes, "it's three in the morning. You're completely hammered."

Micah looked up with a spoon in his mouth, swallowing an excessively large bite of ice cream. He doubled over. "Augh! Brain freeze."

Leaning against the doorway into the kitchen, Julian closed his robe around himself and shook his head. "I know you're upset that Andrew left," he said, "but there's no need to be sloppy."

"Sloppy?" said Micah, staggering up to Julian, slinging an arm around his neck.

"Ugh." Julian plugged his nose. "Tequila."

"Sometimes I think you call me names to hurt my feelings on purpose," Micah said. He blew on the concave side of the spoon and carefully balanced it on his nose. It stayed there for a moment and then clanged onto the kitchen tiles.

"I'm being honest," argued Julian. He bent down and picked up the spoon, dropping it into the sink. "You should go to bed."

"You're only honest when you're insulting me!" Micah sang. He blindly felt his way down to the living room with his hands on the wall, flipping on the lights and dazzling Julian's eyes as he trailed along after his son.

"Were you drinking by yourself? You know that's a bad idea for anyone, Micah."

"Oh, no." Micah flopped onto the couch. "I was drinking with my sister."

Julian let out a long sigh. "So is that what you're going to do while Andrew's away? Play pretend with the Folk?"

"Pretend?" Micah sat up. His head spun. He gagged, dropping his forehead onto the heel of his hand. "Woof." When he managed to look back up, Julian had gotten a glass of water from the kitchen, holding it out to him. Taking the glass, Micah said with a sidelong glance at his father, "I'm half from their world, Dad. What makes you so sure I'm not playing pretend when I'm here with you?"

Julian froze, gazing down with his amber eyes round with surprise. Micah sipped his water and glared at the patio doors.

"I forgot how nasty you get when you drink," observed Julian.

Shrugging, Micah said indifferently, "Sorry I have to be drunk to be as mean as you are."

Eyes flashing, Julian snatched the glass of water from Micah's hand and splashed it in his face. Flinching back, Micah yelled, angrily swiping his sleeve across his face.

Spitting water, he spluttered, "What the hell, Dad!"

"If you're playing pretend, then so am I. Do you think I want any of your magical nonsense in my life?" snapped Julian.

"Sorry I'm such a nuisance," Micah said with a sneer behind the water dribbling down his cheeks.

Julian shook his head. "You're missing the point. You always do. Even when you were a kid. Things don't always revolve around you, Micah. Sober up." Bringing the glass with him, Julian shut off the lights in the living room and went upstairs, leaving Micah dripping wet on the couch in the dark.

Slumping into a corner of the couch, Micah covered his face with a pillow and screamed and swore into it.

Julian was right. He needed to sober up. Patting his face dry with the pillow, Micah climbed to his feet, swaying as he made his way to the patio doors. He fumbled with the lock for several minutes until he got it open. Cold air slammed into him, stealing his breath, crystallizing the water droplets left on his face and bangs. He stepped onto the balcony and shut the door behind him, leaning against the glass as a shudder tore through him. Instinctively, he hugged himself.

At least the plants out here were safe from him, already dead for the winter.

Sliding down the patio door, Micah held onto his knees and watched his breath plume out, imagining it was his life leaving his chest, because what was the point anyway?

Maybe he really was playing pretend down here with Julian. Maybe that's even why he was so invested in his relationship with Andrew. Maybe it was all an act. But it wasn't like he knew how to be Fae either. So if he was pretending to be human, and he wasn't really a faerie, then what exactly was he?

"Mr. Stillwater."

Jumping, Julian woke with a gasp and sat up sharply. "Who…who's there?" His heart pounding, he groped for the switch on his bedside lamp and clicked it on. "Wha…Chamomile?"

The small white-haired woman blinked at him. Her long hair was loose under a hat she had pulled politely over her angular ears. She was bundled up in a fluffy pink jacket. She already had Cinnamon purring on her shoulder, marking her cheek with his damp pink nose.

"What're you doing here? It's been years."

Chamomile's large blue eyes gleamed with an inhuman shine. Her expression was neutral, blank, unsettling compared to how lively or mischievous she'd usually looked when visiting the brownstone in the past. "Micah isn't in his bed. I thought he came back here."

"I left him downstairs," grumbled Julian. "Now, I'm going back to sleep. Please leave." He rolled over in bed and pulled his blankets up to his chin. "And do me a favor and get him out of here tonight, too. He's being an asshole."

"Yeah, I know." Chamomile"s voice dropped with annoyance. She padded toward his door.

"Chami?"

"Yes, Mr. Stillwater?"

Pushing up to his elbow, Julian felt the lines deepen in his forehead. "Is Micah better off up there with you?"

Chamomile frowned. She was silent for so long that Julian wasn't sure he was going to get an answer. Shrugging, she finally said, "That's for him to say, sir."

Julian sighed. "Always evasive, aren't you?"

She set Cinnamon back on the bed. "Good night, Mr. Stillwater." Without a backward glance, she clicked his door closed behind her and left the room.

She moved silently through the dark house. Goblin eyes were particularly well-suited for the dark, showing her each sharp edge of the steps in grayscale as Chamomile went down the pitch-black stairwell. At the foot of it, though, the living room was empty. Chamomile felt a twinge of irritation. Either she was going to have to keep hunting for that idiot, or she was going to leave him to his own natural consequences. For most people, humans especially, she could do that easily enough. But it was always harder for her where Micah was concerned.

Then she noticed the unnatural shape leaning against the patio doors as she stepped around the couch. Chamomile hauled open the heavy glass door and let Micah fall onto his back against her feet. But his weight was off, his body stiff with cold. As he sprawled across her boots, his eyes remained closed. She could feel his soul still stirring in his chest like a hibernating mouse, but…that was not as alive as Chamomile would like him. Crouching, Chamomile pressed two fingers below Micah's jaw and put her cheek up against his nostril. It took longer than she liked to feel his pulse thump under her fingers and his breath warm her cheek.

She climbed over him onto the balcony, pulling the door closed. Then she braced herself against the bricks of the brownstone, grabbed Micah's wrists, and hefted him into a sitting position.

Micah mumbled, "Let me die."

Chamomile almost dropped him. She blinked, unsettled. Shaking herself, she hooked her arms around Micah's chest from behind him and then back-pedaled into the shadows.

Expecting the pillowy embrace of his large bed, Micah rolled over with a sigh.

The hammock underneath him twisted and ruthlessly dumped him out.

Eyes snapping open, the ground flew toward him as he screamed and flailed in the open air.

He panicked, imagined a broken arm at least if he hit the limestone under him, and tried to scrabble for a branch or something to stop him.

The branches groaned and creaked and came to him, like a dozen bony arms extending arthritic fingers.

It wasn't great; they clawed at his stomach and stabbed into his armpits, but they stopped him from falling straight into bedrock. He gasped and hugged the biggest branch, legs flailing and making the branch wobble.

A faerie with pink dragonfly wings flitted up like a jittery television picture. She blinked, eyes shining black like a rabbit and asked, "Can I help you?"

"Oh my god. Ow. Ow, yes. Please. Please!"

She buzzed around behind him, grabbed him by the middle of his sweatshirt, and lifted his weight off the branch. He let go, and she acted like a parachute as she eased him toward the ground and set his feet on a limestone ledge.

"Th-thank you." Micah's knees wobbled, so he dropped onto his ass on a snowy log. He looked up at the gently swinging hammock overhead. It was about fifteen feet up.

She smiled sweetly with full, violet lips. Her skin had a faint icy blue tint to it. She had pearlescent pink curlicues of hair tucked partly under a fuzzy beanie. He'd seen her once or twice over the years; her appearance was striking and memorable. "I'm Spirulina. You can call me Lina. Now you owe me!"

"Great. Do you happen to know how I got here?" he asked her, pulling up his hood and shoving his hair back off his forehead.

Lina blinked. "You will have to ask Chamomile."

"Of course." Micah leaned his head back and glared at the trees. "Er, thank you. Lina."

Someone with a white afro poked out of a large wicker basket hole and stared at him.

Lina shrugged, tucked herself into a drapey wool shawl, and skipped off through the grove of trees.

Micah dropped his head between his hands. His temples throbbed and his stomach gurgled, and his mouth tasted sour. "Ugh, this doesn't make any sense." Fractured images from his night told him mostly that he had made it back to the brownstone. He remembered a spoon clanging on his kitchen floor. And…Julian, splashing water in his face?

That couldn't be good.

But if he'd passed out in the brownstone, he wasn't sure how he'd ended up in Lilydale.

Chamomile appeared on silent feet and dropped onto the stump next to him. "Good morning." Sliding a basket off the crook of her arm, she held out a mug toward him.

"It is not," groaned Micah, reaching for the coffee that smelled dark and rich.

Chamomile jerked the mug out of reach. "Any thoughts on what you got up to last night?"

"I don't remember," said Micah, apologetic. "I thought I was at home. But I know I pissed my dad off. He threw water on me."

"Normally, I would be delighted," Chamomile observed. She set the second mug of coffee on her knee and then picked up his hand, spreading his fingers out over her small palm. "But I found you passed out on your balcony not long before dawn. And the water from him made your frostbite worse."

He peered at his chapped knuckles and saw small crusty blisters rimming his nail beds. Micah cringed. "Oh. I screwed up real bad last night." He reached for the mug on her knee, and she didn't attack him. Its glaze was a gradient starting at sage and shifting to turquoise, with indigo freckles throughout. Micah raised an eyebrow at Chamomile.

"Ingrid made it."

"Aw, Red." He grinned.

Chamomile's eyes stayed on Micah's fingers. "It took you a few hours by the fire to thaw out."

"How did I end up in a hammock?" He clutched the mug between both hands, letting its heat seep into his palms, trying to imagine Chamomile hefting his unconscious body around by herself.

"I was hoping you'd fall out like that," she admitted.

"So you hauled me off my balcony, took me here, and then went so far as to move me all the way up to a hammock after that, just to prank me. By yourself."

"I don't understand your confusion," said Chamomile.

He snorted, saying nothing, and they settled into silence.

Chamomile plucked an enormous muffin out of the basket with her and took a bite. Crumbs spilled down her chest. She was in a clingy white shift with a deep V, and Micah's eyes slid automatically down over the mounds of her breasts where the crumbs fell. His face heated up as he looked away guiltily.

"Did you want to die?" she asked, muffin stuffed in her cheek. She swallowed and washed it down with a large swig of coffee.

Micah blew on the mug and then took a sip. "No more than usual."

Chamomile choked. Micah gave her a firm pat on her back, making her spill coffee on her bare legs. He snickered when she punched his shoulder.

More ruefully, he said, "I find it hard to believe that you as an immortal being don't occasionally want it all to end."

Chamomile thoughtfully twirled a strand of her hair. "I suppose it's futile, as I know my life won't end. I just find a way forward when I begin to wander." She glanced at him and said in a voice like tree branches creaking in a storm, "Rather than wandering into circumstances that could kill me, like you did."

"I wasn't planning to pass out on the balcony." He glanced quickly at her. She was still staring at him, so he added, "I was trying to sober up. Unwisely or otherwise."

She nodded, mollified. "Good."

He sipped in silence and cast his gaze out over the quiet compound. It must have still been too early for many Folk to be awake. Snow drifted softly across the steps that went past the kiln throne. Chamomile and Ingrid had some of the only permanent structures in the commune. At their backs, Chamomile's adobo-style hut was made of clay, painted with pink, blue, and white swirls and flowers. Ingrid's was a brick cube, straight across from him on the southeastern point of the camp. Other than their huts and the hanging homes, there were twelve or so heavy canvas tents erected and nestled among red-berry bushes, round bronze-bound barrels, and stacks of logs. There were several small bonfires crackling around the compound, and a large one smoldering down near the western cliffs in the bonfire pit in front of the kiln throne.

Several chickadees hopped over the arched back of a large red toadstool, their black and white wings fluttering as they bent feathery round heads to pick at the scales on the toadstool. Chin in hand, he watched them with a bemused smile until the breeze turned and they soared away.

"Lilydale is really nice," said Micah.

"He realizes, twenty-two years after he arrived in Minnesota," Chamomile said with a sniff.

"Hey, I was busy when I got here. I had to take the GED and get into college. I pretended like I had been homeschooled growing up. Which I guess I kind of was. The Fae education system is…interesting."

Chamomile blinked, looking curious despite herself. When they'd been dating, Micah tried to minimize and ignore his human life. She knew about Julian, and that had been about it.

"What did you study?" she asked.

Micah shrugged and told her, "Dad and I did some research when we got here on what could make me the most money, so I got a business degree. It was so boring."

"That is an odd human choice," she said. "The idea that you must do something not for enjoyment but for some sense of stability."

"Modern living makes a farce of independence by making you unavoidably dependent on everyone else's systems, all the while telling you to find your own way," agreed Micah.

She snorted.

Half of the coffee in Micah's cup was already gone. He peered inside mournfully, watching the reflection of the sky fracture on the dark mirrored surface when he gave the cup a little shake.

Holding her mug with both hands, Chamomile said, "I'm honestly surprised you never had any issues with Fae abilities showing up for you when you spent all that time with humans in school."

"Are you? I was very emotionally repressed." Micah grinned. "If I had nothing to feel, then I had no abilities to show. My classmates had more than enough to say about my eyes, so I knew I couldn't trust any of them." He wagged a finger at her. "Kept me guarded. Andrew did not keep me guarded. I am very much not guarded with him."

"Perhaps you should consider un-cleaving your abilities from strong emotion," observed Chamomile. "Seems dangerous."

"Anyway," said Micah, standing abruptly, "I have to work today. Bye."

Chamomile watched him rise. Under the navy tone of the dawning sky, her eyes looked ocean-blue. "You have pretty significant frostbite. You shouldn't work."

Micah hesitated. He knew Diana was supposed to work. And he might be too hungover to deal with her professionally. And being at Lilydale could be…helpful.

He sank back onto the log.

Blisters all over his fingers were probably a health hazard, anyway.

"C'mon." Chamomile's eyes danced.

"Oh, all right." Micah sighed. "Then I want to go back to sleep for like, four more hours."

As if it were obvious, Chamomile said, "Me, too. I only woke up because you were squawking so loudly out here."

"Same, here!" someone called from overhead.

"Gotta work on your hammock skills," another voice added.

Glowering at the Folk in the branches overhead, Micah waved and called, "Sorry, everyone!" Then to Chamomile he said more urgently, "Don't make me sleep in a hammock."

"I won't. Come on." Chamomile stood up clutching her coffee. As she went back toward her hut, Micah stared at her swinging hips through her waterfall of silver hair. And there was no one around to make him feel guilty about it.

Micah let out an unsteady breath. He was never not attracted to Chamomile. He wasn't a believer that being monogamous made everyone besides your partner unattractive. And supposedly, Andrew wanted him to fool around with other people. Why the fuck Andrew wanted him to be unfaithful so badly was still beyond him. But the sting of Andrew's request for a break, and the sting of his abrupt departure, had settled onto Micah's skin much like the frostbite.

Chamomile had been much kinder than Andrew after she'd ended their relationship. She would leave donuts or random new plants on his doorstep. She didn't allow him to avoid her for very long, and refused to let their friendship wither after their romance ended. Eventually, he gave up and got over the lost romance, moving on in their friendship. Chamomile might have worn him down in that sense, but Micah would never be able to look at Andrew again if this was over.

Regardless of forever, their relationship was…paused. He gazed at the white painted door to Chamomile's hut and rubbed his chin.

Some feeling, or some feeling he had been missing, beckoned him toward that hut. It felt like his mouth was watering at the thought of some sweet morsel he hadn't missed until now. Like he'd stopped eating those plastic-wrapped gas station cakes years ago, only to realize with sudden alacrity it was the only thing he was hungry for.

Micah drummed his fingers on his chin, letting out a breath. With those cakes, they never ended up as good as the thought of them. With Chamomile's hut, some whisper in his head told him it wasn't going to be worth it, either. But his resentment was too loud; it pushed down the whisper and stuffed it away.

"Just going in to take a nap," he murmured halfheartedly.

He slowly stood up and cast a long look over the river basin, running his tongue over his top lip. Then drained his coffee cup, and climbed onto the cobbled pathway to Chamomile's door.