12

TEN YEARS EARLIER

The solid touch of a powerful chest comes up behind me. It presses against my spine and instinct bolts me rigid.

I suck in a curt, sharp breath.

But then I relax the moment I catch his scent drifting on the faint winds that rustle the woods around me. My shoulders sag back into place as a soft smile steals my lips.

His unique scent invades me: polished blades, tones of an inky earth, and fresh almond soap, like he's only just bathed. "And where is my vicious one sneaking off to in the night?"

My.

My vicious one.

I hate to admit how many flips my tummy does at that word, cartwheeling through my insides.

I lean against his chest and, lifting my chin, meet his midnight gaze. "This is not our night."

"Litalves," he breathes the word over my forehead with a kiss. "Always evading in their answers."

My smile is small. "Litalves can't lie."

He doesn't pick on that evasion.

I could have lied, could have said we can't lie, but then he might pick up on it, the shift in my heartbeat, a nervous tick on my expression—anything that gives me away as the liar I am. He studies me too closely, more closely than anyone in my life ever has.

And that's not a secret I'm ready to share.

One day, maybe.

The warmth of his hand glides along my side until it settles on my tummy. I'm glad that I didn't eat dinner, that my stomach isn't bloated this night.

But not so glad that he found me in the woods.

He dips his head to graze his mouth over the shell of my ear. "It is not our night," he concedes. "Yet I still came to steal you away."

A cage of moths releases in my chest. Can't fight the dreamy smile that paints itself over my lips. Does Daxeel see I am mere dough in his hands?

"You didn't answer my stones." Those little gravel things he steals from the edge of the village to throw at my window. "But I caught your scent," he murmurs the words over the curve of my ear, like romantic declarations of love. "You are hunted too easily."

"Maybe I like the way you hunt me."

His teeth nip at my ear. Then, as quickly as he nipped, his muscles tense his chest against my back, and he stills.

He didn't mean for that crack in his delicately crafted mask, the small and harmless bite of my flesh. And I suspect he chides himself for letting that side of him out with me. Even if it was only a little.

Daxeel takes so much care to keep me unafraid of him.

For the most part, I am.

But tonight, the unease is edged along the wings of those moths plaguing my insides.

After a pause, he repeats his earlier question, firmer, "Where are you sneaking off to, Nari?"

Hesitation steals me for a heartbeat. "I'm going into the human realm," I confess, my voice a whisper.

I feel his frown against my temple.

Now, for another reason entirely, he's stiff against me. His hand is firm on my belly, and I feel the scrape of his fingernails starting to dig into me.

Then he draws back, his hand slipping away from me with his retreat.

I turn to look up at him.

And it's like he is just now seeing me. The clothes I wear, so different to the style and fashion of my land, but so very like the style and fashion on some of the humans in the Eternal Dance.

A plain black skirt cuts midway down my thighs. His gaze lingers over the hem for a beat before it drops to the flat white sneakers on my feet. His frown deepens on those, an obvious dislike, before he looks up at the white fitted sweater that's shielding his view of the shape of my breasts. Then he makes an outright face at the fluffy white hat in my tight grip.

He snaps his gaze to mine, and it's a loaded look he pins me with.

Instinct has my body clamping. I almost feel as though I'm a child caught by a parent.

Daxeel's disapproval is as clear as those eyes that gleam through the night.

"I visit their realm sometimes," I say with a nervous tug at the hat in my fisted hand. "Once every full moon or so."

He tilts his head, the frown still etched in place, and he considers me like a foreign puzzle. ‘Why?' his look asks, but his words are different, "You are bargain born. Your mother returned to her lands, yes?"

I nod.

"It's not to visit her," he decides, and he's done the math.

Mother left some seventeen years ago, when I was of two years and able to be weaned off her milk. Time moves so differently in the human realm, it's faster and rushed, much like the humans themselves.

Seventeen years here means that in their realm, sixty-eight years have passed.

So mother is likely long dead.

Daxeel keeps his frown aimed at me. "What other reason do you have to visit?"

A smile lifts the corner of my mouth. For a beat, I just watch him study me.

Then I take a risk—one that might be a grave insult, but one that comes from my heart—and I reach out my hand for him.

Let me share this with you.

Do not strike me down for a perceived slight.

"Come with me." The words are little more than whispers with a blush on my hot face. "Let me show you what's worth visiting."

His jaw tightens. Dimples carve into his cheeks so deeply that it's as though the shadows of the night took daggers to him.

He looks down at me with blazing eyes and a twitch to his lips, like they fight to twist into a snarl.

But Daxeel plays a gentle game with me.

To let himself snap would be to risk all we've accomplished so far. His kiss—his declaration of love—is what keeps my hand steady in the air, lingering there between us, waiting for his decision.

Of course he hasn't been to the human lands before.

He's dokkalf.

It would be to them like a king visiting a cheap-end brothel. Not the brothel itself, but more the pig pit out back.

I know it as firmly as I know my love for him. Daxeel has never set foot in the human realm.

Eamon goes sometimes. But that's on business. His career as a recruiter.

I like it there, if only for a night sometimes.

Not to stay, of course. Never to stay.

"Nari," he starts and there's hesitation in his husky voice.

"So don't come." I drop my hand to my side with a slap. With a smile, one that assures I'm not slighted, I say, "Tomorrow is our night." I turn my back on him. "I will see you then."

I head up the hill.

This hill might as well be a cliffside for how steep it is, and I need to grab onto the right boulders, the ones I've learned over years, to climb all the way to the split tree.

Among the other willows, this one blends in. It's sagged, looks struck in its centre by lightning, so there's a gaping hole in its bloated middle, but other than that, the midnight willow tree still shudders with the breath of life, and its navy, glittered leaves rustle in greeting as I move for it.

I don't make it to the cavity of the trunk before boots slam down on the ground, right behind me.

Daxeel lands on the foliage, and he doesn't so much as slip on a damp rock.

I look over my shoulder at him, the hardness of his face, the firm set of his mouth, the gleam of his leathers. I don't quite know if he jumped the full distance from the bottom of the slope, or if he climbed then propelled himself up.

But I do know he's coming with me.

"Bridges," I tell him because I think he hasn't been through one before, since he hasn't been to the human lands, "feel like liquid ice raining down on you. Not cold water," I add with a steady look, but he is unflinching, "liquid ice."

There's a difference. One has to feel it to know it.

Daxeel gives no nod of understanding or anything friendly at all. He simply stares at me. The clench of his jaw tells me how displeased he is about this, and how he very much blames me for his decision to follow.

Probably can't stand to let me out of his sight, the perceived threats of the human realm. But there is no threat in that land, not to me. I might not be strong, trained or much of a warrior, but I handle myself better than a human would, I should think. I could always rip a throat out with my teeth if I had to. Oh, I hope I never have to. Sounds ghastly, I would certainly sick myself.

I turn for the bridge. It is not a true bridge, like the ones built from stone that reach over waters, but rather what we call those little pockets of warped space and time. This one is closest to my village, parked right on the border between the Queen's Court and the Light Court. It's the cavity, the gap tucked in the distorted crevice of this one willow.

I lift a sneaker-clad foot from the foliage.

Daxeel's ice stare burns into my back as I stick my leg into the darkness of the tree.

Perching myself on its edge, the other leg follows. And I'm only this careful because of the skirt. Have you ever had tree rash on your backside? Avoid it.

My hands grip the edge of the cavity, legs dangling in darkness, and I look over my shoulder at his stony face. "See you on the other side."

With that, I push myself off the edge—

And I'm submerged in darkness.

The sort of darkness I imagine would exist deep in seawaters. I feel the iciness of it rush over me, I hear it whooshing and thundering all around me.

Ice rains down on me, trails of it moulding to my body. My flesh prickles. Then, as quickly as it came, it vanishes.

I land on muddy grass.

The first dozen or so times I went through the willow bridge, I fell. Hard. One time I tumbled down this ordinary grass hill and smacked my knee off a boulder. That was an easy enough injury to pass off to father as a dancing fault.

Now, I've come so often and I'm so practiced that I land on the dewy grass without a quiver in my leg or a falter in my balance.

But this time I'm not alone.

I sidestep the hawthorn tree before, from the fluff of creamy blossoms above, Daxeel appears and he lands in a perfect crouch.

My mouth puckers.

I eye him up and down with a glint of disdain that I'm certain he would read like letters on a page if only he spared me a look.

He doesn't.

Daxeel straightens his spine, and his shoulders are so broad that I doubt anyone would see the tree behind him if any glances were thrown our way.

There is a slight problem.

His leathers. His ears. His weapons. His obvious inhumanness.

Even with a strong glamour, he's dark fae. Their natural faeness can't be hidden from the human eye. Just their senses alone will prickle in his presence.

Run, they would think. Not asking why, run would be their instinct. It's an instinct that would serve them well.

Daxeel sweeps the small park with a swift moving gaze. That's all this place is, a park just a walk away from town.

Still, he studies and assesses and inspects each shadowy corner of the benches and the trees and the branches, as though searching for any perceivable threat. Then his focus falls on a bench down the grey path that leads to town.

I trace his attention.

A large, round human man is slumped over, holding a glowing dark object in his hands. His focus is snared entirely by that thing, that fone as I've heard it called.

Beside him, a pretty girl around the same age and size does the exact same thing: She's tucked up on the bench, her boots pressed against the side of his thigh, but she only knows her fone. It's all that exists to her and all that exists to him.

They don't see how their moon dusts gentle light through the smallest gaps between the tree branches. They don't see the squirrel in the leaves above them, the one that watches them intently, as though waiting for the drop of a crumb.

Neither of them sees us.

They would if they looked.

But only their fones exist.

I see that often in my more recent visits. First time I ever came here, it was different. These fones didn't exist, or at least they weren't common enough that I saw a single one of them.

Whatever that thing is, I know it's a plague on their lands.

But lucky us because that round man has something I want, and I'd like him to stay distracted.

A black sweater of sorts, but with a hood, is tossed over the bag on the ground, at the side of his boot.

"We're stealing that," I whisper and watch the hooded sweater like it might grow legs and run. I'm honed in on it.

Daxeel traces my stare.

After a beat, he reaches into his waistband—and threads a small knife between his fingers.

I throw my wild stare at him.

"No," I hiss and swat at him.

Brow arched, he turns his stare on me. A look that's half stunned at my telling him what to do, but also daring me to try it again.

I don't forget what he is.

"We're only stealing," I say, softer, and rest my hand on his wrist. "Not killing."

Jaw clenched, his eyes narrow on me. But after a heartbeat, he relents and tucks the knife away.

This next one has my nerves loud enough to quieten my voice, "And your weapons."

He swerves a look of outrage at me.

It takes all my strength to stay rooted on the spot, to not shrink back under his fierce stare. "Humans don't go around wearing knives holstered to them. It is against their laws."

Unmoving, he keeps his stare hooked on mine.

A soft sigh ribbons from me as I reach for him. My palm flatten on his chest, his muscles clamping under my touch, and I hope the gesture is enough to appease him. Soothe him.

"You only have to move them to your chest or hide them in your boots—"

"There are already weapons in my boots."

The urge to smile snakes over my lips. I fight it off, forcing my mouth into a flattened line. "Then hide them in your pockets or something. They just can't be in sight."

For a strangled heartbeat, I watch his chest swell with the long, deep breath he draws in through his nostrils. Drawing on scraps of patience, I don't doubt. But after a heavy moment, he yields to me. He wrenches out his knives and daggers from the thigh holsters, then rams them into the straps banded around his chest and biceps and forearms.

He doesn't look thrilled about it with those deep indented shadows lashed over his tight jawline, the hue of his kohled eyes darkening into pools of barely-blue onyx.

Still, I reward him with a kiss to his chin. It's all I can reach as I lean up on my tiptoes, and he makes no move to bring his face down to mine and meet me.

Keep your grievances, dark male. I know I won that round.

Turning on my heels, my sneakers squeak a horrid sound as I make for the grey path. It's crafted from a material I don't know outside of this world, dark and stone-flecked, but mixed with a grey substance that I sense is unnatural, like most things here.

Daxeel is my shadow down the path. He sticks close, at my side but behind me, like to have me just out of arm's reach means I'll be snatched up by some beast and eaten whole.

He gives too much credit to the humans.

The couple we advance on are my proof of that.

They don't notice as we wander closer. If they do decide to look up, Daxeel might get what he wants. They'll scream at the sight of him and run—and he'll kill them purely on instinct. His hunting side will take over.

It'd be over in the blink of an eye.

But they don't look up. Not even as I sidestep too close and, behind me, Daxeel snatches the hooded sweater, then… we keep walking.

Nothing happens.

I throw a smirk over my shoulder at him.

His lip curls around the hissed word, "What?"

‘You vex me.'

It only softens me. My smile is intact. "Put it on."

I could swear he almost rolls his eyes. "You take too much ease in ordering me."

Lifting my hand to my head, I shake the balled fluffy lump in my grip. My hat. Never breaking our locked stare, I straighten it out, then tug it onto my head.

"I hide my ears," I say. "I won't open my mouth too much—" I do just that to bare my sharper teeth at him. "—I'm hiding. I blend in better than you do. Put it on, please."

A throaty grunt catches in his chest, not quite a growl, but an annoyed sound all the same.

Still, he does as I ask.

The black material is not well fitted to his shape. The shoulders are tight, but the rest is loose enough (since the human was a sort of large and round man) that he is able to zip it up, then lift the hood over his inky hair.

It doesn't fool me, and I doubt it'll fool the humans. He's so decidedly unnatural to them that they'll feel the difference no matter how well he hides behind a hooded sweater.

But it's enough that they won't run screaming. Enough that they'll doubt and question themselves.

"Good thing is," I say and steal his hand in mine, "humans don't pay attention to anyone but themselves."

Daxeel is a statue behind me.

He stands at my back, and I doubt he looks at the artwork that I admire. Each step I take in this gallery is a step he shadows.

No one pays us any mind.

Unlike out in the halls and on the staircases of the garrison, it's quiet in here, late hour and a weekday (which I think means it is a day that the humans must work and cannot come to galleries because of their commitments, but I don't know for certain).

I planned this visit. Planned it for this very night at this very gallery. For my favourite human artist who is sadly passed but how I would like to have met him and told him all the wonderful truths.

It's a Vincent Van Gogh exhibition. Well, it's an imitation of his works, but still.

I think his art somehow travels around the world. Tonight, the imitations are here in this town—and so not even Daxeel's hunting of me in the woods was going to stop me from coming to the human lands.

I lose myself in him.

Van Gogh.

I lose myself in his deep blues that echo Daxeel's eyes to me. I drown in the blue. I submerge myself in the pain of all around me, the colours, the brushstrokes, the self-loathing.

Envy buds within me as it often does in this gallery.

I'm no artist. I admire.

As a dancer, I don't choreograph. I imitate.

In the scripture halls, I don't write. I read.

I don't create. I am the spectator.

And if that's not a talent in itself, I don't know what is. Because if it weren't for the ones like me, then who would be there to enjoy the art?

Is there art without an audience, or is the audience what makes it so?

Those thoughts rule me as I wander the exhibit. But I don't get nearly enough time to enjoy myself here, to take it in for as long as I would like, since a party of humans come pouring in from the street. Though they are respectful of the art, quiet, I can't risk any one of them looking at us too long. Especially Daxeel, who looks something of a brooding assassin behind his hood.

Stealing his hand in mine, I loosen a loud sigh and steer him out of the gallery. "One more stop," I tell him.

From the garter belt hidden under my skirt, I tug out a flattened stack of currency. The money is fake. Paper notes I glamoured from leaves some moons ago.

Gently, I place them on the sticky table.

Opposite me, Daxeel spares the notes a fleeting glance too quick for the human eye to catch, then he cuts his stare to the approaching waitress.

I've learned the best way to get them over to my table fast is to pay upfront with extra.

And I know my order by heart, so she doesn't get the chance to ask before I say, "Deep-fried Mars bar. Red spaghetti." With a glance at Daxeel, I add, "And black pudding. No salt."

I don't order drinks. None take my fancy and I doubt I can get Daxeel to try anything at all, but if I can, I'll spend that energy on black pudding, not a beverage.

The waitress stalks off for the bar.

"You frequent this restaurant?" The judgement in his tone matches the run-over look he gives the brown, aged décor.

"I think it's more of a tavern." I shrug, then lean over the grubby table with a grin. "Will you eat what I ordered? Black pudding bleeds. I thought you'd like that."

He just gives something of a noncommittal grunt, his eyes never landing on me, but sweeping every inch of the establishment.

"You look like an assassin." I rest my chin on the heel of my palm. "All stares, hoods, shadows and silence."

He swerves his gaze to mine. "This place is disgusting."

Beneath the hood, dark tendrils of hair graze over his forehead and perfectly shaped eyebrows. I notice a small, slight cut on his bottom lip, one that wasn't there the last time I saw him. Sparring, I should think.

"It's like any tavern," I say with another shrug. "You're just determined to hate it all."

His eyes flash from the shadows of the hood. "I speak not only of this establishment, but the entirety of the realm. It's disgusting."

My mouth turns down with a frown.

Before I can respond, the waitress rattles over with a tray stacked with plates. She sets the three dishes down, slips the money from the table edge, then stalks off without another word.

"But look at the lights." I steal Daxeel's gaze away from the plates. "They aren't glowjars or lanterns. Look out there," I turn to face the window next to our booth. "Those moving things, they are called kars—and they take people places like our horses and carriages do."

"I smell them." He exhales softly through his nose, a disappointed sound. "They are poison. They pollute the air, kill the land—you smell it, too."

I do.

It's in every single flutter of air, a pungent stench that scrapes its way down my bones and burns the back of my throat.

I feel the earth weep.

My voice is small, "That's why I visit."

Ocean eyes flicker to me. It should worry me how eagerly I would fall into them and drown.

Under his stare, I confess, "Who knows how much longer they can live like this? The earth will die, and this will all be gone. Dust and ash. So that's why I come here, to experience it while it's still alive."

He considers me for a long moment. Not thawed, exactly, but less of a sour shadow looming over me.

I fall back in the booth with a sudden smile and slide a fork closer to myself. "Experience it," I say and jerk my chin at the food.

He makes no move to follow suit as I first tuck into the bloodred spaghetti. His nose wrinkles as I slurp up the thread-like food. Red specks of sauce splatter all over my chin, but this is a messy food, and I don't know how else to eat it. Not like it's a food found in our lands.

I finish half the bowl before my stomach starts to swell a bit too much, and I'll soon be full. I push it aside, then drag the deep-fried Mars bar towards me. "This," I say and stab my fork into the gooey chocolate, "is my favourite."

My words strike movement through him.

Fork in hand, he reaches out and takes just a smidge of it.

I watch intently as he brings it to his full, pink mouth.

My gaze latches onto his tongue as he lures the melted caramel and chocolate mush off the prongs.

The face he makes is instant. A twist of dislike.

"Sweet," is all he says.

"Try this one." I gesture to the black pudding. "I don't like it."

He sighs softly but does as I say.

It's not lost on me that his eyes sharpen at my orders.

I wonder what sort of husband he would make. The kind that bristles at his wife's orders but obeys them anyway?

The blush is hot on my cheeks at the thought.

For a moment, he studies the seared black lump of meat on his fork before he takes it into his mouth.

I watch too closely. "What do you think?"

He chews for another beat, then swallows. "It is acceptable."

"Does this realm grow on you?"

He drops the fork with a clatter, and I know he's fast growing tired of it all. From the darkness of kohl lines, his stare spears through me. "Why are you so intent on my liking of this world?"

I stuff another bite of chocolate into my mouth.

His hiss isn't without venom, "You talk of their inventions, their art, their food—but do you ask yourself, at what cost?"

"I vex you." I suck my teeth clean of caramel. "But tonight, you are vexing me," I mumble under my breath. "You'd be a fright for your wife in times of long travel."

"I have no wife." He drums his fingers on the table, just once. "My future wife, however, won't be sneaking off to this realm any time no one is looking." The barbed tone of his voice dips into something husky as he adds, "Perhaps that would make me more amiable in travel."

It clicks.

I study his sour mood through a fresh lens. It isn't that I'm bothering him, but that he sees this all as a threat. That I, a halfling, might like this place enough to choose it over the fae lands.

"Dax." I tilt my head. "I don't have any desire to live in this realm. I don't yearn to belong here, and I don't see myself as one of them. I only like to experience it sometimes."

With that, I stuff a chunk of chocolate into my mouth.

For a long moment, he watches me.

The moment snaps as he leans back with a grunt. He picks up his fork—and takes another piece of the black pudding. Just one piece, so I know he only does it to soothe me.

And just like that, our quarrel is over.

The moment we're back in the shade of the thick branches above, concealed by the benches and trees around us in the park, Daxeel tears the sweater from his body.

Really, he snatches the zipped front and just tugs hard enough that it somehow shreds off his leathers. The material falls to the path like confetti. And he steps on it, entirely uncaring of how easily he spoils this land.

"You litter," I say it with a sniff.

His gaze cuts to me. "There is litter all over this park."

He isn't entirely wrong. ‘All over' is something of an exaggeration, but there's enough to prickle me and curl a silent snarl at my lips.

Crumpled up bags made from material I don't know; an old worn-out boot down at the edge of an abandoned pond; there is even a metal basket on wheels that is toppled over in the pond; and along the edges of the path, smoked parchments left to rot on the grass.

My gaze swings to the nearest mess can. A red shimmer catches my attention, a shiny piece of litter.

My pace quickens.

Daxeel keeps a leisurely stride at my side.

I feel the burn of his gaze searing into me as I bend to snatch up the red object, but I'm only focused on this—the bauble.

Turning it over in my hands, I eye it closely. Cracked surface, a tender ball of sorts, with the words ‘Merry Christmas' etched onto it in silver glitter.

I have the urge to steal it away, take it home with me and hide it in my room. But it's cracked, smeared in dirt, and so the temptation is mild enough that I might be able to fight it.

Daxeel's soft breath suddenly brushes through my hair. "So very litalf of you." He dips his head to ghost a kiss along my temple. "Blinded by the lure of false treasures."

I stiffen.

That mocking kiss brushes along to the shell of my ear. "Will you throw yourself at my boots if I dangle something shiny in front of you?"

A scowl twists my face.

The urge to keep the bauble flames up inside of me. My fingers tense around it, but I draw on scraps of control, those little disappointments about its cracked fa?ade and the dirt caked into it.

I loosen my grip. The bauble falls to the grass. It's so light it doesn't make a thump as it lands, yet I feel it thump, like a heartbeat in my chest, and I steel myself against the instinct to keep the bauble for myself.

If there were no imperfections on it, I wouldn't have been able to drop it. Then I might have died from the shame of Daxeel seeing me like that.

I throw him a withering look before I start back on the path.

A small smirk plays on his lips as he keeps pace beside me all the way to the bridge. He says nothing as I climb through first.

The circled warp of the tree trunk expands for us, opening like a doorway, and it's too easy to fall back through to the light realm. So easy in fact that I wonder how more humans don't end up on the other side, like they used to.

I wonder if it's their new toys that keep them from falling through our bridges, that it's the fones and the kars that distract them so well that they don't so much as notice the shadowy bridges in their trees and streams and mushroom circles.

If any human were to land here, where I do in the willow field, I wonder how long they would survive before one of us snatched them up for the Eternal Dance or even to be servants in a house. Would they even make it that far? The trees here might kill them if they hit the wrong branch. They are sensitive like that.

Daxeel walks me through the field to my home. We're only halfway through the field when he says, "Despite your human blood, you can live without their world. Could you live without this?"

I study his profile for a moment.

His gaze is cut up at the moon that's almost in the same position as when we left. We spent four hours in the human land, but here it was only an hour. Much of the night is leftover.

It takes me a beat to understand what Daxeel really means. More than the moon, he asks about the light. Could I live without the light?

"I would miss it." It's all I say but my eyes don't leave his unreadable face.

My answer is filtered for some reasons.

I don't know why he asks. Is he curious, his mind wandering, or does he mean to offer me something someday?

Soon, his kind will leave our land. The Fae Eclipse ends in just some nights, less than a week now, and he will leave. He will take a piece of me with him. My heart, my soul. He'll take too much.

And we will end this secret of ours.

Father will never let me visit my dark one. Father knows nothing of my love for Daxeel. It can never be. Not unless he offers me marriage—and it's something that father would reject.

So how can I give a true answer to him when I know it can never be?

Wecan never be.

Not once he leaves.

So under the moonlight, in our final nights together, I pretend. I pretend with him that this love that's a part of me now will have a future. It's all that stops me from crumbling.