Chapter 12

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If this is what constitutes a cult these days, sign me up.

Willow's house is a perfect, lush cottage in the woods. It's surrounded by raised garden beds on one side, and the burble of a stream on the other. A stepping stone path leads up to a front door, and I can see past a window seat to the lit interior already.

Beside me, Pollux is holding Andromeda, who was clinging to his leg until he scooped her up.

They've been tense ever since I picked them both up earlier and parked in a small clearing beside a bright pink car and another one a distance from the cottage. Apparently, Willow has a thing about cars since they stole her right to a carriage-drawn society. Apparently, she rambles her distaste for many aspects of the modern world when accidentally given narcotics.

I did not ask who accidentally gave her narcotics.

I just smiled, checked my fluffy poodle skirt pocket discreetly for my pepper spray, and watched Andromeda fiddle with the hem of her pink polo in the backseat.

Pausing at the first stone in the path leading up to Willow's cottage, I face my companions.

And my heart squeezes.

They've stopped time. Eyes closed, their foreheads are pressed together. He's holding her tight, secure, like she's the most precious thing in his life. Bathed in moonlight, they look like the subjects of a painting.

"We don't have to do this," he murmurs, so softly.

"It's okay," she whispers.

"Language," he grunts.

Her little arms wrap around his neck. "I love you."

"I love you more."

For very fragile moments, I am entirely convinced I have everything wrong. For frightening seconds, I can almost believe that if fae is the answer that makes everything else make sense, fae must be it.

Andromeda pulls back far enough to look deeply into Pollux's eyes, imploring silently, and he says, "Yes. More than that." His large free hand cups her cheek and hides her expression from my view. "Fear of my fear, if it doesn't include your joy, I have survived long enough without it, and I do not need it now."

Andromeda sniffs, then she crashes against his chest, her tiny arms strangling him.

My heart jerks, and I reach for her. "Meda, are you okay, sweetie?"

Pollux rubs her back and kisses her forehead. "She will be well. Let her have a moment."

Closing my fingers and tucking them back against my poodle skirt, I do.

Once Andromeda has sniffled herself out, she turns her attention toward Willow's front door and declares, "I'm ready."

Pollux nods once then looks at me.

"I'm ready," I say. Ready to throw down with whoever or whatever has made my Meda cry. But anyway.

We head up the walk, and, without knocking, Pollux invites himself into the main room…which is decorated. Balloons fill the spaces beyond what I could see through the front window. Streamers run from the light fixtures toward the corners.

A vaguely familiar man with sandy brown hair and tan-and-white vitiligo blows a noisemaker while the rest of the room cheers.

Pollux's jaw clenches, and he turns right around on his heel.

Cackling wickedly, Willow escapes from the group and grabs his arm. A violent shudder wracks the large man's bones. Stiff, he dares to look down at the absolutely tiny woman in black platforms. Her smile. It's evil. Her eyes. They unnerve me.

"Where do you think you're going, Pollux?" she murmurs.

"I have not faced sudden discomfort at this level in a long time. I am going away from it."

"I don't think so." Practically dragging, she plants him and Andromeda firmly on the couch facing a large flat-screen TV. "Seat of honor." She points. "I made a cake."

Pollux glances at the multi-tiered pink masterpiece taking up the central space of a coffee table overflowing with snacks.

Grumbling, he clings to Andromeda and says, "I believe I am growing nauseated."

"Sucks to suck," Willow supplies. Turning toward me, she beams. "Let's get some humanity out of the way. My people, meet Kass. Kass, this is Brittny." A bouncing, trim, and tall woman with beautiful long light brown hair beams. "Her sister Alana." A shorter, stouter, stoic-er, woman with a dark pixie cut offers a single wave. "Their husbands, in order, Ollie—" He blows his noisemaker again, and I swear I've seen him online somewhere… "—and Cael."

My heart jumps as I fix my attention on the prince.

Princeis definitely the word I'd use to describe him even if I weren't aware of the way people around him seem to address him. He's wearing robes. Actual white robes with flowing sleeves and a hem of scattered petals that match the occasional strands of glistening gold in his mid-length black hair. He looks outstandingly regal.

This is the leader.

Their leader.

If he's here, that must mean they are a single, unified, and relatively small cult.

I let my fingers plant against the weight of my pepper spray, just to make sure it's still securely in my poodle pocket, while I smile. "It's nice to meet you all. Than—"

Pollux swears, cutting me off abruptly.

Cael blurts a laugh. "We don't do that here, little one. You'll give one of us a heart attack if you tempt the rest with your thanks."

Right. Cult. Weird—happy, but so far not like chillingly happy—cult.

"Sorry."

"It's quite well," he supplies. "We're happy you were able to make it."

"Do I not get an introduction?" A tall man with long dark hair and heterochromia—one blue eye and one green—strides out of the kitchen balancing three bowls of popcorn and a pout.

Willow sinks into her love seat and tosses a hand his way. "That's my husband. Zylus. Sounds like stylus. You can really tell he shed his given name and picked his own some odd millennia ago."

"Oi." He gives her a bowl of popcorn and starts handing another to Ollie and Brittny as his eyes meet Andromeda's.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. Immediately.

Something silent passes between them. My nerves go taut the longer he stares, deathly grave, at my little student.

Willow tosses a popcorn kernel at Pollux's head, and it bounces off onto the cushion beside him. "Hey. Pick that up," she says. "I don't want it in my couch."

Pollux's eye twitches, but he obliges.

"What is with both you and Cael and sending me entire letters in regard to movie night?" She tosses another kernel.

This one, Pollux catches.

She tsks. "It wasn't even a funny letter."

"Funny?" he grumbles. "How would you have expected me to deliver the information I had to in a funny way?"

"You could have asked for child support. You can lie in text, so you could have gone on about demanding child support instead of attempting to explain how sad and lonely you've been. We all already know that you've been sad and lonely." She chucks another kernel that he catches. "Stupid."

"Dear, I feel like you're making light of this—"

"Zy's a mother. I'm a secondary mother through marriage. Somehow, I was the one who almost died in childbirth. It's all very normal-sounding to me. Quit giving the kid trauma by making it a bigger deal than it has to be. You could have told us ages ago. Is this stupid group ever going to outgrow keeping their insecurities secret? Does anyone ever outgrow trying to hide their insecurities? Full transparency is feeling very much like a lost cause…"

Alana snorts and moves to pet Willow's hair while murmuring, "There, their, they are."

"Ah, grammatical comfort. My single solace."

Whatever the, um, situation is, I have a strong feeling Willow is making infamously light of it, but I have absolutely zero idea how to comment on that.

Pollux peers up at Zylus and mutters, "What are your thoughts about this?"

"She's cuter than expected and got the color of one of my eyes." Zylus's part-blue gaze lifts as he offers the last bowl of popcorn to Pollux. "Just because we don't favor one another so much doesn't mean I dislike or don't respect you, Pollux. I trust Cael's trust in you."

A fragile inhale fills Pollux's lungs while I look on, baffled, lost, concerned…warm.

Inexplicably warm.

It's so gentle here.

Even amid so much tension.

Pollux clenches his fist against his thigh. "It was an act of desperation, and it could have gone remarkably poorly. I toyed in things I should not have."

"And if you had made a mistake, you would have fixed it," Cael offers. "We all know that."

Alana laughs. "What's that thing you sometimes tell me during our sessions? Sometimes our fears are heavier if you hold them all by yourself? That goes for worries, too. Guilt doesn't suit you, sensei."

"So quit normalizing it in front of the young one. Take the popcorn bowl. And calm down." Willow throws a hand in the air. "Meda picks the movie tonight!"

Andromeda gasps, turning her big eyes toward Willow. "Really?"

"No," Zylus states as he relinquishes the popcorn bowl into Pollux's hands. "Absolutely not."

"What?" Andromeda's little lip juts. "Why not?"

Snickering, Ollie nudges Zylus in the side. "Yeah, why not, Zy?"

He points at Andromeda. "Tiny dream eater." He points at the TV. "Device with access to horror movies."

"Horror movies?" Andromeda's eyes sparkle while I'm trying to remember if…I've heard the term dream eater in real life before. I have to have, right? I can't place it beyond the dream I had.

Wait just one second.

Horror movies?

She's seven.

"Whoa," I cut in. And all eyes turn toward me, reminding me a bit violently that I am definitely not a part of whatever is happening. I tense and swallow. "Could we keep things age appropriate, please?"

"Gore only. No nudity." Andromeda nods, affirmatively, and unravels herself from around Pollux. "How do I control the device?"

Willow offers her a remote.

Zylus swipes in and takes it, holding it out of reach. "I said no."

"Mom, whyyy?"

"Meda," Pollux chides. "Don't you dare."

She giggles, monstrously, and dares anyway. "These are my mothers! I have two mothers now, Mrs. Role! Mom and Mother!"

I don't know what's going on. Not one tiny bit. But the warmth. It's inexplicable and all-consuming. Unfathomable. Just like when Andromeda scales Zylus like a tree and perches on his arm to battle for the remote. For someone so slender, his sturdiness doesn't seem physically possible.

Setting his popcorn bowl aside, Pollux rises, towering, and grabs her by her shirt to pluck her off him. Held out like a bag, she writhes in the air while Pollux apologizes. "I'm sorry. She's incorrigible."

"As children should be so long as they aren't hurting anyone," Willow notes.

Pollux turns his attention toward me, and everything else in the room slows down.

Somewhere in my head, I recognize that he's holding his daughter like luggage while she scrambles airborne. Somewhere else, I can't delete the bright balloons and streamers or the laughter circling in this space like vultures. The warmth finds a name, and I realize the reason it's so palpable.

It's love.

The warmth is love, and Andromeda is safer and happier than I've seen many children be in my time as a teacher. Faerie cult or not.

Pollux puts Andromeda down, and she charges toward the coffee table, distantly squealing about a stack of burritos that Alana seems vaguely proud of. While Andromeda rips one apart, I take a step forward, toward Pollux, toward the heat at the center of the room.

Pollux interrupts my thoughts before I can find the right words. He says, "Do you have any movie suggestions that you consider age appropriate? Suffice to say, we do not know what we're doing."

Yeah. I can see that. I think Andromeda has already eaten her weight in chocolate brownies between her bites of burrito. It's not what I'd allow if I were her parent…but it seems like things are run a little differently here. "I might have a few ideas. May I sit next to you?"

Pollux's eyes cut toward Willow before he clears his throat, scrubs a hand over his mouth, and says, "Of course."

After Zylus gives me the remote, I find one of my favorite movies, and we watch Annie.