Chapter 31

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Rainbow frogs all the way down.

Willow: Humans are not welcome at movie night. Zahra is. Take that however you want. See you both at eight.

Shortly after seeing the last human child off, Zahra stares at the text Willow sent me once I found the courage to ask about bringing my friend. My friend, as in I did not name Zahra specifically when I asked.

At this point, I'm not certain whether concern or offense is more appropriate. Like, how dare Willow know I only have one friend, and how dare she reference her by name? But also is it just a matter of time before she tells me she has my social security number?

Brows low, Zahra purses her lips. "This message sparks joy. Pollux."

From the couch in the main room, Pollux looks up off the book Andromeda is reading in his lap. The sight of them being adorable together does something to my chest, but I do my best to ignore the feeling. "Yes?" he asks.

"Your friend, the vampire cat."

Pollux narrows his eyes. "He's not…my friend. Really."

Right. He's just the mother of your child.

Standing behind Zahra, I pin Pollux with a dry look that I hope conveys my inside emotions accurately.

His gaze drifts to me, and a small smile eases his narrow expression.

Zahra continues, "Can he bite, bite, vampire me?"

Pollux's attention drags off me and goes somewhat thinner as it returns to Zahra. "What is it with human women and the desire to be turned by a vampire? Both Alana and Brittny asked that same question at one point. Does no one realize the health issues associated with such a request?"

Zahra lowers my phone. "You know something? You've kind of been clinging to Kass and there are a bunch of children always around, so I haven't gotten a chance to ask why you're here, but I don't know if you're promoting a healthy work environment." Her attention flicks to me, and I automatically relax my expression into my usual, gentle smile. "Kass, if he doesn't go away, I think I'll quit. And then the school will have to shut down until another assistant is found."

I chuckle awkwardly. "Zahr…"

"Am…I being threatened?" Pollux asks.

I lift my hands. "No, of course no—"

"Absolutely. That's what you get for your snark about my desire to be a vampire. I get that you're a dream eater, but I didn't realize you were also a dream crusher."

"I was being snarky?" Genuine intrigue crosses through Pollux's dark irises—given his current more human guise. "I was entirely unaware."

"Vampires have health complications, Zahr-Zahr," Andromeda chimes in. "Also, Mom isn't allowed to just turn anyone. It's part of the human-fae responsibility agreement Uncle Cael imposes upon his people."

"Ew. Responsibility. I'm allergic to that word."

"There's no reason to want to be a vampire," Andromeda says as she turns the page in her book. "You're your own sort of creature. Possibly without heart issues."

Zahra's gaze drops to my phone again, then she shoves it into my hand and looks me dead in the eye. "Will someone at movie night be able to tell me what sort of creature I am?"

"Um…"

"It is unlikely," Pollux says.

Zahra scowls, focusing her ire on him once more. "Will the faerie prince at least issue a formal apology for the way his people behaved when I went to the elf party?"

"That is…also unlikely." Pollux's heavy brows lower. "There is nothing to apologize for. You should not have been intruding on an event you were not invited to because someone who also was not invited brought it up." He pokes Andromeda in the cheek. "For that reason alone you should not have mentioned it."

Andromeda doesn't even look up as she chomps his finger.

"Ow."

Zahra throws her shoulders back, lifts her chin, slams her hands to her hips, and blesses me with her attention. "Okay. I'm ready. You may proceed."

I blink. "Huh?"

"I've been very patient. You may explain what's going on between you and Pollux now. Along with why you're no longer protesting faerie talk. Did you come to terms with the playground being an impossible feat for humans? I keep telling myself it's your business and you'll tell me when you're ready, but now Pollux is coming to school every day, and you're inviting me to a faerie movie night, and it's all very sus. What sort of faerie are you, and are you and Pollux in faerie love or something?" She angles a brow. "I ship it."

"Wha…" I clear my throat. "No. We're not in… I'm not in…" My heart skips a beat.

Zahra whips her attention to Pollux as he wrestles against Andromeda to get his finger out of her mouth. "She's not in faerie love? You are?"

"I am," he grunts.

"Soulmate stuff?"

He grunts again, confirming.

Zahra sniffs. "Standard." Turning back to me, she says, "Are you a dream eater as well?"

"I—" I clear my throat again. "I don't think so."

Andromeda frees Pollux's finger. "I hope she's a jorōgumo!"

"A what?" I blurt.

Pollux sighs. "An unseelie faerie with the upper half of a beautiful woman and the lower half of a spider. It tricks men into its nest by transforming fully into a humanoid form, then it mates with them before feasting upon them. Occasionally, if it grows weary of its appearance, it will enchant women in order to steal theirs, but for the most part, it follows the instinct of many female animals, which is: men are useless beyond mating."

I shudder and ignore the joke he's making in reference to what I said when I gave him his stuffed bee. "I'm…not that, right?"

"Correct."

"Aw." Andromeda pouts. "I like spooders. I would love to add a spooder mother to my collection." Her eyes spark and crackle. "Assisting in the propagation of siblings at the expense of human men is very well-rounding behavior."

I swallow, hard. "No, it is not. Pollux say…something about…that."

He sets his chin atop Andromeda's curls. "I don't want to share, even if the other men would mostly be food."

My eyes close. I mourn the fact I am unable to go home and work on my Christmas gifts for the kids all night. Nope. Instead, I texted Willow, against my will. I got a favorable response, unfortunately. And so now I've got movie night to attend. The inexplicable urge to scream consumes me, but I mash it down with my other angry bee emotions.

Zahra pulls the devolving conversation back together. "How do we find out which type of faerie we are and what fancy magic we can do?"

"Most part-bloods can't access any of the powers in their fae heritage," Pollux grumbles.

"That's not fair."

"It's not unfair. People are born with different needs. Magic may not fall among yours."

"I don't like you."

Pollux deflates. "I harbor no ill emotions toward you."

Zahra grins. "Yet."

Amusement tips his lips. "If that's your goal, you just got farther from it."

Gripping my arm, Zahra turns my back on Pollux and Andromeda, then whispers, "Your soulmate isn't half bad. Why aren't you in love with him yet?"

The dubstep tune my heartbeat adopts does not fall within my usual music tastes. "I don't think love is that simple?"

"Sure it is. With a soulmate bond, it's supposed to be instant. Instalove tropes for everyone. Kiss, kiss, fall in love."

I glance back at Pollux, who has snuggled his chin over Andromeda's shoulder while she shows him a picture in her book. For someone made of fear, he's so…soft. If I barely know who I am, how am I supposed to know what love feels like?

Emotions are strange and foreign. Inconvenient.

If I can't control them, it's better not to bother feeling them at all.

But, naturally, it is thoughts like those that have led me to where I am today.

"You okay?" Zahra whispers.

I smile. "I think you play too many dating sims."

She recoils, slapping a hand to her heart. "Well, why don't you just take my real, two hundred dollar ice blue katana and eviscerate me?" She pokes me in the cheek, then the forehead, then the nose. "Where's the unfriend button?"

I swat her hand away. "Well, if there's nothing else, I suppose I'll pick you up later for movie night. I have a particularly enchanting frog pattern at home that requires my attention."

"Excuse you. I love frogs. Tell me about it." Zahra folds her arms.

The weight of wanting to go home, dodge my parents, and sit on the floor with my tatting hook until I have at least fifteen tiny round frogs filled with pouches of sand crushes me. I don't even want to eat dinner, even though I'm hungry. Sometimes, on particularly draining days, I skip having dinner just because I don't have the energy to navigate continuing to pretend that I'm okay, and I'm stable, and I'm super duper happy and grateful.

My parents mean the world to me.

They've done everything right.

They'd be there if I could find the words to express how not okay I'm feeling…

But…how? How exactly am I supposed to do that when too many of the details making me less than "okay"are insane?

"The frogs are tiny and round," I offer as though I don't want to scream and cry and curl up in a tiny round ball. "I'd like to make one in every pastel shade of the rainbow." To pass out as Christmas gifts to the children. As though they will not immediately be used as frog snowballs in a grand school-wide battle.

My delusion impresses me regularly.

"Fascinating," Zahra says. "Don't stop there. You need a black, gray, and white one, too."

She is absolutely not wrong.

"What are you going to do with them when you're done?"

Hold them close for emotional support. "I'll give some to Chai, as toys." And the rest to the kids, as surprise gifts, which I cannot say with one of the kids present.

Zahra's grin turns evil. "You devious monster." Twisting, she says, "Pollux. Chai."

Pollux blinks and pulls his attention up off Andromeda's book. "Pardon?"

"Why did you give Kass a kitten at the Halloween party last month?"

Heat warms his cheeks, but instead of explaining how it's a faerie proposal ritual, he says, "That was the first available moment I found to give it to her."

Zahra nods, as though her question has been answered. "Does Willow mind if people show up early…potentially with the intention of barging into a faerie prince's castle and demanding answers prior to the official start of movie night?"

Andromeda laughs. "Mother loves barging into Uncle Cael's house and demanding things."

Zahra lifts a perfect brow. "Kid, we're going to need you to draw me a family tree here in a second if you keep throwing around these relative terms. Mother is Willow?"

"Mother is Willow. Mom is Zylus."

"Rad. Okay, so we're all game to text her back that we're showing up early to storm castles?"

Mischief floods Andromeda's eyes, making her tiny, wiggly, and wicked. "You can't storm Uncle Cael's castle right now, Zahr-Zahr. You're not fully fae or claimed. Entering Faerie would make you go insane."

"How does one get claimed?"

"With a kiss."

"Pollux, kiss me."

Pollux's eyes go massive.

Zahra turns to me. "You're okay with that since you're not in love with him yet, right? It'll just be on the hand. I'm not cool with swapping saliva, either."

I resent the yet, and also I am not okay with even a hand kiss, which is something I'm not entirely emotionally prepared to assess right now. Before my eye starts twitching, Pollux grumbles, "A hand kiss wouldn't work, but it's also only a soulmate thing. I'm not your soulmate, so I can't claim you. You have to find your own soulmate."

Zahra's shoulders droop. "But that could take forever. I mean, you're like five million, right?"

"Not even this planet is five million, Zahra."

"What do you mean evolution is a hoax?" she drawls. "The scandal. Kass, we should have him be a guest speaker for science class."

"I'm experienced in Chemistry."

I lose my smile and shoot him a furious glare right as Zahra looks my way again. It takes me a lagging moment to realize the man isn't making another reference to his stupid human mating book.

His brow has furrowed, sincerely contemplating. "I'm not certain my experiments are appropriate for children who cannot grow back limbs if necessary."

Zahra's concern in regard to my expression pauses. She angles herself to look at Andromeda as her arms cross. "Kid. You have not told me you can grow back limbs."

Andromeda closes her book and jumps up, ecstatic. "I can take them off, too. Wanna see?"

"Meda, no," Pollux states.

"Absolutely I do," Zahra notes.

Baffled, Pollux corrects, "Meda…yes?"

"Meda, yes!" she cheers, and she dislodges a femur.

From this experience…I do not believe I will ever recover.