Chapter 32

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Accidents on ice.

I never—once—authorized this.

I never, ever at all even a little bit, suggested I wanted this. After dealing with the regulations guy on Friday in regard to a playground I still need to somehow present to my school board tomorrow, it should not surprise me that the fae are capable of pretty much anything.

And, yet, as I stand looking at the vacant ice skating rink I have been bringing my littles to for years, I am overwhelmed.

I have never seen it this empty.

"It's ours!" Riley screams, throwing her arms in the air before baby-deer stumbling toward the entrance. The other kids squeal and go fumbling after her. Andromeda, the absolute freaking angel, helps my littlest little with one of the big plastic trainers as everyone else goes ballistic with power.

Josh wipes out before I can gather my senses.

"Josh. Are you still alive, soldier?" Zahra calls as he skids through the center of the rink.

The boy laughs, throws a thumb in the air, and is back on his feet after another second.

I…need to sit down.

I brought my knitting.

I was planning to finish knitting my father his Christmas sweater on the bleachers while I watched my littles and passed out snacks whenever they got hungry.

After the peaceful outing that was watching Howl's Moving Castle with everyone at Willow's on Thursday, I was just about talking myself into everything being okay. Zahra was able to talk with Cael in private, joke with Ollie—who recognized her the moment she recognized him. Apparently, they're both pretty popular online? For a moment, they stood in Willow's living room pointing at each other, like that one Spider-man meme, and I guess that explains why all this time I've felt like I've seen him somewhere before…

The point is: after movie night, my nerves settled. Things returned to all right in my world.

It's incredibly telling that I began to feel better the second Zahra was okay again. My entire self-worth really relies a hundred percent on the people I care about, huh?

I do not exist.

I am an extension of those around me, meant to create a fuller experience for them.

That's all.

So, obviously, it shouldn't bother me that Pollux went ahead and rented this entire rink without talking to me about it. That's par for the course in the life of a side character. My story arc doesn't even need to make sense. I'm like that scarecrow guy in Howl's Moving Castle. The second the real leads are done with me, I'll just pogo myself away.

For some reason.

I really need to read the book, because the movie felt like an absolute acid trip, and I have a feeling I'm missing so much context…

Slowly, achingly so, I locate Pollux—who is checking his skates without a care in the world.

When he finds me, his back goes straight. "Are you trying to kill me with your eyes?"

"A little. Is it working?"

More graceful than a man walking on two blades should be allowed to, he steps nearer me. "It's doing something." His dark gaze searches me as he absently pulls a pair of winter gloves onto his large, clawless hands. "Have I done something wrong?"

"You rented the rink. The entire rink."

"You sent me a video of scary things happening to children then asked me to help you protect yours. What else did you expect me to do?"

My heart does a thing. I suck in a breath. "How much did it cost?"

"A negligible amount in the grand scheme of things."

As if that isn't a very fae answer of him. Glancing down, I say, "You're going to skate?"

"Don't worry. I will stay close to where you're sitting. It's just that Meda asked if I would skate with her on the bus ride earlier, and I found it difficult to say no to my daughter."

My heart does another thing.

He takes his phone out of his pocket. "Would you be willing to capture something of this excursion on camera? My pin is 0227."

That's the date I have recorded as Andromeda's birthday… My nervous system takes it as another gut punch, but I manage to suggest that I am capable of taking pictures before Pollux steps out onto the ice as though he's been figure skating his entire life.

This man…should not have given me a phone capable of taking his picture…

I am irresponsibly going to send myself things.

"Kass." Zahra is smirking at me when I manage to stop staring at Pollux's broad back.

Arranging my bag of yarn, and needles, and snacks, I plant a perfectly normal smile on my face. "Yes?"

"Yer in lurveee."

"I'd not tease someone with two foot-long needles in her bag, Zahr." I laugh, amicably, and head toward my usual spot, right by the short staircase leading to the bleachers. It's where I've sat every year I've taken my littles here for a field trip. They skate. Zahra chats with the chaperones so I don't have to. I count the kids periodically along with my rows. Nobody dies. We all go home, and I sleep for the rest of the day because the music in here clashes with the roar of people…and…

There is no roar today.

The music is still louder than I appreciate, but the voices are familiar enough that they aren't grating in my skull.

It's almost tolerable.

Until, of course, I look up and find Pollux and Andromeda with their faces pressed to the tempered glass feet from me. "Mrs. Role! Mrs. Role! I'm going to do a trick with Daddy. Take a video!" Her voice barely registers outside the box, but either her screaming or the shape of her lips as they move helps get the point across.

I open Pollux's camera and hope the trick isn't something that will raise my blood pressure. "Okay! Be careful!"

"In love," Zahra murmurs as she sits beside me.

"Shut up."

Andromeda darts off, picks up speed, then goes flying toward her father's arms. In flawless sync, he lifts her, turns, and releases her like a bullet to go darting around the rest of the rink.

My littles scream, cheering, and half of them scramble toward Pollux on their unsteady blades.

"Me next!"

"No, me!"

"Guys, guys, make a line. Take turns!" Mia demands.

Wary, Pollux looks at me, and I catch his worried expression on camera before I turn off the video.

Yes, I'm sending the video to my phone. Yes, I'm going to save that expression as a picture.

No, I will not make it my background.

I'd prefer to have a picture of Pollux in all his monster glory as my background, anyway.

It's not that Pollux looks bad in his human form. It's just that the whites of his eyes freak me out a little since I know they're supposed to be black. And what even are round ears when, clearly, his should be shaped like jagged daggers?

If I'm only part human, I wonder what I'd look like if I were fully fae.

Wings as large as Alana's seem somewhat bulky and inconvenient, but I wouldn't at all mind being able to fly.

Assuming that she can.

I haven't seen her fly before, but given how delicate her wings look and the ratio of them to her body, it's giving bumblebees should not be able to fly, but totally can anyway. It's because of what their wings are made of.

Which is cool to think about.

Sometimes the things that shouldn't be possible are.

What you're made ofplays a big role in determining what you're capable of.

"Kass."

My heart leaps as I find Zahra, then register Pollux lifting littles, spinning them, and setting them—oh so carefully—down.

"No! Send me flying like you did Meda," Riley shrieks.

I read absolutely I will not on his lips before he barely catches the next child who goes rocketing toward him.

I ease. "What is it, Zahr?"

"You zoned out. Were you thinking about Pollux n-a-k-e-d or bees?"

My face heats. "Bees. Shut up."

"Aw, I thought we could be on the same page for once."

My attention whips toward her.

She smirks at the game on her phone. "Kidding. I'm only thinking about what answers will make this vampire king fall in love with me."

She turns the picture of a man with red eyes, long hair, and robes that aren't exactly covering him toward me. "He's the youngest son of Dracula, and he murdered all the other males in his family in order to become king. Isn't he a doll?"

"You better not have those images available in front of the kids, Zahr…"

"My hand-eye coordination and reaction times are peak, and my lock phone button is large. Don't you worry your pretty bee head. No child will learn what a good lover looks like today."

Rolling my eyes, I get my knitting supplies out.

The field trip proceeds as it usually does. I pass out snacks and divvy up any money parents have given me so their kids can get snacks from the counter in the lobby across from the skate rental station. My littles skate until the Zamboni needs to freshen up the ice. Then they eat while watching the truck go around in ovals. Those who purchased slushies share the concerning shades of their tongues with one another. Josh, for some reason, uses his entire allowance to purchase sticks of straight sugar. That are also colored. And turn the tongues of everyone he shares with a unique shade. Which, for the record, everyone he shares with happens to be everyone, save Andromeda and Pollux who politely declined. Even Zahra has matched her tongue to the shade of the green shaved half of her head.

Needless to say, once the Zamboni is done and the second half of the day—which Pollux also paid for—can begin, everyone is vibrating on a sugar high, I'm almost done with my dad's sweater, and Andromeda is cuddled between Zahra and me while her father continues to play with the other kids.

"You don't want to skate anymore, sweetie?" I ask.

"It's not as fun as skating the Frozen Tears in Faerie."

My brow lifts amid casting off. "The Frozen Tears?"

"Daddy took me in winter last year. There's a place where the clouds cry sheer sheets of ice onto rolls of hills. It creates a terrain like a frozen skate park. It's in the darker parts, too, so the seelie folk don't come out. Mostly just red caps mess around." She giggles, beaming up at me. "The best part was when they started fighting, and Daddy said we could take notes. Red caps have particularly gruesome battles, so it was very informative. It's a good thing we were there, too, because Daddy broke things up before anyone died. Normally, a red cap battle isn't over until the caps are freshened in th—"

Pollux smacks his hand against the glass, and Andromeda jolts. Glaring, he pinches two fingers down to his thumb. Unless I'm mistaken, the ASL sign for no.

Andromeda crosses her ankles. "Oops. Sorry. I got carried away. Must make stories appropriate for Mrs. Role and her wee human-soaked sensibilities." Smiling, she says, "There was a kerscuffle, but nobody went kersplat."

I don't know how I feel about being treated with kid gloves.

A scream followed by a crash puts me on my feet before I can so much as set my knitting aside. The bag with my yarn ball falls.

Pollux twists, locates Josh plastered on the other side of the rink, and streaks across the ice in an instant.

"Daddy, no!" Andromeda calls, but it's too late.

It's too late.

Andromeda grabs my hand, yanks, and blurts, "Hurry!"

But I can't hurry fast enough.

Mia's shriek happens first, her face blanching as she lifts her arm, points at Pollux and begins to sob. All my littles crumple before Pollux can so much as reach Josh.

Josh's complaints that he's fine, he's fine fizzle into nothingness. Then he's screaming, too, yelling, "Get away! Get away from me!" at pitches I've never heard anyone's voice take before, much less Josh's.

Pollux flinches and cuts his skates so he stops short.

Andromeda swears, releases my hand, and darts onto the ice toward him. Pulling a necklace out of her shirt and over her head, she clamps the pendant in Pollux's hand, then she vanishes. My head pinches as it grapples with the fact she's just…evaporated. Into thin air.

When Pollux reaches the rink exit where I'm standing, he's helpless. Tense. The hand clutching the necklace Andromeda gave him shakes. Pain soaks through every inch of him as he whispers, "I'm sorry; I'm so sorry."

I grip his sleeve. "Shh. It's all right. Are you all right? Is everyone else all right?"

Pollux's mouth opens, but no words come.

Rink attendants launch onto the ice, and my heart lunges as my gaze follows them toward Josh to discover there's red on the ice. Blood. Pollux's presence slips out of focus. My hand loosens from his clothes as I scramble to the other side of the bleachers, nearer to the glass where Josh is. Making eye contact with one of the attendants, I scream "Is he okay? Please tell me he's okay!"

The attendant nods, yelling, "Looks like a nose bleed. Must've hit the wall just right." Confused, the man scans the screaming and crying mess of kids all around him. "For now, let's get everyone off the ice."

Zahra meets me, gripping my arm before I can head back toward the rink exit and await my littles. "Pollux wanted me to tell you he's taking Meda home."

I scan the bleachers for Pollux but find only my abandoned knitting bag. "When did they both disappear?"

"After Meda met him, they both vanished. A few moments later, he was apologizing, then after you rushed over here, he told me the kids would be okay soon. They just need to get the stress out of their systems, but they should already have forgotten what happened since Pollux turned on his glamour or something. Then he told me to let you know he was taking Meda home."

Glamour.

Soulmates aren't affected by their other half's glamour.

My fae folder told me about that. That's why I didn't see him disappear when Zahra did.

Taking a breath, I nod. "Okay. One thing at a time. I'll deal with Pollux later."