Chapter 39

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll be home for Christmas (if only in my dreams).

"I hope you like living with us," Andromeda says, swinging her little arms while holding her Secret Santa gift in one hand and her bag of frogs in the other. I watch her teeter on the curb in front of me and try to keep my anxieties in check. Starting tonight, I'm living with her, and Pollux, and Alexios. Throughout the past week, my father and Pollux spent father-son time together in order to bring my things from my old room to my new room. I haven't seen it yet, but according to Pollux, it's ready. For me.

After we all have a family dinner together tonight, that's it.

I'll go home with Pollux.

I'll have officially moved out.

Andromeda continues, "Daddy says that if you don't like living with us, you'll go back to your parents' home. Did you tell him that, or is that what he believes?" Her big blue eyes hit me, childlike innocence gleaming in them. Since we're still in public, she's yet to shed the full human guise she wears to school, but regardless of whether the whites of her eyes are black or white, the blue maintains its eerie depth.

"I didn't tell him that," I say. "He'd have to mess up really badly and really consistently to scare me off now."

She smiles. "Daddy won't do that. He's very careful."

Yeah… I know.

"I like that about him," I murmur, and my face warms, so I pretend I'm cold and tuck my nose into my scarf. Winter really snuck up on me this year. The wave of mildly chilled days did not prepare me for the forecast of a white Christmas creeping across the news.

I can't believe Christmas is this weekend.

And I'll be spending only some of it with my parents, before I say my goodbyes and head back to my home.

It's surreal to think about.

I'm moving minutes away from what I've always known, but everything is changing.

I'm not even going to spend my Christmas break in a decorated house this year.

Who knows how long it will take me to feel at home? It never happened when I was away at my college dorm.

Maybe I should have waited until summer for this transition. Perhaps winter break really won't be long enough to regain my footing and learn new routines. Is all of this really worth the potential I find myself while I'm away from the self-inflicted guilt of presenting who my parents raised me to be? Is this a big mistake?

Energy builds in my chest, so I trace the star at the top of my skirt's Christmas tree.

No. No, it isn't a mistake. It can't be a big mistake so long as I can perfectly undo it. I'm not spilling grape juice on my yarn until I know, for sure, I'm okay with dying it a color that will never come out. Until I have that certainty, it's okay to risk making a few bad stitches. I can unravel bad stitches.

Bad stitches are okay.

And, come on, Pollux is beautiful and kind and he says the heart-meltiest things.

For all I know, these could be some very, very good stitches. For all I know, my skank of a mother is correct, and I'll be encouraging him to help me dye yarn before the start of next year.

"Where are we eating tonight?" Andromeda asks, interrupting my thoughts and making my heart leap. "Daddy said we were going to a fancy restaurant."

Freeing a taut breath, I clear my throat and my mind. "I think it's a steakhouse of some kind. Apparently, they're really good about cross-contamination and have a selection of veggie burgers. Which is uncanny. I've never been somewhere with more than one type of veggie burger that you can then just swap out in the meat options… It's the kind of thing you expect to only happen in fiction."

"That really does sound magical."

"It makes one hope that somehow, somewhere, restaurant owners are listening and willing to embrace it more."

"Well," a silky murmur suddenly too close behind me whispers into my ear, "isn't this enchanting?"

Castor.

Instinctively, I place myself squarely in front of Andromeda as I turn to find him.

The gray evening sky washes his black robes and white hair in starkly monochrome shades.

"How quaint. You do realize that little lamb is more suited to protect you, do you not?"

"I…do not. And I don't believe it unless you remove the question from your phrasing."

He exhales the breath of a laugh. "Naturally, intelligence would mark Polly's soulmate."

"Are you here for a frog?" Andromeda asks.

"Pardon?"

Reaching into her frog bag, she removes the black one, steps past me, and holds it out to him. "Would you like him?"

"Child, I am not remotely that naive."

"Huh?"

Castor sighs. "If you aren't playing dumb, I pity you and the education that Polly has given you in this human realm. Gifts amongst the fae rarely come without strings when they are framed inside questions that require me to provide you with acceptance. I will not be indebting myself to you over a crocheted frog."

Andromeda's clueless look melts away. "It was worth a shot, wasn't it?"

Castor lifts his hand and combs his fingers through her hair. "Perhaps if I were younger you would have fooled me." He lets his hand fall back to his side as his attention shifts to me. "Have you given more thought to the request we discussed previously?"

Placing a hand on Andromeda's shoulder and pulling her firmly to me, I say, "I still haven't come into my powers, whatever they are."

"I suppose you haven't; however, you have gotten closer to Pollux. You have even used your powers to make him something recently, have you not?"

If he's talking about last week when I cried golden tears, again apparently, um… "I wouldn't exactly call that using, and he made the something himself."

"I have never quite been poor in the virtue of patience, yet when I have waited this long, it becomes more difficult with every moment that passes. I would have either your aid, or…" He extends his fingers, referencing Andromeda, and my stomach clenches.

I clutch her tighter to me. "My aid with what?"

"Love and vengeance."

"It's a hard no on the vengeance. The person you have problems with just helped me throw a Christmas party."

"Of course he did," Castor all but drawls. "He's just so good like that."

"Isn't he?" I ask. "Isn't he the kind of person you can talk to? Pollux hasn't told me much about the situation, Castor, but he still cares about you. I think that means something, and I think Cael also—"

"Pollux hasn't told you much." His soft words bite. "You would do well not to speak in favor of the person responsible for Polly's caution where you are concerned. As far as I can tell, it is largely because of Cael he hasn't told you what you are or what you are capable of. He, too, has let the moth prince indoctrinate his ideals. It's repulsive that someone made of fear fears what might become of someone if they are given the tools to be everything they were born to be."

"Don't listen to him, Mrs. Role. Daddy isn't afraid that you'll become what you're born to be. He wouldn't be."

I know that much. Pollux has told me plainly why he's not telling me what I am yet. If part of his reasoning includes Cael, that doesn't remove the fact I'm barely managing to contain the stress I have over moving. I don't want another thing I have to fit into my brain right now.

Like.

I don't know.

Magic powers and what to do with them.

I still have grading to finish up.

"Hm." Castor huffs. "If I'm wrong, how would you phrase it, little lamb? What is your daddy afraid of?"

The boy's 'fraid I'm out of his league. He's told me that, too, not in so many words.

It's really nifty not having a toxic relationship.

Now if I could just butt dial him, that would be great.

Andromeda whispers, "I…I don't know. He hasn't told me what Mrs. Role is. No one else knows. Only him."

"Only him. And me." Castor stretches his fingers at his sides. "My window of opportunity wears thin. You have three more seconds to comply."

"I need more information," I state.

"Three." Castor slowly lifts his hand.

"Castor. I know you are not counting down on m—"

"Two." He holds his fingers at my eye level.

"Mrs. Role—" Andromeda lifts her hand to mine and looks up at me. "—close your eyes. And don't open them for any reason."

"One."

Castor snaps, and my world goes black.

?

Pollux felt the moment the brush of Kassandra's unconsciousness appeared, then vanished. The suddenness hit him, violently, like a light flicking on—and off. It made him forget what he was doing, what he was saying, where he was.

Beside him in his parents' living room, fish swam in front of the glass, chasing the colorful lights that reflected from the Christmas tree. In front of him, his mom and dad sat in their chairs.

The three of them were waiting for Kassandra and Andromeda to get back from the Christmas party at school, so they could all go to dinner.

He'd left the party early to bring some leftover food to his parents—and possibly to further assess whether or not they hated him for stealing their daughter away.

Over the course of the past week, he'd enjoyed the minutes he'd been able to spend with his new father and mother as they helped him arrange Kassandra's room in his home, but humans could lie. And he was ever the anxious ball of nerves where Kassandra was concerned.

He should not have left her side. Not even for a moment.

"Pollux?" Concern crossed his mother's eyes as his mind refocused. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

His lips parted, but he couldn't find the words to explain that he was a master of a plane unknown to them, a plane where resting minds got lost. He could not find the words to explain that Kassandra's mind had just tripped in and out of that place with an unnatural swiftness akin to…death.

Fear consumed him as the very thought of that possibility shattered his mind.

The pain that erupted was an agony unlike anything he'd ever witnessed before.

"Pollux." His mother rose and met him on the couch, cupping his face in her hand. "Honey, breathe. What's wrong?"

"Gone." His voice broke, rough as jagged stone. "She's…gone."

He could find nothing else to say. But, then, of course, he did not have to.

For a moment later, he too was gone.