33. Zendaya

Chapter 33

Zendaya

A grippina's face blooms in full color across my lids. Just before I part ways with my grandmother in front of her bedchamber doors, I ask, "Has the Mahananda recovered from Fallon's curse-breaking?"

She turns her fatigued gaze toward its smooth surface. "Not yet."

I nibble on the inside of my cheek. Then why did someone mention Agrippina? Why must she be found?

"I need to go rest. I'll see you this evening." The queen kisses my pearl, then Enzo's, before departing in a whoosh of white silk.

Could Agrippina have gotten lost? But lost where—in Luce or in Shabbe? She didn't sail home with us, but that doesn't mean she didn't return eventually. After all, Taytah never put up the wards she threatened to erect.

Right before Abrax shuts me inside with Enzo, who I convened for a private conversation, I ask, "Are the Rossi women back in Shabbe?"

"No."

"They decided to stay in Luce?" I ask.

Enzo's intrigued stare prickles my nape.

"Luce is their home, Daya." Abrax says this with no condescension. "Is there a particular reason they're on your mind?"

"No," I lie.

Abrax slants his head.

Since I can tell he isn't convinced, I add, "I've been so busy training Enzo that it only just occurred to me that neither she nor her daughter has visited in some time."

His neck straightens and his eyebrows level. "I'd offer to send for them, but I don't think your grandmother would approve. She's been adamant about restricting the number of visitors inside Shabbe ever since?—"

"—she learned about serpent poison." I sigh. "I'm aware."

He offers me a sympathetic smile. "It's possible she'd make an exception if the request comes from you? I know she's fond of Ceres. You should ask her at supper."

I nod, casting a glance around me at the other guards' faces. None of them are staring with suspicion. None of them are staring at me, period. But are they listening?

"I'll be right outside if you need anything," Abrax says.

I nod my thanks, then tread past Enzo as Abrax gives us the privacy I requested.

Are you okay? Enzo asks. You seem agitated.

"Yes. Fine. Sit. We need to talk." My terse tone only deepens the angle of his brown eyebrows as he takes a seat on my divan and I sink onto it beside him.

My mind clings to Agrippina even as I explain my desire to make another Serpent to Enzo. Yet I don't let her name slip through our bond. I want him to fully concentrate on what I'm telling him…what I'm asking him.

When disappointment scores his face, I snatch the hand with which he's strangling his bony thigh and cocoon it between my own. "What is it?"

"I…I…" He slides his lips together, his black eyes taking on a worrying sheen.

"Tell me your thoughts."

He stares hard at my fruit bowl. I know I'm young and not really a looker, but —he swallows— am I really not enough?

"It has nothing to do with how I feel about you, Enzo."

Doesn't it? "You s-still love Fa-Fallon's fa-father." He steals his hand away from mine to mop his cheeks.

"Enzo, sweetheart, I love you. You will always be my first and favorite Serpent."

"But n-never y-your—" He jumps to his feet. First and favorite mate, he finishes through the bond.

I assumed he'd understand. I assumed he'd be excited to widen our little nest. Clearly, I assumed wrong.

He storms toward my door and lets himself out, thwacking the wood. I hesitate to call on Erwin. I allow three days to pass, hoping Enzo will change his mind. He doesn't, the same way he doesn't speak to me or swim with me. As I slip the poisonous purple flakes onto my tongue, having resumed my daily intake at the same dose as before my convalescence, Asha asks what happened between us.

"Maybe you should sleep with him," she suggests.

I'm so repulsed by the idea that I grimace.

With a sigh, she asks, "You're really not attracted to him, are you?"

"No. But I do really love him."

She nods, thoughtful. "Then I'm on board with your expansion idea."

I blink, surprised by her encouragement.

"But what happens if you cannot communicate with them?"

"Then I'll take your advice and lay with Enzo." Picturing his lips on mine makes bile rise up my throat, further convincing me that he and I cannot possibly be romantic mates.

Once my body feels strong and rested, I use my bargain: "Erwin of the Sky Kingdom, I need a lift to Luce."

The glowing band I've been hiding from everyone thanks to silk shawls immediately snuffs out. When after several hours, nothing but storm clouds tile the evening sky, I begin to worry that my grandmother did put up wards. I pace my chamber, my frustration giving way to concern. What if the male's been injured with obsidian again? What if he isn't able to fly?

The sky growls, and then rain hurtles against my windows in sheets so thick it blurs the outside world. My worry turns to downright trepidation. Is this storm Lorcan-made? Did something happen in Luce that I'm unaware of?

I'm about to seek out a guard when a shadow seeps beneath one of my arched windows and develops into a hulking redhead.

"Forgive my tardiness, Rajka, but I needed to speak with Lorcan about how best to conceal transporting you out of Shabbe."

The storm.

How glad I am that he thought of this, for I've been so consumed by my deliberations that I certainly hadn't. "You'll need a cloak and proper footwear. The temperatures in Luce have dropped since your last visit."

I hurry to my closet and grab a silk cape and matching slippers.

Erwin's mouth twists when I reappear, tucking my hair under the embroidered hood. "That's not gonna be enough. Here." He shrugs out of a suede jacket lined with black fur.

"What about you?"

"I just wore it because Liora insisted I not leave without it." He smiles. "I've got plenty of meat on my bones to keep me warm."

Smiling gratefully, I toss off my silk cape and thread my arms through his sleeves. The hit of warmth is as potent as the adrenaline rushing through my blood, and not because of the skirmishes still crackling through Luce.

Some part of me fears the answers this journey will bring. Another part craves them.

"Where exactly in Luce would you like to go?" Erwin asks.

I remember Sybille telling me that her family tavern faces the human neighborhoods. Humans are mortal. So I give him the name of the Amaris' tavern.

He palms his waterlogged hair. "If you wanted some ale, I could've carried some over."

"It isn't ale I want."

His mouth pinches. "I'm hoping that what you want is to see Sybille."

"Yes. Exactly. I want to see her."

"Better be, or Cathal will fluff his pillows with my feathers."

My skin pebbles in spite of the thick hide I wear. "Why would he do that?"

"Because Bottom of the Jug still operates as a brothel."

My head rears back. "You think I've asked you for a ride to Luce to sate some sexual desire?"

"I don't know. Your mate's pretty green."

"Please just take me there. And don't tell Cathal. I don't need him breathing down my neck."

"Should I tell Fallon?"

"Yes. You can tell Fallon, but no one else."

"All right. Let's go before your grandmother stakes me with obsidian."

Though it seems outrageous, I realize that she probably would. "I'm sorry for putting you at risk."

"A bargain's a bargain," he says, before melting into feathers at the foot of my stone stairs.

Pulse racing, lungs tight, I climb onto his back and loop my arms around his neck. Once we clear the tall fortifications, my ribs loosen, but not my lungs. They cling to every sip of wet air. When we finally puncture Lorcan's thunderous cloud cover, I unwind my arms and sit up. The stars are bright over Luce; the air thick with lavender plumes of smoke that coil out of every chimney.

The air is so nippy that I burrow into Erwin's borrowed coat like a mollusk in a conch shell. It grows a fraction warmer as we begin our descent toward the westernmost isle of Tarelexo, toward a wharf that must host a marketplace, considering the amount of tethered wooden vessels and heaped crates overflowing with iridescent scales and headless foul.

Though I know the Lucins eat fish and meat, the sight and reek of carrion turns my stomach. My heart stutters as I become aware that I'm wearing some animal's hide, for fur doesn't grow on trees. I pop my head out of the collar. Though grateful for the warmth it affords me, my skin itches with eagerness to shed it.

The humans and Faeries milling about below scatter as we land. One sweep of my lurid hair has them freezing. They stare unabashedly, so I do the same. I note that most of the two-legged folk around me have rounded ears and coarse garments that run the gamut of browns and grays. How long will it take Lorcan and Fallon to blur the social disparity produced by five centuries of Faerie rule?

Erwin shifts the second I slide off his back, then palms the middle of my spine, guiding me away from the gawkers and toward a glowing abode trimmed with a sapphire canopy bearing gold letters. I imagine they read: Bottom of the Jug . The Shabbin and Lucin alphabets aren't the same, so I recognize no letter. Not that I'm all that great at reading Shabbin, as Kanti so kindly pointed out.

Cheery music seeps around the weathered mullions that divide the thick panes of glass. I let it envelop me and drive away my shortcomings. When Erwin pulls open the door, a gust of warmth engulfs my cheeks. Scanning the crowd, I start to unfasten the buttons on my borrowed jacket, but at the sight of familiar blue eyes, I freeze like the audience on the wharf.