41. Zendaya

Chapter 41

Zendaya

" T he Green One is here." Enzo doesn't stammer as he announces his presence, but he speaks slowly, spacing out each word.

Agrippina whirls, her silver frock rippling around calves thinned by disuse. Though I don't remember her from before, I assume, from the stories Justus told of her desire to succeed him, that she must've been whittled like the rest of his soldiers.

My Serpents' scrutiny is so thorough that I can almost hear their eyes squeaking as they press and roll over one another's bodies.

Agrippina is the one to fracture the quiet. "You can call me the Blue One if it mends your ego."

"I d-don't—" He wedges his lips tight.

Agrippina tilts her head. "You don't…?" After a full minute, she repeats her question.

His eyebrows dip. She can't hear me.

She can't? Out loud, I say, "Try to talk to Enzo, Agrippina."

When her own eyebrows writhe, I deduce that they cannot penetrate each other's minds.

"The Crows can only communicate with each other when in their beast forms. Perhaps it's the same for us?" I suggest.

Agrippina walks up to where Enzo stands like a beanpole beside my closed door. She holds out her hand then speaks in Lucin. When she remembers that I don't speak that tongue, she switches to Serpent, "I'm Agrippina Rossi, your new denmate."

He doesn't take her proffered hand. "I kn-know who y-you are."

Her shoulders square. "Clearly not, if you're refusing to shake my hand."

"Your fa-father's s-soldiers—" He shuts his mouth, licks his lips, then parts them anew and blusters. "Ki-killed my grandfather."

Agrippina bristles. "You're holding me responsible for my father's soldiers' actions? Now that's unfair." Her breathy voice is so at odds with her assertive speech, like a gory, death scene rendered with pastels.

Enzo flinches. "He w-was all…all I h-had."

"I'm sorry for your loss, but it's still not my fault, Seaweed."

He balks at the nickname she's given him.

I cannot help but wonder, as I stare at the purple circles rimming his eyes and the tracks of salt crosshatching his pale cheeks whether the death of his grandfather is the sole factor in his dislike of Agrippina, or if another loss—the exclusivity of my mind—is to blame.

"Agrippina, can you give Enzo and me a moment?" I ask.

My pleasure. To think Asha said he was sweet. Her nose wrinkles.

He is. He's just angry with me.

Why?

I'll explain everything in a little bit. Just let me talk to him.

She nods, takes his measure once more, then, chin tilted, she steps out into the bright square of sunlight beyond my tall door.

"Come sit, Enzo." I turn and walk to my living area.

Though he follows, he doesn't lower himself to the cushions. Sunlight fans across his taut features. Instead of lightening his purple circles, it makes them appear starker, a shade neighboring the black of his eyes.

"How are you feeling?"

How do you think I'm feeling? His tone is as cutting as his stare.

Because of the tendus, or because of me?

His mouth thins.

With a sigh, I ask, "Why did you swim into the Sahklare?"

"Because I f-felt…I…" He must get fed up with his stammer because he finishes his sentence inside my mind: I felt you suffering.

My eyes burn. My heart aches. "I'm sorry, Enzo. I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing," he snaps.

How the tables have turned…

You're not sorry you made another Serpent! he snaps.

He's right. I'm not.

He rams a hand through his hair that is white with so much salt the green barely shines through. You should've let me die.

I suck in a breath, then hiss, "Never." I stand and go to him. "Enzo, I will never let you die."

His mouth opens, probably to repeat that I should.

I press a finger against his lips to hush him and say, "I love you, Enzo Fronz. You are my first and you will always be my favorite?—"

He cinches my wrist and tugs it away. I think it's because he doesn't want to be silenced but realize, as his face sails down toward mine, as his lips crash into mine, that shoving me away wasn't his intent.

Stunned, I just stand there and gasp, which allows his tongue to breach my mouth. I splay my hands on his chest to push him away, but then decide to let him pour all his frustration inside me and rid himself of his crush. I know the kiss will fizzle, just like his ardor, because there's no spark between our lips. Perhaps there would be if I tried to reciprocate, but I don't feel like trying.

My lids color with Cathal's face and my mind with the memory of our kiss back in the Sky Castle. What had Agrippina called the passion we had for each other? The word returns to me as I finally skate my mouth off Enzo's— explosive .

The memory is so intense that I suddenly feel like I can smell him here, in this room, next to me. I pivot, worried that I will find him. Worried that he bore witness to Enzo's frustration and despair. When I find no one, my pulse hushes and I turn back toward Enzo.

"You d-don't," he says, hurt washing out his tone.

"I don't what?"

You don't love me. If you did, you would've kissed me back and you didn't even try, Daya.

Enzo, the love I have for you isn't that of a mate. It's that of a mother. It's the same type of love I have for Fallon.

With a grimace, he backs up and repeatedly scrapes the back of his hand against his lips as though I'd been the one to kiss him without his consent.

I'm sorry, sweetheart, but ? —

He flattens his palms against his ears and hisses, "St-Stop! J-Just st-stop!" His eyes shimmer like faceted onyx.

"Don't cry."

His Adam's apple jumps in his throat and then he's racing away from me.

"Enzo, please…" I rush after him, worried he'll try to swim out of Shabbe again before remembering the waterrises are out of order. Please stay safe.

He does, but he also stays away, locked in his bedroom. The only two people he allows inside are Asha—though he doesn't speak with her, he accepts the food she brings him—and my grandmother—whom he does speak with. About what is a mystery since she refuses to relay their conversations, no matter how much I insist.

His silence toward me lasts and lasts.

Just like Cathal's absence. When I ask Fallon if her father will eventually join her during one of her visits, she tells me that he's aiding in Tarespagia. Though I've no reason to doubt her word, when I suggest making a trip out there, she's quick to tell me it's a terribly dangerous idea. Kanti did too much damage. Faeries positively loathe the Shabbins. She lobs reason after reason until they form a teetering pile. One that a mere flick of my tail would send spilling.

I'm starting to wonder whether Cathal visited me at all while I convalesced or if Asha made that up—but why would she?

"So Kanti's in Nebba?" I ask Taytah one evening, peering over her shoulder at the parchment she's inking with her signature.

"She needed a change of scenery." She folds her letter to Eponine, the one thanking her for hosting Kanti in this time of great unrest. "Aren't you glad I sent her there instead of urging her to come home?"

"You're not keeping her away because the Mahananda has yet to make me immortal, correct?"

Her mouth remains so immobile that it seems as though she doesn't even breathe, but then it moves over a quick promise: "Your cousin would never harm you." She picks up a stick of blood-red wax and her royal stamp.

Though a sigil could melt the wax, she holds it over one of the large candles burning on the middle of the enormous slab of sunstone. Once the wax is soft, she drips some over the creamy seam of her folded parchment before pressing the Shabbin crest into it.

In seconds, it's dry, yet she doesn't lift her metal stamp immediately.

"I'd like to go to Tarespagia, Taytah."

I expect a categorical no, but instead I get a, "Why?"

"Agrippina would like to see her father and I'd like to see Cathal."

"I'll send for them both."

With a sigh, I say, "Taytah, you cannot keep me locked in a bubble for the rest of my life."

"It isn't for the rest of your life, emMoti."

"No, it's only until the Mahananda grants me immortality. What if it never does?"

Again, she drifts into a harsh silence. I'm about to ask about Enzo to distract her from the touchy subject of my immortality—or lack thereof—when she says, "Every Shabbin Queen has been immortal."

"What if I don't become queen?"

"You will."

"What if I don't want to become queen?"

She holds my stare. "You are my heiress, Zendaya."

"So is Meriam."

Again, she hisses. "Never speak her name?—"

Her eyes suddenly blanch. I remain silent, wishing the Mahananda would reach out to me again, but since guiding me toward Agrippina, it hasn't poured any more words into my mind.

The queen blinks the haze away, the line of her mouth hardening as her gaze tightens on the wax seal.

"Any chance it told you how I'm to become immortal?" I ask, when she hasn't volunteered anything.

She stays quiet for so long that I think my question doesn't register, but then she shakes her head. "No. It merely informed me that it's almost ready to receive Lorcan or whichever Crow needs his curse removed."

" No !" someone shouts.

I jump and my heart misses a beat. I twist toward the doors of the Kasha only to find them closed.

As I squint around the room and then at the glass ceiling, new words shatter the stillness: " Your mother holds the key to your immortality. Find her. "

My eyes widen and my skin tingles, because I suddenly realize who the voice belongs to. I lick my lips. "Taytah?"

She's carefully putting away her wax stick and seal in a box inlaid with nacre. "Yes?"

When I give my lips another lick, one of her eyebrows arches. Why am I suddenly nervous? Not only is it my Mahananda-given right to meet the woman who made and doomed me, but it's also the edict that comes to me straight from the Mahananda. "I'm ready to meet my mother."

For a long moment, she simply stares into my face. And then she filches her letter, stands, and walks to the doors which part as though by magic. But it isn't magic. Since the wood panels are carved, the guards stationed outside can see into the room when she allows them to.

I pinch my silk skirt to catch up with her. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"I'm ready."

"Well I'm not, emMoti."

"With all due respect, Taytah, it's hardly your choice."

"She's my daughter. My prisoner. It is entirely my choice."

My lungs burn from how hard I'm breathing. "She's my mother."

"No. Your mother was a serpent."

My vertebrae snap into harsh alignment. "Before?—"

"Before?" Priya gives an ugly chuckle. "My daughter abandoned the girl you were before. She abandoned her with me . I was your mother before. Not her . Never her ."

"I'm not asking for a one-on-one audience with?—"

"Zendaya, I said no!" Her answer is so shrill that it shivers the delicate petals of the honeysuckle vines climbing up the Kasha's walls.

I'm about to retaliate that I'm entitled to meet the woman who murdered me when the disembodied voice rings between my temples anew: " Claim your bargain, Zendaya. "

My bargain? It takes my mind a moment to recall what bargain the Mahananda is referring to. Not that I have more than one. The second I do, though, my pulse propels so many heartbeats through my veins that I grow lightheaded and latch on to a twilit vine.

"Get this letter to Eponine of Nebba," the queen commands one of the guards before refocusing on me. "Forgive me for raising my voice, emMoti, but talk of Meriam always agitates me. Perhaps someday, it won't."

I don't say anything, too busy thinking many things. Chiefly, why is the Mahananda's keeper going against its biddings? And secondly, how can Justus help me find Meriam?

" Priya wishes to keep the shifter races subservient to the Shabbins. Why do you think she sent Fallon into the Mahananda and not Lorcan? "

My heart patters before stilling as I recall the vision of Lorcan getting staked with obsidian. If only I'd possessed the words to tell him.

" Do not blame yourself. But find Meriam and make haste, for Behati has foreseen the future I desire, and she's endeavoring to alter it. "

I suck in air. " Will you talk to me all the time now? "

" Earn my trust, Zendaya of Shabbe, and I will stay at your side always. "

So my grandmother doesn't suspect my anger, I feign fatigue before padding out to the Amkhuti embankment, pursued by a little colony of moon moths and my ever-faithful Abrax. He's quiet but concerned, and becomes even more so when I insist on being left alone. Since I cannot climb out of the moat, he indulges me, standing at a distance but keeping me in his line of sight.

When I'm certain not a single palace guard is within earshot, I whisper my bargain into the stars, my bicep tingling as the golden band fritters away. And then I settle against a tree, alternately surveying the Sahklare for an inbound ship and the sky for an incoming Crow, unsure what means of transport the Faerie will use.

The stars fade and a new dawn rises, and still the Lucin general doesn't show. But someone else does. Did he come for me?