Chapter 19

Istill felt like I was floating as Evrin dropped me back at Elverston House. There was a teeny little insecure part of me that was struggling to let myself believe that this was actually going to happen. It seemed like it was. Evrin had sounded genuinely enthusiastic, and not in a false-hope kind of way, but in a I'm-going-to-make-this-happen kind of way.

A fairytale home by the sea with someone I was genuinely catching feelings for was everything I'd ever wanted, and that was what made it so terrifying. It was in my grasp now. It would hurt so much more if it was taken away.

"Tallulah!" Sebastian yelled, spotting me in the entryway. "Come party with us. We're playing truth or dare!"

I stopped in surprise in front of the archway, finding almost the whole crew assembled in the living room. Verity held up a goblet in cheers from where she was perched on the couch next to a beaming Cora, while Ophelia was kneeling on the floor in front of the coffee table, slicing cheese. Sebastian and Lochan were side by side on the smaller chaise, looking far more relaxed than they usually did with full wine goblets in their hands. Only Austin wasn't here.

Astrid was overlooking the whole scene from a spot in the corner, arms crossed over her chest and expression impassive. I had absolutely no doubt that she'd been the one to organize this, perhaps hoping that a little social lubricant and a party atmosphere would loosen lips.

"Sit down, so I can dare you to tell us all about this new boyfriend of yours," Verity said with a mischievous grin.

"I will, but where's Meera?" I asked, scanning the room again.

"She wasn't feeling well," Ophelia replied, glancing sympathetically at the floor above us where the bedrooms were.

"Oh no! I'll be back soon. I just want to go make sure she's okay," I said, making a hasty exit. The wine had clearly been flowing, and I needed a few minutes to brace myself before even attempting to engage with that.

While it wasn't exactly unusual for Meera to not be in the thick of a larger crowd, she didn't usually avoid social gatherings entirely, so I assumed she really was feeling bad. I knocked lightly on her door, not wanting to disturb her if she was asleep.

"Meera? It's Tallulah."

"Come in."

I let myself in, finding Meera curled up in the fetal position in the middle of her bed, blankets pulled all the way up to her chin.

"Are you okay? What do you need? Tea?"

"I'm okay," she mumbled, eyes still closed. "My uterus is trying to kill me, and my clothes feel weird, and my hair is frizzy, and I want cinnamon donuts. But I'm fine."

I made a noise of sympathy. "Tea it is. And a heat pack."

She opened one eye hopefully. "It's not too much trouble? The fire isn't lit—"

"That won't take long," I assured her. Also, it gave me a convenient excuse to avoid truth or dare a little longer.

I headed for the kitchen downstairs, fantasizing about living in the cottage, which was all on one level. It had a beautiful fireplace in the kitchen, with a tile surround that I'd love to have gotten a better look at, but it needed a good scrub first.

It was only once I had the kindling burning in the grate, a log in my hand ready to feed the flames, that Meera's words truly sunk in.

My uterus is trying to kill me.

A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, despite my proximity to the fire.

When was the last time my uterus had tried to kill me?

I scrambled to figure out how long it had been since my last period, drawing a blank. But I had to be misremembering, right? I had a copper IUD. It couldn't be… that.

Ash spilled out of the fireplace as I clumsily shoved the log in. I glanced down, noticing not for the first time that my dresses weren't fitting well around the bust. Almost like my boobs had suddenly decided to grow after being reliably the same size for at least a decade. I swallowed thickly. There was probably a totally rational explanation for that, too.

And the brief, but intense mood swings I'd noticed recently. Definitely an easily explainable reason for those.

Right?

Right.

I went through the motions of making tea for Meera, pouring some of the boiling water from the kettle into the teapot, before tipping the rest into an earthenware warmer and screwing the lid tightly on top. There was a selection of sweets that had undoubtedly been brought over from the palace, and I arranged some of them on a plate before setting everything on a tray to carry upstairs. It wasn't until I was outside Meera's door that I registered that I'd even left the kitchen.

"You're amazing," Meera sighed, wincing as she sat up and wriggled up to sit back against the headboard. "Seriously, I owe you."

"Don't mention it."

She glanced at me sharply. "Are you okay? What's happened?"

I set the tray down carefully next to her, taking a step back from the bed.

"Nothing." I shook my head slightly. "I'm just in a weird mood. It's fine."

Meera patted the other side of the mattress, giving me a pointed look. And even though I didn't usually like imposing my problems on other people, the idea of going downstairs and acting fine at that moment made me want to weep. I rounded the bed, climbing under the blankets in the same curled up position Meera had been in earlier.

"What's going on, Tallulah?"

"My period is late."

She paused, cup halfway to her mouth. "How late?"

"A lot late."

"Okay." She took a sip of her tea. "How are you feeling about that?"

"Terrified."

"That's reasonable."

"I want kids," I clarified. "I always have. But Evrin and I have never talked about it. And we're finally in a good place, but it's brand-new and it's fragile. What if this ruins everything?"

"Don't spiral until you've had a chance to speak to him, Tallulah," Meera said firmly.

That was good advice. I mean, maybe he'd be happy? That was always an option. Even if the timing was terrible.

"I have a copper," I mumbled. "I don't understand how this happened. Unless it moved or something, maybe?"

I looked up at Meera slightly desperately, and she grimaced. "The copper acts as a spermicide. For human sperm. We don't know how effective it is against Shade sperm."

"We do now," I muttered, annoyed with myself that I hadn't considered that earlier.

But not totally annoyed. Because I was also quietly excited—in a having-heart-palpitations kind of way. Because if I was pregnant… I wanted this child so much, but Evrin had to want them too.

"There are pregnancy tests in the supply closet," Meera said softly.

I nodded, already crawling out of her bed. Part of me wanted to wait until the party downstairs was over, but I physically couldn't do it. I had to know.

Fortunately, they all seemed distracted enough with their game that no one noticed me sneaking down to the bathroom.

Meera was sitting up expectantly by the time I returned, giving her a simple nod in confirmation as I closed the door behind me and immediately climbed back in her bed.

"Is this what you want?" Meera asked quietly, looking at me with those oh-so-perceptive eyes.

"Of course."

The answer was rote. It was what she expected to hear, what she wanted to hear, and so that was what I gave her.

But I was trying to be a little more honest—both with myself and with everyone else. Life was too short to go through it catering to everyone else's whims and never prioritizing my own.

"It is what I want," I added. "It's everything I want, which is terrifying all on its own. But what if I'm a bad mother? I'm scared that I'll look at my not-human baby and not love it the way a mother should love their child. I'm scared that my body won't be able to handle this pregnancy, and I'll die in childbirth. I'm scared that a half-Hunter, half-Shade child won't fit in anywhere."

Meera hummed. "And what about the things that could go right? What are some of those? What are some of the things you're looking forward to?"

"Holding them for the first time," I replied instantly, smiling to myself. My hand had drifted protectively to my midsection without me even realizing it. "Seeing what they look like, what their eyes are like, what traits they'll inherit from each of us. Getting to know them, their smile, hearing their laugh." I swallowed, my throat suddenly thick. "Seeing Evrin as a father."

"Do you think he'll be good at it?" Meera asked, her tone entirely neutral.

I contemplated the question, forcing myself not to respond with empty platitudes. "Yes, I do. Though, I imagine it'll take him some time to build up his confidence. He'll probably be… He'll probably be scared, too."

"Probably," Meera agreed mildly. Were doulas trained as therapists, or was she just really good at encouraging me to process my feelings?

We stayed there in silence for a long time, with Meera stroking my hair the way my mom had when I was little. It was the first time since I'd come to the shadow realm—or even in the years before that—that I'd truly wanted my mom around. It was an emotional response though, not a logical one. She'd be disgusted that I was carrying a half-Shade child.

"Are you happy here?" I asked Meera, having wondered about it for a long time.

"I am. I probably don't look it," she added dryly. "But that's just my face. I promise, I'm a lot happier on the inside."

"We're total opposites that way," I laughed. "I usually look a lot happier on the outside than I am on the inside. Not that I'm super sad or anything," I added hurriedly, not wanting her to get the wrong idea.

"No, I know. You're just very smiley. We've never really talked about how you ended up here," Meera said tentatively. "How it was you came to be kicked out of the Hunters in the first place."

"No, we haven't," I agreed thoughtfully. Neither Meera nor I were the type to be booted out of the Hunters, not really. I was pretty confident she hadn't harbored secret monster fucking fantasies—I certainly hadn't. Meera was so reticent about sharing her life in general, I'd never asked.

"Not that we have to now," she added quickly, flushing. "I didn't mean to pry. I've never brought the subject up because… well, because I don't like telling my own story," she finished with a nervous laugh.

"And you don't have to. Mine isn't very interesting. I'm perfectly happy to tell you about it. But that doesn't mean you should feel any pressure to reciprocate." I gave Meera a wry smile. "I wasn't even kicked out, necessarily. Not really."

"You left?" she asked, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.

"Well, no. Not really. Kind of?" I could already feel my face growing hot just talking about that stupid, embarrassing time in my life. "I'm a Thibaut, right? My family is old money among the Hunters. I hate mentioning that, but it's a fact, and it's relevant. I don't personally have any of that sweet, sweet generational wealth–Grandfather hoards it like a dragon–but it's there. A lot of those old school families—like Lochan's family—like to exclusively socialize with each other. Same private schools, lacrosse teams, rooftop parties, all that jazz. I'd never really fit in, but I was always pushed to hang out with that crowd anyway. My parents couldn't fathom why I wouldn't want to."

Meera nodded along understandingly, though I suspected we'd had very different experiences of the Hunters growing up. I was under no illusions about how the Hunters operated and the disparities within the organization.

"I'd done everything that I was meant to do. I lived in a beautiful apartment in the city—subsidized by my grandfather. I had a very respectable job in HR that I got right out of college—thanks to my grandfather, and certainly not thanks to my Fine Arts degree. Later, he gifted me my own small firm as a birthday present. I arrived early and finished late for every night patrol, no matter how exhausted I was the next day, and I worked my ass off to run my business when I could barely keep my eyes open. My morning alarm was a recording of myself saying ‘rise and grind' on repeat," I added with a snort, wanting to paint the full picture of just how committed to the rat race I'd been.

I'd followed the rules. I'd done everything right.

"What happened?" Meera asked, all gentle curiosity and no judgment.

"I was put on patrol one night in a park with a few of those obnoxious rich kids—or obnoxious rich young adults—that I'd been forced to associate with in high school. It wasn't uncommon, but usually I wasn't put on with so many of them at once. None of them were taking the patrol seriously. They were lounging around in the park, smoking and drinking. Getting annoyed with me that I wouldn't sit down with them, that I was actually Shade hunting and taking my duties seriously."

God, it was still so humiliating to talk about this, even though it had been years, but the embarrassment was mostly directed at myself these days. They were in the wrong—I still felt strongly about that, even though I fundamentally disagreed with everything the Hunters stood for nowadays—but I'd been so silly and na?ve to think that I could do anything about it. That doing the right thing mattered more than your last name when it came to the Hunters Council.

"I made a note of everything. Took pictures of that night, showing them lounging around, not contributing. A Shade did enter that park—I chased them off on my own. I didn't kill them," I added hastily, though I doubted Meera would judge me if I had. "I took it to the Council and filed a complaint."

"They didn't believe you?" Meera asked, almost a little too shrewdly. Like perhaps that was a phenomenon she'd experienced firsthand.

"They probably did—the pictures were pretty clear. But most of the people I'd reported were related to Council members. I was narking on them to their own parents in many cases. And those parents did not take my criticisms of their precious little flowers well at all."

Meera grimaced. "So they banished you for reporting on their lazy kids? I mean, in hindsight, I'm glad they were too unmotivated to slaughter Shades en masse, but it does seem awfully hypocritical of them."

"I wasn't banished, not really. I was more… shunned. My complaint was swept under the rug. People I'd considered close friends stopped replying to my messages. I wasn't rostered on for patrols anymore. Even my parents started acting strange—screening my calls and refusing dinner invitations, stuff like that."

"I'm so sorry, Tallulah. That must have been horrible."

"I don't know. It was so gradual that it almost wasn't horrible, not right away. I was still busy at work. By the time I really noticed how distant everyone was, months had gone by, and the grief started to set in. At that point, I contacted an old college friend who had a house they'd been building—an off-grid place in Idaho Springs. I asked if I could visit, and he offered to let me live there while he was working offshore, just to look after the place. I wanted a fresh start, so I sold the business, packed up and left. It was right as he came back and I was looking for somewhere new to go that Astrid got in touch with the offer to come here."

I still felt guilty about leaving Josh's so abruptly. I'd told him that I had a job opportunity on a yacht in the Caribbean and it'd be difficult to get in touch. Hopefully, he didn't think I'd died.

"You don't ever wish you'd got some kind of closure in that situation?" Meera asked.

I mulled it over for a moment. "No? I think, when there's a possibility of love—romantic, platonic, familial, whatever—I find myself grasping desperately to keep it. But when I'm cut off like that, my ego finally kicks into gear and allows me to let it go. You know?"

Meera tilted her head to the side, looking thoughtful. "No. I want closure. More specifically, I want revenge. Someday, I'll get it."

That she sounded so cool and calm about it was honestly more terrifying than if she'd sounded angry.

"I'll be there for you when you do."

Meera gave me another one of those mysterious half smiles. "I know. Want to sleep in here tonight?"

"Yes, please."

"Perfect. Let's get some rest. No stressing about tomorrow, okay? You've got this."

I nodded decisively. "I've got this."

And, for once, I didn't feel like I was lying because it wasn't just my future at stake anymore.