xiv.

HOLLIS HAD NOT befriended Kevin the half-puca when he'd come to Shepherdstown. Well, he supposed that Kevin had been young back then, anyway, so it would have been strange for Hollis to have befriended him in that way. But the point was, the friendship between them, Hollis hadn't initiated it.

Kevin had come to him .

It had been one of the equinoxes, one of the nights when things went thin between the veils between other realms like Faerie and the mortal realm. Nights like that made creatures whose ancestry was linked to the other feel shifty and strange, uncomfortable in their own skin.

Kevin was one of the most uncomfortable creatures that Hollis had ever met, but admittedly, his father had been a Faerie-born puca, not one of the hybrid creatures who tended to call themselves pucas, though they were just as mortal as anyone else. Even their shapeshifting was somewhat pedestrian compared to Kevin's.

It was clear that Kevin was itchy in a way that other people weren't, that something in Kevin was calling out for something he couldn't have. He had a desire for something he didn't understand.

It manifested itself as self-destructive tendencies.

Kevin drank too much. Kevin did stupid things like crossing train bridges in the middle of the night if someone dared him too. Kevin skulked sometimes on the edges of the shadows, and Hollis knew Kevin needed something that he couldn't actually have.

Maybe Hollis had been this way at the beginning too, right after he'd been exiled. Maybe he'd been strange and tragic and worn his hurts on his sleeve. He should likely not have encouraged Kevin when Kevin wanted to be friends, but Kevin was such an open wound that it was hard to deny the poor boy.

And he supposed that Kevin felt it from Hollis, a strange tie of kinship and a pull of the otherworldly. To reject him, it would have been cruel.

So, he was Kevin's friend, except it was mostly when Kevin reached out. Kevin would show up at his house or text and ask if they could go off into the woods and let their magic spill out too freely into the trees and grass and empty spaces.

That night, it was the first time—maybe ever—that Hollis had ever contacted Kevin first. But maybe not ever. Maybe Hollis had sent Kevin a random text here or there, asking if he was doing this or that. He knew that at one point, Kevin had tried to get Hollis to play in his band, but Hollis hadn't wanted that kind of responsibility in his life.

Odd, how everything was different now that Fifer was entangled in everything.

Kevin was eager to meet up. Definitely, can do. See you later, then.

And so, they met.

Kevin was standing down by the boat dock to the river, which was out on the outskirts of town. A very old building loomed over them. It was on the historic registry as the Mecklenburg Tobacco Warehouse. Shepherdstown used to be called Mecklenburg. The building was old, square, made of carefully fitted together stones. There was a tiny path off to one side of it.

"Let's walk," said Hollis, even though he knew the path dwindled to nothing quickly enough, overtaken by brambles and underbrush.

Kevin fell in behind him. The path was only big enough for them to walk single file.

The river flowed next to them, the sound of it soothing, the water reflecting back the stars overhead.

"I have a proposition for you," said Hollis.

"Oh, really?" said Kevin, letting out a laugh.

"Not like that," said Hollis, laughing too. "I should have thought that through better before I worded it like that."

"Well, I didn't figure it was," said Kevin. "I never get that kind of vibe from you."

Hollis looked at the man over his shoulder. "You'd do it, wouldn't you?"

"Whatever, do you even have a cock?"

"I know a way I can get you into Faerie."

"What?" Kevin caught up to him, even though they didn't fit on the path, his hand digging into Hollis's shoulder.

"Thought that would get your attention," said Hollis. "It wouldn't… it wouldn't be like you're thinking. I obviously can't get back in, but what we could do is create a small pocket, sort of a cage, almost. You could go into it, see Faerie, and others in Faerie could see you, talk to you, interact with you, but… you couldn't get out of the cage, and they couldn't get in."

"So, you could, too," said Kevin. "But it wouldn't break your exile."

"That's not exactly why I want it."

"Right, you said you never wanted to go back."

"I don't." He didn't. He liked it better here. He had been here for a long time, and he was used to it. Also, he'd built up a lot of advantages in this world. Riches and comforts and that sort of thing.

"Why do you want it, then?"

"It doesn't matter," said Hollis. "Would you help me make it, if it meant you could have that little pocket in Faerie?"

"You know I would," said Kevin. "I'm actually a little annoyed that you've known about this all along and you've never said anything to me."

"Well," muttered Hollis, "I can't say that being able to see Faerie is really going to be good for you."

"Yeah, spare me your speech about making the best of it in the mortal realm and ignoring my fae side," muttered Kevin. "You've given it to me enough times, and you know I can't."

"I suppose I do know that," said Hollis with a shrug.

"When?" said Kevin.

"The full moon," said Hollis. "There are some things we'll need."

SHE DIDN'T NOTICE it was gone at first, of course, because she wouldn't. She'd been stretching it out too long, anyway, going longer and longer without a shift, and then—when she did grab her skin and submerge herself in water—she'd been making do with her bathtub.

Her sister kept the pool open as long as she could manage, but she did have to close it for winter. Then they were all dependent on finding indoor swimming pools here and there. There were several places which catered to selkies, and they had anonymity guarantees, that sort of thing.

Fifer paid for one, in Hagerstown, but she almost never went.

She certainly hadn't gone since things had started with Hollis.

And that meant months. Four months, now, to be precise, and it was winter now. No outdoor swimming for her—not that she would have minded the cold in her seal form, of course. But there simply weren't outdoor pools. She would have had to go outside somewhere—a freshwater lake or stream would have been fine if she didn't spend all her time in it. Chlorine was even fine as long as it wasn't her only exposure to water.

She hadn't shifted in probably five weeks now. The last time had been around New Years. A few days after she and Hollis had gone to a party that had been hosted at Niles Chaudhary's house. She didn't know the naga well, but when he threw parties, everyone in town was welcome. He was dating Dahlia, who worked at The Daily Bread, who she knew slightly better. They'd at least hung out in the garden at the Meck before. The party had been fine. She'd enjoyed being out and about with Hollis.

Two days later, she'd gone off on her own while he was working at Simple Pleasures, and she'd gone to her mother's house, because her mother had one of those huge, corner tubs with jets and things, and she'd filled that up and submerged her seal body in water, and that had been the last time.

And now, her sealskin was gone.

She kept it in a drawer in her bathroom, under a set of towels, even though it wasn't a great hiding spot.

This was partly because she was too lazy to think up a good hiding space and partly because she was defiant of the idea that she needed to hide the skin at all.

For a long time, she hadn't even had a romantic partner, after all.

And Hollis…

She trusted Hollis.

Of course, now that it was missing, she was thinking about how interested he'd seemed in it, all his strange and probing questions about how it worked and what would happen if she didn't have her sealskin, and…

Fuck .

First, she cried.

Then, she decided she had to be wrong. He couldn't have taken it. He didn't know where it was (of course, how hard was it to find if someone searched the bathroom, really, and he knew sometimes she shifted in here for baths). What would he want with it? He wouldn't.

So, then, she tore the house apart, looking for it. Maybe she'd just misplaced it, put it somewhere else, and she'd forgotten.

Did she really remember putting it back in the drawer in January? Did she have a really clear picture in her head of that?

Maybe… maybe…

Then, angry, she went to his house and closed her eyes and tried to feel the skin. He wasn't there at the time. He was at work, but he'd be home in a few hours. When she found the skin, she'd force him to give it back to her, and then she'd—

He'd have a good explanation, right?

Was there a good explanation?

Fuck, she was going to dump him. She was going to have to dump him, and she had not figured out how to make any money, and she didn't know what was going to happen when she couldn't pay the rent. (She'd skirted that question for the next month by selling things. She had old guitars worth a bit of money and that had been enough to make up the difference. She wasn't buying a lot of groceries these days, because Hollis fed her most of the time. She'd come to depend on Hollis, even though she'd tried to warn herself not to do that.)

It wasn't in the house.

She settled on the couch and waited until he came home.

She cried again.

When he got there, she was balling up tissues and tossing them in a pile on his coffee table. He looked at her red nose and the pile of tissues and he sat down next to her. "You all right?" He tried to put his arm around her.

She got up, shoving him. "Don't."

"Oh," he said, nodding at her. "Right. You realized I have your skin."

Fuck. He'd just admitted it. She let out a wounded sound, and she started crying again.

He reached for her.

She held up her hands to ward him off. She backed away, a crumpled tissue in one hand, mopping at her tears. "Don't touch me. Please don't even try to do that."

"All right," he said. "But it's not… I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I had to put it where I put it at a specific time. It was the last full moon. I couldn't wait. Then, I was going to tell you, but I was kind of waiting for the right time, and I guess… I thought you might react like this."

"Oh, you did?" Her voice was harsh and tearful. "You fucking jackass—"

"Wait," he said. "Do you need to shift? Is it painful? I'll take you to it, right now."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm not trying to keep you from it, but we need to go to it, instead of you taking it places from now on."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I…" He gestured with both hands. "I kind of had a speech I was working on, but it's sort of all gone out of my head. I really should have talked to you about this. Probably before I did it, actually. This would have been a good thing to get consent for. Shit. I'm such a fucking idiot sometimes, aren't I?"

"I would never consent—"

"Are you in pain?" he said.

"That's not really the point," she said. "The point is—"

"So, no," he said. "Good. Okay, well, sit down, then."

She didn't sit down. She glared at him, nostrils flaring.

"Fifer Ione, you… I don't want to lose you."

"You can't keep me by keeping my sealskin."

"Actually, I can," he said. "Actually, I can stop you from aging that way. I put it in Faerie."

Her jaw worked. She was speechless.

"This way, we can be together. Always. You and me. Forever. And I'll take you to the skin, and you can put it on and you can swim. You just have to stay in Faerie. If you take it out of Faerie—well, first of all, I'll probably never be able to get it back in. It wasn't easy creating this, uh, protective pocket for it. Second of all, as long as it's there, you're immortal like me. So, I just…" He spread his hands. "I want to keep you. Like we talked about. Because we're in love, and because this is… I never felt anything like this, and I can't let you go, and…" He bowed his head and reached up to toy with one of his antlers.

She didn't know what to say.

It was very, very quiet.

Eventually, he raised his gaze to hers. "Say something."

"Fuck you," she said, and then she turned on her heel and stalked out of his house.