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It’s my way of giving her an out, letting her know I can find another way to deal with what’s plaguing me.
Her eyes dash to the windows, checking that it’s still daytime, then back to me. She’s too easy to read.
Normally I only call on her in the night. And not every night either. Never in the day when someone might witness. Not even here, in the wing everyone is banned from.
Everyone except Alessia, apparently.
I didn’t ward it or scare her off the way I should have the other night. I let her stay in my mother’s library. I told her about my mother. Part of it, at least.
The thought of Alessia does it. My last thread snaps and I charge at Fern. Her eyes go wide.
“I can handle it,” she says.
My hands wrap around her throat as I press her against the wall, too undone to even make it into the room. I can’t help but scoff at the irony that the things I hate most lately—the reminders of my curse—are all plants.
Fern is named after a gods-damned plant.
If the gods still exist, they find humor in torturing me.
Because Alessia? She is beauty and pain wrapped into one.
She’s my little rose with buds so beautiful and thorns so fatal.
Afterwards, I bathe, washing the guilt and disgust from my skin. I can’t change who I am. As much as I’d like to.
I pace my mother’s library, wanting to be away from everyone. Fern is recovering, and facing Alessia is something I can’t do until I settle down. Seeing her in this state of self-loathing will do our budding friendship no good.
I wonder if Alessia would accept me if my exterior reflected the true ugliness inside of me. Would she see me for the beast I truly am? Or would she see past that, and still manage to find the beautiful parts of me?
“Sir,” a buzzy voice calls.
I spin around, catching sight of one of the pixies. Smaller than my head, it floats about a foot in front of me.
Closing my eyes, I rub my temples.
“Go on,” I say.
“The boy is at the border. The messenger. He brings word from Dovenak.”
My eyes whip open. The pixie has my full attention. They like to flit around the Gleam, drawn to the abundant magic there. Something about the vibrant colors mesmerizes them. And somehow, they are left unbothered by the woods.
Given their tendency to gossip, and their ability to fly at incomprehensible speeds, I often use them as messengers to communicate with the humans.
“No letter?” I ask.
It’s how the human queen and I prefer our correspondences—sealed letters protected from private eyes and gossipy pixies.
“He says he would like to speak to whomever is in charge, sir.”
I blink slowly, wondering who he is to demand to speak with me. Then I imagine it’s some sort of trick, a way to try and attack me or my land.
“Does this boy have a name?”
“I didn’t ask, sir.”
Turning away from the pixie, I contemplate the situation.
Given he’s the human’s messenger, it’s very likely he lives close to the Gleam. Just as Alessia did. And if he knows anything about her, or where she came from, well, that is information I want.
