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My mouth drops open. “What?”
“No one will approach us. We will be quietly led to the sensory deprived sections of establishments. If anyone doesn’t see it and tries to talk to you, just hold it up. They are required, under penalty, to abide by what it means. With these, people who have trouble regulating in chaotic environments are more able to control their excursions and don’t need to feel like home is the only safe place for them to exist.”
My hand shakes slightly as I look down at the small crystal. This little thing is that powerful?
“If the metal is uncomfortable, Lesta has other options.”
“I…uh…” I shake my head and try to get the clasp undone. “No, this is fine.” I bite my tongue before blurting a thank you. “I appreciate it.”
Lesta beams, scribbles something on her pad, and lifts it to show me. Yay! It’s so nice to meet you. I hope we can become friends sometime!
“Um…” My face heats as I stumble over my thoughts. Is making friends that easy here? How do I respond adequately?
My stomach hurts.
“You don’t have to reply,” Ollie says, tapping a finger to his crystal. “That’s the whole point of this.”
“And that’s not rude?” I whisper.
“Not here. By wearing this, you’re letting everyone know that you don’t have the energy or ability to carry a conversation at the moment. It’s rude if someone else doesn’t respect that.”
Oh my goodness. I might openly sob.
“Ready?” He offers me his hand once more.
I take a deep breath. “As much as I can be, I think.”
He nods. “See you later, Lesta.”
With the woman waving us off, Ollie guides me out the other side of the hollow log, and it opens like a subway terminal into a sprawling lane framed with quaint shops. Half of them look as though they were grown from seeds. The other half seems carved from gemstones that catch light and scatter shards across the cobbled lanes.
A shiver freezes me in place as I struggle to take in…everything.
Fae fill the streets. Hoof-steps against stone. Wing-beats in the air. Laughter like bells. Voices like shushing wind.
The burble of a quartz and pearl fountain trickles in front of us, misty spray forming rainbows that stretch in the median. Children play in the stone basins, webbed fingers cupping clear pools. Sky, deeply blue and vast, spreads overhead, oddly familiar, yet no one could assume this world matched the one I’ve known all my life.
For starters, a castle rises from the base to the peak of a glittering mountain in the distance, each spire crafted out of the stone itself to hold the roots and trunk of a cherry blossom tree that canopies the entire monolith. From it, pink petals eternally drift in the breeze.
It’s beautiful.
“Is that…where we were before?” I whisper.
“Yep. That’s Cael’s palace.” Ollie tucks his fingers into his pockets after I drift slightly from him, stunned. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Dumbly, I nod.
All of it is amazing.
I already feel majestically out of place.
Like I’m the only average thing in an ethereal realm.
“Are you all right?” Ollie asks.
I jump, squeezing my social-be-gone shard at the end of its silver chain. “I— Yes. It’s just… Can people tell I’m not fae?”
“Nope. We both smell like the human world, and only mates can decode that kind of information.”
