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Energy builds in my chest, so I trace the star at the top of my skirt’s Christmas tree.
No. No, it isn’t a mistake. It can’t be a big mistake so long as I can perfectly undo it. I’m not spilling grape juice on my yarn until I know, for sure, I’m okay with dying it a color that will never come out. Until I have that certainty, it’s okay to risk making a few bad stitches. I can unravel bad stitches.
Bad stitches are okay.
And, come on, Pollux is beautiful and kind and he says the heart-meltiest things.
For all I know, these could be some very, very good stitches. For all I know, my skank of a mother is correct, and I’ll be encouraging him to help me dye yarn before the start of next year.
“Where are we eating tonight?” Andromeda asks, interrupting my thoughts and making my heart leap. “Daddy said we were going to a fancy restaurant.”
Freeing a taut breath, I clear my throat and my mind. “I think it’s a steakhouse of some kind. Apparently, they’re really good about cross-contamination and have a selection of veggie burgers. Which is uncanny. I’ve never been somewhere with more than one type of veggie burger that you can then just swap out in the meat options… It’s the kind of thing you expect to only happen in fiction.”
“That really does sound magical.”
“It makes one hope that somehow, somewhere, restaurant owners are listening and willing to embrace it more.”
“Well,” a silky murmur suddenly too close behind me whispers into my ear, “isn’t this enchanting?”
Castor.
Instinctively, I place myself squarely in front of Andromeda as I turn to find him.
The gray evening sky washes his black robes and white hair in starkly monochrome shades.
“How quaint. You do realize that little lamb is more suited to protect you, do you not?”
“I…do not. And I don’t believe it unless you remove the question from your phrasing.”
He exhales the breath of a laugh. “Naturally, intelligence would mark Polly’s soulmate.”
“Are you here for a frog?” Andromeda asks.
“Pardon?”
Reaching into her frog bag, she removes the black one, steps past me, and holds it out to him. “Would you like him?”
“Child, I am not remotely that naive.”
“Huh?”
Castor sighs. “If you aren’t playing dumb, I pity you and the education that Polly has given you in this human realm. Gifts amongst the fae rarely come without strings when they are framed inside questions that require me to provide you with acceptance. I will not be indebting myself to you over a crocheted frog.”
Andromeda’s clueless look melts away. “It was worth a shot, wasn’t it?”
Castor lifts his hand and combs his fingers through her hair. “Perhaps if I were younger you would have fooled me.” He lets his hand fall back to his side as his attention shifts to me. “Have you given more thought to the request we discussed previously?”
Placing a hand on Andromeda’s shoulder and pulling her firmly to me, I say, “I still haven’t come into my powers, whatever they are.”
“I suppose you haven’t; however, you have gotten closer to Pollux. You have even used your powers to make him something recently, have you not?”
If he’s talking about last week when I cried golden tears, again apparently, um… “I wouldn’t exactly call that using, and he made the something himself.”
“I have never quite been poor in the virtue of patience, yet when I have waited this long, it becomes more difficult with every moment that passes. I would have either your aid, or…” He extends his fingers, referencing Andromeda, and my stomach clenches.
I clutch her tighter to me. “My aid with what?”
“Love and vengeance.”
