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“Castor got Andromeda and me. I don’t know where we are. Do you?”
He shakes his little bee head, lifts off my hand, buzzes forward a foot, then returns.
“You need me to go somewhere?” I provide the chaotic landscape a cursory glance. “In this?”
He walks to the tips of my fingers, facing ahead, so I attempt to calm the jittery sensation of being covered in so much sand as I move in the direction he’s pointing. I follow where he guides, shushing through puddles of dunes, until I reach the end of the land.
I’m on a falling island, racing toward a chasm of galaxy shades streaked through with sky blues and painted in clouds.
My head begins to shake. “What am I supposed to do now? I’m falling apart.” I swallow back more tears. More fear. More overwhelming things that were too much. “Can’t you find me, Pollux? Please. Find me and wake me up back at home.”
I’m too hot, and too cold, and I don’t know where my scarf or winter coat went. I’m not wearing any of my usual clothes. Instead, I’m garbed in liquid gold, a dress that flows to my ankles and trails behind me in the sand.
It’s too much.
I’m too much.
Even for myself to handle.
Why am I like this?
How do I stop being like this?
Pollux flies off my fingers, then down over the edge of the island, before returning, sitting, and staring at me.
“You want me…to jump?” I swallow. “I’ll wake up. In Faerie. You want me to wake up?”
He shakes his head, then he fluctuates, fuzz glitching between this plane and another.
“I’m not bad at charades,” I say. “I’ve just never played with a bee before. Can you just…please help me?”
He glitches again.
Then, he’s man. For a split second, he is man, and he’s standing in front of me, and he might be naked, but we’re not focusing on that right now. “Kassandra,” he says—and the word gets caught up in a phantom breeze that drags it away, distant. “I have no time. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” Gripping my hand, he pulls me close. His breath hits my lips—
But he vanishes before he can kiss me.
Chapter 41
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My girls.”
Pollux swore as the single crack Kassandra had summoned him through closed up and kicked him back out of her mind. Pollux swore…in front of his parents, who were still seated in the living room around him.
His dad’s brows rose as his mom planted one hand to his shoulder and the other to her heart. “What’s going on? Where did you go? Who’s gone?”
Pollux’s mouth felt like cotton even as a complex mixture of relief and terror congested in him. “Castor has my girls,” he said, dragging a shaking hand down his mouth.
“Who’s Castor?” his dad asked.
“An old friend, who isn’t very friendly.” Pollux found his sensibilities and met his mom in a brief hug. “I need to go.” He pulled back and stood. “Please don’t worry.” He was worrying. He’d worry enough for everyone present. “If he’s hurt them, at all, I will rip him apart with my bare hands. I’ll bring them back in a bit. For dinner.”
To avoid stalling another moment, Pollux fixed his glamour in place and marched out of their perception. His heart hammered as his numb legs gained more strength. Soon, he was running, feet pounding against cement that softened into dirt as he plunged into the forest near where the dryads were tending to their sprouts. There, he’d find someone who could get the news back to Cael. Then, without waiting for Cael’s help, he’d dive into Castor’s domain himself.
“Pila!” he shouted as he caught sight of her sprawled in the brittle grass beside a tiny tree, her green flowing sleeves protecting the sapling from the wind.
Gently, she looked up as the few other dryads flinched back.
