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Chapter 6
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Family dinners and repressed memories.
“Hi, Yama-nii-nii!” Andromeda bounces up to Alexios once we’ve made it two blocks away from the school. I offered to drive, but she insisted that Alexios was waiting for her. And here he is.
Why he doesn’t come all the way to the school to get her, I do not understand.
“Hello again,” I offer.
His gaze flicks to me, then to Chai in his little carrier. An impish grin overwhelms him. “Miss.”
“Do you come to pick Meda up every day?” I ask.
“From time to time when the air smells like stone and Pollux worries about her.”
Andromeda scoffs. “I’ve told Daddy I can take care of myself against Castor.”
“He’s not worried about Castor. Castor knows how young you are, and that is one thing Pollux trusts he will respect. It’s the knight who patrols a little more intently when Castor’s scent is on the breeze.”
“Oh.” Andromeda’s shoulders droop. “Yeah.”
“The knight?” My brow furrows. I’ve not heard of a knight in any of Andromeda’s stories before.
“Zylus Myrkur,” Alexios offers. “Our prince’s kitty guard.”
Zylus. As in Zy? As in Willow’s husband, Zy? The “vampire cat”? On another note, Alexios is still entertaining Andromeda’s stories, it seems.
Andromeda crosses her arms. “I’ve told you about Castor, the bad faerie prince. He’s upset with Uncle Cael because Uncle Cael never told him that he was unseelie, too. It’s all very dramatic, and we don’t know yet exactly what he’s planning.”
“Hurt people hurt people,” Alexios murmurs. “However Castor responds, I am invested in the schemes. It is far more quiet within the moth prince’s eclipse than I’ve learned it is within other domains. A little excitement could do everyone some good.”
Andromeda lifts her little chin. “Daddy might say you are simply devious.”
Alexios exhales a dry laugh. “One of us certainly has to be, no?”
Clenching my fists around the handle of Chai’s carrier, I watch the interaction from a step behind. Zahra’s arguments in favor of magic and faeries start sounding feasible in my skull before I shake them free.
I know it’s easier to believe that someone I care about is safe and happy and living in what, honestly, sounds like a beautiful and peaceful environment—with vampire kitty knights around to protect her and a single fairy-tale villain cackling in the distance.
But it’s just not reality.
Magic isn’t real.
Faeries don’t exist.
Dreams don’t come true if you simply believe in them hard enough.
At one point, you grow up.
You confine your dolls and stories and hopes and wishes to the highest shelves or the most ignored closet boxes where they gather dust. You paint whatever emotion will help you survive the next interaction on your face—regardless of whether or not you feel it inside—then you tough out another day. Just like everyone else.
It’s the broken way of the world.
When the cracked sidewalk of Pollux’s creepy manor comes into view, I take a deep breath in order to fortify myself against whatever horrors might lie ahead today.
Truth be told once I’ve made it up the porch steps, beyond the foyer, and into the kitchen, the last horror I expect to see is Pollux in an apron.
