Page 10 of Night and Silence

And then there’s May.

She came into existence when the universe decided that all signs pointed toward my inevitable demise, conjured by magic older than anything else I can name, made from my blood and from a night-haunt named Mai, who remembered me being her hero. It was a complicated mixture, and it made a complicated, confusing, wonderful person, my sister in every way that mattered. Ask me to choose between August—sister by blood and birth—and May—sister by magic and adoption—and there wouldn’t be any contest. May would win. May would always win.

She wore the face I’d had when she was summoned, more human than the one I have now, round where I’ve grown pointy, soft where I’ve grown hard. Looking at her was like looking at a mirror that had somehow been permanently trained on my own past. Her hair, still more mousy brown than golden-blonde, was cropped short and streaked with purple and green, like some sort of fabulous bird. The weariness in her fog-colored eyes was familiar enough to be uncomfortable. I wasn’t the only one whose life Amandine had turned upside-down.

“How’s Jazz?” I asked.

“Asleep.” She shrugged, the gesture barely more than a shiver. “She’ll be up in a few hours.”

Most fae are nocturnal. As a Raven-maid, Jazz is one of the few exceptions. Her relationship with May had been based on compromises from the beginning, the two of them stealing hours where they could be awake and together. But she’d been sleeping more and flying less since the incident, and sometimes it felt like she was avoiding the rest of us. Even May.

“Do you want to join her?” I asked. “I can put myself to bed. I promise, I remember the way.”

“Quentin said you caught the arkan sonney?”

“We did. They’re at Muir Woods now. Arden and Nolan prepared a cage for them.”

“We’re building quite the local bestiary,” said May. She stood. “Soon, we’ll have people from all over the Summerlands coming to look at creatures they’d almost forgotten existed.”

“And they can all buy tickets and we’ll be able to renovate the upstairs bathroom.” I made a small shooing gesture. “Go. Sleep with your girlfriend.”

May’s lips drew down. “She won’t even know I’m there.”

“She will. Even if she can’t show it, she will.”

“Okay.” She picked up her tea. “Sleep well when you get there.” Then she was gone, and I was finally, blessedly, alone.

I sat down in the chair she had so recently vacated, looking at the cookies for a moment. I didn’t reach for them. I knew they would only taste of ashes. Finally, I put my head in my hands and my elbows on the table and cried. When did things get so damn complicated? And why, for the love of Oberon, couldn’t I make them go back to the way they were?

THREE

UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to cry forever, no matter how appealing the idea seems sometimes—not that it stays appealing once the dehydration headache sets in. My tears eventually ran out, and I made it to bed with almost five minutes to spare before dawn slammed down on the world and all the magic burned away. The air filled with the phantom scent of ashes, chalky and tasteless on my tongue. I couldn’t stop myself from breathing it in and coughed as I rolled over and closed my eyes, drifting into a fitful sleep.

As was almost always the case these days, I dreamt of Tybalt, smirking and flirting and arrogant and mine. He was wearing the brown leather pants he always wore when he wanted to get under my skin, and when he offered me his hands, I took them, and we waltzed together across a giant chessboard, the sky glittering bright with stars above us. We were alone, and everything was the way it was supposed to be. No curses, no quests, no Firstborn ruining our chances to be happy. Just him and me and the whole world keeping its distance until we wanted to let it back in.

Until the scene changed.

Until it was him and me in my bedroom, a week after I’d faced my mother’s wrath in order to bring him home, and he was standing as far away as he could without actually leaving, his hair disheveled, his shirt untucked. He looked at me across the suddenly vast expanse of my bed—our bed—and the gulf of my mother’s cruelty, and the only reason my heart didn’t break on the spot was because there was still love in his eyes. It was veiled in fear and misery, but it was still there.

It wasn’t enough.

“Please,” I begged. “Talk to me. I just need you to talk to me. We can—”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” he snapped. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Tybalt. None of this is fine. Raj—”

“Raj is not King!” He didn’t shout. He roared, hands curling as claws emerged from his fingertips, pupils narrowing to slits.

I’m virtually impossible to injure for more than a few minutes. Nothing Tybalt could do to me would stick. In the moment, that didn’t matter. I flinched, taking a step backward, and saw the moment when the anger in his expression flickered out, replaced by shame and horror.

“Raj is not King, but I am, and I have a duty to my people,” he said, voice gone dull. “A King must be strong. A King must be capable of protecting what is his. A King has responsibilities. I do not fulfill my responsibilities by standing here with you, talking about my feelings. What I feel does not matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“Then perhaps you don’t matter.”

I swallowed, forcing myself not to take another step back. If I did that, if I rejected him, it would be over. I knew him well enough to know that. “We both know that’s not true. I matter to you.” My fear of abandonment was screaming, telling me this had been inevitable, that he’d been preparing to leave me since our first kiss. He was older than me, King of a Court I could never belong to or fully understand; he was pure fae, while I clung stubbornly to the scraps of my human heritage. Of course, he was going to leave me. How could he do anything else?