“Well, at least I won’t go to waste.” The banter slowed the ripples of anxiety beneath Rowan’s skin but did not still thementirely. She smoothed her hands down her front, enjoying the delicate silvery ribs of embroidered ivy beneath her palms, then fished out her notecards from a discreet pocket in the gown’s folds. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Of course,” said Lorena. “Can’t have any wardrobe malfunctions. We need you to smash this.” Lorena eyed her. “You’re going to smash this, right?”
“Just call me ‘the hammer’!” said Rowan, with a weak swing of her arm.
The joke went down as poorly as it deserved. Lorena’s smile was too bright as she said, “Why don’t you go ahead and get yourself ready? Grab a drink, if you drink. Grab some air, if you don’t.” And then, with a squeeze of her shoulder, “We’re all counting on you.”
It was not what Rowan needed to hear.
Members of the SunlightCorps staffed the nearest bar. Rowan wrapped her knuckle against the plaster-and-wire backing of the faux tree and pulled out her phone as she waited for someone to have a free moment.
A reminder to leave for the airport blared front and center. She’d have to dash as soon as her speech was over, but there’d been no avoiding it. This was the last flight that would deliver her on time to spend the twelve days of Yule with her family in Elk Ridge, Washington.
It would be her first time home for the winter holidays in years. Normally she begged it off, but her mother hadn’t let her get away with it this time. She’d been there on Mabon—the autumnal equinox, the day the Oak King surrendered dominion to the Holly King for the darkening half of the year. Also the day when, three months ago, the Midwinters had gathered to scatter the ashes of Rowan’s maternal grandmother, Madeleine.
Bonfires burned a haze in the sky, and everything smelled of overripe apples crushed underfoot, the atmosphere thick with grief and mead. Though Rowan had been in town for less than a day, her mother had cornered her and made her promise to come back for a proper visit at Yule, and to arrive by Solstice. And even though the thought had made a hardened knot of anxiety pulse in her chest, she’d agreed.
How much would she hate me if I just…missed my flight?
She didn’t have time to give the thought serious consideration, because the door flew open and out popped the last person she’d hoped to see.
Dade stared at her from beneath a short blond Mohawk, tongue spinning his lip ring in a familiar fidget. He’d thrown a leather jacket over the emerald elf uniform required of all the bar staff.
The smile he’d been wearing vanished as his eyes hardened. “What’s up?”
She averted her gaze, taking a sudden interest in the patterning of white and black tile below. “I, um, came for a drink. My big speech is coming up.”
“Oh. Right.” He snorted. “Guess that’s even more important now, huh?”
She winced. “I guess you guys heard how it’s going over at the booth…”
Dade arched an eyebrow. “No, actually.” He chuckled and nodded toward her phone. “You haven’t looked at the news tonight, have you?”
The way he said it sent her heart straight to her stomach. “No, I’ve been a bit busy.” She flipped open her news app.
There it was.Landmark Legislation “Green New Deal”: Dead.
“No,” she said, sliding down the tree as despair coiled like lead in her belly.
The legislation’s passing had been a rare spot of hope in avortex of increasingly terrible world news. It was also the source of the federal grants the SunlightCorps relied on to fund their builds.
“Unfortunately, yes.” He dropped to the ground to settle beside her, his scuffed Doc Martens kicking out from below his elf pants. “Those miserable, shortsighted chucklefucks.”
He passed a flask her way, and despite knowing the dangers presented by a Dade flask, she accepted. The harsh liquid burned its way down her esophagus as the pressure that had already been building in her chest intensified. There was so much riding on her speech now. If the booth had been bringing in more donations, or if a gigantic pool of federal money were waiting, Scrooge McDuck style, on the horizon, it wouldn’t have been so direly important that she nail it. But neither of those hopes was coming to pass, and now it truly was all on her.
“Why did I think I could do this?” she said, passing his flask back.
“Youdidn’t. Lor did. Which, you know, maybe not her best call…” Rowan shot him a look, and he raised his hands. “Kidding. Didn’t you like win speaking competitions?”
“Inhigh school,Dade.”
“Okay, so maybe you’re out of practice, but you know how to make people listen. ‘A light in every window, but carbon in the ground,’ that shit wasyou.”
Her mood briefly lifted at his encouragement, but then, as she remembered the enormity of the task, it tumbled straight back down. She shook her head. “Pitched over Zoom while huddled under a coffee-stained blanket—entirely different circumstances.”
“But exact same Rowan,” said Dade, booping her on the nose with his flask.
She took a deep breath and released it in a slow exhale before clambering to her feet and offering a hand down to him. While she’d only intended the gesture to be friendly, it was clear from the look that passed over his face that it wasn’t that simple.
