A wreath of berries and gold-foiled branches had been netted over the chandelier in the main foyer. The smell of caramel and cardamom wafted through the House, and I couldn’t move. What if the House could turn me into a statue? Then I’d never have to leave. A loud rumbling echoed from somewhere on the grounds. I froze, leaning over the handrail as Mrs.Revand made a tut-tutting sound.
“Don’t mind that, sweetheart,” she said with a wide smile. “It’s not for you to see.”
The words landed like a slap. I was a guest who had outstayed their welcome. I stared at Mrs. Revand—warm, plum-shaped withhenna-dyed hair, crepe-paper skin. She used to praise me for my nice manners, now all that praise looked like pity.
I fled.
The day was a blur without Indigo. I moved like a shorn thing through the halls at school. With every hour that slid by, my fears gained weight and sharpness, hunting me all the way home. Without Indigo, colors bled from the trees. I breathed and tasted only petrol and woodsmoke where the day before I smelled windfall apples and frost.
When I reached Jupiter’s house, I decided on a plan. I would change my clothes and return to the House of Dreams. I would ask Indigo’s forgiveness for whatever I had done wrong—
“Indigo called,” my mother announced the moment I stepped through the door.
Indigo never called. She’d never even been to Jupiter’s place. I used to ask her before our tithe of magic had given me the power to get through those evenings alone. I didn’t even know she had the landline number. My mother’s face was blank, bored, and betrayed nothing. That, at least, was familiar.
“Well, technically Hippolyta Maxwell-Casteñada”—my mother theatrically deepened her voice at this—“called on Indigo’s behalf.” She paused, eyebrows raised. “They asked that younottrouble yourself to come over for the weekend and said they’ll see you on Monday.”
“What?” I repeated.
“Their words,” said my mother, lifting her shoulder. But her grin was savage. “What’d I tell you? That family willburnstraight through you. Now that you’re older, she’s probably getting bored—”
My mother paused. I didn’t know what she saw in my face,but her grin vanished. She shook her head as if remembering where she was, and then stepped toward me. Her hand raised for an instant, only to fall back to her hip.
“Maybe you don’t see it now, but this is a good thing, Azure.”
Her eyes met mine. I couldn’t remember the last time my mother had looked at me so directly. I felt it like a touch, and I shuddered.
“If she kept you around, she would break you into little pieces,” she said. “You’d never be able to put yourself back together. I’ve seen her type before. Trust me.”
But trust was all I had, and it was not my mother who held it. The details of that weekend escaped me—bland mounds of rice, thimblefuls of water, hours lost in the shower waiting for my fingers to prune. I registered those days without Indigo as a single held breath, the release of which came only as I made my way to the House of Dreams on Monday morning.
I rehearsed my apologies and clenched my fists. The fifteen-minute walk from Jupiter’s gravel driveway to the oak-and-alder-shaded sidewalks of Indigo’s estate stretched out for a century. But then, soon enough, there she was: Indigo. A silhouette transposed, the world around her soft with shadows. She wore knee-high green crocodile boots, a high-necked black lace dress beneath a silk robe carelessly belted at the waist.
“Tati has a surprise for us!” she said, and I felt her smile in my bones. “I didn’t want us to look over the weekend because youknowwe would, but now we get to see it! Azure... Azure, why are you crying?”
Indigo came to me. I lifted my arms to hug her, but she held me apart. Her grip was stern:
“Stop crying,” she said, annoyed. “You know we don’t do that. You know They might be watching.”
They. The fae. The ones we sometimes tried to lure to us. The ones who let us see their magic, even if they never showed their faces.
“Tears are bits of your soul,” said Indigo, her face inches from mine. “We can’t risk letting them hit the ground.”
I lifted my hand to wipe them away as Indigo leaned forward: “What a waste.” Her tongue was hot and smooth as it darted out, tracing the curve of my cheekbone. She smacked her lips as she pulled back.
“C’mon,” she said, turning on her heel.
I followed her, so ecstatic at what I felt had been a near brush with exile that I never paused to wonder why she had taken my tears for herself. In the stories we read, tears were no less precious than a god’s golden blood. I should have told Indigo they were not hers to take. But I would’ve offered anything to follow her anywhere.
The Otherworld.
That was what we named our gift from Tati, though we never considered it as something so ordinary as a “present.” It had been meant for us.
It hadalwaysbeen meant for us.
Destiny shifted into place the moment we walked down the stairs of the back balcony and onto the vast acreage of Indigo’s estate. The gardens had been modeled after a French palace somewhere I had never heard of, and from lawn level the sea was nothing but a flash of silver hundreds of feet away, nearly obscured by the thick row of linden trees that marked the land’s slow melt into the surrounding water.
Today, the grounds were empty. No gardeners pruned thetrellis of roses arced over the stone-step pathway we often took to play in the creek. No staff member raced back to the house carrying platters of cut peonies and violets for the sitting rooms. The October wind stirred our hair, nipped gently at our ears.
