As she spoke, I was transfixed by the snowflakes that had begun to line the turrets like the softest velvet. Later, I would realize this was a mistake.
I should have looked at her eyes.
The day I invited Lyric to the House of Dreams, the sky was the color of a scraped eggshell. I remembered that because it looked odd devoid of all its blue. I took careful pains getting ready that night. Indigo said she had a meeting with Tati in the city, and that I should arrive at ten o’clock. I brushed my hair until it gleamed. I wore a long, black satin dress, a Christmas gift from Tati the year before. The night felt blessed. Even my mother and Jupiter weren’t around, so I slipped out unseen.
I thought Lyric would be waiting for me at the gate. When he wasn’t, I smiled. Was he inside already? Was he biting his nails and tugging at the front of his hair, or scribbling songs on his arms while he waited?
When I entered the House, I heard cello music and knew Tati was in her studio.
“Indigo?” I called out. “Lyric?”
No one answered.
At that moment, I felt a not-unpleasant heat melt through my body. I looked to the stairs and began to climb. It was hard to breathe, but maybe that was just the flutter of nerves.
At the end of the landing, I saw the black iron stairs that led to Indigo’s turret. I heard a different kind of music playing, familiar and yet too soft to discern. Something urgent clambered through my veins, a weight settled against my sternum. Maybe Indigo had gone to help Tati so she could give us some privacy. As I neared the top of the stairs, a tightness gathered between my legs and I doubled over, gasping at the sudden sharpness.
The door to Indigo’s room was half-open. I recognized the music as a song Lyric had recorded with his brother. He had played it for me almost a dozen times.
I opened the door.
There were candles all along the windowsill and in front ofIndigo’s mirror, and though it wasn’t a lot of light, it was still enough to see them. Lyric’s hands were in her hair, on her naked waist, and she was moving on top of him, her head thrown back. As she cried out, so did I. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, and I knew in that moment so did she.
I watched as they slowly grew aware of my presence. I watched as Lyric’s beautiful face crumpled with shock. When Indigo looked at me, her face was blank.
“Azure?” he said, staring at me, stunned, before he looked up at Indigo, still straddled across his waist. “Fuck.”
He shoved her off, stumbled from the bed, and reached for his pants crumpled on the floor. “I’m sorry. I came here at eight like you said, but then you didn’t show, and Indigo and I had a drink and I swear she started it—”
My face was wet. I was crying. The thought came to me distantly.
I looked past Lyric—still red-faced and mumbling—to Indigo. She rose up on the bed. Her face was lovely and still, but indifferent and blank as a statue.
“Azure, please—” said Lyric, trying to reach for my wrist.
I jerked away from him. “Get out.”
“What?” he asked, shocked. “Can’t we talk about this? I know I fucked up, but I swear I didn’t mean to—”
“You have served your purpose,” said Indigo coldly. “Get out. You won’t like what happens if you wait.”
Lyric scrambled to grab his shoes. One moment he was there; the next, he was gone, and Indigo stood naked before me, bathed in candlelight.
“I know you’re hurting, but this is how it had to be. Don’t you see? The Otherworld was testing us this whole time, Azure,” she said. “He never wanted you, because there’s onlyus. I knew youwouldn’t believe me, so I needed to prove it to you.” She slipped off the bed and came to my side. She smelled like him, of woodchips and sweat. The edges of the room blurred.
“Do you get it now?” Indigo asked. Her voice seemed pulled, stretched, as if it were crossing a vast distance to reach me.
Across the room, the metal nymphs and gray satyrs danced in Indigo’s mirror. I looked into it and beheld a candlelit face smiling hopefully. It took me a few moments to realize that it was not my reflection at all, but hers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Bridegroom
I was frozen in a crouch beside Indigo’s dusty bed.
Oh, Catskins. Why aren’t you dead yet?
The word “dead” did not hang in the air so much as claw through it. But the death I mourned was not Azure’s. It was that of my dream—for in that moment, in some distant corner of my heart, I became aware that if there was any spell to be broken, it was the enchantment placed on me. I had married a creature crafted of flowers; an illusion fitted over a woman’s shape. But now my eyes must open.
