No.
“You will.” Both hands curled over his cheeks; Fiadh’s voice was nothing so much as a sweet, mournful croon. “You will, human. It’s kinder for you this way. I just need to …ah.”
“You look like shit.”
A trinket on a table. A beautiful man, stepping away.
Warmth in his arms, the scent of old places and wood and snowmelt. A spill of dark hair and clinging hands.
“My Summer King.”
“Right at the surface for me.” Sea black eyes and depth cold hands, the voice coming from a distance, now. Far away as the waves crashed over him. “That’s right, sweet warrior. Let me in. Don’t try to hide them. Struggling will only hurt you.”
“Sweet Bo.”
“No.” Begging, helpless fury. Oak leaves curling over his ears as ivy spiraled out over the wall, acorn heavy in his hand.
Icy fingers reached in, brushing over …gorgeous fucking freckles, and they were on the couch, relief and self-loathing.
“The separation is easier when there’s nothing to miss,” the voice coaxed. “It’s better for you. You don’t want to live with it, do you? Knowing you’re unwanted.”
No, he didn’twant toforget. He wanted…
“There we go. I’ve found him. All will be peaceful for you soon. Home and safe. Just let go. You don’t need to fight anymore.”
Bo managed a shaking, near silent: “Fuck you.”
The world shattered into bottomless oceans and brambles in the undergrowth; oak leaves gone with the tide. Bo grabbed for them. Then he, too, dissolved into the sea.
Chapter twenty-five
Everil
Everil walked through thedying remains of Bo’s forest and watched the colors bleed from the landscape.
Since he’d returned, Nimai had been all soft words and praise. Their old friends had welcomed Everil back with bright smiles and sorrowful regrets over time spent apart. They hadmissedhim, they said. (All except Declan, conspicuous in his absence.)
But Faerie drained itself of color in Everil’s presence, went muted and vague. If he trailed his hand along the tree trunks, it passed through. Brittle leaves of dead holly remained in his hair, no matter how he willed them away or picked them out.
Selfishly, Everil appreciated the punishment. At least Faerie recognized the magnitude of his betrayal. He could feel it with each breath. The ache of Bo’s absence. The wrongness of it. The anger and hurt and sorrow from Bo, which Everil alternately tried to ignore and dwelled on with masochistic focus.
Two days. Only one thousand and ninety-three to go, though Bo would doubtless decide to break the bond well before that. Everil suspected Bo had only allowed it to remain in place this long for Talia’s sake. And that wouldn’t last. Nimai had spoken to her while Everil met with Bo, and she’d apparently been very clear about her feelings toward Everil.
Bo would look after her until she chose a new guardian. Bo was a good man. Everil, as Bo had made clear, was a raging asshole.
An oak tree or the memory of one. A dry riverbed. Everil sat, picking up a shed oak leaf and watching the color leech from it at his touch. Gray as river stones, and why shouldn’t it be? There was no Summer King here. No pleasure, given or taken.
Only Everil. Only cold and weeds and rot.
“Are you well, my love?” Nimai’s voice was as warm as Everil felt cold. As full of love as Everil was hollow of it.
He brought color with him, sandy browns and sage greens, a desert in his footsteps. Everil’s throat closed at the taste of cinnamon in the air.
“Did you require me?” he asked. Calm. Flat. Obedient.
“Path of least fucking resistance.”
Pathetic. He was pathetic.
