“You are not a bauble for the living room shelves,” Leana admonished gently. “You are a person, separate from either of them. It’s not foolish to reach for something that brings you joy. It takes bravery to do so, particularly when–” Another soft click of her tongue, and she shook her head. “I apologize. That was inappropriate of me. My intention wasn’t to lecture you.”
“You may as well speak your mind.” Everil’s lips twisted into the barest ghost of a bitter smile. “I grew quite accustomed to bluntness in Bo’s presence. Though he would take exception to your views on the topic. He made it exceptionally clear what he thinks of me.”
“He is charmingly open with his thoughts. I imagine having that openness turned against you to be unpleasant. It went ill, then, your parting?”
“He considers me a coward. And a traitor. And he is correct. But I’d rather his hatred than his blood on my hands.”
“Forgive me if I missed something in the telling of it. But from what I know of the young man, it seems unlike him to name you such.”
“Your pardon. In Bo’s parlance, a ‘raging asshole’ who takes the path of least resistance.” Everil echoed the words with a certain amount of relish. With Bo no longer around to shout at him, he was left to do it himself. “I overrode his wishes in this. And to Bo, that’s unforgivable.”
He couldn’t have borne it, seeing Bo in the state that he’d found Lawrence, knowing he could have prevented it. He was a coward, yes. But he couldn’t have borne it.
“Self-pity doesn’t become you, dear. Nor self-destruction.” Leana studied Everil sidelong, her glass turning in her fingers. “In my many years of experience, such unkindness speaks of someone who very much hoped to be fought for in the way they could understand. May I know the terms set in the arrangement with Nimai? Not to gossip or spread about later. I’m simply very nosy, as my boys would say.”
Self-destruction was, at this point, Everil’s sole entertainment. So why not continue to let Leana dig the blade deeper?
“Three years of good behavior, in exchange for Bo’s safety. And so, as you see, I’m doing the circuit as a show pony.”
“All you’re missing is the ribbons.” Leana laughed. So easy. Sohappy. It hurt as much as the rest of it.
“Luckily for me, ribbons don’t suit the party’s aesthetic.” The champagne in Everil’s glass had lost all color and the bitter vinegar within curdled on his tongue with every sip. Still, he drank it.
“I’ll admit to feeling for the boy, some,” Leana said, seemingly as much to herself as to him. “A life spent picking up the pieces of what his parents broke. Of always being watched. There is that to say of your deal. No fae society to gawk at him and no embarrassment for you.”
Strange, that she should know of Bo’s past. But she had claimed to have met him as a boy. And Leana was known for wandering both realms, collecting her foundlings.
“Bo dislikes discussion of his parents or family,” Everil said, quiet but firm. “And if you were to mingle further, you’d learn I was an embarrassment long before he found me.”
Leana’s brows lifted slightly at the correction, but no more than that. “But surely, he makes the burden of shame greater? Forgive me, but it was difficult not to mark how you held yourself around him.”
What had that to do with Bo? The judgment of Faerie was for Everil. His failures. His departures from what was appropriate. His weak, clinging need.Of course,he held himself apart from Bo. He had spent centuries in Nimai’s company and longer in his father’s before that. Learning how to behave outside his nature. How to be good and right. Failing at it, again and again.
Itwasshameful. How he put Bo at risk. How he longed for his touch and his support instead of offering the stalwart strength the man deserved. How he let him down and let him down and let him down.
Bo had understood that Everil’s censure was only for himself. For Bo’ssafety.He’dknownthat.
Had he known that?
“The last thing Bo needed was for me to trespass on Protocol and give our detractors the right to act against us.”
Which they had, in the end. It hadn’t helped. Because Everil could do nothing right.
“What would you do without me?”
“And here you are, the very picture of Protocol.” Her elegant gesture took in the gardens and the guests. “You’ve given up years of your life to this, to his safety. That’s nothing to scoff at, whatever the puffed-up masses might think. It gives him time to calm as well; come around to whatever plan you might have for three years from now.”
“In three years, Bo will have found someone who better deserves him. Someone he doesn’t despise. And I–” He would likely be here, or somewhere very like, dead leaves falling into his colorless champagne. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find somewhere quiet if Nimai is satisfied. Or remain the show pony if Bo proves correct, and he is safer while I do so.”
“With all due respect,” Leana spoke slowly, her gaze now fixed on Everil, “if my bond said to me, ‘to save your life, we are going to be apart for three years, after which I expect you to find yourself in a relationship with someone else, while I linger in a realm separate from yours,’ I very well might call them a ‘raging asshole’ myself.”
Everil blinked at her, clouded despair giving way to confusion. He was clearly misspeaking. She was fae. She shouldunderstandthis. What he owed to Bo. How ill he had served him.
“I fear the topic of the future isn’t one we had an opportunity to discuss. He was angry, and I wouldn’t have so presumed.” He looked away, briefly, scanning the gardens. No sign of Nimai, yet. “What would you have your bondmate do, were you in Bo’s position? Spirit you away with a knife between their teeth? Hide you away and chain you to a life of fear?”
“I’d not say no to a handsome man with a knife between his teeth.”
Everil shook his head. “It would have been selfish of me to attempt to bind us yet closer. I tried to keep him, and he nearly died for my greed. Repeatedly. I couldn’t allow that to become the pattern of his days.”
