Bo huddled in thecorner for a good long while after Fiadh left, his eyes raw and red, his entire body shaking and angry and worn down. Where there’d been Ever before was a blank nothingness, a dull void as colorless as his expression had been when he’d left Bo here.
Ever didn’t know about this. Couldn’t know. Wouldn’t have made the deal if he knew it’d happen. Heknewthat Ever wouldn’t have, but still, that small, insidious murmur remained of“If there’s not blood, not physical damage, it’s not hurting, is it?”
“He wouldn’t,” Bo whispered, swallowing around his dry tongue, the first sound he’d heard in what seemed like hours. He stared at the spread of food, remembering Fiadh’s quiet coaxing to have some soup. Drink it.
Bo shuddered, gagging. The tray slid to him anyway; no soup to be found, only solids. So he reached for it, glaring at where the door once was despite every muscle aching from being curled up or on a hard stone floor for fuck knew how long, and ate.
Wasn’t like they were going to poison him or keep him locked in Faerie under a hospitality clause when Kesk and Veroni considered humans beneath that. They’d put Bo back in the mortal realm in, fuck, however many hours.
Alive. Safe. Like Ever wanted, fuckingbargainedfor. For Bo to be put away, no say in the fucking matter, and left with only memories and oak leaves and vines, spiraling over his hair and arms and the wall where he touched it.
And fuck, he was going to lose those too. Fiadh would melt his brain, because to hell with her and her creepy fucking memory plucking. Better to sucker punch a selkie than forget the riverside willingly, the half-silent laughs and alien hats. He could throw at leastonebefore she raked her claws through him.
He’d never been any good at hitting.
“Talia’s going to befurious,” Bo said, flinching his eyes closed at the volume of it in the empty room. “Fuck. Fuck, I’m going to forget about her, and she’s going to be left with Nimai and…”
Easier to talk out loud about Talia than wrestle with Ever’s silence. His silence before. His silence now. And Bo was tired. He was so fucking tired.
He should sleep.
As if on fucking cue, a bed existed not too far from him. Not there, then there. Huge and white with a thick fur cover, marble stark. A door there. A bathroom if he were a betting man. More rugs–furs?–on the floor and light fixtures on the walls. The room didn’t grow dim or flare brighter, but it at least made the glow in the room make sense.
Bo stayed in the corner for another long beat. Waiting. When nothing else happened, and the tray was empty, he began the careful process of standing after too long. When he hissed in pain, the walls didn’t echo.
Itwasa bathroom. A full one, where he could brush his teeth and use the facilities and stand silently under a shower with perfect water pressure and heat and cry.
“I’ve betrayed you. Gravely.”
Quiet. Stoic, except for his color and the dying crown.
“You won’t be injured.”
Said like he wasn’t the one hurting Bo, flinching and moving back when Bo didn’t reassure or pet or speak gently.
Cruel. Both of them.
Even the towels were white. At least Bo’s clothes were clean again when he put them on, still with the oak leaf embroidery that had appeared when–
There was someone in the room.
Bo froze, tense. And shit, it said something pretty messed up about the last few days that he wasrelievedto see who it was. Not Fiadh, but the bronze-haired, winged sidhe with the weird goddamn voice, standing near the empty tray.
Just an average, run of the mill, asshole murderous fae.
Kesk sneered, his eyes cold as the marble around them, disgust fucking dripping from him. Bo relaxed, if only just, and eyed him warily.
“Still refusing our help, I see,” Kesk said, his voice magnetic and too much, focusing Bo’s attention on him even more than it had been. “Youhumans. Pathetic, self-destructive humans. You really don’t know how to get out of your own way.”
“I’m a little pissed over having a selkie invade my mind,” Bo retorted. This was easier too, sniping at Kesk instead of wallowing in his own sadness. Anger could be fuel, sometimes. Sadness just hurt. “And she’s fucking creepy. So yeah, I’m having a little trouble not being petty as hell about it.”
“She’s useful.” Kesk gestured a chair into existence, not unlike the throne he’d had his ass in when Bo’d first seen him. “But I must agree, skin shifters are a pathetic bunch. Leaving bits of themselves lying around. Never committing fully to their nature or loyalties.”
“That wasn’t me making a judgment call on a whole class of fae.” Bo hesitated, then slowly edged to lean on the wall by the bed. Kesk could sit. Bo would stay away from him, and they could all be happy with that.
Kesk studied him, condescending but without the bug-in-my-food disgust from before. He let the moment stretch. Then, almost as if he were actually curious, Kesk said, “You humans never know what’s best for you. Whatpossiblegood could it do you, holding on to those memories?”
“They’remine.” Like a child, clutching onto his safety toy. Bo shoved his hands into his pockets, jaw set. “Besides, what possible good does it do you for them to be taken? Not like it’ll destroy the bond.”
