“I was asking Ever, prick.”
“Nothing. A few knicks from a false crown. If Everil hadn’t insisted on wearing the hideous thing, it never would have happened.”
Ever laughed. Like, actually laughed, breathless and bloodied, with Nimai right there. “ ‘I’ll cause no injury and shed no blood. This vow I give willingly, on my name. Its breaking is the breaking of self.’ ”
“Everil–”
“ ‘The surrender of will.’ ”
“Everil, you’re being ridiculous.” Nimai’s words came fast and angry.
He talked like a man who knew he’dseriouslyfucked up.
“Itmeans,” Ever said, words set firmly, like a stone path. He reached back and took Bo’s hand, fingers sticky and shaking. Bo clung back. “Nimai has broken his oath. His witnessed, name-bound oath. It–”
“Broken my oath because I lost patience with your sordid, irreverent delusions?” Nimai sneered the words, and he got taller, somehow. The walls paled, and the air went dry as a rainless year. “Very well, Everil. If you insist on playing the victim, thenbe one.”
The world moved.
Floorboards roiled and cracked beneath their feet. The wood shards jutted toward Everil, cruel points cutting through his pants, into his legs.All around them, the walls drew in tighter, curtains draping over the hearth and catching fire, the flames climbing with ridiculous speed.
Bo stumbled under the rolling shift as reality went out the fucking window, the brownie’s perversion of a warm and happy home lancing through their bond, metal and copper. He reached for Ever. Tried to catch him. Something. Only managedaftera shard caught in Ever’s knee.
“Ever!”
Bo gripped tighter, arm around his bond’s waist to pull him closer again. Fuck.Fuck.He wasn’t strong enough to pick Ever up. The walls mostly flame and closing in. Nimai filled the room, his eyes like wildfires.
Sharp, bleached shards crumbled into time-softened wood. Blood, or sex, spilled on stone. New life and sacrifice.
Bo, trying to hold onto the river. Faerie’s Summer King.
Everywhere, tastefully placed objects shattered, reforming as fat, humming bees. They multiplied, flew from Bo’s lips when he gasped Ever’s name. The kelpie looked at him with wide eyes, as the world shifted, and shifted again.
Bees, frost tipped in blinking blues and whites, stretching and sharpening. Going lean and flat as they flew toward Nimai. By the time they reached him, they looked more like butterflies.
Paper thin, cold as deep water, in a room thick with smoke and heat. Nimai swatted at them, flinching when they brushed his skin, spreading hoarfrost wherever they touched.
“You’ll come to thank me for this,” Nimai said over the fire’s roar as he crushed one of the butterfly-bees into silvery dust. “I won’t allow pests inour home.”
And Bo, wrapped in vines and sticky with Ever’s blood, mouthed‘fuck’ as the flaming curtains turned to rope and flung themselves at them.
“Myhome.” Ever said, quiet and still loud, somehow, a growl at the edges. “You’ve ceded your last claim tomyterritory.”
The fires didn’t die. They simply weren’t. Bo sagged against Ever, the vines fading back into the darkening wood of the floor. The air was still thick with ash, and Nimai stood there, shocked and staring.
“Caroves. Love,” Nimai said, all soft coaxing.
“Bide,” Ever said, low, and Nimai went truly still. The floor curled itself over his feet, and the butterfly-bees flickered tauntingly around his wrists. Ever turned to Bo instead, pulling him close by their joined hands. “Are you harmed, sweet?”
“I– No, fuck, no. Butyou–“ Bo stroked a shaking hand over Ever’s cheek, unmindful of the blood. “You had thorns in your fucking skin. And yourlegs.”
“I’ll mend,” Ever promised, leaning in, eyes closing when Bo’s fingers trailed, gentle, at his hairline. “We must deal with the current matter first. Blood stands witness.”
“Caroves. I’ve forgiven much, and I’ll forgive even this, even if you insist on keeping your toy.” Warmth again, in Nimai’s words, and hurt. Wariness, too, and no fucking wonder. The brownie stuck where the house held him while the bees stood guard. “But even I won’t look past a geas.”
“Dude, shut your fucking mouth. You’re really going to fucking call me a toy and use his first name when you’re stuck to the fucking floor in a house that’s not yours?”
“My bond speaks truly,” Ever added, his fingers laced with Bo’s. “An oath, sweet Bo, serves to protect the giving of a true name. Break an oath, and the name, that core of a person, is forfeit. An oath binds a person by their will. A geas binds them despite it.”
