There was a purpose to it. Whether disappointing your family, setting fire to the life you were meant to live, or being dragged back to the bond you’d fled, there was always Protocol. It kept the tearing of hair and the gnashing of teeth to a minimum.
When your life ended, you didn’t scream. You invited your captor to sit in the parlor. You stared briefly at your empty icebox before exerting a bit of will and manifested a few slices of cake, a full teapot and service, and a can of soda. An inexact magic, manifestation. The teapot was sleek and metallic, while the cups were chipped china. One was half full, with a lipstick smudge on the rim. Usually, he’d have been more specific. At least the cake didn’t have any bites taken out of it.
Everil emptied and cleaned the cup, taking more time than necessary.Protocol, he told the twist of guilt in his stomach. You didn’t serve guests with filthy cups, either.
By the time he returned to the parlor, Suire was up and pacing by the windows while Talia had taken a book from one of his shelves and sat with her feet tucked under her, looking entirely at home.
Gates had a way of making places theirs.
“Suire?” he called as he laid the cake and tea out on the coffee table.
“No.” She turned from the windows, cutting him off with a sharp gesture. “I’m not going to listen to it, Everil. You’ve had your fun. You’ve thrown your little fit. We all gave you space, didn’t we? But now you have responsibilities.Sheis your responsibility. So save your breath.”
“Suire,” he said again, more firmly. “Would you like some cake?”
The look she threw him would have set a fire, were they in Faerie. He met it with blank incuriosity. With Protocol. And cake.
He had gotten very good at Protocol in the years he spent bound to Nimai. Brownies were sticklers about it.Nimai.Again, Everil’s mouth dried as his throat tightened.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’tdothis.
“Ooo, chocolate,” Talia said, as if unaware of Suire’s glare or Everil’s answering stillness. “See, I told you I had to come along.”
“Youshould be waiting with Nimai at their estate,” Suire snapped back while Everil tried not to feel each new word like a noose tightening around his neck. “It’s not appropriate for you to be prancing about like,” a scowl in Everil’s direction, “him. You see? You’re a bad influence.”
“Not fair,” Talia complained. She set down the book and picked up the cake, eating it frosting first. “We only just met. You can’t give him bad influence points until we’ve at least gotten to know each other.”
“You should already know each other,” Suire muttered, but she sat down, taking a plate of cake for herself. “This is terrible, by the way. Human food. Dreadful. There are reasons their kind writes ballads about fae banquets.”
Everil had never known a will-o’-the-wisp more hostile to humanity than Suire. It hadn’t always been that way. She’d taken it personally, his leaving Nimai. He knew she had because she’d told him, at length, what a fool he was being. She’d found Nimai for him. When his parents had given up after over a century of searching, sure their disappointment of a son couldn’t even manage a soulbond, Suire had found someone compatible, someone who would agree to take him despite his being a kelpie. Despite all his faults.And then, he’d ruined it over a human’s death.
She’d insulted his loyalty. His intelligence. His right to inherit the house she had sworn to.
Everil had listened to her, his face blank and the memory of blood making the walls drip red. And then he’d turned away.
“There’s tea,” Everil said, his words still utterly level. “If that’s more to your taste.”
Suire rolled her eyes. “You used to befun, Everil. Never mind. Talia, finish your cake. Everil, if you need anything, fetch it. Nimai’s waiting. He’s agreed to take you back. Again.”
“How very generous,” Everil answered, flat. The very sort of comment that had always so irritated Nimai. He would need to start watching his tongue again. He was out of the habit.
“Itisgenerous.” Suire snapped back. “Do you have any idea what’s happened in your absence? Your poor mother, left to manage the House with only her bond and Nimai to help her? No heir, no hope of another generation? Why do you think I’m the one watching Talia? I’m all that’s left, Everil. Everyone had the sense to swear themselves to a House with an actual future.”
Everil stood a little straighter, letting the barrage of words fall like blows. Suire had the right. It wasn’t only Nimai he’d betrayed. It was his mother. His House. And yes, Suire. The last of his House, it seemed. Her and, once the oaths were said, Nimai.
Everil couldn’t even begin to imagine how angry Nimai would be, having to rebuild the House again from nothing. His hands shook, and he gripped his wrist behind his back to hide it.
“I see.”
He watched Talia eat rather than look at Suire. With his mother gone, she was his responsibility. The most valuable asset of what one could hardly call a House. Born and reborn into their keeping through endless generations, and always in the guardianship of a bonded pair.
Protocol. It always came back to Protocol.
“Actually, I kind of like it here.” Talia gestured to her untouched soda with a forkful of cake. “I think we should stay.”
“That’s impossible,” Suire said, and this time it was Talia she glared at. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“Suire,” Everil spoke her name with the quiet danger of a river in winter. “My ward will not be spoken to that way.”
