Antonio let his gaze drop, tracing the path through the cemetery, back toward Reece’s grave.They’d never talked like this.Like Bo was talking now.
“S’alright,” he said to the graves.“Seriously, we’re good.I’ll try not to be so nervy about it.But I get nervy about shit.Think, if instead of giving you a ‘shovel talk’ when you met him, Declan strapped a bomb to your chest and left it there.Might make you a little gun shy around him.Me.”
“Dude, I used to hike all the time.Now I can’t unless someone’s with me.Keep expecting one of the trees to go for my throat.You’re fucking valid.”Bo turned to look at him, then.“...I’m no good with this trying to be a friend or having a heart-to-heart thing.Do we hug it out?Grunt and hit each other’s shoulders?Get drinks and talk about what a bitch Velriks is?”
“Matching tattoos,” Antonio answered.“Maybe ‘fuck’ in some fancy script.Get it on your ass and start a TruFans account.Make people pay to see the good shit.”
“If we want to really scandalize the internet, it’d have to be on my foot.Never put your feet online for free.”
“Noted.”He looked down at his wrist, nettles spreading above the bracelets Declan had made for him.“Next time I get ink, it’ll be for Declan.Be something, since I never actually see the bastard.”
He could feel it, the weight of Bo’s surprised, worried glance.
“You’re that busy?”
“Declan’s got to be at a new Council party every damn day.And I’ve got the garage.That’s every damn day, too.Getting back and forth isn’t exactly easy.We didn’t adopt a Gate, and it’s not like Florian doesn’t have his own shit.”
“Fuck,” Bo said, because he was Bo.“I get antsy if Everil’s gone more than a day.”
“Yeah.Feels like needing a fix.”
Antonio knew it too well, the way the bond got hungry until it hurt.Missing Declan was worse, though.That, and the low-level buzz of misery that had replaced the bond’s contented thrum.
“You really can’t just tell them to fuck off?Forget all this Council shit?Or, hell, at least the parties.”
“Council’s the wholepoint.It’s in our oaths.”He closed his eyes, hearing Zyr’s flat words again.Pretty babies.“They’re killing off the unseelie.Doing it slow and subtle, but it’s happening.”
“Seriously?”
“Should be fifty/fifty, but Aisling says it’s more like eighty/twenty and worse with every generation.”
“Shit.You’re not kidding.Fuck.”
“Plenty of seelie born.Unseelie, not so much.”
“But, like, what canyoudo?”Bo chewed his lip, looking caught between horror and concern.“It’s not like you two on the Council’s going to stop fae from fucking who they want to fuck.Or not fucking who they don’t.”
“Nah, probably not.Some things, you do because otherwise, you can’t face your own reflection.Might not help, but you gotta try.Think you understand that.”
“I run fundraisers, I don’t throw myself into the line of fire.Not for people I don’t know.”Bo made a face, squinting out over the graves.“My best suggestion of how not to hate your semi-immortal life is to figure out the most important, nitty-gritty thing you can plausibly help with and focus on that.Not just ‘make it better.’”
“Don’t think we can have a bake sale for ‘stop the Monarchs from trying to kill off half their people.’But you think that’d work, I’ll make the cookies.”Antonio smiled, sort of, stretching his lips into an upturned grimace.“We’re not even to ‘make it better’.We’re at ‘stand in the way of the ones who want to make it worse.’Us backing down means one less vote against their bullshit.One less argument to sway the few who’ll listen.It means the Council’s back to a seelie club and babies being smothered in their cribs.”
“That’s fucked, dude.At least you’re happy together?But the rest of it, that’s fucked.”
“We’re together,” Antonio answered, because happiness needed shit they couldn’t manage right now.Time alone, somewhere other than Faerie.Hope.“Got that much.”
You were supposed to feel better for saying things out loud.That’s what the therapists always said.Antonio didn’t feel better.He guessed he didn’t feel worse, either.
“No wolves.”Talia’s bright voice broke into his thoughts, as she ambled up the path toward them, hands shoved in the pocket of her hoodie.“Dad, can we do a series on werewolves?I’ll bet there’s all sorts of spooky forests we could check out.”
Bo brightened, grinning at Talia the way Antonio did his nieces.The way he’d never get to smile at a kid of his own.The idea of adoption had been hopeless enough before the possibility of outliving a kid by centuries was on the table.
“You do the research and get Ever to agree to play bodyguard, and you’ve a deal, kid.”
It didn’t matter.What mattered, now, was getting back to the garage and maybe getting a few minutes alone with Declan before Hyacinth’s little party.The chance to be near him.Hold on for a little while.
Chapter Twenty-Six
