What was it like, between them?The last week or so a whirlwind, scattering everything in its wake.Laughter and fear and negotiation.Comfort.Hurt.Confusion.Boyfriend.
“Warm.”Leather and rust, yes, but Antonio waswarmth.He reached for Declan.Didn’t shut him out, for all he was well justified to do so.Warm hands.Warm soul.“Validating.We talk often, laugh nearly as much.Antonio stood with me when the Council visited, including a certain brownie.He spoke for me.He calls me ‘Murderpunk’ the way I hear Bo address you as ‘kelpie.’” Declan lowered his drink to his lap, studying the delicate porcelain for a beat.“He sees me, Everil.Sees me and knows me andwantsme.A fact he confessed a few days back, begging space because he thought his interest one-sided.”
Declan waited for Everil to express some skepticism at the possibility of Antonio’s attraction.Suggest, perhaps, that Hollow sight wasn’t as immune to glamour as assumed.Though he’d never dropped his glamour fully before Everil, people knew what sluagh looked like, even without an eyeful.
“You sound well suited.I could hardly ask for more than that.”And Everilsmiled.
Perhaps three years of being calledpretty kelpieby Bo, who never flinched from Everil’s claws or serrated teeth, had done more for Everil than Declan had realized.
“We are.”
“There are few who will understand your decision.But you can always discuss such matters with me.”
“It’s been a couple centuries since we’ve gossiped about boys over drinks.”Worth it, to see Everil’s smile brighten that much more.“Though, on the topic of gossip….”
“Yes?”
“Antonio and I spoke with one of Mother’s contacts, an expert in the time before the convergence, regarding human-fae bonds.He had some interesting information on your, ah, adornments when in Faerie.He has some questions for you and Bo if you’re amenable.”
There’d been a time, not so long past, when Everil would have tensed with shame at the question Declan hadn’t asked.Old magic, sex and sacrifice, and all that the fae had supposedly left behind with the convergence, tied to him in a far more literal way than Declan could have possibly imagined.
Instead, Everilsmirked, if only just.
Declan couldn’t help grinning back in absolutedelight.Once upon a time, before Nimai, he’d seen Everil make such unseemly expressions.Seen him take joy in himself and in the world.Not often, but enough that Declan had missed their loss.
“Faerie is very fond of Bo.”Smug.The glorious bastard soundedsmug.Declan needed to buy Bo a gift.“It would be churlish of me to fault good taste.”
“Bo is good for you,” Declan said, and Everil’s smirk softened to a tender, besotted smile.“And for Faerie, as it happens.As are you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“There was…” Declan’s words trailed off as he struggled to find words yet again.The effort of recovery seemed to be tangling his thoughts.He rubbed at his side absently.“I learned things, Everil.I would have come to you, even without the shinigami.You and Bo are only part of it.”
Concern, metallic in the bond.Then warmth, as a mobile Declan hadn’t noticed on the tea tray pinged.
“They’re to fetch Antonio’s vehicle when we’re done here,” Everil reported with a glance at the screen.Then, “Declan, if you need me to assure you I’ll listen or not react hastily, I’ll do so.”
“It’s not that.It’s– Everil, the Courts weren’t just politics.Humans were once integral.Bonds like ours weren’t anathema.We,” he gestured between the two of them, “mattered as more than guardians or warnings.The Solstice Rites weren’t merely for show.Faerieneededthem, and it was always an unseelie as Holly and a human as Oak.”
“Needed in what sense?”Everil’s expression tightened, only just, at the use ofunseelie.But after the conversation with Zyr, Declan couldn’t bring himself to use ‘death aligned.’
“Balance and power,” Declan answered.“Symbolism.Faerie takes strength from the solstice rites.I believe the Monarchs abolished the rites at the time of the convergencebecauseof the weight behind them.Because of the importance they lent to humans and the unseelie.”
Everil’s lips parted, then closed again.For a long moment, they stared at one another.Declan waited him out, let Everil have the time he needed.
“I believe Bo and I should speak with your contact after all,” he murmured, hands tightening, though they remained neatly folded on his lap.“Declan, the convergence happened.Whatever the… unseelie once were, now we’re a naughty word that children aren’t meant to say.And the architects of that change sit on the twin thrones to this day.Don’t–” He cut himself off with a shake of his head, guilt writ clear on his face.“Are you certain you know what you’re doing?”
Declan stilled with Everil’s words.Watched and waited again, silent.Everil’s parents had done him no favors, trying to mold him into as near a seelie as they could manage, when he failed to be born a nereid.Nor had Declan’s parents, raising him to see such things as wrong.
“We’redying, Everil.We’ve been dying since the convergence.Since those architects, thrones or no, decided that taking out the unseelie in power wasn’t enough.They encouraged the seelie to partner with unseelie.And kept only the seelie infants.”
He saw the instant the realization struck.Everil let out a soft, strained sound, color draining from his face, leaving golden skin gray.
Distantly, he felt Antonio’s alarm and concern.Did Everil feel the same?
“Think of it,” Declan continued, voice softer.Voids and stars, he ought to have approached this moregently.“How often have you known an unseelie pairing to miscarry?Childbirth complications, aye, I’ll give you that.We’re born with sharp bits sometimes.But with an unseelie-seelie pairing–”
“Death struggles to birth life,” Everil interrupted, with a bitterness Declan hadn’t thought him capable of.“That’s what my father always said.There weresixbefore me.My mother had a stone for each.”
