For a second, he was tempted to let himself think about what Iris had said about his parents, but that wasn’t a road he wanted to go down. Not now, not when he could be looking at Iris’s house instead.
It was a beautiful place, airy and sunny inside. Everything was neat, orderly, and clean, like a speck of dust or a lost button would have been embarrassed to settle down anywhere they weren’t welcome. In that regard, it was like every other unicorn home he’d ever been in.
But theatmospherewas somehow different. It was full of a persistent, offbeat liveliness, like there was an enthusiastic drum solo embedded in the well-scrubbed white walls. It reminded him of the climbing roses outside: a touch of something natural, colorful, and vital.
Iris said, “Would you like something to drink?”
He started to say no, since he wasn’t all that thirsty, but then he thought about how Iz would have scowled at him for refusing someone’s well-meant hospitality. Accepting it was as important as offering it, she’d told him once, and it was especially important when you didn’t know your host very well. You didn’t want to come across as uninterested in what they had to offer.
He especially didn’t want to come across as uninterested in whatIrishad to offer.
“That’d be nice, thanks. If you don’t mind.”
It was where someone else might have offered a polite smile, but Iris, he was starting to realize, tended to show her emotions more through her eyes.
They were warm and bright as she said, “Not at all,” and disappeared into the kitchen.
It gave him a chance to look around and soak up her surroundings in search of that drum solo feeling.
Even though Iris clearly lived up to the Council’s high expectations of beauty and order, some of the details were unmistakably her own. Her bookends, for example, were unmistakablyfunky: chunky welded sculptures made of repurposed metal like bolts, washers, and bottle caps. They were appealing in a friendly, scrappy way, especially when he thought about the artist rescuing the separate pieces from the garbage or the back of some dusty toolbox. The carved wooden knickknacks gave off the same feeling of amiable coziness.
The cushions on her sofa and plump little armchair were softer and fuller than you’d ever find in the Council House, and she even had a footrest. And where many unicorns stuck exclusively to neutrals and the very occasional accent piece, Iris had a lot of color around: a kind of harmonious jumble of pinks and greens and yellows.
And there was the huge fish tank, burbling away pleasantly in its corner. He walked over to it, entranced.
Keith couldn’t remember seeing any pets when he was growing up. The Council had always dismissed them as unnecessary, unpredictable, messy, and useless.
He was pretty sure these fish weren’t here to be useful. They were just around because Iris liked them.
He was studying them when Iris returned with a tall glass of sparkling pomegranate juice.
Keith felt an instant rush of nostalgia. He had never entirely understood why, but sparkling juices and ciders were staples of unicorn households. It was like they were the one frivolous pleasure everyone had agreed it was okay to enjoy, at least in moderation. They made it locally, in all different flavors and with all different kinds of infusions both magical and otherwise. The kind he bought in the outside world never tasted quite the same.
Iris handed him the glass, her fingers lightly grazing his as she let go.
“Thanks,” Keith said, striving to sound like that tiny, accidental touch hadn’t sent a cascade of sparks running through his nervous system.
He stole another glance at her unusually eloquent eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen those shades of honey and amber before.
“Uh, I found the fish,” he said, like an idiot.
I found what I was standing right in front of! Admire me, I’m a trained investigator.
Iris said tentatively, “Do you like fish?”
“I haven’t seen too many. I like these ones.” He sipped his pomegranate juice, enjoying the tart sweetness and the fizz on his tongue as he frantically tried to figure out how to make the kind of small talk that might draw her out of her shell. “Is this the freshwater tank or the saltwater one?”
“Saltwater. The other one’s in the bedroom.”
Her complexion wasn’t quite dark enough to hide her blush at saying “bedroom” to her true mate. So they werebothfeeling awkward about this, then.
Keith gestured at the multitude of drifting and darting fish. “What kinds are these? There are a lot.”
Iris lit up in a way Keith would have had a hard time explaining. It was like a sudden pleasure suffused through her face, more vivid than the blush but far more mysterious.
She pointed to an orange fish striped with wide, black-lined white bands.
“That’s a clownfish.”
