“I amsotired of all you third-party actors with your hands in every pot. One hand in the pot and the other held out. Let me guess, you’re afacilitator. How do I get in touch with them? I’m not interested in booking your phony flower service; I want access. I reallydidn’tcome here to threaten you, you know. I want to talk to the wisp. But if I was able to get your name and direct line on my first try, do you think Iwon’tturn you in to the Otherworld authorities if you won’t help me?”
The fae woman slapped a hand down on the glass table top. “You don’t understand the position you’re putting me in.”
“I don’t really care.”
They sat silently, scowling at each other, as an employee came around, offering coffee to top up their cups. The silence lingered several beats longer, once they were alone once more.
“A small finder’s fee is all I’m asking for. I still have to eat, you know.”
Silva rolled her eyes at the other woman’s pathetic tone, shaking her head as she tapped open a money transfer app on her phone. “Fine.”Everyone’s got a hustle.
“The florist,” Evony began tetchily, once the transfer was complete, “is in a shop, at the edge of downtown. You’re not going to find a beautifully curated DreameStream account, so don’t bother looking. It’s not that kind of place. She doesn’t like surprises. And you’ll have to pay her directly, so don’t think you’re getting off cheap with anything.” She raised a manicuredfinger, jabbing it in Silva’s direction. “And if I find out that you’re cutting in on my territory—”
“I won’t. I’m not interested in that. I only want information.”
The words were out before she could second-guess them. Silva paused, blinking.Information? Is that what we’re looking for now?An echoing voice reverberated in her memory, shaking down her spine.The cost of knowledge will be higher still. Silva shook her head as if she were shaking away a gnat. This wasn’t a fact-finding mission. She knew she wouldn’t find him in a flower-strewn meadow, but the chance of finding something concrete, something that would lead to him directly, was too irresistible to let slide.
Despite her earlier insistence on niceties in conversation, Evony was in a hurry to leave once Silva was holding a plain white business card. “You didn’t get that from me, understand? If she wants to know where you found her, just say you followed the flowers.” She gave Silva a swift up and down from the top of her oversized sunglasses. “It really is a waste, you know. You could have done so well in Spring. I hope you find what you’re looking for. And if you don’t make it back . . . well, Iwouldsay I’m sorry, if I hadn’t just been the victim of a shakedown.”
Silva sat at the café for a long time, once she was alone, clutching the white card. The city moved around her, hustle and bustle, humans and goblins and trolls, all living their busy lives. That was all she wanted. To feel as though she were living again,actuallyliving, not the vague approximation she’d been moving through. To feel like more than just a puppet in her theater.
Suppose youdon’tmake it back.
It was strange. Since her ignoble return from Winter, she hadn’t truly considered all the danger that still might lie ahead. She had been afraid when she’d started all this. Terrified! Now, though . . . now she was just impatient.
Impatient for what? To get where? What happens when this all leads you further and further down the path? What happens after she’s born? Are you going to spend her whole childhood disappearing? Losing weeks at a time? Paying off people like that?Once more, Silva shook the thought away.You still have to do what’s best for thebothof you long-term, and you need to operate under the assumption of failure.
She reminded herself ofwhyshe needed to pull her performance off in the first place. Their community meant safety. Safe and reliable, comfort and belonging, and if she could not find Tate, she would be Silva of the Daytime for the rest of her life, if it would make her little girl’s life easier. She owed her child that much.But if wecanfind him, if there’s even a chance we can bring him home . . . we will. And we need to at least try. For all of us.
* * *
“Darling, are yousureyou don’t want to go somewhere for lunch today?” Her grandmother’s voice was solicitous, her soft, slender fingers finding Silva’s hand, threading them together. “We can do anything you want! Maybe-maybe that little tea room in town? I know you’ve mentioned it before.”
Silva turned her face up with a smile, practiced and perfect. The last time she had mentioned taking her grandmother to the tea shop in town had been just before his disappearance. The tea shop was ruined for her, as was the plant store on the same block, the little bookstore at the corner, the coffee shop, and the waterfall and the gazebo. “I really don’t. I just want to stay right here and spend time with you before it’s time for me to leave, Nana.”
Her grandmother’s smile was tremulous, tight-lipped, her head nodding in a quick, jerking motion. She pulled Silva against her, tucked against her shoulder. She knew the action was meant to hide tears, but Silva still felt them against her, hergrandmother’s shuddering breath and hitching shoulders. Her own cheeks were wet by then, but she knew it didn’t matter.
Her visit home was winding down. So far, she had managed to avoid leaving Cevanorë at all, insisting to her grandmother and mother both that she was more than happy to dine at the club. The club felt like the lap of luxury at that point, and she’d nearly wept the first afternoon when she was carefully stretched out on her side, receiving the gentlest massage possible. The following day, she’d had them do her feet and legs, her back and shoulders two days later.
“You can stay as long as you want, princess,” her father reminded her repeatedly. “You’re in a delicate condition. No one can make me believe the idiots in that hospital even went to medical school. I wouldn’t trust them to treat a hangnail, let alone take care of you during—”
“Dear,” her mother interrupted lightly, her tight smile saying the rest.
Her father had grumbled his way out of the room, muttering to himself about Tannar, the words ‘worthless’ and ‘hovel’ clearly heard. Silva wondered what her father would have thought of Tate, if he’d ever had the opportunity to meet him as something other than an adversarial outsider, there to steal away their daughter. She never would have suffered dehydration onhiswatch, at the very least.
The afternoon Silva sat with rose-scented gel smeared all over her face, her eyes covered in cucumbers as her scalp was massaged, she considered that maybe shecouldcome home, after all. She would simply never leave the enclave, never step foot into the rest of Cambric Creek for anything, avoiding all the spaces where Tate’s memory lingered in every corner.
At least, until dinner that evening.
“I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish,” the elf across the table, one of her mother’s contemporaries, tutted.“This has been going on for a full year! She wants to join the committee! Can you imagine?”
The conversation in the dining room had been all about the Kaspards, the elf who’d moved back to the area with his huldra wife. She remembered that long-ago dinner with Berricin and Aubreen, how they’d laughed at the man’s efforts to have the club recognize them both as full members. Her parents clicked their tongues, her grandmother shaking her head sadly, as the family they were dining with filled them all in on the latest news.
“Aren’t they a type of nymph?” Silva asked innocently, sipping a glass of lavender lemonade. She’d been brought a small pillow for her lower back, and the maître d’ had come by twice to ask if she required a footstool. “Not quite as long-lived as us, but certainly longer than the common. What’s the hesitation in granting her full membership?”
She kept her tone light, curious and nothing more, but she felt her mother’s eyes on her as she focused on her glass.
“She just won’t fit in, darling,” the other elf explained with a laugh. “She’s not one of us. You’ll see when your little one is here. I went to school with Rael . . . he should have known better.”
