Tannar had stared at Silva across the room, saying nothing, and she had known that it was time to start snipping her strings.
Every puppet play came to an end, and she was nothing if not professional.
In the end, it was Tate himself who facilitated her escape.
We can stay in the apartment while you find a job, she wrote in one of her little journals, beginning to make her plans. The apartment above the Pixie wasn’t exactly the most appropriate place for a child, but his old girl was surprisingly well insulated,and it was rare that noise from below filtered up. She had no access to the pub anyway, the security panel on the door having been changed once Thessa had taken over management of the bar.
He was there, in every corner, every nook and cranny of the place, in the perfect Silva-inspired living room he’d made just for her, in the shower they had shared every day, in the bedroom where those early mornings had felt like something sacred . . .
But it had been four years. Longer without him than she’d even known him.
Time had not healed her, not really. But it had quieted the ache. The hole he’d left within her still hurt, but her daughter had begun to help heal the edges of it.
She had read each and every letter he’d written her, had ripped herself open anew, her heart re-shattering . . . and then she’d become angry.Furiousthat he’d not been able totellher the same things he’d been able to put on paper, that he’d not been able to tell her the truth of his heart, leaving her twisting in uncertainty throughout their entire relationship.
. . . And then her anger had faded, and she’d only felt heartbroken all over again. Heartbroken and deeply sad for both of them. Sad for the desperate, insecure elf she’d been, sad for whatever had happened to him that prevented him from being able to let her in. Sad that he would never know the impish little girl who was a tiny piece of him, and that Aelin would never know him in turn.
But the never-ending tears that had fallen in a continuous stream, soaking her pillow each night, had dried up at last, leaving her heart parched and cracked and a bit hardened.
She would love him forever, but Silva had nearly managed to convince herself that some things weren’t meant to last forever. Some things were too delicate and lovely to last, like the fragile wings of a butterfly. She had been in love once, and it had beenreal and imperfect, and she would never love anyone the same way again . . . other than her little girl.
And that was enough.
Life had gone on without him, and she’d filled the gaps within her as best she could. She would love him forever, but time marched on, and somewhere along the way, she had learned to march with it.
They could live in the apartment he’d left her . . . but she would have only a few years to work before Aelin needed to start school, and the tiny hamlet of Greenbridge Glen had no schools. She let out a slow breath, moving down to the next line in her notebook.
We can go home to Cevanorë.
She bit her lip, frowning at just the sight of it on the paper.And how long will that last? What will happen when her teeth come in?Her tiny baby teeth were not the sharp little daggers she’d been mentally prepared for, but theyweresharp, and now she knew what they would look like in adulthood. They would certainly not resemble the other smiles around the table at the club. They were already outsidershere. She’d told herself that she would be Silva of the Daytime for the rest of her life if it would make her little girl’s life easier, but they were outsiders in this enclave and always would be. And at Cevanorë, their claws were twice as sharp.
Silva remembered Dorea Eillis, her long-ago classmate, relentlessly bullied for her mother’s half-trollish heritage, thought of the conversation that had taken place over dinner while she was pregnant.She’s simply not one of us, dear. Nothing at Cevanorë had changed. She wasn’t willing to offer up her little girl as a sacrifice for their judgment.
Then where?
There was no place she knew of that wasn’t full of humans, where they would continue to be outsiders. Nowhere butCambric Creek, and Silva already knew there was no way she would be able to afford that. She didn’t want her parents to subsidize her existence any longer. She needed to set a better example for her own daughter, needed to set her up to be free from the expectation of being a mouse.
You can sell the apartment if you have to.
The mere thought of doing so hurt. She knew it was just a place, but it was a place where he still lingered.Still. She’s the most important thing, and you need to at least look into all of your options. At the very least, you can rent it out.
If she initiated the unbinding of their marriage, she would be exiting the relationship with only a little more than she had brought into it. Their marriage contract clearly spelled out the terms for ending their union, and unless she was leaving Tannar for cause, her exit settlement would be enough to scrape by until she went back to work full-time. Even then, she would never be able to afford Cambric Creek on her own.
That should have been enough to put the thought from her mind entirely, but once it was there, Silva found she could not let it go. She had loved Cambric Creek. She had wanted it to be her home with him. And even though he still lingered there as well, after four years, the presence of his ghost wasn’t as intolerable as it had been. ShelovedCambric Creek, and she could love it again with her little girl.
Then you’ll have to ask for help. Either that, or sell the apartment.
She should never have agreed to stop working.This is why most elves don’t unbind their marriages.It may have been mercenary, but it made sense. Their menfolk lived little more than a common lifespan as it was, a scant amount of time to grit one’s teeth and make do.
It was the smarter option, but she had gritted her teeth down to nubs by then, and she wasn’t willing to let her daughter grow up thinkingthiswas the way it had to be.
The main problem was that she had no idea where to even start. She had no idea where the paperwork for the apartment she owned was, nor how to even find it. She had been catatonic after he’d disappeared, and hadn't cared about a collection of empty rooms without him there. Now, she had no choice but to care.
The Plundered Pixie’s apartment continued to weigh on her mind as she made Aelin’s lunch the following afternoon — a blood soup Silva discovered she could order online from a batperson-owned deli, served in Aelin’s favorite little ceramic bowl, yellow, with a mouse wearing a tulip as a hat and a matching tiny spoon; and a cut-up apple, drizzled in honey.
Silva didn’t know what they would do once Aelin started school, if they were still stuck here, already knowing that strict vegetarianism was expected.Which is why you need an exit plan.
She was distracted, watching her happy baby eat her unconventional lunch at her little miniature table, the sound of the mail being dropped into the box making her jump.The mail.Silva spun away from the counter, gasping at the memory of the mail she had taken that night she’d given birth, having hid them in that tucked-away cosmetic case in the closet once they’d come home. The envelopes hadhername on them. Surely they would have a starting point, an account number,something.
