She was still sitting slack-jawed at the table more than an hour later, the letters spread before her.
She needed to call her father. Needed a lawyer, potentially, an accountant most assuredly. She had been too grief-stricken to care about anything after Tate had vanished, least of all the apartment she was told had been put in her name, the apartmentshe had never wanted to step into again. Clearly, she had misunderstood.
He hadn’t put the apartment in her name. He had put the entirebuildingin her name. The building where the Plundered Pixie operated, where the Plundered Pixie paid rent. Silva had no idea what a triple-net lease was and didn’t understand the various percentages listed on the statements sent in her name, but she would need to learn quickly.
He had once attempted to explain to her the web of different business LLCs he had, property in one, businesses in another, paying himself from yet a third.
“Real estate, dove.That’syour investment. Everything else is a bonus if it works.”
Tate and her father would likely have had no shortage of conversational material if that daydream had ever come true. It hadn’t mattered to her at the time, and she hadn’t paid attention.
Somewhere, unbeknownst to her, there was an account in her name, with at least four years or more of passive income accumulating interest. A way for her to escape, for her to get out of this mess that she had created for herself.
Silva startled herself with the sob that came out of her, relief nearly shaking her apart, splitting open the stone of tension she’d grown so used to carrying, its weight having gone nearly unnoticed.I told you you’d always have a place to come, dove. And so you do.
She’d grown up privileged, and she already knew money didn’t buy happiness.
But itdidbuy security, and that was all she needed right now. He was gone, but he had given her a way out. A way to support herself, a way to support their little girl. A way out of this mess she had created, saving them from her terrible decisions.
They wouldn’t need much.
A room for each of them. A little kitchen, a place for Aelin to play. Cambric Creek had enough green space that she wouldn’t miss a yard. A beautiful library, parks, the community center with all its clubs and classes, and most importantly, the excellent schools, founded on a bedrock of species diversity, where the sharpness of her daughter’s teeth and her unblinking golden eyes would not be unwelcome or strange. Where she could learn that superficial differences of appearance didn’t matter, but kindness and acceptance did.
Her tears had almost choked her at the thought. It broke her heart to think that her baby would be made an outsider in this dreadful place they called home, that she wouldn’t have friends or feel included. But in Cambric Creek, that wouldn’t matter. It had been the daydream she’d held in her heart for so long,wantinga life there with Tate . . . and now she could make it true, with the little piece of himself he’d left behind.
Aelin found her in a panic, crying when she saw Silva’s own tears, burying her tiny face in Silva’s side.
“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay. Finally.”
Things moved quickly after that.
Tannar couldn’t pretend to be anything but relieved when she told him she was leaving. Relief, swiftly followed by a bright stab of guilt that Silva would have missed if she’d not been holding his eye. She could have pushed the issue, discovered if he was indeed having an affair, ensuring that she would exit the marriage with a well-padded settlement . . . but it didn’t matter at that point. She just wanted out. Children belonged to the mother, and there was nothing stopping her from leaving.
Their unbinding would go to arbitration, a process that would likely take time, made marginally easier by the fact that they were mutually seeking to end their marriage contract. She would keep the ring he put on her finger as collateral, to be returned to him in the unbinding. Elvish divorces were rare, and the fewcouples she’d known to go through the process had dispensed with the ring-returning ceremony, but Silva had no doubt that his mother would insist upon it as a way to humiliate her.Joke’s on you. I can’t wait to give it back.
Aelin’s only concern, when Silva sat her down to explain that she and Mommy were going on an adventure and would live somewhere else without Tannar, was that her cat could come too. She called Tannar ‘Daddy,’ when he was there, looking back to Silva for approval, as if she knew the truth and was in on the performance. She would let him read her stories and draw pictures with her in the scant time he spent with them, but the time was scant. Not enough to be missed.
Aelin kissed him on the cheek, hugged him, and waved from the car window the day they pulled away, and as her soon-to-be ex breathed a small sigh of relief from the curb, Silva breathed one of her own, having no doubt that her daughter would forget him by tomorrow’s lunch.
They would live in the apartment above the Pixie until she found something in town that she could afford. A house was out of her budget. A condo would be ideal. She would settle for an apartment if it were all she could find. She would go back to work, freelance until she found something full-time.
The day the moving van pulled away from the tiny little house that had never once felt like home, carrying them away from that inhospitable beige wasteland, Silva cried tears of relief. This escape had felt necessary four years ago when her world imploded, but now it was no longer necessary. She was going home.No more running away. Time to start building an actual life. Your puppet days are over.
Time marched ever forward. And finally, at long last, so did she.
Ris
“Do you think you would ever want to move here?”
The question had popped out of her mouth entirely without her full permission, and Ris was irritated with herself the instant it did.Un-fucking-believable. You’ve been thinking about this for two months, andthisis how you ask him?
They were at the Makers’ Mart in Cambric Creek, a weekly event that had originated as a craft fair, ballooning into a beloved community institution. Fitz was welcome as long as he was well behaved, which he always was, particularly knowing that he would be treated with a pup cup from the scoop truck before they left.
Ainsley’s brow had furrowed, his head swinging down. “Wait, you want to move? When?!”
Ris closed her eyes, sighing, letting her head drop back in frustration with no one but herself.This is just like the ‘let’s get a dog’ conversation. You never learn.
“That’s not what I said. But . . . maybe? I really don’t love the idea of us paying rent forever to some soulless corporation.”
