“Nothing,” I say, quickly. “Nothing, I—”
“Nothing she wasn’t willing to give,” Maxian says behind me. “A couple of coins, that’s all. And it wasn’t even for her debt.”
He will not reveal what he has asked of me, and why should he? I am to be like his mother, unnamed and unknown, a scrap of faded fabric in an abandoned room. Never seen.
But Lila’s gaze slides to me now. I do not find judgment, or disappointment. Just an unbridled rage in a faerie who has kept it in for so long.
“Benji?” Lila asks.
For a moment, I think—terribly—that she doesn’t understand. She can’t. It is something I can’t explain to others. It is no different from what Kassandra and I are to each other. Except, perhaps, in that silver bathroom, when she rejected me.
I will never again take you,Kassandra said.Not like this. Not when your only option is to give.
I shake my head. “I wanted this.”
“You wanted Benji’s freedom!”
“Then why did she beg me for it?” Maxian says. “Why did her pussy shudder around my hand?”
Lila glares at the king with pure hatred. No, no, this is all wrong. Hector brought Lila here to smile at him, adore him, see good in him and reflect that back—not this. Not this seething, simmering faerie. I came to the Pith to offer myself to the king, hoping it was enough to deter his attention from my friends.
“This was my choice,” I say.
“Choice?” she yells. “What choices do we truly have in this place?”
I flinch at the compassion Lila flings my way, a compassion I do not deserve.
“Come now, Lila. Don’t be a prude.” Maxian’s presence grows behind me, the plane murmuring around us. “So your friend is a whore. Who cares? Most female faeries are. Avery accepted this about herself long ago. It’s time you did as well.”
The words die in my mouth. The temperature in the room drops. When I glance at Maxian, his expression is disturbingly tranquil. It is as if in Lila losing her calm, he has finally found his. He looks to her, lips quirking into a smile. She glowers, her skin starting to glow, herbal magic flooding the plane, and suddenly I know that I do not know how powerful she is. She has always held back, held her tongue. But not anymore.
“We should all take a breath,” I say, tugging her arm so that she looks at me. “I think—”
“I think Lila is jealous she didn’t get to watch.” He looks to me. “Or is it that you got off more on betraying your friend in secret? Though maybefriendis the wrong word. For Lila to be yours, you’d have to act like one, too, I suppose.”
Lila yanks me to her side, wrapping an arm around me. “You wouldn’t know a friend if they stabbed you in the back! For that is what you do to yours,” she snarls to the king.
The plane heaves, and I wince. “Lila, please, let’s—”
“You still defend her, though she slept with your tormenter for some attention and coin?” Maxian steps toward us.
I shrink back, but Lila holds her ground.
“Iknowher. I love her. Not even a king can come between us.”
The royal’s eyes blaze, nostrils flaring, as if he craves what he cannot comprehend.
“What is it you really want, Lila?” he finally spits. “Why are you here, in my House?”
She squeezes my hand, and I know she means she’s here for me. But there is something else, too.
“To see the center of the Pith.”
I suck in a breath.
“We are in the center of the Pith,” he says.
“The true heart of it.”
