Briar puts her hands on her hips. Circles under her eyes, frown lines round her mouth. She’s been covering for me in all aspects.
“You can take your grief with you,” Briar says, softer now.
I am so tired of grieving. I grieved my mother when lumps formed beneath her armpits and she couldn’t lift her head. It was slow and deep, the careful erosion of the faerie I knew into a sallow, frail creature who soiled the bed. Each piece that the sickness took from her also took from me, as I changed and washed her, fed and held her for that last, rattling breath. She was my creator, and I her keeper. I will despise and cherish those last few months together.
Jeremee is the reason I survived losing her. Only she could’ve gotten me through the loss of him. Now they are both gone.
“I want my mom,” I sob. “I need my mom.”
“Oh, honey.” Briar melts onto the cot beside me, but she doesn’t reach out, and for this I am also grateful.
Balling up my hands, I press fists into my thighs. “She said to look at the floor. Always look at the floor, don’t walk too quickly or too slowly, and never show my full genius in front of them, and I hated her for saying it and so I didn’t—I didn’t listen.” I hiccup. “I wouldn’t listen. And now, because of me, Jeremee—he’s—”
Briar lets me cry. I hadn’t known I had any tears left, and ithurts so much, this ceaseless anguish, the despair at the infinite cruelty of the High Fae.
When my cheeks ache and the tears dry, Briar takes a breath.
“I do not know what faith you follow,” she says carefully. “But I will mourn with you in any manner.”
I blink, glancing at her. “You did not convert to the High Fae faith of the Three Planes?”
Briar looks to the closed door, then back at me. “Just because it is illegal to be Unesse does not mean it is wrong.”
The ancient faerie faith, one only murmured in storage spaces and bunkrooms by the older generations. My mother never ascribed to one or another, and for once, I wish the High Fae are right about the Three Planes. Perhaps my mother is helping Jeremee find his path in the celestial realm.
I sniff, adjusting on the cot. “Tell me more.”
“Everything pulses with energy, no matter how small, and therefore everything has a genius, a soul. Magic is a call and response between two energies, and we are all one connected system of nerves across existence that began with the Tree. Of life, of magic—they are the same.”
“And…the High Fae?” I wonder.
“What about them?”
“Did they not bring magic down from the celestial plane? Are Lucan’s Tree and the Tree of Life one and the same?”
“I believe so,” she answers. “The difference is that the High Fae think they own it, but under Unesse, they do not.”
“Then who does?”
She chuckles. “No one. You can’t own something that was never yours. In fact, there’s no ownership in Unesse, only stewardship.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a saying in Unesse,” she whispers. “Before the beginning, after the end. Magic never gives, only lends.They borrow life and magic just like the rest of us.”
She will not sayour masters,but I do not need her to. Still, itsounds like a nursery rhyme to comfort faerie children for the little control we have over our lives. Looking down at my sullied dress I wore for the coronation, I think that maybe I am no different.
“Come on,” Briar says, standing. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
But I don’t want to scrub away the sweat and tears I shed that day. It’s all I have left of him. I want to seethe and choke on my rage until it boils me from the inside out. I want to wrestle and fight and scream and rip down the sky. I want to burn.
My clothes feel warm. My hand touches my tunic. Dry.
The smell of soil, of spring rain lingers in the air. Root magic, faerie magic.My magic.
At some point, I had evaporated the water.
“I’ve never done that before,” I say.
