“Still doesn’t count as a bath,” Briar replies. She holds out her hand.
Begrudgingly, I take it.
—
Choking down faeriefood was challenging when, as a child in the kitchens, I saw where it came from. The sawdust in the flour, maggots in the meat, cockroaches in the coffee grounds. Now it’s near impossible. The turnip mash sticks to the back of my throat.
You must eat,I tell myself.You cannot be there for Benji if you do not.
Settled on a bench in the Nest, hair damp, I glower at the bowl in front of me. I swallow, each bite a battle.
I see the child before he sees me.
Ringed in black from head to toe, Benji’s pallid skin is hardly visible save for his face. His expression is drawn, eyes purple with fatigue, mouth pinched in a frown, shoulders slumped. A cohort of male faeries surrounds him—Jeremee’s roommates, who encase and protect the boy. One of them bends down, a shimmer ofblond.Glenn.They glance my way. Benji shrugs Glenn off, marching in my direction.
I stand, aching to run to him, to sweep the child into my arms and drop kisses on his face. But the glint of fury in his gaze keeps me rooted to the spot.
“Benji,” I breathe when he’s in earshot.
The boy stops, the table between us. His bottom lip quivers. Tears slide down my cheeks that I can’t bring myself to wipe away.
My voice cracks. “Benji.”
His eyes glisten as he wipes his nose with the back of his hand.
“I hate you,” he spits. I flinch. Behind Benji, so does Glenn. “You and your ideas got my brother killed.”
“I am so, so sorry—”
“Ihateyou, Avery. I hate you and I will never, ever forgive you.”
He wipes his face again, then glares at me with a might that shakes his small frame, so fragile now, so weighed down in dues.
This is better,I think.I’d rather he hate me than the king. It is safer this way.
“I hope the king hurts you,” he says. “I wish for it, and I hope the plane delivers.”
I suck in a breath.
“Benji,” Glenn says behind him.
“I never want to talk to you ever again.”
“Wait—”
My shin knocks into the wooden bench, bruising, as I maneuver around the table. It’s too late. Benji slips through the crowd, and I feel a gentle hand on my arm.
“Let him go for now,” Glenn says.
“I…” My throat feels tight. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Me either.”
He drops his hand, his eyes red, face puffy from crying, hair mussed. An image comes to mind, the gentle graze of his thumb against Jeremee’s ribs. The way they look at each other. Looked.
“You loved Jae,” I say.
“Of course I did.”
