It’s just an engagement; not marriage,I reassured myself as we landed on the bow-shaped terrace of the pavilion.
4
The Mothers
Giya and I were surprisingly not the last to arrive in the fan-shaped Adamans Pavilion. Nima and Iba were still absent.
As we stepped past the curved strip of windows facing the Glades, my gaze zeroed in on Geemee Kaji, who stood stiff as acalimborbeside his wife and Remo’s mother. Where Faith and Nima were perpetually on the outs, Faith and Lily had remained tentative friends. If a war broke out between the Farrows and the Woods, Lily would side with Iba and Nima. Since there hadn’t yet been any war, just sporadic skirmishes that led to cold fronts, she’d never needed to pick sides. Giya, though, had always picked a side—Nima’s. Unlike her mother, she had no affection for the Farrows, and Giya was a very affectionate person.
I was glad for my cousin’s presence tonight, as well as my maternal grandparents’, my great-aunt Aylen’s, and her daughter Shiloh’s. The more non-Farrows, the merrier.
When my grandfather spotted me, he called out my name and opened his arms, and I strutted into his embrace. He had no Daneelie blood, no faerie blood for that matter, yet he always smelled briny and mineral like the sea. After he released me, Aylen spun me in a circle, gushing about how gorgeous my dress was, how the shade made my eyes seem almost violet, while Nana Em interrupted her soap-making discussion with Shiloh to kiss my cheek.
As Aylen fingered the chiffon, I caught Faith glancing at me through the web of bobbing service fae passing around twinkling golden orbs. Her blue eyes widened before they snapped back over to Neenee Lily. My aunt rolled her fingers into fists, probably to keep herself from signing the reason for this strange dinner—which I assumed she was privy to since she’d designed my dress.
Clutching her goblet of faerie wine, Faith’s eyes cut across the room toward her eldest son, who had his head bent next to his grandfather’s, probably discussing the cleverness of their crown embezzlement venture. If they actually thought I would go through with the wedding, they had another thing coming.
The air churned as powerful wings propelled Neverra’s one and only dragon onto the glass deck beyond the curved glass wall. Remo’s little brother Karsyn, who’d been riding on his father’s black-scaled back, hopped off and traipsed through the open sash windows toward his mother, leveling a serrated little glower my way.
A cloud of shimmery smoke billowed around thedraca, blurring his dark contours, shrinking him back into human flesh. Tightening the leather tie binding his shoulder-length brown hair, Silas entered the pavilion, inclining his head toward the assembled crowd. As he strode toward Remo, Faith intercepted him, shackling his wrist. Her hissed words were lost amidst a fanfare of loud stomps.
A line oflucionagaclimbed up the sweeping glass stairs, forming an aisle through which Nima and Iba walked arm-in-arm, sporting matching golden leaf circlets and decorous smiles. Nima’s grin lost some of its power when she noticed Faith, and then it wilted entirely when her black eyes landed on me. Her body grew so stiff so fast that when she whipped her face toward Iba, I worried her head would unscrew itself from her neck. Iba winced, even though Nima hadn’t even opened her mouth.
The dust locked in the tattoo wreathing her neck seemed to pulse harder. So hard that for a second I actually worried for Iba’s safety, but for all her temper, my mother possessed unrivaled self-control. Iba placed his glowing palm atop Nima’s forearm, above her second tattoo, spoils from the battle she’d waged to free our kingdom of the cloying mist. Anguish lit up her dark features and made the W on her hand flare like a beacon.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.” Iba’s knuckles whitened as though he was physically restraining Nima. “Some of you might have guessed the occasion from the color of my daughter’s magnificent dress.”
He winked at his sister, whose face was much too drawn to register the compliment.
“Tonight, I called you over to celebrate a momentous event in my family’s life—the engagement of my beautiful Amara to a loyal subject of the crown, Remo Farrow.”
The vein at Remo’s temple fluttered his birthmark. I suspected he hadn’t appreciated being referred to as a loyal subject of the crown.
Nima turned the same shade as Giya’s dress, which made her tipped eyes appear black, and then the veins in her hands ignited, a luminescent blue.
Oppressive silence ensued after Iba’s short speech, but it didn’t last long. Soon it was punctured by onelongroll of thunder that had everyone looking at the incoming clouds. Thelucionagawho’d remained on the deck filed into the pavilion to slide the glass doors shut. Neverrians were surely wondering why another storm was forming when the last one had just abated. Or perhaps they were too busy running to find cover to wonder about the weather, and which Daneelie was causing it.
Aylen clapped. She’d loved Stella, and even though she’d heard Nima’s stories, her fond memories of Faith’s mother made it impossible for her to hate the Farrows. Shiloh and Nana Em clapped along politely and so did Pappy, although he wore a big frown that pleated his suntanned brow.
“Is this my niece’s choice, or yours, Ace?” Geemee Kaji’s voice cut through the applause.
“She is the crown princess, brother,” Iba answered.
A look passed between the two men. A look that made Geemee Kaji’s corded arms tighten in front of his massive chest, the myriad of confiscated Seelie dusts writhing in their tracks. Unlike Nima, he couldn’t use the dust he ensnared. Merely stored it until he felt the misbehaving Seelie deserved their power back.
Where Gregor and Silas governed the royal guard, Geemee Kaji, along with a handful of other Unseelies, ran the Neverrian police. He was trying to get his twins to join, but Giya had zero interest in patrolling the kingdom, and Sook was much too passionate about his inventions.
As I watched my uncle’s inked forearms, I wondered if I’d be like Nima—able to use the dust—or like the rest of the Hunters—merely a storage unit. I’d come close to seizing a Seelie’s dust once, but Sook had beat me to it, slashing his skin and exposing his blood. That was how we Hunters magnetizedwita. Our iron-rich blood attracted the dust and trapped it in the form of dark whorls.
Lost in thought, I’d missed Remo walking up to me.
“The Cauldron has arrived,Amara,” he gritted out, as though my name were the most detestable word in the Faeli language. Consideringamarameant love, I bet itwaspainful for Remo to utter.
I glanced at his proffered arm. “What? Not Trifecta?”
His pupils distended, almost entirely obliterating the gold surrounding them. Was he worried someone might ask the meaning of his unpleasant nickname, which he employed as a substitute for freak? He raised his arm higher as though to hurry me to take it. I shot him an icy smile, scanned the pavilion until I spotted the black cauldron hovering between Gregor, Iba, and Nima. Refusing my future fiancé’s escort, I strode toward the vessel of fae essences that magically materialized for betrothals and weddings.
Remo’s boots banged against the copper floor, the weight of his anger striking the nape of my neck. Not only had I openly demeaned him by refusing his arm, but I’d done so in front of his fellowlucionaga.
