Jealousy throttles my chest anew.
“Fallon,” Sybille snaps under her breath. “Kitchen. Now.”
This time, when she yanks me back, there’s no give to her arm.
Four
“Fallon! He made it! He actually made it!” Phoebus stumbles into my house on the heels of his loud yells.
I look up from the turnip peels littering the kitchen table. “Who’s made what?”
“Dante. He’s crossed the channel!”
My heart journeys into my throat, because the channel between Isolacuori and Tarecuori rests over Filiaserpens, the underwater trench inside which dissenters are tossed. Without fault, the sea serpents snag the dissidents and drag them away.
Since Fae can only die from tremendously old age or by decapitation with a steel blade, I imagine many lie in the fault line, unconscious but alive, their flesh being picked off, before regenerating to be eaten anew. It’s a merciless form of torture, one the king threatened Nonna with when she chose my mother over my grandfather.
To this day, she hasn’t told me how she escaped. Occasionally, I’ll bring it up, but it darkens her mood, so I don’t push.
“Dolto.” Nonna’s censure flutters her lips as she scrapes her knife more forcefully over the scrawny, wrinkled carrots.
I want to tell her that Dante isn’t a fool, but isn’t he? He risked his life for a throne his brother inherited after the Battle of Primanivi two decades ago, a throne Marco waited a century to sit upon. I don’t see him conceding it during his lifetime.
“It’s a rite of passage for kings, Ceres,” Phoebus reminds my grandmother, although I doubt she’s forgotten. “Now, Dante can lawfully sit on the throne.” His green eyes whip toward the open doorway to check for eavesdroppers, since wishing misfortune on the king is treasonous and could land him in the channel.
Since our cerulean house abuts the southwestern end of Tarelexo, we only have two neighbors, and both are presently at work or in school.
“If anything ever happened to his brother, that is,” Phoebus adds. “Cauldron forbid.”
I’ve sworn a salt oath to Phoebus and Sybille that, if either of them were ever tossed into Filiaserpens, I’d jump in with them, because that’s what friends do, especially, beast-charming ones.
Phoebus drums his fingers against our doorframe. “Well, are you coming or what?”
I stand up so suddenly, my knees knock into the table. I take a step toward him but then glance at Nonna. “Are you coming, Nonna?”
“And witness a prideful boy become a hubristic man? I’ll pass.” My grandmother’s eyes are locked on the rust-colored peels that curl as they fall onto our pockmarked table.
“Oh, Nonna. Dante’s nothing like his brother. Marco doesn’t befriend halflings; Dante—”
“Once upon a time, King Marco had many halfling acquaintances. Power changes people. Don’t ever forget that, Fallon. You too, Phoebus.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I can’t imagine the severe and ruthless Fae king ever befriending curved-ears, but Nonna has been around for three centuries, and King Marco only one and a half. She knew him long before the crown of golden sunrays graced his head.
“Fal-lon.” Phoebus decomposes my name and taps his brown boot. He has many virtues but patience isn’t one of them.
“Coming!” I slip my feet into my shoes, then race out after him.
We run down narrow cobbled streets and across the wooden bridges of Tarelexo toward the wider, sun-drenched roads and glass bridges of the Tarecuorin isles where the flowers are brighter and the air purer.
Twenty minutes later, we erupt onto the eastern harbor and elbow our way through the throng of people who’ve come to applaud the prince’s courage. The air teems with excitement and sprites. Some hover over their masters’ heads, dressed in matching silks and leather; others, the unpledged ones, buzz excitedly over the frolicking turquoise surface of Mareluce, remaining high enough to avoid becoming a serpent’s snack.
The stench of warm blood and fish guts tangles with the floral and citrus perfumes lifting from the pure-blood quarter. Unlike our shoddy wharf, the cobbles here are scrubbed until they glisten silver, and since today isn’t a market day, I’m perplexed by the stomach-churning odor.
“Look at the size, Mamma.” A human child holds out a thick white steak that spans his two palms and glistens like his shaved head.
His mother touches her mouth. “Gods bless Princci Dante.”
