I decided to let it go and let him have his pizza. Maybe he was coming around. I knew he and Vin had been old friends. It pained me that some of the shifters couldn’t get past the ways of old. The last thing we needed right now was a division between ourselves.
“Something wrong?” Violet asked me. My friend was always in tune to what I was feeling.
I brushed it off. “Yes. I need a triple meat pizza with a side of jalapenos, STAT,” I joked.
Violet and Kade both grinned. They knew I was not a woman to be messed with when hungry.
Victor, Monica, and Jen sat at a small table just outside the door that led to our private sitting room, guarding us, as always. In public they would be extra vigilant. Rowan, Violet, Nikoli, Calista, and Baladar, joined Kade and I, none of us speaking as we pretty much inhaled the most delicious pizza in New York City.
All good out there?I checked in with Finn. He was keeping watch outside with Nix, which was fine by me, but I would save him a few pieces of sausage.
All quiet. I have rarely seen the city so … still.
Let me know if anything stirs up.
You got it. Now enjoy your pizza.
I disconnected from his mind, coming back to the table, Violet was telling Kade a funny story. Well, she had a lightly amused tone on, but there was sadness mingled there also.
“The kids would taunt me for having such light skin, and white hair, and white eyelashes,” Violet explained, and I saw Nikoli nod in understanding. The fair look of the magic bornwas different, and different always invited ridicule with young children.
“I decided I was sick of getting picked on for my looks, and since Ari told me I couldn’t spell everyone who pissed me off, I decided to dye my hair.”
I smiled. I knew this story, and now I understood her amused tone.
Nikoli shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I know where this is going.” He looked to be holding back laughter.
Kade’s brows were bunched as he looked between the two of them. “What happened?”
Now I was trying not to laugh as I remembered how freaky she had looked.
Violet popped a pepperoni into her mouth. “Well, apparently, our hair is magic and cannot be dyed. Ever. It rejects all color, forever to be pigmentless.”
My eyes flit across the table and I could see even Baladar was smiling. All of the magic born knew, except for Rowan. She seemed intrigued. Since I knew the winter queen had a black-haired magic born, I could only assume fae magic born were not exactly like the shifters.
Kade crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. “Okay, so it didn’t work...”
Violet leaned closer to him for full effect. “Not on my hair. But my skin...”
Kade’s eyes widened, and a sparkle lit up their copper depths. “Seriously?”
“Yes!” Violet shouted. “The skin under my eyebrows and my scalp was black for a month! While my hair remained white as cotton. I looked like a Halloween creature, and I wasn’t trained in magic then. Well, not enough to change it.”
I couldn’t hold it in anymore, laughter exploded out of me. “Why didn’t you let me take a picture?” I said between my chuckles. “How much better would this story be with photographic evidence?”
She had genuinely looked horrifying. But it taught her something — and me too. Accept your natural beauty for what it is. Don’t fight nature.
Violet rolled her eyes, at the same time leveling a vicious scowl in my direction. “Because at the time I was sure my life was over and a picture would just remind me of the time my life ended.”
Her eyes shuttered, and I guessed she was back in the land of Faerie, remembering how her life had really almost ended. Perspective was a funny thing. She shook it off quickly though, smiling and joking with everyone around the table. I was pretty sure that only I noticed the weariness that remained deep in her eyes, in the tilt of her shoulders, in the tension of her hands.
She wasn’t completely lost to me, though. She was improving, slowly coming back to us. Whatever the queen had done to her — taken from her — it was fixable.
“Dylan Mathews still asked you to the summer solstice that year,” I reminded her.
Violet sat a little taller. “That he did. I was going to say no, because I thought it was a pity or dare thing, but you slapped me around a little and told me that some of us were just born to stand out.”
Our eyes remained locked for a few long beats, and so much love and so many memories flashed between us in that time. “You could have dyed every part of your body, Vi. You would never have dulled your shine.”
