I smiled. My smile felt as lovely as honey spreading over a warm biscuit, so I smiled even more. It was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. I felt . . . Oh, why had I been so worried about the Den of Depravity? This wasn’t depravity. This was lovely.
I felt as if, my whole life, I’d been cold, beaten-up, and exhausted, and I’d finally slipped into a warm, jasmine scented bath and the water was embracing me. I floated in the pleasure and let go of everything.
I smiled, staring at the sky. There was no blue. No sun. There didn’t need to be. We had golden-bellied clouds. They were so low to the ground a person might stand on another’s shoulders and drag their fingers through the feathery mist.
I smiled and sent my fingers over the cushion grass and the lacy-edged flowers. Slowly, I propped myself up on my elbows and stared out over the field. Justice was there, crouching down in front of me.
Behind him, a jackaltooth sprinted toward a line of trees.
“Justice?”
“Hmm?”
I blinked at him. “Why is there a jackaltooth in the Den of Depravity?”
I frowned. No—that wasn’t right. That wasn’t a jackaltooth. That was Luvic.
“I mean, why is Luvic a jackaltooth in the Den of Depravity?”
He gripped my hand and pulled me to my feet. Then he tugged me against him and didn’t let go.
“That wasn’t Luvic.”
“It wasn’t?” Then where was Luvic?
“No. Humans don’t become jackaltooth, Mari. That was a monster. It’s just the sort of thing you’d find here.”
“But . . .” I took a deep breath.
The jackaltooth had disappeared into the woods. It was maybe a mile away—the dark line of the trees was fuzzy and blurred. There were shadows there—creeping, strange things writhing in the shifting blues and grays. It had a cold, dark, monstrous feel.
I shivered, and Justice gathered me closer, wrapping his arms around me.
“We should . . .” I was going to say “find our way out,” but then I stopped and tilted my head. “Do you hear that? Are the clouds . . . singing?”
A tinkling raindrop and lute sound tickled the air. It vibrated through the clouds and fell on us in sprinkling drops. The rain petted my ears and coated my skin. It was a happy, pleasure-filled noise.
“Oh.” I smiled widely, and Justice smiled down at me. His messy hair was russet-gold in the soft light, and his cheeks glowed with a pink flush. His eyes, which were usually world-weary and somber, were swirling with the eddies of long-repressed happiness.
“Do you know what I just realized?” he asked, his voice deep and languid like a Saturday morning spent in bed.
“What?”
He reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand, brushing his thumb across my jaw. “If we stay here, Jagger will never control us again. We could live out our lives here. We could do everything we ever dreamed of. Just you and me. We could . . .” His eyes warmed and then became as hot as an August afternoon, scalding in their intensity. “Mari, we could be happy here.”
“But . . .”
His smile turned as tempting as homemade bread with strawberry jam, savored in bed, with clean white sheets spilling around you.
“It’s nice here.” He smiled, his thumb drifting up to the edge of my lips. “Don’t you think it’s nice here?”
I did. Of course I did.
The world we’d tumbled from was already fading. It felt like a movie I’d watched years ago and had already mostly forgotten. It didn’t feel real anymore. It didn’t feel important.
What was a movie watched long ago when real life was here, right in front of us?
Besides, Justice was right. If we stayed here, we weren’t mines anymore. We were just Mari and Justice. We wouldn’t have to worry about Jagger. We wouldn’t have to fight against his will. We wouldn’t need to be afraid of conjurers or their machinations. In this place, I wouldn’t hurt people, and I wouldn’t let people down. I could be happy here.
