Chapter Twenty-Five
Manicured lawns. The smell of fresh-cut grass. Uniform siding. And…
I had no idea where I was.
“This isn’t Nia’s house.” I grumbled the words the moment my equilibrium settled. We’d hit the side yard of a beige suburban home on an unfamiliar street. I’d clutched Fauna too tightly as we’d hopped from one place to the next, letting go as soon as we touched grass. I’d been too quick to untangle myself, knees hitting the lawn. I felt her absence the moment I released her. The loss reenergized my anger with her, because we were never meant to be this way. I should have been able to hold her hand. I should have been able to go to her when I was scared. But she’d ruined everything.
“No,” Fauna said, voice clipped, “it’s not. Her house has been well warded. This is the closest I could get us. We’ll move forward on foot.”
“And you’ll be—”
“Corporeal,” she finished for me. Fauna didn’t stop to help me up. Her arms were crossed as she stomped down the stretch of grass. She headed for the sidewalk and set off toward the Fosters’ home. The grass had already begun to turn, and the sharp, brown blades bit into my palms as I pushed myself to my feet. I wiped my hands on my pants and jogged after her.
It was unseasonably cold for the end of September. It should have been getting lighter as the morning ticked on, but a bank of dark, gray clouds smothered the sun and the day faded into a perpetual gloom. A northern breeze sent a tuft of Fauna’s hair whipping around her shoulders, moving her loose pants and long-sleeved cropped shirt around her hourglass shape ahead of me. I wished I’d grabbed a jacket, but I had expected to jump directly into Nia’s home. I chafed my arms for warmth as I hurried to keep up.
I was the one who’d decided that I was done with Fauna, but as she pressed onward without turning to look at me, I experienced a second wave of loss. It seemed she wasn’t trying to make amends anymore, either. There was a slip and a catch, as if my heart had been suctioned through my ribs and plopped to the ground behind me. I couldn’t stop to pick it up. I couldn’t hold the wound. I could only follow Fauna as we headed toward Nia’s.
For all I knew, Inkhouse had already dropped me. I hadn’t responded to EG’s messages in gods knew how long. I’d kicked my mother in the nose and broken her connection to the veil, severing any lingering hope for our familial relationship. I couldn’t even talk aboutFire and Swordswith my favorite concierge anymore, after her life had been cut brutally short by evil embodied, solely because someone had arrived to murder me. Between my angel and demons, I’d been abandoned. When it came to burning bridges, time after time, I was the one who’d held the match. Perhaps I could piss off Nia and Kirby as well and render myself utterly alone.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
Fauna flicked a hand dismissively. She seemed self-assured, which was more than I could say. I knew how to get to Nia’s house in my car. If I’d ever veered onto a side street, I would have needed GPS to find my way back. Every house was a similar shade of neutral. Every yard was carefully manicured with HOA-approved trees and shrubs. The sidewalk wasclean and unencumbered by hopscotch chalk or dandelions in the cracks. It was boring as fuck.
We rounded the corner, and I recognized my surroundings at long last. We were only half a block from Nia’s.
“How far out is warded?”
She looked over her shoulder briefly before saying, “It’s like a dome. I assume your Prince did it. If Estrid is there, then there must be specific cracks in the ward for pre-approved entities. It would appear that I did not make the list.”
There was an acidity to her final sentence.
“But you can walk to her house?”
The skin around her eyes tightened, but she remained front-facing. “Obviously,” came her curt answer. “She will have to invite me in.”
I stopped myself from making a comment about vampire rules.
A moment later, the house blocked the wind as we mounted the step onto her front landing. My knuckles were already pink with chill as I rapped on Nia’s door. It wasn’t until the door opened that I realized I hadn’t considered what day of the week it was.
Darius, it appeared, was not at work.
“Marlow!” he sputtered, and I knew as his eyes darted between us that the shock was not for me.
“Hi, Darius.” I offered a weak smile. “You remember Fauna.”
He opened the door fully, cracking the screen door as well in invitation. “Yes, of course. Come in, come in you two.”
Fauna flashed her most charming smile. “You’re a doll, Darius. Thank you. How have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” he said, still on unsteady footing. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is Nia expecting you? She’s been…out of sorts.”
I looked up at the man who’d become the only human male in my life. He was six feet of kindness, a collection of comic book action figures decorating his shelves, aProRoeT-shirt, and a face lined with worry. His easy charm had evaporated as concern took root.
And I could only imagine why.
As far as he knew, Nia had been talking to the walls, growing stranger and stranger as his social, assertive wife insisted on working from home. Of course, her change in behavior came from a valkyrie loitering over her, but that was privileged information. I imagined things had been unsettling for him for some time.
“That’s why we’re here,” Fauna said, resting her hand briefly on his forearm. She’d probably intended for the gesture to be comforting, but I knew him well enough to spot the uneasy motion as her touch had the reverse effect. “Nia needs some girl time.”
