––––––––
“It’s like they’re tryingto make a portal via whirlpool.” I stare down at the fish tank of agitated changelings, knowing it means we need to call it and head back. A two day reprieve was amazing, but we all knew it couldn’t last.
My eyes snap up to meet Dorian’s, explaining nothing, but he knows how my mind works by now and I don’t have to. “Bermuda triangle.”
His eyes widen before glancing at the changelings and back at me, shaking his head and chuckling. “Don’t do that to me, love. I’ll never sleep again.”
I finish dumping the last of the fish food in the tank to tide them over for a little longer since we still need to finish loading the car and drive back to the ring. We’re better off saving Atlas’ energy for creating one when we have a permanent place to stay again over here. I’m not the only one leery about setting one up so close to the cabin and risking Belinda or her family unintentionally getting caught up in this mess.
Dorian and Atlas take the backseat this time, the tank between them on the floor, and I ride up front with Luce. Knowing just how long of a drive is ahead of us, I held one of the comforters hostage, cocooning myself inside and wadding part of it up against the glass as a makeshift pillow. The summer heat is starting to ebb away in favor of the approaching fall, some days sweltering, and the next, jacket worthy.
It’s one of the only things I’ve never been able to adapt to, how quickly the seasons change on earth. Faerie is practically frozen in time; the weather constantly temperate and the only advancements coming from technology. And even that is far slower than that on Earth. We have electricity, sure, and some basic appliances for convenience’s sake because if the fae are one thing, it’s self-serving. But with as many that look down on the mortal realm and humans, it’s harder for the ones that don’t to get people on board with new ideas on a widespread scale.
“You’re extra quiet today,” Lucien murmurs, side-eyeing me quickly before refocusing his attention on the road.
“I mean, if two days of getting dicked down wasn’t enough to wear me out, you three would be offended. You should take it as a compliment, really.”
“Cambria.” Just that one word, calm and understanding.
Sighing, I twist in my seat. “I’m bummed that we have to go back.”
“Me too.” After a short stretch of silence, he admits, “I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. Like I have a finite amount of energy to work with and ration instead of...instead of that high I was riding in the shadow court,” he glosses over, and both men in the backseat have completely halted their conversation to blatantly eavesdrop.
“I have a new appreciation for how subdued you become after a few days here-“ he swallows “-and that you’d keep coming back and putting yourself through that just so we could spend as much time here as possible.” An exhale, long and slow, that rattles his chest. “Because of how much of a bitch fit I threw about wanting to carry on with our lives here, rotating your need to go back into the schedule like it was an inconvenience.”
If he wasn’t driving, I have no doubt he’d be closing his eyes, seeking patience and pinching the bridge of his nose. Instead, he white knuckles the steering wheel.
As it groans under the pressure, he lessens his hold with a self-deprecating grimace. “And you didn’t fight it. You just kept pushing your limits of how much you could tolerate for my benefit.”
Fisting the blanket around me, I rub my fingers over the smooth fabric to keep my hands busy. “It was hard on you to accept in the first place, I wasn’t about to make it worse for you. Whether or not we slept together, we were bound for the rest of our lives at that point. I wasn’t about to make you hate me anymore than you already did. I’d just left living with people that couldn’t stand to look at me, I wasn’t about to go back to that if I could do something to prevent it.”
“You were so flippant about it,” he presses, looking strained. “But it’s only been two days and I canfeel it,Cambria.”
“What’s he talking about?” Atlas demands and I can’t bring myself to answer, just turn back to gaze out of the windshield, leaning into the comfort of my blanket against the glass.
Lucien pulls over onto the side of the road and smacks the hazard lights button, wrapping an arm around the seat as he turns around. “After the first day, it’s like you’re slowly bleeding out. You can feel yourself dying with no way to put pressure on the wound, nothing tangible to heal. You just...start fading away.” I can feel him boring holes in the side of my face. “You made it seem like you were just getting rundown by day three, not that it physically hurt, that you couldfeel yourself dying!”
Finally, I shift in my seat to look at him. And for the first time, I don’t have any witty retorts just dancing on the tip of my tongue to deflect away from the severity of the uncomfortable conversation.
“And now that you know how I grew up, can you blame me? For flirting hard with that line and wondering where the point of no return was?”
His chest rumbles with his growl. “But it wasn’t to escape anything, it was to make my life more convenient. After things developed between all of us, why didn’t you say anything? You had to know that we wouldn’t want you to suffer, would gladly rework things to spare you any pain, especially when it was one of the only things going on that we could actually control.”
I free my hands from the blanket, braiding my hair over my shoulder, constantly needing something to fiddle with. “Because it helped ease some of the crushing guilt, that pain. Cody might not have actually been my brother, but I killed him, Luce.”
“You were just a kid-”
Blood heating, I snap. “So was he!” My hand slams down on the dash in front of me, the harsh slap that stings my palm helping to ground me before I spiral too far. Still, every nerve ending is alight, my skin feeling too tight.
“It was no different than how I was already slowly dying, Lucien. It was just the difference of having a few breaths of fresh air with you guys to break up the constant state of suffocation I spent every day in. So blame me if it makes you feel better; I’m used to it. But don’t lecture me like I was hiding some dirty secret and betrayed you. It was a shit situation and it’s not like I didn’t prefer hanging out here with you guys rather than in Faerie. It wasn’t exactly a sacrifice on my part, and not worth bringing up like I was trying to manipulate you into sacrificing what little time we actually had over here when you’d already given up so much.”
The car is dead silent, and rather than hide from it, to wait it out by gazing out a window until they move on, I twist in my seat until I’m facing Atlas and Lucien, Dorian in my peripherals.
“Anybody else have something they want to get out?”
Dorian tilts his head. “I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen you mad.”
Tongue in cheek, my stomach twists. “There isn’t much use wasting energy being pissed about the things I can’t change. I’m better off focusing my efforts on what I can control.”
