“Brave coming home to my people? That speaks more of your judgment than mine.” Esmeray’s dire warnings nagged her, but Elloven had to find her own way, which meant finding another place to hide, where she could be truly alone, and think. But first, she asked her aunt the same question she intended to ask everyone until she got a satisfying answer. “Where is my father? Where is Laxius? Don’t tell me he’s resting either.”
Velanthe appeared to weigh her answer. “You want to know about your father? About Laxius?” She checked the sky with a blown-out chuckle. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“To the Cry of the Ancestors, dear. His story should be starting soon.”
Jesstin followed Ryquin under a row of lighted arches wound in gold ribbon. The lights resembled tight clusters of berries, enveloped by briars. It was refreshing to see something other than the ghosts of the dead lighting up the place.
Even more invigorating was to be free of Lexsea, who had left them back in the garden.
“The Opal of Desire,” Ryquin said, walking backward to face Jesstin as he talked. “Where, for a fee, a man can have anything he desires.”
“I doubt that,” Jesstin said. They exited the walkway into an oval-shaped courtyard. A ring of decorated stalls filled the space, but their interiors were obscured by curtains of many colors. “Enchantments, Illusions, Conjurations, Desires...” He laughed as he read the signs. “We have swindlers where I’m from too.”
“Their magic is very real. Only rarely are they asked for refunds, which happens when someone wishes for something they only thought they wanted.”
The paradox of wishes. That was what Emrys had said when his affair had been exposed. He’d wanted the other woman so badly, but the splinter it had caused in his marriage and family made him wish he could undo it all. In the end, Fiona had stayed, but only because the children needed their father. “Like wishing for their dead cat to come back to life, only for it to return as a demon who butchers the entire family in their sleep?”
Ryquin tilted his head back and forth. “Our wishes aren’t tricks.” He pointed to the other side of the courtyard, where patrons huddled around a stall called Desires. “Last season we had a man who wished for a tryst with a past love. He enjoyed himself immensely, but then his consort found out and murdered him. He got exactly what he asked for, but not the ending he had in mind.”
“Sounds like a trick to me.” Something dark occurred to him. “They forced this other woman to bed him?”
“The other woman was an illusion, but to the man, she was very real.”
“So, trickery.”
“Can someone be tricked when they know the truth?”
“Why would the consort murder him for fucking an illusion?”
“Should it matter, when he was seeking companionship outside his own bedroom?”
Jesstin wasn’t sure how to answer. He’d surrounded himself with the fluidity of shifting morality, of the idea that every man and woman lived by their own code, and as long as they adhered to those values, they could live well. He’d never been committed to anyone, never been in love. Love and commitment had no place in the Azure, or the Row either. Those experiences were left at the village gates, and he didn’t know how the choices made in Mythgarde bled into his patrons’ real lives. He didn’t want to know.
“How would you feel if Aelloven was engaged in a tryst with someone else?” Ryquin asked.
“Elloven can do whatever she wants,” Jesstin said quickly. “This has been a breathtakingly pointless detour, but I need to get back to my friends.”
Ryquin gestured toward a stall labeled Conjurations. “I have a gift for you. I’ve already paid.”
Jesstin snorted. “No, thank you.”
Ryquin looked stricken. “Will you not humor a friend?”
“We’re not friends, mate.”
“I thought spending time together was how we remedy that.”
Jesstin crossed his arms and nodded at the gold curtains leading into the Conjurations stall. “You want me to guess? I won’t. I don’t care.”
“It’s a surprise. If I told you, you would think me a liar. If I show you, you’ll understand.”
“Surprises are just another kind of game.”
Ryquin pursed his mouth, thinking. “What do you most want?”
“You already know what I want, the bond undone without Elloven having to bond to the leering twat, so unless she’s waiting behind this curtain and your sordid sister is standing by to fix this mess, you and I have nothing more to discuss. ‘Friend.’”
