Every time I look at Tiana, something strange pulses inside me. Then to Kestra. Back again.
Like there’s a thread between the three of us. Tightening.
Growing up with cousins, I had built-in family. Never had to make friends—I was born with them. Which also made it really hard to make friends.
There’s a dynamic that forms when you’re born with people. No social cues to watch for. You just are who you’ve always been with them.
Or so I thought.
And yet, as Kestra, Tiana, and I rummage through Kieran’s quarters for supplies, there’s this energetic pulse between us. Electrical. Exhilarating.
Different from the purple magic tasting my essence every now and again. Licking at my aura before it’s satisfied with something.
I’ve stopped flinching when it does that.
Progress, I guess.
Kestra finds me standing in a closet watching it twist and turn through my fingertips.
“Survival,” she whispers, hands clenched at her sides. “What does it feel like?”
I lick my lips, trying to put into words what it feels like to constantly feel monitored. Except that’s not quite it either.
“Is it reporting everything I think and feel back to the courts? Because if so, I’m a liability.” My stomach turns until I have to breathe through the pain there.
“No,” she whispers. “It doesn’t work like that.”
I breathe a little easier. “It feels like...” Oh, I know. “The aquarium.”
“What is an aquarium?” Tiana steps into the closet with us.
“Oh, well it’s usually in a coastal city.”
“What is a city?” Kestra asks.
“You two have never been to Earth, have you?” Excitement hums through me. I could take these two to an aquarium one day. “Okay, so you have courts, right? On Earth we have cities.”
That clicks. “How many cities does Earth have?” Tiana asks.
“Oh, thousands.”
Their jaws drop.
“So many humans,” Kestra gasps. It’s honestly so innocent and wholesome I forget we’re supposed to be packing so we can escape.
“There’s millions,” I tell them and nearly laugh at the reaction.
“And they have the lifespan of what, seventy-eight years?”
“Oh, that is horrific.” Tiana’s eyes widen. “I mean, my early years were spent learning at court, but that is such a short amount of time.”
The perspective is jarring. She’s right. There are billions of humans on earth.
And only thousands of Fae.
One lives forever. The other? Mere years in comparison.
I blow out a breath. “We have these oceans where marine life swims, and in these coastal cities, we have aquariums where humans capture and place the fish in tanks for viewing.”
