“Are you doing that?” he asked, pointing at a movement that coincided with my sharp breathing.
Observant as ever.I nodded.
“Wow,” Cliff muttered, twisting to look around the other way. “Psychedelic stuff. Incredible, though. VeryYellow Submarine.”
My legs refused to move as he closed the space between us. He still watched my every move like I was something he couldn’t quite believe. Cliff moved to reach for me, then stopped, like he was wrestling with the instinct.
“You can touch me,” I said softly. “I won’t break.”
Cliff gave a breathless chuckle, expelled in a shaky burst. He lifted a hand, tangling his fingers through the fiery locks that hung just over my shoulders. The contact was hesitant at first, then more certain. I let my eyes flutter shut as he cupped my face—and though the warmth of him was numbed like so many sensations were in this realm, it was stillCliff, and he’d never been able to hold me like this.
“Goddamn, you’re still so short,” he murmured.
The tension in my chest unraveled with a burst of indignant laughter. I shoved his chest, eliciting a wicked smirk from him, too.
“Shut up, I’m perfectly normal,” I snapped, still fighting a smile.
“Up for debate.”
I lingered close to him, letting my hands slide up his chest to squeeze his shoulders.
No—there was no time to indulge this comfort. I stopped short, fresh horror rippling through me.
Cliff washuman, so this place was hurting him.
“You have to go,” I croaked, my urgency renewed. “Please, I don’t want—”
I tried to push him back, but Cliff caught my wrists. “Jon’s been here a million times, and he’s still kicking. One visit to comatose land isn’t gonna make my brain explode.”
“That’s not funny!”
“Sylv, you didn’t know.” His voice was surprisingly calm, and it only twisted the guilty knife in my heart. I couldn’t bear the patient look he was giving me. His anger would have been more fitting, moredeserved. When I growled and tried to step back, his grip moved to my shoulders and forced me to stay still. “Are you listening to me? You didn’tknowthis place was hurting him.”
I had the power to force Cliff away from me. I could merely wish it to happen, and the radiant gusts that swirled overhead would sweep him away from me like a hurricane’s gale. In this realm, I held all the cards. But that wouldn’t change a thing in the real world, where every consequence still awaited.
Tears wavered in my vision again, and I turned my face away from Cliff’s.
“This isn’t how my life was supposed to turn out.” The words spilled out hollowly, my voice wobbling dangerously.
“Welcome to the club, sweetheart.”
“No,thiswasn’t supposed to happen.” A thread snapped in my voice. “Just when I thought that things might work out, it…it’sgone. Everything I’ve been through, for what?” A laugh with jagged edges shook through me. “I’m not a nomad. I’m not anything I was supposed to be. I’m a banished fairy with a traitor mark and bigger dreams than I deserve, and the one man who loves me despite that, I can’t have him.”
“You haven’t lost everything,” Cliff said, softer. “We can still find your family.”
Riotous anger flooded me as it occurred to mewhyCliff could be so calm in the face of my undoing. I lifted my chin, searchinghis face. Those intense jade-green eyes that could be so kind—and on occasion, so very cruel.
“This is exactly how you hoped it would work out, isn’t it?” I snapped.
He recoiled. “What?”
“It’s been no secret that you never wanted Jon to be with me. Well,congratulations! Finally, you’ll be rid of me now that he and I have one less thing holding us together.”
Silence stretched as Cliff stared down at me with a familiar, somber look surfacing behind his eyes. “I just didn’t want to lose him.Eitherof you. After being banished from your own family, I thought you’d understand that, of all people.”
I tore my hands from him and shoved his chest. “Don’t even talk about my family! It’s your fault that I don’t have them in the first place.”
He didn’t retaliate, not even when I shoved a second time to goad him into doingsomethingbesides staring at me like the pathetic sight I was.
