“I wasn’t—” Cya tried, but their mother continued before they could get more than two words out.
“What if I’d fallen and broken something? How could you live with yourself?”
“I never—” they tried again but were interrupted once more.
“Honestly, the way you carry on. It’s entirely unbecoming, especially for a young lady.” Unable to stop it, Cya rolled their eyes, and their mother’s dull brown tail rattled a warning. “Oh, don’t you roll your eyes at me! I am your mother.”
“Ladies, ladies.” The clipped bass of their father cut through the haranguing, and Cya’s already coiled muscles tensed impossibly tighter. “What in the good deities is causing such a fuss?”
“It’s your daughter and her incorrigible temper,” their mother sniffed, tipping her flute back to swallow the dregs of the champagne Cya currently wore down their front.
“Is that so?” he said dryly.
Slithering down the sweeping grand rampway, Cya’s father frowned down at them, fastening the silver cufflink of his right wrist. His suit jacket was black and perfectly tailored, ending halfway between his hip and the first joint of his emerald tail. Gray streaked through his dark green hair at his temples and peppered his well-trimmed beard. He was striking and regal, effortlessly imposing with his shrewd eyes and weighty presence.
Cya took after their father in looks and coloring, yet another glaring giveaway of their genetic abnormality. As a child, their scales had been more muted, resembling other female Syplets, but during puberty, they’d brightened and deepened in hue with every shed until they glittered iridescent emerald, just like their father.
Of all the things their mother could never forgive them for, their flashy, masculine coloring was the most egregious. No amount of deportment training, lessons in genteel propriety, or hormones disguised as vitaminsupplements forced down their throat could change the glimmering green that betrayed the truth of their DNA.
None of it could make Cya a girl. Not the way their mother needed them to be, at least. It was a sin they would carry to their grave; their mother would make sure of that.
As for their father, as long as they played their part well, did as they were told, and stayed out of the way, he let them live in peace. They were a decorative vase to showcase at dinner parties, a pretty trinket to be admired by old men dripping in cigar smoke and scotch. Beyond that, their father had no use for them, so they were stowed away, back under dust-resistant sheets, until the next time he needed something to display.
Growing up, they’d strived for his praise and attention, the same way they’d struggled for their mother’s acceptance and love. They were past that now. In their twenty-one years of existence, they’d never been enough. What was the point in trying anymore?
And yet… and yet.
“Father, I—”
“Come, Cadynce, we don’t want to be late.” He spoke over them as if he hadn’t heard them at all, attention on his pocket watch.
“Of course, poppet.” Their mother smiled at him dotingly. “Now, where did I leave my stole?”
“Where are you going?” they asked as Jorge—their parents’ driver—appeared with their mother’s ruby red stole in one hand, their father’s decorative walking stick in another, and the keys to their car in a third.
Their father took the walking stick, slender fingers wrapping possessively around the ivory knob like a claw. “The theater.”
“We were invited to join the mayor in his personal loge along with Claryn Duboi.” Their mother stilled long enough for Jorge to drape herstole around her bare shoulders. “It’s a connection your father has worked hard to forge. The Dubois are well-respected, you know.”
Cya did know, though they didn’t think their parents would celebrate that the Duboitheyhappened to work for was Claryn’s disgraced, lesbian daughter. So they decided to keep that to themself.
Instead, they settled for an anticlimactic, “Oh.”
“First cocktails at Eduardo’s, then dinner at Amory.” She simpered as Cya’s father settled a top hat on his head. “Then Ynaldi accompanied by Tamlin’s orchestra playing in the grand hall of The Opera House.”
At that, Cya straightened out of the slouched posture they’d subconsciously adopted. “Ynaldi’s playing at The Opera House?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” She pushed her empty champagne flute into Cya’s hand. “Be a dear and hand this off to Hemersyn when you see him, won’t you, darling?”
“Wait, I want to come,” they blurted, and both their parents froze.
“That’s quite impossible. We only have the two tickets,” their father said, checking his pocket watch again.
“It’d be boring for you, anyway,” their mother added. “All the adults talking business.”
“But it’s Ynaldi! She’s my favorite harpist.”
At that, their mother cocked her head, expression comically bewildered. “She is?”
