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She winks at him. “Thanks, Gaius.”
I’ve pegged Gaius as a vampire by his pale skin and the fang tips peeking from his upper lip.
Gaius lets his hungry gaze linger on Eclipsa before disappearing for more ice.
I try to swallow down my chuckle but it slips out. “Are you and banana hammock . . .?”
Lips clamped down over her straw, she peers at me over her drink. “Banana hammock?”
“Gaius. Are you two, you know?”
“Screwing?”
I nearly choke on my smoothie. I’ve always hated that word for sex.
“Look, I know you’re mortal, which means your Fae side is mostly masked. But Fae aren’t cut off from their true nature like humans.”
“True nature?”
“Yeah. Mortals are so weird about everything. Sex is natural, when done responsibly and with consent. Everyone likes shiny things because it makes us happy. It’s okay to crave money or power because both equal safety. You guys like all of those things but hate yourself for it. It’s like some bizarre self-flagellation thing. And, geez, when it comes to killing—”
“Whoa.” I throw up my hands. “How did we escalate from sex with banana hammock to murder?”
She throws back her head in a laugh, her silver ponytail dipping into the water. “They’re the same, really. Sex, greed, murder. All part of nature. Look at any predatory animal. The strong procreate and kill to survive, hoarding resources and territory, while the weak—”
“I get it,” I say, hoping she’ll drop the subject. If the Evermore believe it’s only natural for the strongest to take from the weak, then mortals are screwed in the evolutionary chain. “So, what about Hellebore? Was he just to satisfy some urge . . .” o;And you have no idea who might have taken the piece?”
Eclipsa shakes her head. “No, but we believe whoever has the piece is somehow able to control the darklings. It was the axe’s dark magic, after all, that split our worlds and turned them. It would make sense.”
I let Eclipsa help me up, all too aware of Valerian’s gaze as he watches me. “Who has the other part of the axe now?”
Valerian scrapes a hand through his messy midnight blue hair, and I fight the unwelcome urge to run the soft strands between my own fingers. “Because the courts didn’t know who had stolen the missing piece, they broke the weapon apart. Each court has one piece, stored in a magically hidden location.”
I rub the back of my neck. Valerian and the rest talk of the Fae court quarrels and duplicity like it’s normal, but I can’t imagine living that way. Being surrounded constantly by potential enemies. Never knowing whom you can trust. Always struggling to stay one step ahead.
My little family back at the farmhouse may not possess wealth or material things, but I see now, in some ways, we have more than Valerian and the others ever will.
Eclipsa thrusts her hydroflask into my hands, even though we hardly broke a sweat. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Par for the course in Everwilde, right?” Boy, my voice came out bitter. I gulp down the cool water and hand it back. “So who do we think took it?”
Eclipsa bends down to wipe her mat. “Could be anyone, really.”
“But Unseelie, right?”
Valerian gives me a mock-wounded look. “I find that stereotype deeply offensive.”
Asher throws his rolled up mat under his arm, Hello Kitty smashed beneath his bulging bicep. “We don’t know. We’ve been following leads to try and locate whoever is allied with the Darken, communing with him somehow. But it seems like he’s amassing a following of both Seelie and Unseelie.”
“To what end?” I ask.
“We don’t know,” Valerian says. He’s careful never to let our eyes meet for longer than a second.
Frick. If only I could take back my hurtful words from earlier.
Everyone’s packing up to leave, but I remember there was one last thing they still haven’t told me.
“What does all of this have to do with me?”
