Page 212 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Don’t say a word, or there will be no more sugarpetals for you!” Sage calls from the kitchen.

By the Big Bird and the Big Bony Bird. He hops into my palm. There were so many snacks.

“I can get you snacks, my Tiny King,” I whisper.

“Droot,” Ashán warns. “I am the only one who can grow you skullberries. And we both know they are your favorite.”

I can offer many things, but he’s right. I can’t compete with those. Ashán grows them specifically for Droot—heavy clusters of shiny red berries, each one carved with a tiny grinning skull. I’ve caught Ash at the counter late at night doing them by hand, a claw-tip working each little face like a giant death-jeweler. Droot eats them skull-first. He says it’s more respectful.

The King will get in trouble, he whisper-chirps.

I am surrounded by traitors.

By noon, Sage appears in the doorway wearing his softest expression, and exuding his most suspicious energy. He has a baby-pink blanket over his arm. “Dress warm, Saevúra. We’re going out.”

“Out.” I narrow my eyes. “Out where?”

“Up.” His wings shake loose behind him, stretching wide.

After I get changed, he wraps me in the blanket like he’s about to ship me overseas, tucking it under my chin before he scoops me up.

“You know I can walk.”

“Mm.” He carries me out the front door, past the garden, into the open stretch of meadow. “Not where we’re going.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, since you still won’t tell me where we’re going.”

He places a kiss on the tip of my nose, and it annoys me how much I love it.

His wings snap open to their full, magnificent span, and we’re up, the ground dropping away in one stomach-dropping rush. Nook shrinks beneath us until the meadow looks like a green coin in the forest’s pocket.

He’s stuck with me up here. It’s time for a new strategy.

“Picnic?” I ask against his throat.

“No.”

“You’re taking me to meet Droot’s mom finally?” I run my hand down his chest.

“No.”

“You found a field of those white flowers I like, and you’re trying to be romantic about it?” My hand glides lower.

A low chuckle shakes his chest. “Also no. Though I’m noting that for later. And I know what you’re trying to do, mí’aevúna.”

I roll my eyes.

“If you built me a giant nest on a cliffside, Sage, I swear to⁠—”

“It’s not a nest,” he interrupts. “Though Ashán did suggest it. I told him your hips would complain about the twigs.”

“I suggested a mattress made of cloud-silk, you overgrown weed,” Ashán’s voice cuts in. “Give me a little credit, ash’kaela.”

I huff and go quiet. If no one will talk, I’ll just check the bond again. I feel around the edges of whatever they’ve buried there—bright, bubbling excitement, mostly Sage. A thin thread of nerves, which is strange, because what do an eight-foot fertility fae and a reaper have to be nervous about? And underneath both, wrapped around the secret they’re keeping, is something so tender it makes my heart clench. Whatever this is, it definitely isn’t a picnic.

“Stop peeking,” Ashán rumbles, amused, and his shadow muffles the bond again.

“You’re both insufferable.”