Page 161 of A Thief Among Fae

She huffs. “And this plan of yours, moving to Mythos. It’s ridiculous. We wouldn’t belong there.”

“But you wouldn’t have to work anymore!” My hands fist, frustration tightening my throat like a noose. “I’m trying to give you comfortable lives. Aren’t you even a bit grateful?”

“Of course I’d rather not work!” Mom sharply exclaims. “Do you see my hands? These are an old woman’s hands! They’re sun-spotted, callused and scarred, and rough as a sander! But this life is a good one. We are hard-working people, and this is all we’ve ever known.”

I slam my hands on the table, rocking the treasure. “That’s why I did this! So you could know something else! So I could know something else!”

The door swings open. Dad strolls in with his bow in hand. “You wouldn’t believe the luck I’m—Cynthia? When did you come home?” A smile lights his face as he pulls me to his side. “Gods, your mother had me searching the woods top to bottom for you. And here you are, not a hair on your head missing.” He squeezes me, and his pale blue eyes widen. “You’ve put on some muscle! What’ve you been up to?”

Mom clears her throat. She points at the table.

Dad pulls away. “Stars, where’d all this come from?”

“Cynthia.” Evie balances a brooch atop her head. “There’s more upstairs.”

He crouches before the table like he can’t believe it’s all real. “You didn’t make some crooked deal with the fae, did you?”

I sigh. “No, Dad. Well, yes. Technically. But the vow’s already fulfilled.”

He sobers immediately. “It’s not wise to make vows with the folk. What if there’s a loophole in it, and they come back for all this?”

A lump forms in my throat. I have to look away. I pretend I’m examining one of the fancy daggers as I answer, “He won’t be.”

He won’t ever come back.

“Then I think this calls for celebration,” Dad says. “Cynthia’s home, she brought us enough wealth to fill our cellar every winter, and Abernathy has slain his heaviest swine of the season. We’ll purchase a cut, feast upon it, and sleep well knowing we’re together again.”

“Of course.” I force the words out. “I’ll help.”

A fly in a web, indeed.

I lay down in bed beside Evie. For the first time in Nettlerock, my belly is full from a hot meal and the village’s finest wine. My parents even entertained plans for the future other than stocking the cellar, but it’s like they’re bewitched against the thought of leaving home.

This was not the homecoming I expected. Desmond warned me it wouldn’t be. I should’ve listened.

Desmond. The gift he gave me.

I slide out of bed and rummage through my pack until I find the bundle. Unwrapping the fabric, I draw in a tight breath. My dagger gleams in the dim light of our oil lamp. It’s the one Desmond won from me during our duel, the first time I sparred with him. He gave it back.

Tears sting my eyes as I move it aside, revealing the second present.

His book. The one of fables from the Hollowlands.

No one would give away something they hold so dear unless they knew they’d never be using it again.

Damn him. I know why he wouldn’t kiss me now. It’s because he knew I’d lose him, and he was trying to spare my heart.

My tears fall, and I wipe them off the book’s cover. Why do I keep missing him when I have every right to hate him? He betrayed me. And even before that, his mercurial moods ground on my nerves, and his smirks riled me up until I wanted to knock them off his face.

I remember being so angry at him that day we sparred, how he bested me without a single weapon. I was angry at myself, too, because each of his tests revealed just how much farther I had to push myself. At the time, I didn’t know what I was pushing myself to. What benchmark? Better self-defense? Mastery over untethering? Accurate archery?

A force to be reckoned with.

That’s the benchmark, I realize. That’s what he said I could become. Someone who feels strong and knows she’s strong. I wanted to be infallible, my Gift so powerful that I could untether and strike as easily as I breathe. At first, I wanted to prove it to Desmond.

But then I proved it to myself.

I can finally join the adventurers’ guild. Yet nothing’s ever made me feel alive like raiding Olin’s Tomb with the fae. With him.