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Auriol was awake by the time I pushed open the door to our home. Home was at least one word which could be described for the run-down apartment we dwelled within. Located in the upper floors of Tithe’s most infamous apothecary, it was a place where the floorboards screamed and every window rattled, as though the very building expressed its displeasure for us living there.
Two steps inside and she called out for me. “Are you ever going to learn that your bed is likely a better place to stay than lurking in the sweat-drenched sheets of Tom’s?”
I winced, still feeling the tickle of the cough lurking at the back of my throat. It took a lot of effort to keep it at bay.
Auriol must not know.
“But his bed is far warmer… and bigger,” I called out, dusting the dried mud from the sleeve of my jacket. The gilded mirror which hung drunkenly upon the wall beside me revealed the complete state I was in, as if I had been pulled through a bush over and over. Or through a wall. My straw-blond hair was a mess and heavy bags hung proudly beneath my mismatched eyes.
At least I looked the part of a dishevelled, tired patron of Tom’s company. Even if he was not the reason for where I had been.
I could hear the smile in the way my sister responded, distracting me from the way I looked. “Out of all the men in Tithe and still you keep returning to him. When are you going to see Tom for what he is and leave him behind you?”
Ah, time to lie.
“I don’t imagine you would appreciate me listing the reasons as to why Tom has me ensnared, sister, unless you want me to go into very long detail…”
She forced a fake gag, which conjured a deep laugh from me in response, and I said, “I shall take that as a no.”
The first doorless frame to my left led into the main room of our apartment. I tore my jacket from my back and rested it on the back of the chair tucked under the worn dining table. By the time I looked back towards the slightly wonky corridor, Auriol’s head had poked around her bedroom door.
“Arlo,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Even Tom’s long ego would entice no one else into his bedroom. At least not anyone with a lick of taste. I had believed you would be more interested in meaningful conversation.”
“When I’m with Tom, there is no need for conversation… put it that way.”
Auriol huffed, rolled her eyes dramatically and grimaced without diluting any of her expression. “Men, you are all the same.”
“Hungry?” I said, happy to divert the conversation before she picked up the truth that I had not, in fact, been at Tom’s. Well, not the entire time, at least. I had warmed his bed before leaving Tithe at dawn, but she did not need to know that part.
“As if I am going to let you cook.” Auriol wrapped her arms around her slender frame and padded barefoot down the corridor towards our kitchenette. “The last thing I need is to catch a sickness before tomorrow. If I miss out on their arrival for another year, I will be pissed. It could be my turn and I’m not missing that for the sake of your cooking. Sit. Eggs?”
My skin crawled at the brief mention of tomorrow's festivities. I hated the elves on any day, but the idea of their visits always made me feel terrifying dread. Especially with the idea that Auriol was seen by them. My sister was beautiful, stealing her looks from our mother, from the flow of her thick, chestnut hair that fell all the way down to her tailbone, to the sharp etchings of her face. High cheekbones, narrow chin and eyes so wide it seemed she held the secrets of the universe within them.
The only thing that signified us as siblings was our eyes; one a deep brown, the other a bright diamond blue. Everyone in Tithe knew us from them, just as they had known our mother before she had passed.
Looking at Auriol was both wonderful and painful, unknowingly dragging memories to the surface, ones I had spent years burying.
“About tomorrow,” I started, already sensing Auriol’s dramatic roll of her eyes and tongue kissing across her teeth in displeasure. “What if I told you I would prefer that you sit it out?”
I watched her crack an egg into the lip of a bowl, noticeably harder than it needed to be. “Every year you do this. And every year I obey like the good little sister I am. This time, Arlo, I am going.”
Inevitably, this conversation was to happen one day. Auriol was twenty years old, younger than me by five years. But she had become an adult years ago. It forced Auriol to grow up far younger than she deserved. As scarless as her skin was, there was no denying the mark the lack of childhood had left upon her.
Upon us both.
Last year was the first time she had pushed against my refusal for us to both sit out the immortal’s visit to Tithe. So, I made her breakfast the morning of their arrival, which left us both bedbound with the shits. It was the effect of ensuring she was not placed before them like willing meat to the slaughter. Because I knew, if she was to have been seen by the elves, she would have been taken from me.
For that was what they do. Take. It was payment. At least that was what the Watchers reminded us of. A tithe for our safety. It was the reason our commune was called Tithe. Payment to be protected from the vampires beyond the wall.
But Auriol was worth more than keeping the occupants of this god-forsaken hovel safe. I could not see, nor allow her to be chosen. Selfishly, I needed her.
Likely more than she needs me.
“What if I begged?” I said, looking through my lashes as I watched her beat the eggs into a scramble. “Pretty please with a cherry—”
“I am allergic to cherries so you can shove your pleading in the same dark cavern that Tom sticks his long ego…”
“Okay, okay!” I forced a smile, trying to hide the true torment the idea of her going made me feel. “Stop whilst you're ahead before you put me off your wonderful cooking.”
