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Helena sees the anger and clasps her friend’s bicep. The action steadies them both as unspoken words pass between them. This is a friendship that has been tempered into a long-lasting bond. I’d seen nothing like this before. I’m not sure that anyone who doesn’t live in constant fear of brutality can create the trust these two have forged between them.
Helena turns to me and smirks. “So this is the male Elva has chosen over my brother.”
I can’t help feeling like I want to shrink. In my panic, I catch my fin on one of the decorative boulders that line the seafloor and tumble through the water. I am flabbergasted.
How in the hell did I manage that?!
Helena’s smirk hardens over. She does not find it endearing as Elva does.
“Can we come inside?” Elva asks, her eyes shifting from side to side to take in the surroundings.
Helena’s eyes stay on me for a few more moments before she nods and leads us to the front door.
“Hallie and James are visiting with their little fish sticks. They are out shopping for dinner they are putting on later. I suppose you both are invited.”
Elva laughs at Helena’s joke, but I keep my mouth shut as her stern glare bores into me. She stops looking at me, spreads her arms wide, “Welcome to my royal estate. A little small compared to what my older brother and younger sister have been given, but I am daddy’s little black lobster.”
I stare at the enormous room around me. Is thissmallto her? What in the actual nine circles of hell?
Helena catches my eyes, and I try to smile. “Nathan, be a dear and follow Barth to your room,” she says. “If you’re good, I’ll let you and Elva keep sleeping together.”
A dolphin with unnaturally human eyes comes alongside me and waits for me to make my way up the ramp. They aren’t stairs. Stairs aren’t necessary in the ocean, I guess.
Our furs from the surface have gotten so waterlogged and damaged from just a few hours in the salt water. A wave of relief washes over me when I see luxurious sealskins in the closets to replace the blue suede wasting away. An image of a drowned sailor intrudes into my mind’s eye, and I cringe.
In the center of the room is a sea anemone bed. I wonder how I might sleep adrift in the water. Then, when my brain imagines Elva and I putting the bed to good use, I hate it a bit less.
* * *
Voices carry differentlyin the water. This is the first lesson I learn when I swim silently back down the stairs, warm and content. Elva and Helena are seated on a sofa made of a giant oyster shell. I have a clear view of Helena, but not my Elva.
“... I don’t know what the hell you are doing. First, you abandon your position, and then you leave Henrick here waiting for you.”
“Please, shut up, Helena. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on, you think I won’t say anything because I am your friend? Elva, because I am your friend, I will tell you right now that this will end horribly. You don’t get to have frivolous lovers. You know the rules of the crowns. You get to marry once. He’s a skinny Summer Fae. There’s no way your mother will ever allow it. I’m more likely to witness his execution in the streets of the Ice City than I am to see you two married.”
Elva’s hands are rubbing against her forehead. She remains silent, much to my despair.
“Did you have sex with him? Is that what this is about? Is he the first one to make you feel like a female? He’s the size of a twig! I swear, you are the friskiest Winter Fae in the whole damned court. I get it–you needed to get laid. I told you to sleep with someone inconsequential so you wouldn’t get overly attached and you wouldn’t have any problem breaking it off before the wedding. You can’t try to tell me that Henrick didn’t offer.”
At the sound of her fiancé’s name, I tighten my fists.
“Helena, stop it.”
Ignoring her friend’s pleading, Helena opens her mouth to bombard her some more, but Elva cuts her off.
“I don’t want to marry your pompous-ass brother!” The finality in Elva’s words warms the pit forming in my stomach. “Henrick is a prick who has slept with half of the royals in every court. You, of all people, know how disgusting he is. How could you even suggest I touch him?”
“Because I fear the consequences of you not being with him more. I would help protect you from the worst after you were married.”
Elva flinches but continues. “You have never known someone like Nathan. Gods, Helena, when he touches me it feels like I am a living flame. My whole life I have spent encased in ice, but two seconds with him and I am burning, melting to the ground. But it’s so much more than that. He is kind and gentle, but most of all, he is loyal. Which is more than I can say for you right now.”
Helena’s eyes fly wide open at that last insult, and I can hear by her voice that Elva knows she has wounded Helena in the exact right way.
Elva doesn’t stop there. “Did you know that when he found out I was in trouble, he came looking for me? He lost everything. His job, his life, to be with me. He could be anywhere, with anyone back in that disgusting city, but he chooses me.”
Helena is silent, her face plastered with shame and hurt.
