As it was, though, she couldn’t wait until they were out of Citrine and through Moonstone and could eat and drink again.
Finally, once Betty stopped circling and straightened out, gaining speed, Cha dropped into exhausted slumber.Her sleep stayed as uneasy as her heart and mind, however, plagued by dreams of trudging in endless uphill circles while tiny fairies swirled around her singing the cart song.And while Azul flew overhead, circling like a vulture, remote and untouchable, never touching ground.
A fish can love a bird, but where will they live?
~29~
Wake-Up Call
Cha didn’t knowif it was the disorienting jolt of the transition from one fae realm to another that woke her, or the fact that Azul was awake in the claustrophobic dark of the cubby.And somehow still staring at her.
She also didn’t know how she knew.He hadn’t moved or spoken.His shoulder under her cheek was no less bony and forbidding.She should probably add him being able to see in the dark to his list of preternatural abilities.Still, she was aware of two things for sure: he was fully awake and alert, and they’d crossed into a different fae realm.What she wasn’t sure of was which one.She really hoped it was Obsidian, but she doubted her luck there.
“Moonstone.”Azul’s voice came cold and remote in answer to her unasked question.“I would ask why I have awakened from an enchanted sleep in Moonstone when I’m supposed to be getting married in Citrine, but I expect I already know the answer to that: Arantxa Evermore, generator of chaos.The Bandit lives up to her name.”
And here it was.It some ways it was a relief to have the suspense over with.She’d been rehearsing this fight in her head ever since she made the decision to smuggle him out.“I won’t tell you I’m sorry,” she said, turning onto her back and speaking into the darkness.“Because that would be a lie.I’m not sorry in the least.”
“And you aren’t going to tell a lie.”His voice brittle.“Not you.”
“Not about this.And I didn’t break my promise.I only promised to leave Citrine that night and I did.I never said I’d leave you behind.”
“You bargain like a fae.”
“No need to hurl insults,” she cracked.
He didn’t reply, unless a long, deep sigh counted as one.“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”he finally asked.
“Saved your ass?”
“Destroyed it, more like.You need to let me out of this… human coffin you’ve stowed me in.”
Cha considered the implications of that order.Why hadn’t he simply let himself out before she was awake?“Hmm,” she pondered aloud.“I have a lot of needs, but that isn’t something I’m feeling.”
“Arantxa,” he ground out.“You are testing me sorely.”
“Am I?”she countered in an innocent tone.“I think I’m protecting you.”
“You’re going to destroy everything I sacrificed for.”Now he sounded despairing.“Between you selling the Citrine fae agnicurna and making me miss my own wedding, I won’t be able to come back from this.You’ll ruin me.I trusted you as I’ve never trusted anyone and I will never forgive you for betraying me.”
A rill of fear ran through her, along with unaccustomed guilt.She wasn’t afraid of what he might do to her, no, but she found herself terribly afraid in that moment of losing him forever.Which made no sense as she’d already lost him forever once before.It had hurt.A lot.But she’d survived.Maybe because she’d believed he hadn’t truly wanted to leave her, that he’d been forced to by circumstance and might have chosen otherwise, given the opportunity.Now he sounded as if she’d crossed a fatal line and done the unforgivable.
And she supposed she had betrayed his trust, but it was for his own good, wasn’t it?She was human, as every damned fae seemed intent on reminding her, and tricky fae politics and theirinternecinewars had nothing to do with her.The fae were happy enough to conduct their power plays without regard for humans, so why should she care?
Except she cared about Azul.Too much.She’d never meant to harm him, only help him.And she supposed this outcome was typical for her.“Generator of chaos” wasn’t wrong.
She flailed internally, having no idea how to handle this.She had no way to grapple with relationship things.This was why she’d always stuck to casual encounters.The prospect of Azul losing his regard for her—which had always been there, despite everything else—made her heart twist in funny, decidedly unpleasant ways.She really wished she wasn’t crammed up in this tiny space with him, the scent and feel of him all around her, making her hungry for him the way wafting smell of cooking dinner made you suddenly feel starving.It didn’t help that she was actually hungry for food and desperately thirsty.Since they were still in Moonstone, she couldn’t do anything about that.
A thought that only intensified the dread foreboding that she couldn’t do anything about losing Azul again—still?—and this time not due to him and his secrets, but because she’d royally fucked things up.
“No smart retorts?”Azul finally asked, voice drier than her throat.“I’d call it a miracle except this is a disaster.What’s the catastrophic version of a miracle?”
“Why did you tell Lenorae I was ‘no one’?”Cha asked, the question slipping out before she’d realized that had risen to the top of her tumultuous thoughts and feelings.
“What?”He sounded legitimately surprised.
She turned on her side, even though she still couldn’t see him in the lightless space, because she wanted that sense of looking at him.“When I dropped you off in the neither here-nor-there place.You told Lenorae that I was ‘no one’ and your ‘ride and nothing more.’Why did you say that about me?”
“I wouldn’t say that name too many times if I were you,” he cautioned.