Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

* * *

I try not to think about the way my entire body stills when I insert the key to the apartment in the lock. The insane rush of life in the sídhe vanishes, replaced with a quietude I didn’t know I missed until I return to it. It’s taken almost six years, but this shoebox has finally worked its magic.

This is home. For a few weeks more, anyway.

I don’t have time for the pang accompanying that thought. I bought some time, but it will be gone in a blink.

It appears no one’s around. The kitchen’s empty and the satyr’s usual music isn’t blaring. I’m almost to my bedroom door when I hear the floor in Smith’s room creak.

The door swings open and he emerges with an empty coffee cup. The moment he sees me, he stops and rubs a hand awkwardly over the back of his neck.

The sight of him is a gut shot. His hair is still damp, drying into strange swoops and whorls. He’s wearing worn jeans and a hooded Mathers sweatshirt that clashes with his eyes and his feet are bare.

I could still walk out of the apartment.

“Hey,” I say instead, voice rougher than I’d like.

He takes out his earbuds and stares at my chest. “Hi.”

“The satyr’s not here?”

I didn’t think it was possible for him to get any redder, but the flush has spread to the roots of his hair now. “Date with Sue.”

I want to linger here, try to talk with him a little more, but my bag’s heavy. I hear him behind me on his way to the kitchen, probably to drop off the mug, as I enter my room and face my empty bed.

Sleep hasn’t come easily in the sídhe. I’d fall asleep haunted by the way Smith had sighed when I teased my fingers through his hair. Waking up alone left me imagining what it would be like to see his face beside me instead. I long for intimacies I have no right to claim.

There’s a soft noise near my doorway; I drop my bag on the bed and start to put my things away, pretending he’s not lurking behind me like a giant shadow. I pretend I don’t reach out with my glamour to rub against the energy of the ley line because it seems right to do that. I pretend not to hear his soft exhalation when our magicks mingle. Goddess, it was stupid of me to come back before absolutely necessary.

“You’re home early,” he finally says.

“Yes.”

He takes an unsteady breath before rattling off, “I guess I thought it would take you longer to meet with your mother and figure out what the Unseelie are going to do next.”

“Our meeting was precautionary—” I lie, but trail off at the sight of what’s sitting on my desk.

It’s nothing fancy. A small wood-and-glass frame. The picture inside is a little out of focus, like the photographer couldn’t quite stand still long enough to snap the image with his cell phone. But it doesn’t matter. The golden fields offset the rich purples and pinks of the sunset. On a rolling hill in the distance, a small white farmhouse keeps watch over the land and another gentle hill swells behind it.

Books and homework forgotten on the corner of my desk, I step closer so I can reach out and run a tentative finger over the corner of the picture frame.

I recognize this place from the stories I hear through my door when Smith recounts his holiday adventures to Herman and Sue.

He gave me a picture for my room.

He gave me a fucking picture of his home.

His mouth moves, but I don’t hear the words as I push past him. The walls close in. This is what it means to be buried alive.

I stumble my way out of the building, in desperate need of air. Space. Anything but the joy and loss pulsing through me. It’s too much, too dangerous. Too easy to give in to temptation.

“Lyne!”

He followed me. He runs toward me, his bare feet almost silent on the grass. “Are you okay?”

No. Not okay. N

ever will be okay again, knowing that all this—his thoughtfulness, his affection, his hard-won acceptance—will be stolen from me by magick in a matter of weeks. All I’ve ever wanted, sacrificed.