by Ellie Margot
“Two rooms here,” said Jackson. “Another down the way if you need it. I’d go with two, though, to save some money for downstairs, but it’s your choice.” He unlocked the rooms and let them look inside.
They were functional but small. Each had a bed, a dresser, and a door that led to a small but equipped bathroom.
“Two’s fine,” said Guy.
“Glad to hear it,” said Jackson.
He looked at Riette again before turning back toward Guy.
“You can settle it with me downstairs when you get a drink.”
“We don’t drink,” said Riette.
Jackson looked at her again. His face was pinched, but then he relaxed it. He smiled in a small way before speaking.
“Everyone drinks at the Down & Inn, to health or to what’s behind them. Even if it’s lemonade.”
Her mouth opened, but Guy cut her off before she could say anything. “No liquor. Made of lemons and sugar. You’ll like it, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” said Riette.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” said Cassian. He put his hand on Riette’s shoulder but quickly removed it, remembering himself. “We’ll be down soon.”
Jackson watched the exchange, nodded, and then clapped his hands once and walked the path back downstairs.
They hardly got settled in the room before Guy led them back downstairs. It was a short discussion, but Mekhi and Corin weren’t getting a lovers’ suite. Cassian was willing to have a coronary over the idea, his nerves worn invisibly thin by their close proximity thus far on the trip.
Mekhi would get to stay in the room with Corin, but Riette was going to share with them too, and she was overjoyed with that.
Guy and Cassian would share the other.
Back downstairs, Guy had wanted to start in the dive bar until he realized he wouldn’t see Jackson or Cara in there, so they ended up on the “nice” side.
They found a table in the back corner. The seating would have forced them close together, but to minimize it, Riette sat on the end.
Guy left their table to find Jackson and pay for the rooms, but Jackson followed him back to where they sat.
Jackson’s eyes found Riette’s, and she didn’t let herself look back long, though she thought she saw something like desire in his eyes she shouldn’t have. Not with the exchange he had had with Cara when they had arrived.
Jackson moved a seat from another table to the spot right next to Riette, and she noticed Cassian stiffen on the other side of the table.
“We didn’t get a chance to speak earlier,” Jackson said quietly.
“No, we didn’t.”
“I had to fix that.” He crossed his arms on the table and looked her over, from her hair to the rest that he could see while she sat.
Riette turned to see where Cara was, and she found her easily. She was the only one in the room looking back at Riette. The only one that noticed everything happening at their table.
“Consider it fixed,” Riette said, and her tattoo burned. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, but she wasn’t going to encourage him.
“Not until I’ve gotten you that lemonade.”
“She’s fine,” said Cassian. He was leaned back in a casual position, but the tension in his jaw was at odds with it.
Riette sat forward, looking at Cassian before looking back at Jackson. “I’d like to try it.”
“Done.”
Jackson signaled over his head, and a waiter appeared. He ordered drinks for everyone at the table, based on whether or not they wanted alcohol. When they got to Cassian, he looked squarely at Riette before saying that he did want alcohol.
“I figure, why not?” he said.
“Cassian—” Riette started before she could even help herself.
“Good man,” said Jackson.
They all got their drinks moments later. The lemonade was good, cool, but Cassian took to his alcoholic drink quickly.
He choked on the first swallow, but he went back to his drink with every intention of becoming a pro.
“We actually need your help,” said Riette. She focused on Jackson, telling herself that Cassian could take care of himself. Her taking charge over him would just make him want it more.
“Yeah?” Jackson asked, leaning in. “I didn’t think you’d need anyone.”
“Everyone needs someone.”
“We’re of the same mind on that,” Jackson said quietly.
“You know an Ella?” Cassian asked, cutting in. His hands hit the table too hard. His movements were clunky, less relaxed.
“I know a lot of people,” said Jackson.
Guy interjected. “She’s an Elf. Owns her own inn?”
“Leaf Landing Ella?”
“That’s it,” said Guy, snapping his fingers. “I knew it was something like that.”
“You didn’t know shit,” said Mekhi.
“Yeah, Ella is an institution,” said Jackson. “She’s owned Leaf Landing for—shit—ever since she left y’all’s neck of the woods.”
“Vitan?” asked Riette.
Jackson leaned back in to Riette’s part of the table and looked her over again before nodding once. “Right. Your place. I thought all of the Elves are trying to leave there.”
“Why would we be leaving?” asked Riette.
“That seems like something you’d be answering more than me,” said Jackson, and a puzzled look passed over his face before disappearing.
“Don’t bore the man,” said Guy.
“She’s not,” Jackson said. “The Weakening fucked y’all’s heads, I guess.”
“The Weakening?” asked Riette.
“Can I have another drink?” asked Cassian. His jaw was set.
Jackson looked back at him, and a smile was on his face for a ghost of a second. Something passed between them. Another woman gestured to him from the bar. He nodded at her.
“Coming right up, champ,” said Jackson as he looked back at Cassian. He turned back to the rest of the table as he stood. He knocked one knuckle on it before looking at Riette.
“Y’all have a good night. You need anything, you let me know.”
And then Jackson was gone.
Chapter 4
Riette got up to head upstairs. Cassian’s eyes were on her back, and Corin offered to go with her, but she didn’t take her up on it and refused to let Cassian check on her.
A quick glance showed him biting his tongue—all but literally—and Riette was thankful for it.
He was two drinks in, and more were coming. She wondered for a moment if Guy could pay for all of that and how he possibly could keep it up, but she didn’t let herself linger there.
She wouldn’t be Cassian’s mother, and on her best day, she was never good at being his keeper.
It was always the other way around. That was how their world worked, but now that world was distant, and Riette knew less and less of it with every passing hour.
She didn’t make eye contact with anyone at the bar.
There were women there. No one was naked, but the men stared as if they could wish it so.
There was a woman working that side of the bar. She was Cara’s opposite. Cold. Dark Haired. Solidly curved and had a hard set to her jaw.
Their eyes showed that they were different. Creatures from somewhere Riette didn’t know, her expression told Riette she wouldn’t be welcome to ask either.
Other than her, the only thing that caught Riette’s eye before she left the room behind her was the collection of fairies at the bar.
They weren’t small, but they had their wings showing, and when she looked at one, the man bared his teeth, every pointy one of them, and Riette looked away.
She wasn’t afraid, but she wasn’t above wanting to fuck something up, and she knew better than to give in to herself. She couldn’t lose focus. She had a mission.
Riette said goodnight to the others and walked upstairs to their room. The room was empty, just like she needed it to be. Guy
had gotten the keys from Jackson and had given her one.
When she got settled inside, she let Bark and Barry out of the bag and onto the bed.
Riette chewed on some Vitan and watched them stretch and move. When Barry did it though, blue bits of fur fell onto the bed, and he chuckled in a way that was almost human when she tried to pick up the strands.
It was a bitch, but she got most of them. She didn’t want to have that conversation with the others. Not yet.
They were best kept in the dark.
“You’re my little secret,” Riette told them. She touched the underside of Barry’s chin, and Bark didn’t come closer. He watched the two of them and stuck up what could be considered his chin.
He grumbled, and even though it was hard to hear, she still heard him.
“I’m not embarrassed of you,” she said.
He gave her a look.
“I’m not. Do you think I’m enjoying carrying you around?”
Grumble.
“I’m not calling you fat, okay? You’re so prickly.”
He grumbled again.
“Yeah, I would be mad too if I was stuffed in a bag with a very toothy primate, but these are the breaks right now, okay?”
Bark rolled his eyes, and Barry, after watching their exchange, took the chunk of Vitan that Riette had in her fingertips and hopped across the bed to give it to Bark.
“That’s cute, but it’s cannibalism,” said Riette.
They both gave her blank stares, and Bark set the piece down before patting Barry on the head.
They were quiet for a minute, and it was almost cute, but then Barry nipped at Bark’s hand, and it devolved into chaos.
She split the two of them up, turned off the light, and they settled in next to her.
Riette looked outside her window, and there was noise beneath her. Thrumming and bumps from a small band she guessed was playing in the bar.
The guitar player played a beat that she felt in her heart and in her bones. It was a steady rhythm, and Riette couldn’t hear any of the other instruments.
The beat brought her mood lower than it was before. Riette looked at the starred sky outside, and her breath caught.
Vitan was a world away. Fairies were beneath her, and her friends were here, not because they needed to be, but because she wanted them there.
Was wanting them there any justification?
Riette shook her head. Tears didn’t fall, but her face was tight. Dirt from the travels was still covering her skin in a light layer, and her tattoo burned again.
It cast a glow in the otherwise darkened room.
She knew the others would be coming soon, but for that moment, it was her and her thoughts, as fucked up as they wanted to be, with no interruption to them.
The other two were almost sleep, and since Riette knew the others would be coming eventually, she got them settled back in the bag.
They didn’t protest, which was all the proof she needed to know they were tired. And she let them sleep while her brain refused her the privilege.
She let the stars speak and said nothing. She hated herself for bringing the rest of the them there, and she let all of those thoughts have their moment in her head.
Riette took a breath, and the burn of her tattoo ebbed and flowed until it was a tiny hum inside of her. It made her feel close to her mother. It made her remember Alluette etching the lines of her lineage into her skin.
And with that thought at the front of her mind, she tried not to think anymore at all.
She couldn’t afford to do it and run the risk of falling to pieces. It was only alone that she could have the pleasure of letting herself feel weak. When she woke up, she would know differently. Riette would be different, because that’s who she needed to be.
Sleep found Riette, but it came in starts and stops. The bag was next to her on the bed, and she wrapped her body around it to keep it near and safe.
Then she heard it.
It was the sound of someone trying to open the door. Their attempts were awkward, though. The door was locked, and the moves were uncoordinated.
Riette sat up in bed. She didn’t move the bag, but the tattoo burned on her side. It could be Cassian, or someone trying to kill her. But then she heard his voice.
“It’s good you locked the door,” said Guy. She heard his body slump against it. “Don’t know what kind of fuckwads are out here.”
She didn’t know if it was smarter to pretend to be sleep or to just call out, but she went with the latter. “You’re out there,” Riette countered.
“I put your boy to bed,” he started.
“He’s not my boy,” Riette said. She knew he was talking about Cassian, and she knew it was petty to answer that way.
She walked to the door and cracked it.
“Can we talk?” Guy asked. He held the frame, but his shoulders were stooped.
“About?”
“I may have drank too much. Mekhi and Corin are in their room already.” He shouldered past her inside, but he didn’t jar her. He slipped in, his narrow frame maneuvering as he entered the room.
There was another bed in there, and he found it barely before flopping onto it. He leaned back on his hands and smiled at her.
“Make yourself at home,” Riette said. She closed the door and rubbed her shoulder. Her tattoo still burned from all of the emotions still brewing inside of her from before. She wasn’t worried about Guy.
To be honest, she knew she could take him. Even though, at that thought, the understanding that she hadn’t really seen what her powers could do yet made her palms itch and fingers twitch from the power within them.
He considered her for a moment. Then he let out a breath. “It’s not my fault, you know?”
“What isn’t?”
“I wasn’t going to drink this much.”
“I’ve seen you drink before.”
“For fun.”
Riette crossed the room and sat on her own bed, being careful not to disturb her bag.
“This wasn’t fun?” she asked him.
“This is what torture is defined as.”
“No one asked you to overdo it,” she said.
“Didn’t he, though?”
Riette swallowed.
“Look at your face,” Guy started. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “You two—”
“Don’t start.”
He held his hands up. “I’m not. I can see it. Maybe you all can’t.”
“There’s nothing to see—”
“He didn’t want to drink alone.”
“He shouldn’t be drinking at all.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t need to be reckless.”
Guy laughed. “Drinking isn’t reckless. It’s letting off steam. It’s part of life.”
“If you want to escape your life.”
“And that’s normal.”
“It’s sad.”
Guy shook his head. “You hate him?”
Riette paused. She shook her head for half of a second. She didn’t know if Guy noticed or not.
He didn’t do anything for a beat, and then he nodded.
“Right. See? That’s what I told him. Whatever this is will pass. You know that, I know that, but he doesn’t know that. He thinks you’ll hate him forever.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Exactly.”
“He’s family.”
“Look, I’ve been on both sides,” Guy started. He looked clear eyed at that point, and it was such a quick transition that Riette wondered if the rest was all for show.
“I’ve fucked people over, and people have had their turn shitting on me.”
“Poetry.”
Guy chuckled and looked down for a second. He smiled seemingly to himself and then faced her again. His eyes creased around the corners, but his shoulders were rigid, at odds with everything else about him.
“If he’s really family, I think you should be able to forgive him for
a mistake, right?”
“You don’t beat around the bush much, do you?”
“Would you have kept me around long if I did?”
“I have a choice in keeping you around?” Her smile softened the words, but what he said gave her pause.
There was a lump forming in her throat. It was a collection of all the things that had been pooling in her before, compounded by the issues she was having with Cassian.
“We’ll be fine—eventually,” she said after several moment had passed. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to make up yet, though.”
Guy rolled his eyes. “Of course not. That would make far too much sense.”
They slept like the dead had taught them how personally.
The morning brought hope and promise, and every other lie that Riette was telling herself.
But they didn’t have time to think.
Leaf’s Landing wasn’t all that far away, and after checking out downstairs, they started off.
Cassian was the slowest to get moving, but Riette knew that it would be worth pushing him.
If her grandmother’s book was that close, it was worth just about anything.
Chapter 5
“It’s not a shithole,” said Mekhi as they stood in front of the structure.
Leaf Landing was dark. The colors and the sky around it when they got there made everything on her tingle. Her tattoo. Her fingertip. The butterflies in her stomach.
“Of course, it’s not,” said Guy. He took a few steps in front of them and looked up at the structure.
Riette saw the unshaven scruff on his neck when he tilted his head up and swallowed. There was a bounce in his step when he shifted his weight from one foot to the next. A hand touched her fingers for a breath of a second, shaking her from her trance.
Riette looked to her side to see Cassian. He didn’t turn when she faced him. He saw where she had been looking.
“I don’t like this place,” said Cassian. Riette didn’t know if it was to himself or her.
Maybe he wanted to make peace.
“It has a certain... vibe,” said Riette.
“Like there could be a dead body inside,” said Mekhi.
“Really?” asked Corin.
“You weren’t thinking that?”
