“Which is?”
“Which is something I don’t want to share.”
“Why not?”
Like a bow string, my heart quivered. “Because it’ll hurt your feelings.”
Ace’s expression bruised.
A minute slid by in silence.
“I want to stop this. Stop us. It’s been fun, Ace, but I don’t want to be a concubine. I don’t want to be that girl who waits by the phone—by her brand—for her boyfriend to show up. I don’t want to come second to your sister.” Ace’s lips parted as wide as his eyes, but I continued speaking so he couldn’t. “We aren’t suited for each other, Ace.”
His breaths pulsed against the tip of my nose. Hot. Rapid. And then his face contorted. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how wrong we are. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ve had time—days—to think, and I don’t want to get in any deeper with you.”
Ace flinched and stepped back. The way he looked at me minced my heart into tiny pieces, but I couldn’t back down.
“If my brand lights up, don’t come. And don’t send anyone else. I can take care of myself.” I glanced at my toes, at the plum-purple polish I’d applied a week before when everything was still bright and lovely, when my father hadn’t died yet, when I hadn’t killed someone, when Cruz hadn’t asked me how much I cared for Ace.
He shuffled back toward me, his suede loafers settling an inch from my toenails. Ace’s hands were engulfed in flames.
Was he going to set me on fire?
I jerked back, hit the glass shower partition. Ace brought his hand up. I twisted my head and flattened my cheek against the still foggy glass. He raised his hand to my throat. I sucked in a breath, bracing myself for his searing touch. Blue fire danced over his skin. Over mine. My skin crackled. Sparked. I expected his fire to climb over my chin, travel down my collarbone, but it remained localized.
“Are you removing Stella’s dust?”
“I can’t manipulate another faerie’s dust.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m hemming your flesh,” he answered.
“Why?”
He squinted in concentration. The acrid, animal scent of burning skin prickled my nose. When he brought his hand down, he asked, “Did Cruz ask you to break up with me?”
“What?” My stomach hardened. I placed a palm against it, as though a palm could placate the sudden ache.
“I fixed you; you owe me. Did Cruz tell you to break up with me? Was that his gajoï? Is that why you’re pushing me away?”
Grief swelled in my throat, but my eyes stayed dry.
His hands gripped mine, squeezed them. “Tell me!”
“He didn’t ask me to break up with you.” The confession raced up my sore throat.
Ace’s usually golden skin turned silvery-white. He released my hands so fiercely my wrists knocked into the glass behind me, and then he backed away fast.
My heartbeats merged into one solid vibration.
He studied my face one last time, then grimaced. His disgust and spent hope pierced a red-hot path straight through my heart.
He turned.
Left.
Fled.
Hate. That was what he would feel for me from now on.
But this hate…it would keep him safe.
Cruz had double-crossed Lily and lied to me about Ace sending him. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but if Cruz spent his favor on a question about my feelings toward Ace, I could only imagine what he would do with my answer.
15
Faith’s Father
I practiced with Kajika the next day, but neither my head nor my heart were in it. All of my being was fixated on the ache inside of me.
During my sleepless night, my heart had swollen like a bruise.
“Catori, you are not even trying,” Kajika said.
He was right. I wasn’t. I ran the thick hem of my hoodie between my numb fingers.
“Let me take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.” Home reminded me of Stella and Ace.
“Where do you want to go?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Are you feeling guilty about having killed the faerie?”
“A little. I’ve never killed anyone before. And don’t tell me it gets easier, because I don’t want to kill again.”
“You might not have a choice if the Great Spirit is turning you into a huntress.”
“Everyone has a choice. We’re human. We make our own choices.”
Kajika narrowed his eyes. “Some choices are fated.”
“Oh, don’t give me that! There’s no such thing as fate.”
Like Kajika, Mom had believed in fate. She also believed fate could be altered if you willed something hard enough. As a kid, I’d felt her conviction was an oxymoron. If you believed in a puppet master, how could you also believe a puppet could move its own strings? Maybe my metaphor was awry. Maybe Mom hadn’t imagined humans as puppets, but as actors with a script and a director.
Ugh… Why was I thinking about freaking puppets? “Can you drop me off at Cass’s house? She lives on Downing—”
“I know where she lives.” Kajika crouched to gather the equipment we’d used.
“How?”
“I know where all faeries reside.”
“Cass isn’t— I mean, she is, but she doesn’t even know what she is.”
“I am aware of this, Catori, but I am nonetheless cautious. You should be also. Especially now that you…” He let his voice drag off, but I heard the implied words. Now that I’ve killed a member of her family.
I tugged on my ponytail, made it so tight I thought my hair might pop out of its follicles.
“Will you confess to her?”
“No. I have so few friends.” Truthfully, Cass was the only friend I had left. “I can’t lose her.”
He nodded gravely. “So you will pretend it did not happen?”
“Exactly.”
“Will Faith not wonder?”
“She’ll assume her mother never came back from one of her trips. Stella was always gone anyway.” My gaze zipped to his. “You won’t say anything, will you?”
He unrolled his long, muscular body. “It is none of my business, Catori.” He heaved the duffel bag over his shoulder.
As we walked out of the barn, I bit down on my lip. “You don’t trust Cruz, do you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because if you do, you need to stop. He’s evil.”
Kajika frowned. “Evil?” He spoke the word almost as though it were foreign to him, but if anyone knew evil, it was a hunter who’d lived through the Dark Day.
“Remember the book that faeries stole from me?”
“The one that was afterward stolen from them?”
I nodded. With a fingertip, I traced the W on my hand, but touching it felt like running a blade over my heart, so I jerked my hand away. “It wasn’t stolen from them, Kajika. Lily traded it for the spell that transferred my brand to Ace.”
A breeze flipped the nascent leaves on the trees and ruffled the blades of grass.
“When Gregor realized it was gone, Cruz pointed his finger at Lily, and now she’s in trouble. He backstabbed his fiancé, Kajika. I don’t know much about faerie relationships or politics, but that seems pretty cruel and wrong. So promise me not to trust him.”
He gave a curt nod. “I will be especially wary from now on.”
We climbed into the rusty truck. For most of the drive, my thoughts wandered back to Ace. My eyes burned with tears that finally spilled over.
Kajika glanced at me but didn’t ask any questions. Maybe he already knew—he seemed to know everything that concerned faeries—or maybe he didn’t want to know. Good, because I didn’t want to discuss my heartache with him. Not because I thought he didn’t know much about it. He and my father were the two leading experts on the subject, both having lost their other halves, but I didn’t want to disc
uss Ace with Kajika.
I wanted to discuss Ace with Cass, though. But I needed to be careful about what I told her in case Cruz paid her a visit. Cruz couldn’t know I’d broken up with Ace to protect him. Cruz needed to believe I didn’t care about Ace.
We drove in silence the rest of the way. When we passed Holly’s property, I recalled the conversation I’d had with my father a couple weeks back. Apparently, Holly had bequeathed her property to me. Dad had asked if I would expel all those vagrants—Kajika’s clan had become so numerous, they’d set up tents. It did look like a music festival campsite now. Even though I’d told Dad I would think about it, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d been too busy thinking about a bunch of other things.
But now that I did, I decided that as long as Kajika was around, I wouldn’t evict his clan.
Soon, we passed Blake’s rectangular house. A light was on in the living room. My heart squeezed as tight as a fist.
Kajika cocked his head toward the house too. I watched him watch the house as we slid past it.
“Is Blake’s consciousness still very present in your head?”
The car jounced over a pothole. Winter had been cruel to Rowan, pockmarking our town’s asphalt roads with treacherous cracks and shallow craters.
“He has become dimmer, but sometimes, when I get close to things he loved, one of his memories will strike me.”
I studied Kajika’s profile. I wondered if by things he meant people too. Did Blake’s passion for me still torture the hunter? I didn’t dare ask, because if it did, I wouldn’t know what to say or how to deal with it. It wasn’t my fault but filled me with guilt nonetheless.
We drove by several more houses, some circled by white picket fences yellowed by winter, some by patchy hedges in dire need of a trim, before pulling up in front of Cass’s two-story house.
I hopped out of the car and shut the door. “Thank you,” I said through the open passenger window.
“I promised I would teach you—”
“I’m not thanking you for that. I’m thanking you for not pushing me to tell you what’s wrong.”
He didn’t respond.
“You’re a good friend.”
His mouth pressed tightly together. “The one thing I never wanted to be.”
I stiffened.
After a long beat, he sighed. “Would you like to train this weekend?”
I nodded, then backed away from the car.
Once he made a U-turn and left, I walked up to Cass’s front door. My finger was about to touch the doorbell when the front door opened.
Cassidy screeched, then clapped her hand over her heart. “You scared the bejesus out of me, Cat.”
“And I didn’t even say BOO.” I smiled. “Where are you off to?”
“Faith called to ask if I could give her a hand at the bakery this afternoon. She has an ultrasound. Still can’t believe she’s going to be a mama.” Cass scanned the street, eyes darting left and right behind her bangs. “I shouldn’t say this, but I can’t picture her being very good at it.” She bit her lip, wrinkled her nose. “I really shouldn’t have said that. That was pretty nasty.”
“You’re just saying what everyone’s thinking. Do we know who the father is?”
“She hasn’t told me, but she and I aren’t close.” She took her car keys out of her bag.
“Want company?”
“You’re not busy?”
“Nope.”
“Where’s lover boy?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Why wouldn’t you—”
I made a sad little sound and pressed my knuckles against my wobbly lips.
“Did you guys break up?”
I nodded.
Her arms went around me and tucked me in tight. “Aw, sweetie.”
A dam broke inside my heart. I cried for Ace, but also for my dad and Stella. I wanted to tell Cass everything. Because I couldn’t, I cried harder. I was such a mess.
“Come on, let’s get you a cupcake.” She unwound her arms, grabbed my hand, and dragged me over to her bubblegum-pink car.
“I don’t want a cupcake,” I mumbled. Cupcakes reminded me of Stella and Ace.
She settled behind her steering wheel and pulled her seatbelt across her chest. “What about a slice of pound cake?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You don’t need to be hungry to eat cake. Plus you look like you just worked out”—she nodded toward my attire—“so you need to replenish your energy.” Her eyes snagged on my neck, around which I’d tied a thin scarf. She hooked her finger into it and tugged it down. Her eyes grew as wide as snow globes. “You got a tattoo?”
I swallowed, about to tell her it was a temporary tat, but it wasn’t like it was going to go away.
I’d tried.
I’d failed.
“Yeah. Bad idea.”
“Are you joking? It’s hot! But I am a little pissed you didn’t tell me about it. I would so have gone with you. I’ve been dying to get a tattoo on my hip.” She pulled my scarf further down, then made me twist my neck this way and that to get a full picture.
She squinted, which made me wonder if she could see the dust move. Part of me wanted her to; another part of me didn’t. “It’s gorge. Where’d you get it done?”
Automatically I told her, “The tattoo place in Ruddington.” Technically, I did get a tattoo there—the word human on my hand.
She pulled the car out of the driveway. “What made you get it on your neck?”
“Gottwa tradition. Women would get tattoos around their necks after their first kill.” What in the world prompted me to add that last part? Was it a way to confess without confessing?
Cass jammed her foot into the brake pedal. My body lurched forward. “You killed someone?”
I blinked at her, blanched. “What?”
She pointed at my neck. “You just said women got them—”
“I just meant it was Gottwa tradition. It set the strongest females apart.”
“So it’s to show everyone you’re badass now?”
My lips twitched with a despondent smile. “Exactly.”
“Your mom would’ve been proud of you. Upholding Gottwa traditions and everything.”
My dear mother. Would she have been proud? Nah. “She would’ve flipped out.”
Cass tipped an eyebrow up. “What did your dad think?”
“He hasn’t seen it yet.” Kajika had wiped his mind, so he’d forgotten about it. “He’ll probably hate it.”
“Whatevs. It’s your neck. Your choice. It’s not like you’re thirteen anymore. Speaking of being thirteen, I decided to do a bonfire on the beach for my birthday. Did you ask A— Crap. I’m sorry. You probably don’t want him there.”
I squashed my lips tight and nodded. It’s not that I didn’t want him there, but I was quite certain he wouldn’t want to be there.
“I invited Lara and Josh. Did you hear they’re engaged? How insane is that? I also asked Robbie. He said he’d come and bring some of his Cornell buddies and…” She continued listing our high school friends, then started on her summer camp friends. When we parked in front of the beachside bakery, she was still filling me in on the gossip. “Oh, and Mara’s also expecting! She’s due this summer, just like Faith. But she’s married to the baby-daddy.”
“So basically, the whole state of Michigan is attending your birthday party?”
Cass grinned. “Basically.” She whipped her bag from the backseat and twisted the key out of the ignition.
Astra’s was busy. Faith snaked around the bakery, carrying a tray topped with mugs and plated cakes. Her cheeks were flushed and shiny with sweat. The second she saw Cass, she exhaled, but then her blue gaze narrowed on me.
I trailed Cass behind the white marble countertop and through the swinging door. A moment later, Faith erupted into the pantry. “What’s she doing here?”
“Hello to you too, Faith,” I said.
Cass pulled her denim jack
et off and hung it on a peg in the wall. “She came to hang out—”
“It’s a real job, Cass, not a playdate,” Faith snapped.
Cass rolled her eyes. “Chill, Faith. I know what a job is.”
“If you have an extra apron, I’ll help out.”
“I don’t have money to pay you both.”
I jammed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. “You don’t have to pay me.”
“You’d do it for free?” Faith’s dark amber eyebrows almost collided on her pale forehead. “Why?”
“Because I live at home and don’t need the money.”
“Right.” She folded her arms over her stomach that now ballooned out. “Your new boyfriend must pay for everything now.”
I decided not to let her tone get to me, even though Faith was quite the pro when it came to getting under my skin. “You know me. I’m all about handouts.”
Faith jerked back, her glossy reddish-brown hair frolicking around her shoulders. It took her a moment to recover from the shock of my admission. The worst part was she actually believed me. “Okay, but lose the hoodie and the scarf. You look like a tweaker.”
I was about to lash back, but decided to let my throat do the talking. So I unrolled my scarf and unzipped my hoodie. Faith’s eyes bugged out. “What the fuck is on your neck?”
Your mother’s stupid dust. Obviously, I didn’t say that. “Something’s on my neck?” I palmed the spot she was looking at, then approached the mirror hung next to the door.
Cass laughed. “She got inked. I think it’s pretty awesome.”
Faith handed Cass a purple apron, then tossed one to me. “Wait till her skin sags.”
My lips quirked into a smile. Faith was one brutally honest girl, but these days, I seriously favored honesty over backstabbing.
“Keep the scarf, Cat. I don’t want the customers fleeing because they think you’re a Ruddington biker hoe.”
I snorted.
“That’s cold, cuz,” Cass said, tying her dark hair up into a ponytail.
“Well it’s true. Who gets a freakishly enormous filigree tattoo on their neck?”
“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been on my face.”
She grimaced as though a shot of tequila had gone down her airway.
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