Revelry

by Chani Feener

  “What?” Her mind blanked out for a few seconds before she was able to focus again. “Everyone kept saying it was impossible.”

  “I know!” Excitedly, Tabby dropped off the bed, settling down on the pile of blankets next to Arden. She grabbed her hands, clutching them tightly in her own. “But the fae lie, we both know that!”

  “How did you find it?” She sounded numb even to her own ears, but couldn’t muster a semblance of the hope she heard in her best friend’s voice. Didn’t want to risk it.

  “Cole should probably be the one to tell you,” Tabby began, “but whatever. He felt so bad about what he’d said the other day, he went back to the Goblin market for the first time since breaking his curse.”

  “He what?”

  “I know,” she waved her concerns off, “and I already yelled at him for it, that’s not the point. He found something. Brix and the market left tonight, and they were in the process of packing when he got there, so the fae were more forthcoming with information. One of them, someone Cole has known since he’d been cursed, figured they’d be far enough away from Mavek by morning that it’d be safe enough to tell us! About three hundred years ago, a boy was tricked into becoming an Unseelie in a similar fashion. He figured out a way to reverse the change just in time!”

  “How?” Arden was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that a random Unseelie in the market had known about this. Of course he would have kept quiet for fear of punishment by Mavek. But how many others knew the secret she’d been searching for as well? How many others had laughed at her from the shadows as she and her friends had scrambled desperately these past few months?

  Maybe even more importantly, how did they know this information could even be trusted?

  “Cole didn’t get a chance to tell me everything,” Tabby waved her hand to the side, “but if it’s possible what does it matter? Aren’t you willing to do anything?”

  Was she?

  Arden didn’t want to disappoint her friend, didn’t want to be the catalyst that pushed them back into awkward silences, but…

  “I was willing to do anything before, remember?” she said. “I entered the Tithe and ended up putting everyone I care about in even more danger. I want to believe there’s a way to stop this, Tabby, I really do, but I have to be honest with you. Even if what Cole found is real, I have to draw the line somewhere. There are certain things I won’t do.”

  She couldn’t let herself become the thing that Tabby feared. She couldn’t become a monster, even if it was to stop herself from becoming an Unseelie.

  It wasn’t just the people here that she was worried about, either. Ainsley was still out there living with the sight, and as the sister of the girl who’d helped send the Erlking to the Underground, she was already at greater risk than she’d been a few months ago. It might not have been her intention, but Arden had done that.

  Somehow, she’d gotten away with harming a faerie regent. She wasn’t foolish enough to assume she’d get away with it a second time. She could stomach pissing off Mavek by keeping herself human, but only if she could keep the others from getting dragged into this mess.

  “I can’t be selfish again,” Arden continued. “I joined the Tithe to save myself and my sister. I never even considered what that might mean for you, or what you’d go through if you lost me.”

  When Tabby was on the verge of being taken to the Underground by those water fae, Arden had lost it. The thought of never getting to see her friend again, of not knowing what would happen to her once she’d disappeared, had been so debilitating it was a wonder she’d managed to act against the Erlking at all.

  She’d willingly signed up for the Tithe with the belief that she’d be trading her own soul, not once considering what that might mean for the people she’d be leaving behind. In her mind, the tradeoff had been worth it. How could saving her little sister from a wicked fate not be?

  On its own, she still believed in that line of thinking—she’d do anything for Ainsley—but now she was wiser. Now she truly understood what the Unseelie were capable of, and how they lied. If only she’d stopped and looked at the Tithe clearly, seen the webs of deceit earlier and realized it was too good to be true, then she might have avoided all of this.

  “Arden—”

  “Can you accept that?” she cut her off, needing to put it out there before it was too late. Hoping that Tabby would at least try to understand where she was coming from. “If I choose not to go through with whatever Cole found, can you accept that?”

  Tabby searched her face for a long moment, obviously torn. “Cole said something to me the other day, but I don’t think you heard it. You must have left before.”

  It took her a moment to figure out that Tabby was referring to their conversation at Howl’s. Arden had left as quickly as she was able.

  “Right after I made that comment, the one that hurt you so badly, he told me, ‘She’s already more Unseelie than she is human.’ ”

  Even though she knew it was true, Arden felt her spine stiffen and the air catch in her lungs. Ever since that trip to the aquarium with Eskel, when she’d moved the saltshaker without meaning to do so, she’d been forced to acknowledge that fact. More than that, she felt different. More sensitive to touch and smells and sights.

  “That made me realize,” Tabby was still talking, completely unaware of the tiny meltdown Arden was having, “you’re different already, yet… you’re not.”

  Arden frowned.

  “You’re still you,” she elaborated. “Eskel said it best back at the hospital. I was so afraid of you turning into someone else, of losing my best friend because every fae I’ve ever met has been a manipulative jerk that I was too stupid to realize how ridiculous I was being. It didn’t fully hit me until I saw how badly I’d hurt you. I’m sorry, Arden, really.”

  Tabby tightened her grip on her hands, shuffling a bit closer so their knees bumped together. “Whether you’re a faerie or a human, you’re my best friend. Forever. Okay?”

  She was positive she was going to cry now, so she forced herself to laugh and said, “That has got to be the cheesiest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”

  “Hey!” Tabby slapped lightly at her arm, sucking in a breath when that caused Arden to wince. “Sorry! I forgot you were hurt!”

  “We literally just came from the hospital,” she said, rolling her eyes to help make the words lighter.

  Everything was happening all at once. Just yesterday, she was being told to forget about a cure, and now there might actually be one. How was she supposed to react?

  “I don’t know how to feel right now,” she murmured, mostly to herself, though Tabby heard, sitting as close as she was.

  “Don’t get your hopes up too high yet,” Tabby suggested, but she couldn’t mask the sparkle in her eyes or hide her subtle smile. She might not know the details, but it was obvious she was expecting great results from this.

  Arden tried to smile back, but inside she was a swirling mess of emotions.

  Once again, she didn’t know what to do.

  “This sounds too good to be true.” Eskel stared skeptically across the table at Cole. They were crowded together in the back corner of Tollbooth’s, the four of them having left Tabby’s house only fifteen minutes ago, around noon. Thanks to the crazy events of last night, they’d slept half the day away.

  With exams over, not many college students lingered in town, so the pizza place was fairly empty. A couple of high school kids were joking around on the far side of the shop, giving Arden and her friends a fair amount of privacy. Aside from the library, they didn’t typically discuss the Unseelie openly in public, but they all wanted to see if the information Cole had gathered would really be useful, or simply turn into another false lead.

  Arden still had her doubts.

  “I know,” Cole said, taking a large gulp of his grape soda before making a face of disgust and quickly snatching Tabby’s water. Ignoring her outcry, he chugged down half the gl
ass before heaving a massive sigh of relief.

  “What is wrong with you?” his cousin demanded, grabbing back her now sullied water. She slammed it back down on the table with a loud click. “I get that whatever Titania did with those cakes messed up your taste buds, but seriously?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.” Arden had ordered Cole’s usual—grape soda—when he’d gone to the bathroom earlier.

  “It’s fine,” he said, poking a single finger at the soda can and sliding it further away from him despite his words. “It just tastes like battery acid, is all.”

  “That’s gross.” Eskel twirled a finger in the air. “But back on topic.”

  Cole glanced down at the tabletop, suddenly sheepish. “I felt really bad for telling Arden to give up the other night,” he told them solemnly. “That wasn’t cool of me. I realized that there was an option we hadn’t explored yet, and decided to take my chances.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone there alone,” Arden interrupted.

  He grunted. “It’s not like I’d be dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. I didn’t touch any of the food, trust me. I just walked in and looked for my friend, who, fortunately, was still there even though a lot of the market had already finished packing and were on their way out of town.”

  She couldn’t recall him ever having mentioned that he’d made friends with some of the Unseelie at the market. Truthfully, the two of them hadn’t shared things with one another for a while, so she shouldn’t be surprised there were details about his life that she didn’t know.

  “This faerie I know said he’d wanted to tell me for some time, but fear of the repercussions had stopped him. Now that he was going to be far away from the Midnight King’s territory, he felt like he could safely reveal this to me.”

  “And you trust him?” Eskel didn’t sound convinced. “Why? What’s in it for him?”

  “Even if he’s not around now,” Tabby chimed, “he’s bound to run into Mavek again eventually. Does he just assume he’ll be forgiven by then? I hate to admit it, but it does seem a little fishy.”

  After everything they’d been through, it made sense that none of them were willing to take anything from the Unseelie to heart without further investigation.

  “Let’s try to not be such downers, okay?” Cole suggested. “Whether what he told me is real or not, it’s our only chance. We might as well give it a shot. Unless we want to go back to the plan to try and discover Midnight’s true name?” He lifted a disapproving brow.

  Arden sighed. That’d been an impossible task and they all knew it. Even Eskel, who’d been the one to come up with it, looked away in acknowledgment.

  “Exactly,” Cole continued, taking their silence as agreement. “Besides, I can vouch for this faerie. During my time as a Heartless, he always had my back when the Erlking wasn’t looking. Not to mention, why risk himself if he was merely playing a prank on us?”

  “That’s a fair point,” Eskel thought it over. “If word gets back to Mavek that this faerie told you something about the curse, it won’t matter if it’s true or not. He’ll be pissed.”

  “He’ll make an example of him,” Arden nodded. “Definitely.”

  “See?” Cole slapped his palms excitedly down on the edge of the table, rattling their cups and silverware, before seizing his knife. He began spinning it around his fingers absently, excitement palpable. “Alright, let me tell you—”

  The sound of glass breaking cut him off and their heads swiveled toward it.

  “George?” Arden called their waiter, frowning.

  He stood a couple feet away, a broken shaker bottle filled with Parmesan cheese at his feet. His hand, the one that had been holding the bottle, still hovered in the air. His mouth hung open slightly, and his gaze was locked onto Cole’s hand and the knife he was still playing with.

  Arden’s frown deepened. For as long as she could remember, George had been working at Tollbooth’s. When the place had first opened when she’d been in middle school, he was one of the waiters on staff. Despite how long they’d known one another, he’d always shied away from her––never rude, but not overly polite either. Just… distant. She’d always figured it was because she was a customer and they weren’t friends.

  Now…

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” the words came out a mere whisper, more out of surprise than an attempt to keep the few other customers from overhearing. When George started as if she’d shouted, however, she got her answer. “You’re an Unseelie.”

  “Been hiding in plain sight, I see,” Cole said.

  George’s gaze snapped up to Cole’s, his face paling as their eyes met. He took a step backward.

  “George?” Arden stood carefully but the legs of her chair scraped against the linoleum flooring, causing the waiter to jump. Both her hands flew up, palms out. “Whoa. It’s okay if you’re an Unseelie. We won’t judge.”

  Even as she spoke, a thought nagged at the back of her mind. She wondered why she hadn’t gotten that weird vibe from him––that tingle she felt when another fae was around. What’s more, why had he hidden his identity all this time? She wondered if the rest of his kind knew, or if they were just as in the dark as she was. Perhaps the reason she hadn’t been able to sense him was because she was still in the process of changing.

  The waiter spared her a brief glance, but it was as if he saw right through her. His eyes shifted back to Cole one last time, and then he was spinning on his heels. He ran through the store so quickly he practically knocked over a table in his haste. He was behind the employees-only counter and racing through the kitchen before Arden could even think to follow. One of the cooks called his name but George never slowed, slamming through the back exit without a backward glance.

  “Should we…” Tabby blinked, “go after him?”

  Arden thought it over, then lowered back down into her chair. “No.”

  “What if he can help?” Eskel asked, but she shook her head.

  She knew fear. Whatever George was afraid of, they didn’t have the right to drag him back to face it.

  “Is anyone going to be taking our order now, or…?” Tabby leaned up on the table, craning her neck to get a better peek into the back where the cooks were, still perplexed over George’s exit. “Maybe I should just walk up there and place it.”

  “You’re concerned about the pizza?” Cole looked bemused.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Part of Arden was worried about George, but she really couldn’t do anything for him, and he hadn’t exactly asked for their help anyway.

  “Let’s just get to the point,” she said. “What did the Unseelie tell you at the market?”

  “Right.” Cole dropped the knife back onto the table and folded his arms. “There’s a list of things needed in order to reverse the curse. It’s not a very long one, but the items are sort of taboo and hard to come by.”

  “How taboo?” And why wasn’t she surprised?

  “A drop of blood from the Unseelie who cast the spell, a piece of his magic made physical, and something that the Unseelie cares for. The ingredients need to be mixed together before the next full moon.”

  “And then?” Tabby looked about as comfortable with all of this as Arden was. Which was to say, not very.

  Cole met her gaze straight on and said almost casually, “She drinks it.”

  They were all silent.

  “You’re joking, right?” Eskel finally asked. “Even if drinking it wasn’t absolutely disgusting, trying for Mavek’s blood is like going on a suicide mission. Have you ever even seen him bleed?”

  Arden shook her head. “He does though.”

  “We don’t even know if this is real or not,” he repeated, though they’d already settled that argument less than ten minutes prior. “It’s too dangerous to even consider. And what’s with that other item? Something he cares about? Could that be any vaguer?”

  “It’s the first real lead we’ve gotten,” Cole disagreed, “and
it could work. Why not give it a try? It’s not like Midnight would hurt her, even if she got close enough to draw blood. I doubt he’d even guess what her aim was. According to my fae friend, not many know about this. He only does because he witnessed it work on that human three hundred years ago.”

  “Are you trying to say that not even Mavek knows about this?” Tabby frowned. “Shouldn’t he, though? He’s the one who cast the curse in the first place.”

  Cole lifted a single shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. It’s pretty old magic. But even if he is aware of it, by the time he figures out that we know, it’ll hopefully be too late.”

  “Mavek is ancient,” Arden mumbled. All the possibilities were running through her head. The blood would be difficult, but it was hardly the most challenging step. “He cares about his roses. I could easily steal one of those. Finding his magic in physical form though… I don’t even know how to go about that.”

  “What about the candied roses?” Tabby suggested, flinching back slightly when Eskel glared at her. “What? This isn’t your or my decision, it’s hers, so if she wants to go through with it, I’m going to help her.”

  “Right,” he drawled, “and that has nothing to do with you thinking she’ll become a monster otherwise.”

  “Hey!”

  “Stop.” Arden rested a hand lightly over his arm. “We’ve already made up, don’t rehash anything. Besides, she’s right. If this could work, I want to go through with it, and you don’t really have the right to stop me from doing so.”

  He opened his mouth, presumably to argue, then snapped it shut once more. After a few tense seconds, he ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “In order to make any of this happen, you’ll need to get close to him again. You know that, right? How are you going to pull that off, Arden?”