Seeing Red

by Lyra Evans

  Preston studied them both a long moment. “She knows your faces. How do you propose I get her to let you in?”

  Niko shrugged. “Figure it out. Unless you’d like to go on the record with your knowledge of the Woods and who is in charge?”

  Preston glared at him. “You know I can’t.”

  “There might be a way,” Niko said. Cobalt looked up at him, head tilted. He hadn’t considered it before, but perhaps it was worth looking at. “There’s a procedure to break those kinds of Fae contracts. They use it in court to allow witnesses and victims to testify against people who have taken advantage of them or abused them and tried to force a deal to cover their tracks.”

  “And you only mention this now because?” Preston asked pointedly.

  Niko met his gaze. “Because the procedure is painful, draining to the victim, and most importantly, it instantly alerts the Fae who performed the trade of the break. So whoever you’re being forced to protect would know your contract is broken.”

  For the first time, Niko saw what real fear looked like in Preston’s eyes. His pupils narrowed to pinpricks, his skin paling visibly. “Out of the question,” he said. “I’m not willing to die for this.” He set his jaw and stuffed his hands under each arm, hiding them away as though Niko was considering just grabbing for them. “I suppose I’ll have to take you to Noor, then.” He glanced out to the window as Niko had. “But it’ll have to wait until morning. She won’t be happy to let us in at this hour.”

  “And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Niko asked.

  Preston’s eyebrows arched upward. He glanced at Cobalt as though he might better understand Niko’s insanity, but when he looked at Cobalt, his expression changed. He stared at the Selkie for a long moment, which made Niko look closely at him too. The natural blue undertone to Cobalt’s skin had changed; it now appeared greyer. He looked as though he was a black and white photograph of himself. Niko’s chest felt tight.

  “Sleep?” Preston offered. “I’d say all the running from the law you’ve done in the past few days has taken its toll. And you’re going to need all the energy you can get to face Noor tomorrow. Particularly you, Niko.”

  “Detective to you,” Niko said, his neck sprouting goosebumps when Preston called him by his first name. Preston’s eyes glinted.

  “Detective,” he said, and somehow that was worse. Preston got to his feet and made for the ladder to the loft. “You’re free to eat or drink anything you find in the fridge and cupboards.”

  Niko stepped in Preston’s way, hand out to stop him. He held back just short of touching Preston’s chest. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To bed?” he half asked, half said. Pointing to the loft, he added, “That there is my bedroom. Where I sleep. Are you unfamiliar with the custom?”

  Niko frowned. “How am I to know there’s no secret escape up there, or a way for you to contact Juniper and warn her?”

  Preston’s expression flattened momentarily. “Why would I have told you all I did if I was going to warn her? You’re quite paranoid, Detective.” Then, after a pause, he leaned in and added, “But if you’re that interested in my sleeping arrangements, you can feel free to come up with me. Any time.” Niko jerked back from his position, his jaw tight. Preston winked at him, taking advantage of Cobalt’s apparently worn state. But the Selkie was still paying attention, it seemed, as a low growl came from his direction. Preston laughed and held up his hands again, a surrender or apology. Then he stepped around Niko. “Set some kind of warding or something if you like. I’m not going anywhere, but if it eases your paranoia, have at it.”

  Glaring at Preston, Niko moved to the outer wall of the cabin and pressed his palm to the wood. With some effort to focus, he made some trades and set a simple but effective alarm system in place. When he pulled his hand back, he sighed heavily, sagging from the effort. He was tired. And hungry. His body was used to running on low reserves of energy, but this case was testing even Niko’s limits.

  “If anyone tries to leave the perimeter of this cabin, even if you go miles below or miles above to do it, an alarm will sound loud enough to wake the entire jungle-forest. It will also stain your skin green,” he said flatly. Preston’s mouth pulled in a smile.

  “Nice touch,” he said. Turning, he began to climb up the ladder. “The couch pulls out, if you’re interested in that. Nighty night, boys. Don’t be too loud. Unless that’s your kink.”

  Niko pulled a face as Preston disappeared up into his loft. Shaking his head, Niko turned toward the kitchen, intent on finding some kind of food to eat, for both his sake and Cobalt’s. There was fresh fish packaged in the refrigerator, but Niko reminded himself he did not know how to cook. Given Cobalt’s strange condition, he didn’t think it fair to ask him. So he closed the door to the refrigerator and searched the cupboards. There he found a large can of premade soup, so he took it out, along with some simple crackers, and set about warming it on the stove. He was gutted, exhausted, and running raw from the emotional tornado that was this case.

  “Are you cooking for me?” Cobalt asked, his voice low enough Niko could just barely hear him. There was an amused tone to the question that made Niko purse his lips.

  “I wouldn’t get used to it,” he said, pouring out the soup into a pot he located. The burner turned red as it heated, and Niko sat the pot atop it. He wasn’t really sure what else to do but wait now. The soup in the pot was a somewhat gelatinous mass. How that would become liquid, he wasn’t certain.

  “I probably won’t want to if you don’t add some water to that,” Cobalt said, still seated on the couch. “Otherwise we’ll be having burnt sludge.”

  Niko snatched up the can and studied the side. It did, indeed, require a can-full of water be added to the mass of soup. Cheeks somewhat red, he filled the can, then stirred the water into the gloppy mess. It still looked very unappetizing, but at least now it could conceivably turn to a soup-like consistency.

  “Shut up,” Niko shot. He turned to look at Cobalt, his chest feeling strange. He’d focused so much on getting information out of Preston he had spent little time thinking about Cobalt. The hurt was still in his chest, apparently more difficult to dislodge than he would have thought. But now there was also worry and longing mixed in. He wanted to feel the way he did when he’d stood on the pebbled beach with Cobalt, wrapped in his arms, asking him not to leave. He wanted to feel full and wanted and safe and happy again. But now when he looked at Cobalt, he saw the space between them, the three months’ time spent alone, and the unanswered questions that lingered from that time. Cobalt had told him he’d stayed because he owed his sister, that he should have come back because Niko was his family. But Niko didn’t understand either of those statements, and it was clear Cobalt was still keeping things from him. The ashen look on his face was evidence enough of that.

  “Are you—what’s—is there something you want to tell me?” Niko asked eventually, gesturing vaguely to Cobalt’s entire body.

  Cobalt shifted, getting to his feet to begin pulling out the sofa. He tilted his head a moment. “What do you mean?”

  Niko frowned, though Cobalt couldn’t see it now, his back turned. “You don’t look—like usual.” Niko cursed himself. He was fucking shit at this kind of talk. Honesty, on its own, wasn’t necessarily difficult for Niko. But when it concerned relationships, suddenly any kind of communication became impossibly hard. He turned back to the soup, hearing a sizzling sound he didn’t like.

  “Thanks,” Cobalt said with a wry smile. Niko shot him a look as he stirred quickly, hoping to save the meal he was already botching. Cobalt laughed softly. “It’s nothing, Niko. Just the residual effects of exhaustion and my earlier injury. No need to worry. Water and sleep will rectify things.”

  Niko pulled the soup off the burner, realizing the can had said not to let it boil. He didn’t quite believe Cobalt, but if Cobalt wasn’t willing to tell him the full truth, why should he push for it? He didn’t know if Co
balt was unwilling to show himself vulnerable to Niko, or if it fell into the same category of information as what he ‘owed’ Coral that Niko wasn’t privy to, but it irked Niko all the same.

  He poured out a measure of soup for each of them, using ceramic bowls he found in the cupboard. The liquid smelled of clams and potatoes with the slightest hint of burnt cream. Stirring vigorously, Niko tried to ensure it was well mixed before handing it over to Cobalt. He set the bowls down on the table, along with the crackers, and Cobalt joined him there once the couch was properly set up. It was a simple mattress with a sheet and coverlet folded into it. The cushions from the sofa would serve as pillows, he supposed. It would do. For one night.

  Cobalt sat down and smelled the soup Niko had set out. With a small smile at Niko, he dipped his spoon into it and tipped it to his lips. Niko waited, his own filled spoon hanging in midair between his bowl and his mouth. He had always measured his worth by his work as a detective and police officer; cooking meant nothing to him. But the idea of Cobalt being disgusted by something he’d made—or at least heated—left him somewhat nervous. That part of his heart that still desperately longed for Cobalt and wanted to join to him indefinitely seemed just as difficult to quash as his hurt.

  “This is rather surprising,” Cobalt said, licking his lips. Niko’s eyes followed Cobalt’s tongue a moment, then he jerked his attention to his own bowl. “You’re quite the multi-talented Pet, aren’t you?”

  The last was a whisper so deep and soft Niko thought he’d imagined it for a moment. It sent a shiver down his spine and a coil of heat through his belly. He looked back at Cobalt, meeting his pale irises. His mind raced with responses, wanting to suggest he had much more exciting talents than heating canned soup, that if Cobalt enjoyed the flavour of that, Niko had something else to offer him, that he could have done better, having burnt it slightly, and perhaps Cobalt wanted to encourage him to pay closer attention next time in whatever way he saw fit.

  But none of those things spilled from his tongue. Instead, Niko took a bite of the soup himself, burning his tongue slightly on the hot liquid. It did taste rather good, which was surprising considering it was from a can, but he wasn’t thinking about that either. He was thinking about all the things he still didn’t know.

  “Do they have clam chowder in Azure’s Court?” Niko asked, stirring his soup distantly.

  Cobalt hummed softly, and the sound burrowed into Niko like it always did. He felt himself getting excited, but he tried to tamp it down. He wasn’t about to fuck in Preston’s living room, with Preston only feet away and in full view.

  “Something similar,” Cobalt said. “It isn’t quite soup, I suppose, but it does have a mixture of vegetables with mollusks. No cream, of course. But it does accomplish a rather similar flavour.” He ate some more before stopping to down his entire bottle of water. He looked mildly better now, the blue colour returning slowly to his face.

  “I guess if it wasn’t for whatever debt you owed Coral, you could go back whenever you pleased, to get a taste of whatever you’re missing,” Niko said, his tone superficial and even. He looked at the soup he was eating but decided he was no longer hungry. Setting his spoon down, he found his wrist suddenly caught.

  Cobalt’s grip on him was intense and demanding, and when Niko looked up to meet his gaze, he found Cobalt staring at him with something akin to anger in his eyes. “I am never going back. Coral or not, now I am here, I am missing nothing.”

  Niko held his position for a long moment, his heart aching. He felt the pulsing in his chest from that place that was now hollow, and he wished he could feel nothing at all. It wasn’t the first time he wished that, but it was the first time in years he wished not to have emotions. He wanted to ask the question he could barely formulate at the back of his mind, the question that echoed endlessly in his hollowed chest, but he couldn’t do it.

  “So tell me what you owed her, then,” he said instead. “You made it sound like you had no choice but to stay for her. So what could you possibly owe her that’s that important? What’s to say some other debt won’t come up at some point that makes you go back without a word?”

  A cloud passed behind Cobalt’s eyes. Niko didn’t know how to describe it, but he didn’t like the feeling in his gut when he saw it. It made him shrink away, as though he’d done something terrible. Maybe he had. Maybe he was being unreasonable to Cobalt. Maybe it was none of his business.

  “I owe her a debt I cannot quantify,” Cobalt said after a moment. His words were quiet and fragile on the air, and Niko wasn’t sure if it was Preston he was trying to avoid informing, or if he was afraid of Niko actually hearing it. “And no one else is left to claim a debt like this because none remain who could.” He released Niko’s wrist with a heavy sigh and leaned back in the chair. Cold burned Niko’s wrist where Cobalt’s hand had been, the loss of contact strangely painful.

  “What does that mean?” Niko asked.

  Cobalt looked straight ahead, his expression empty. “I abandoned her.” A silence still as death followed that, the meaning of the words cutting into Niko. Flashes of his own memories tried to surface, but he pushed them aside. “When I was chosen in the lottery system to attend the Central Reef school with the Prince and other Courtiers, I had to leave home for nearly a year at a time. I lived on campus, surrounded by wealthy heirs and powerful families, but back home, I was just a calf from the Barren Reefs. My community was poor, struggling to sustain. Food may not cost anything in Azure’s Court, but everything else does. My parents owned a small home, held intact by reeds and weeds and whatever they could find. We hunted fish as best we could to sell to the Food Halls. My father cleaned the community Halls at night, after everyone was done. My mother watched over small children in the area for a pittance to allow other families to go to work and try to survive. There was nothing wrong with that until I was sent to the Central Reef and saw just how much excess there was there. They wanted for nothing. Even their Food Halls were better stocked and offered more elegant and elaborate meals.” He shook his head. “I should have been disgusted, but I was young and naïve. And I wanted to make friends. So when I met Indigo, I tried to emulate him. I changed the way I spoke, the way I acted, the way I ate. Everything.

  “When I went home at holidays, my parents were pleased, impressed with everything I had learned. My sister was not. She thought I was turning my back on my heritage, becoming a shade of myself. She said I was a liar to myself because I’d never really fit in with those people, that they would always know where I came from and hold it against me no matter what I wore or how I spoke. Meanwhile, she ran with a group of young Selkies who often got into trouble. I mentioned she’d been caught for petty theft in her youth. Well, they were the reason. It bothered me, but I didn’t think much on the stark differences between my home life and school life until it was brought up at school. Someone had found out my sister was arrested for stealing a library book. A free book. She stole it. I don’t know quite how that happened, but that my peers at school now associated me with poverty and crime upset me.” He dropped his head, and Niko felt his stomach tighten to a ball of coal, as though he meant to make it a diamond. “I stopped going home after that.” He looked at Niko then, but Niko couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “You chose your rich friends over your sister,” Niko said. It was harsh and rough and true. Cobalt nodded. Niko wanted to throw up.

  “I did. And because I wasn’t around to help her, to try and pull her back from the edge, she went over,” he admitted. “My parents always berated her for not being like me, and I suspect she just leaned into it. She spent more time with worse people. She got into more trouble. She got kicked out of school, then out of the house. My parents were lost, heartbroken. They asked me for help, but I made excuses. I was selfish and horrible, and I let my family suffer for it.” His fists were balled on the table, and Niko noticed briefly the bandages were tinged pink. “My parents died just after my graduation. I went back to see to their funer
al rites, but I never spoke to my sister. She didn’t come to the ceremony. I left immediately after that for my Landwalk.” Cobalt’s jaw was tight, pulsing with tension. “My sister and I were never close, never got along particularly well. But she needed help, and I left her to flounder. So I owe her a debt I’m not sure I can ever truly repay. And no matter how I try, I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me.”

  Niko pushed away from the table, picking up his bowl and dropping it loudly in the sink. The ringing sound echoed in his ears. He stood fuming, unable to look at Cobalt again. His heart still yearned for him, but the pain had grown. Those memories flashed in his mind again. And he was too tired and too raw to fight it.

  “Maybe you don’t deserve to be forgiven,” Niko said. He turned sharply, and Cobalt looked at him with such a torrent of emotions in his eyes Niko couldn’t begin to decipher it. He didn’t want to, just then. “You left her alone when she was young and struggling. You decided your rich, superficial friends were more worthy of your time and love than the person who needed you. The one who looked up to you. You had a responsibility to her, and you turned your back on it the moment some pretty young bimbo walked into your life and seemed not to care about how shrivelled your heart was because your fucking dick worked well enough. And so what if you had a kid who needed help? So what if he never asked for any of the shit that was happening? So what if your new girlfriend didn’t want the burden of taking care of a kid? You never really cared about him anyway, right? He was just a sad reminder of your past and the biggest fuck-up of your life. So you just pretend he never existed and run off with your shallow new girlfriend and never look back. It’s that easy, right? Who cares about what happens to him.”

  Cobalt’s mouth fell open, his brows furrowed. He made to get up, to reach for Niko, but Niko saw only red, all around him, all through his mind. His father’s suitcases in front of the house, the car loaded with all the valuables. The awkward moment he caught his father’s eye. His little shrug, as though to say ‘nothing I can do.’ As if that was sufficient goodbye to your own son. As if it was justifiable in any form. Niko burned.