by Reilyn Hardy
I look at Vihaan again and he shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t know what she was. I was fine with leaving her there. You’re the one that insisted on bringing her.”
I frown a little and look back at my dad.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Phoenixes live out their lives over the span of a year. At the end of each year, they die. Their rebirth in the ashes is said to bring the new year.”
“So she’s going to die soon, then.”
The end of the year was days away.
He nods.
“I wonder what she’ll be next year.”
“What do you mean?”
“Phoenixes don’t always remain constant with their genders. One year they can be male, the next — female. They don’t always identify accordingly either. Just like anyone else, only theirs are usually more — apparent.” He brushes hair away from her eyes. “I know her though — Nova.”
I chew on my bottom lip and fall in line with Jace and Rhiannon. Jace and I exchange glances. He looks at me curiously, and mouths her name.
Nova was the name of the woman from the Salvation, but this can’t be the same one. Can it?
I watch while my dad kneels down beside her. It’s weird to think she looks even older than he does. There’s no way it could be the same person, but if they live out their entire lives during the course of a year, it could be. That explained the triskelions embroidered on her stockings. She was wearing a pendant with the same symbol at the Salvation.
But what was she doing in Mithlonde?
“I have to find out what she knows before she dies. If not, she won’t be much help until the end of February at the earliest. Maybe even March. Was she awake at all when she was with you?”
Vihaan shakes his head.
“Out cold the whole time,” he says.
My dad gets to his feet and approaches Vihaan. He places his hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you for taking care of my son.”
Vihaan nods. “Of course.”
“Amelia!” He shouts suddenly. His voice has always been loud and deep. It’s the type that grabs people’s attention. “Prepare the tea — Artemis —” he’s pointing at me now as he turns slowly to me and I frown. “Why do your eyes keep turning white? What did you do?”
His tone changes. He’s scolding me. I don’t think he has the right to scold me, but I don’t want to throw a tantrum about it in front of my friends.
“I fell on a Thirondel charm,” I say. “It crushed against me when I was in Mithlonde.” I could have told him that it happened while I was being tortured, but I don’t see the point.
“You have to be careful.”
“I am careful, no thanks to you, dad. Now stop calling me that.”
My tone comes out worse than I mean for it to. I didn’t mean to say it the way I did, or maybe I did mean it that way but I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and I can tell that I did.
The way his eyes widened slightly. It’s just all the anger that’s been building. It slips out. It slipped out.
He takes a step back from me.
“Dad, I —”
He shakes his head and turns away from me.
Jace uses his fist and presses it against my stomach, shoving me into the hallway and Rhiannon follows.
“Cut him some slack,” he says.
I inhale sharply through my nose, clenching my jaw. I turn to Jace and try to smother the rising anger, but I can’t seem to manage to get ahold of it.
“Are you kidding me?” I snap. “He left me! He abandoned me! My brother was kidnapped and he still didn’t bother to look for me! Why does he deserve a chance? Why does he deserve anything from me?”
“He’s your family. Don’t push him away.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say, while picking at the dried blood caked around my wrists. Some of my cuts have scabbed over and they’re itchy.
“It could be,” he says.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. It will never not be complicated.”
“He’s your dad, Mae.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand?” He scoffs. “Are you serious? My entire family was murdered in Thealey. No, I didn’t always get along with them but who always gets along with their family? I’d give anything to see them again. I lost them all, Mae!”
“Jace —” I don’t want him to tell me anymore.
“Your dad is here, now.” His voice is a little calmer now. “If he didn’t care at all, why is he here? Why are any of us here? Sometimes some things are better late than never.”
“He took care of you both?” I ask.
“He was very kind to us. He even let Rhiannon feed on him —”
“Jubilation!”
She stomps on his foot.
“Rhiannon!” He groans. Jace falls into the chair behind him and starts rubbing his barefoot that she had jabbed her heel into.
I’m not sure what I just heard.
“Wait — what did you call him?” I ask.
“Rhiannon —” Jace starts to say but she cuts him off.
“His name, it’s Jubilation Knight.”
I tried to hold back my amusement, but whenever I try to keep myself from laughing, I end up snorting instead. I quickly cover my face.
“What?”
“My mom gave us all stupid names, okay?” He growls.
“Well, you are dogs. She was just naming you like one would name a pet.”
“Shut up, Rhi.”
“It’s Rhiannon!” She corrects, and lifts her foot to stomp on his again but he manages to move it before she gets the chance. Instead of putting it back onto the ground, he keeps his ankle propped up on his knee, with his hand draping over his foot.
The front of it is still red from her heel.
“Jubilation?”
“Don’t you dare start calling me that, Artemis.”
“I think this makes us even, Jubilation.”
Jace rolls his eyes and shoves me into the wall.
* * * * *
He shows me the room he’s staying in and I sit down on the opposing bed, on the other side of the room. I pull my feet up onto the mattress and wrap my arms around my legs. I notice there’s a hole in the wall beside the door, but I don’t ask about it.
“You look like you were dragged through the underworld and back. You sure you’re gonna be okay?” He asks, his hands are behind his back.
“Yeah, I just — I lost my bag.”
He chuckles and throws it on the bed.
“It came with you when Father Time pulled you here.”
“How did he even know where I was?” I ask, as he climbs onto the bed beside me. I dig through the bag for the things we grabbed from Edgewick. But nothing we grabbed from there was going to help me. I could use some of Nannu’s mud right now — Nannu. I stop digging.
“I think he always knew where you were. I mean, you’re his son — and he’s Father Time. I can’t say I’m not jealous.”
“Of what?” I ask, pushing the bag away from me. I can’t think about her right now.
“Father Time — Father Time is your father.”
“He’s ancient,” I say.
“He’s powerful.”
“I’m not impressed.”
“Well I am,” he says and digs into the side of his pants and takes out my dagger. “I think this belongs to you. You dropped it after you —” he points to the scar on his face.
“I said I was sorry.” I look down at my blade. He was — he is the last person I ever wanted to use my dagger against.
“I’m just messing. I think it makes me look better, actually. Makes me look tougher, no?” He turns to me and grins.
“I could give you a matching side if you love it so much,” I say and look up at him. “But what happened to your eye? The iris? It’s gray, and brown. Why is it gray?”
“Yeah, that part’s a little weird.�
� He leans the back of his head against the wall.
“Your dad said it has something to with you and the dagger. If it was any other dagger, you would’ve blinded me. But that one — it’s from your people and it —” he shakes his head and scoffs. “Sometimes I think I see things that I’m not sure are actually there. I don’t know. Your dad tried to heal me as much as he could but the scar and the color, he couldn’t remove it. He thinks you accidentally transferred some of your own abilities to me or something like that.”
“But I don’t have any.”
“Not any that are active, but it’s still in your blood.”
“Well what have you seen so far?”
He shrugs.
“I kept seeing your face — or I thought it was your face until I found out who you were. He looked like you but I don’t think it was you. His face is darker and his hair — his hair is different.”
“This woman, back in Mithlonde that took care of me, she said she saw my brother before she went blind.”
“Aw man,” he groans. “Don’t tell me I’m going blind.”
He closes his eyes and hits the back of his head against the wall.
“No, no — I mean, I don’t know.”
“He’s not dead, is he?” He asks. “Your brother.”
“I don’t know? Why? Do you see dead people?”
“I don’t know what I see,” he grumbles, keeping his eyes closed. “I’m not even sure if what I see is really what I see. Or what I see — I don’t know.”
He folds his hands in his lap and makes himself comfortable.
I clear my throat.
“So — Rhiannon,” I say, attempting to change the subject.
I have been through hell and back and truthfully, I want to have a conversation that isn’t about a life or death situation. I want to have a conversation where I don’t have to worry about something. Where I can just ignore everything that is happening around me.
“What about her?” He asks.
I shrug, but then I look over at him and realize he still has his eyes closed.
“Did you ever tell her?”
“About what?”
Seriously? I reach over for my pillow and throw it at his face.
“What?” He snaps, throwing the pillow back at me.
“You’re not going to tell her that you got her captured to save her?”
“Let it go,” he says.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because she’s a vampire!” He snaps at me again, slouching back against the wall. “And I’m a werewolf.”
“And you’re in love with her.”
“Shut up, Artemis.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up. You shut up. You’ve been in love with her, haven’t you? Since you were a kid. That’s why no other girl has ever mattered to you. It’s always been her.”
“I said shut up.”
He is about to shove me off of the bed when we hear voices coming from outside. We slip off of the mattress and hurry toward the window. Vihaan is dragging in a large Christmas tree that Amelia was pretending to help carry the tip of, but she’s barely lifting it off of the ground. He keeps telling her to just let go of it.
“So,” Jace starts, “you go off to the Iron Realm and bring back a dragon.”
“Well, I already have a dog and a bat. Just adding to my collection.” I smirk and he rolls his eyes.
We laugh, hard. I don’t remember the last time I laughed like this.
“What was it like there?” He asks. I’m not laughing anymore. We turn away from the window when Vihaan is no longer in sight. I don’t look at Jace, not at first.
“They tortured me,” I say. “Vihaan, he was locked up with me in the dungeon and he — he just wants to help his kind. He just wants to free them.”
“Who is he?”
“King Solomon’s son — yeah, he’s the dragon prince.”
“No wonder she seems so fond of him.”
‘Who? Amelia? She’s ga —”
“No, Rhiannon. You didn’t see the way she was looking at him?”
“Uh — no?” I frown, trying to remember when we first got there. But all I can remember is being angry the second I saw her. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else. “She was looking at him?” If she had been, I hadn’t noticed.
“He’s a little old for her though, no?”
“I don’t know? How old is she?”
“I — huh. I have no idea. I never really thought about that.”
“So she could be ancient too then.”
“Well she doesn’t look it.”
No, she does not.
“It was weird, you know,” he tells me. “Being around her again, and you weren’t here. Sometimes, I didn’t know if I want to kiss her or rip her head off.”
“Uh — I’d not go with the latter.”
I know he enjoys decapitating things, just not Rhiannon.
“She just drives me crazy. She’s so frustrating, you know?”
I shake my head. I don’t know. There are people I can identify that are aesthetically appealing, but I have never experienced any type of attraction toward anyone. I spent a lot of time thinking something was wrong with me. After talking to Rhiannon in the Whispering Woods, I have to admit, she was right. I’m not broken. Maybe Jace was right too, maybe I am lucky.
I loved people too, and as strong as anyone else. I just did it differently.
“Sounds like puppy love,” I say.
“This puppy doesn’t chase bats. Besides, can’t you smell her?”
I shrug. There’s nothing wrong with the way she smells, in my opinion. Unless you don’t like fruit, then I can see the problem. But Jace loves fruit.
“She smells awful,” he says. “Like a corpse.”
Oh. I should have known she’d smell differently to him.
He wrinkles his nose and rubs it, as though the scent has filled it just by the thought of it.
Maybe it did.
“And you smell like a wet dog, Jubilation.”
Maybe not.
We turn to see her standing in the doorway.
“Rhiannon! Stop calling me that.”
“Well then come help decorate the tree.” She reaches her hand out to him and he takes it. I smirk. When he looks back at me, I try to hide it and I’m not quick enough. Jace chucks a pillow at me before leaving the room completely.
* * * * *
Standing in the hot shower, the feeling against my skin, it was soothing for my muscles and the injuries that cover my body. I never wanted to get out. I look down and blood clouds the water, collecting at the drain, running down my legs from my back. It stings, but it’s a good kind of hurt. If there is such thing.
It was like being in Edgewick again, minus the dead bodies and revenants. I didn’t know how I was going to go back to cold showers when I get back home.
If I ever get back home.
The thought of celebrating Christmas without Weylan feels wrong, but I make the decision that I’m going to be as pleasant as I can manage.
Amelia made us all ugly Christmas sweaters. The sleeves of mine are far too long. At least they cover what I don’t want anyone to see. The collar is lopsided, and I think the brown blob on the front is supposed to be a reindeer.
It’s great.
When I get downstairs, Vihaan is lounging in an armchair he’s way too big for, and looks comfortable nonetheless. His eyes are closed and his fingers are laced with each other resting over his stomach. Rhiannon sits farthest from the fire as though she’d melt if she went anywhere near it. Maybe she would. She effortlessly untangles the chords of garland and hands them to Amelia to drape them around the large tree that Vihaan dragged in from outside. She smiles when she sees what I’m wearing. I look down, and pull at the seam before shrugging.
I mouth a thank you. She used to make these for Apollo and I when we were kids, well she tried to. She couldn’t even make a full sweater back then.
The memory is
nice.
It doesn’t take us long to have the tree completely decorated before nightfall.
I sit down near the window so I can watch the snow fall while Jace and Rhiannon sit across from me. She hands him her mug, hot chocolate is one of his favorites. She’s wrapped up in a wool blanket and the whole time he’s beside her, she doesn’t take her eyes off of him.
Not once.
Amelia had left to show Vihaan the room he could stay in and I sit, watching my two friends at the other side of the room. When Jace looks at me, I pretend to be preoccupied with the mug in my own hands, but I keep sneaking looks at them. I’m curious to know where it’s going, whatever it is that’s happening between them.
He digs into his pocket and reaches for her hand. There’s something in his that I can hardly see, and it shines between his fingers.
It’s a charm.
He must have been the one to give her that charm bracelet when he was a kid. He begins to fasten it onto the chain and they don’t say anything to each other. She’s watching him while he concentrates on trying to hook it. I notice his right hand is now absent of the rings and strings, while the left still has the one silver ring on his finger.
Rhiannon looks at me and I quickly look down and try to clear my thoughts.
Stop reading my mind.
I look up again just as he pulls away from her. He lifts his gaze and sees her looking at him. He looks at her the way people look at the moon, and it all makes sense. After he ran away, he probably never thought he’d see her again. He never let himself get that close to anyone else. He needs this. He needs her.
But she turns to the fire and starts singing a Christmas carol when Amelia comes back. She sits beside me again and takes the mug from my hands. I smirk a little, they probably forgot I was even in the room.
Maybe I should think a little louder.
I see a smile peek at the corner of Rhiannon’s lips before she loses herself in the joy of Christmas. Her voice fills the room — even without music and nothing but the crackling of the fire — it’s enchanting to listen to.
“I’m pretty sure he’s in love with her,” I whisper quietly, Jace is too entranced by her song to hear me. I turn to Amelia and see her smirking.
“Want to find out?” She asks.
I raise an eyebrow.
She turns to the two of them sitting on the other side of the room and flicks her finger, before waving it a little. Just above them, mistletoe begins to grow. I can’t hide the smirk that’s starting to spread across my own face again and when Jace looks at me, I point up. He tilts his head back.