She hugged herself. He was getting farther and farther from her, and she was letting him go. She didn’t want that.
“Agler,” she called.
He looked over at his shoulder at her.
“I don’t care,” she said. She ran to him. “I don’t. I don’t need it to be sweet. I don’t even think I want it that way.”
He wasn’t looking at her. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“No,” she said. “I think I do. And I want you anyway.” She took the bottle away from him and set it on the ground. Then she took his hand.
“Maddie—”
She put a finger against his lips. And she led him across the dark fields of Helicon, back to her tent.
Once inside, she flung her body into his, surrendering herself with abandon. And he was on her like a wolf. His caresses were ruthless. His kisses pitiless.
It was all-encompassing, and it wasn’t entirely pleasant. But there was something lush about it, something enticing and sweet. No matter how forceful he was, how rough his hands were on her, underneath all of it, she felt that she and Agler were forging a connection.
No.
The connection was already there, and what they were doing only served to reinforce it.
And when they were entwined on her hammock, both panting, their faces inches apart, their bodies so, so close, that was what she felt.
Connected.
* * *
But when Maddie woke up, she was alone. She thrust aside the covers of her hammock and got up. Except for the fact that she wasn’t wearing any clothes, there was no sign that Agler had even been there, as if the whole thing had been a dream.
The air was chilly, pulling goosebumps out of her bare skin. She remembered what Agler had said about muse magic and temperature. It was going to be cold, then, was it?
She dressed quickly and left her tent.
Outside, the tweens and rebels enclave was just coming to life. She saw tweens heading to the bathhouse for showers and others wandering towards the food enclave.
But she didn’t see Agler anywhere.
She crossed the enclave and went to his tent. She shoved aside the flap. “Agler?” she called.
No answer.
She went inside. It was empty. His hammock was made up—he hadn’t slept there, after all—and there was no sign of him.
Where had he gone?
She’d fallen asleep in his arms. They’d been warm and close in her hammock. She felt like she could still feel his lips on hers. And there was a little bit of soreness between her legs, but she liked it. She wasn’t sure why, exactly. It reminded her of what they’d done. It reminded her of Agler, the ferocity with which he’d taken her. As if he’d needed her. As if she was the most important thing to him in all of Helicon.
And now… where the hell was he?
She left Agler’s tent, considering if she should go looking for him or not. If he’d left the tent, had he done it because he didn’t want to see her? Hadn’t he enjoyed himself? It had seemed like he had. She remembered the look in his eyes when he’d gazed into her own—full of adoration and pleasure. She didn’t understand.
Maybe he’d just gotten up to go the bathroom or something, and he’d gone back to the tent to find her gone. Or maybe he’d gone to the food enclave for breakfast. She could try looking there.
“Maddie!”
She turned to see Nora and Sawyer emerging from Sawyer’s tent. Sawyer was shrugging into his shirt.
Maddie made her way over to them. “You guys are up early. Usually, after a big celebration, you’d be sleeping until noon.”
“Yeah, well, losing all the muse magic put a damper on everything,” said Sawyer.
“Right,” said Maddie.
“Where’d you run off to last night?” said Nora. “I looked for you, but I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“Um…” Maddie shrugged. Maybe she didn’t want to say anything about Agler yet. Not until she know what it meant. If it meant anything at all. Why would he have left?
“I’m starving,” said Sawyer. “Let’s get breakfast.”
Maddie fell in step with them as they headed for the food enclave.
Nora yawned. “It sure is cold, isn’t it?”
“No muse magic,” said Maddie.
“Oh,” said Nora. “That’s bad.”
The temperature wasn’t the only thing that was screwed up. When they got to the food enclave, they realized that there was no power to run the stoves or refrigerators. Muse magic had done all of that as well. Luckily, it was cool outside. The temperature would be a natural refrigerant. And the crops were okay, because they were inside the greenhouses, which still functioned without magic. All of the frozen food was ruined, though. And there was no way to cook anything unless they did it over an open flame.
Together, they put together a breakfast of fruit and nuts.
Maddie thought that she was hungry, but when she tried to put food in her mouth, it was a chore to chew it and swallow it. She picked at it instead.
As usual, neither Nora nor Sawyer noticed.
After raking the whole dining room with her gaze over and over, she finally spotted Agler. He was in the far corner with Jack.
Her stomach turned inside out.
She stared at him.
He looked up.
Their gazes locked.
He looked away. Deliberately.
What the hell?
“I’ll be right back,” said Maddie.
“Where you going?” Sawyer stuffed some peanuts into his mouth.
“Just need to ask Agler something,” she said. She was already hiding it, she realized. Why did she feel the need to keep it secret? Was she ashamed of herself for being so stupid? For falling for the idea that he might actually like her, yet again? Hadn’t they both admitted it last night? They were using each other. That was all it was.
But she crossed the dining room and walked steadily towards him.
He saw her coming. She thought she saw something flash across his expression. Fear, maybe. Or shame. Or anger.
She wasn’t sure what it was.
He nodded at her. “Hey Maddie.”
That was it? Hey? She felt cold all over. “Hey.”
“How are you?” he said. “You okay?”
“I’m…” She drew in a long breath through her nose. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” he said.
She didn’t say anything. She just glared at him. How could he be acting like this?
Jack looked up at her. “You need something?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t believe this.
“Is this about me being the way I was last night?” said Agler. “Because I was drunk, Maddie. I’m sorry, all right? I swear, I’m not like that. Not usually.”
“Not like that?” she echoed.
“No,” he said. “And I promise to leave you alone from now on.”
“Leave me alone?”
“Yeah,” said Agler.
“Dude,” said Jack. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” said Agler. “I was a jerk to Maddie last night. Again.”
She was starting to shake. So, it was going to be like that, was it? “Yeah,” she said. “You were. But it’s nothing compared to the way you’re being now.” She spun on her heel and stalked away.
Behind her, she heard Jack’s voice. “What did you say to her last night?”
“I don’t even know,” said Agler. “I had a lot to drink. Don’t really remember.”
“Must have been bad, man,” said Jack. “You really pissed her off.”
“Guess so,” said Agler.
She moved faster and faster, trying as hard as she could to get away from him. She was stupid. She should have known there was no way that she and Agler were actually connected.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
November ripped through Helicon, gray and merciless. The temperatures were frigid, and the solar heaters that they used when it snowed got
quite a workout.
By mid month, none of the grown-up muses were well. Everyone was sick except the children, tweens, and the security enclave.
Nora spent her days helping to take care of the sick and trying to keep Helicon running, as did everyone else. She spoke to Phoebe at one point, and Phoebe insisted that they try to have the Harvest Ball. Nora flat out refused. It was impossible to do any more celebrations. They barely had the means to keep themselves alive, let alone to do extra. The inspiration threads were all on hold as well. They simply couldn’t finish them.
Phoebe was adamant, saying that the celebrations were extremely important, that they would funnel inspiration into the mundane world, even with all the adults out of it.
Nora still said it was no good.
But when Sawyer heard about what Phoebe had said, he insisted that Nora change her mind.
To Sawyer’s way of thinking, Nora had never been to a Harvest Ball. Her first year in Helicon, she’d been hiding from Owen. Her second year, she’d been captured by Owen. The Harvest Ball was important, Sawyer said, and they were having one. End of discussion.
Nora wasn’t keen on it. After all, how were they going to put the thing together?
But Sawyer said that they could do it. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would happen. It would be something. And he came to bed late every night, because he used whatever time he could sewing dresses for the Ball. He was excited about that.
That was what Sawyer was doing that evening.
Nora was in the food enclave, cleaning up after dinner. They didn’t bother to eat at the main fire pit anymore, because it was too cold to be outside. Instead, they ate in the dining room. They had to prepare enough food for everyone in Helicon, even the sick muses. And they had to deliver food to and feed those that were ill. Just doing took almost everyone. Any leftover time went to cleaning up or working with the crops, which needed watered and cared for.
Muse magic had helped with the crops before. But muse magic was gone.
And with it, the chimeras had gone as well.
Catling and all of the other animals had simply disappeared on Halloween.
When Roth had gone to check on them, he’d found that all of them were lost.
He’d given Nora the news the next day.
She’d sobbed for hours. Catling was gone.
Roth said that the chimeras could be restored if magic was restored, so it wasn’t as if they were dead. But it certainly felt like it.
Nora felt battered by the world. Terrified. Exhausted. Angry. Frightened. It was the first time that the mundane world actually seemed preferable to Helicon. In fact, she’d heard some of the security muses talking about jumping ship and going to the mundane world the other night.
That wasn’t an option for muses. They couldn’t get there except on cross quarter days. And if they were there, and they did anything creative, the Influence would get them. The Influence was order and rules, coloring inside the lines. It was the opposite of the creativity the muses represented, and so it destroyed muses.
Since Roth didn’t have chimeras to take care of anymore, he was in the dining room with Nora, scrubbing one of the tables with a wet rag. “You doing okay?” he asked her.
She was scrubbing a table too. She set the rag down. “Honestly, Roth, I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to hold on.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Things are bad, all right.”
“You still didn’t have any luck contacting your mother?” After Halloween, Nora had asked Roth to talk to the fairies and ask for help. But with the muse magic out of Helicon, Roth had no way of contacting home. And Coeus had never made any progress on the dimension device, meaning that they were all stuck in Helicon.
“Nothing,” said Roth. “My dad always did the contacting for me. I don’t even know if what I was trying to do was right. I know it didn’t work, and that it never works, no matter what I try.”
“There’s got to be some way to fight this sickness. It doesn’t seem to affect us. Why would it only affect the grown-up muses?”
“I don’t know,” said Roth. “The adult muses are more connected to Helicon, though. They can send out inspiration threads, and they receive power from the mundane world. Everyone who isn’t affected? We don’t receive that power.”
“So, you’re saying it could be something from the mundane world? Like people aren’t creating there or something?”
“Or we’re cut off from it,” said Roth. “But the inspiration threads seem to be going through fine.”
“Well, the threads are leaving Helicon, anyway,” said Nora. “Who knows if they’re reaching their destination.” She began to scrub again, feeling defeated.
“You still think Owen’s doing it?” Roth started to scrub again too.
“I don’t know. If it’s Owen, why hasn’t he sailed in and claimed his victory? Without muse magic, his exile probably isn’t enforcible.”
“Well, maybe there is muse magic, but the muses are cut off from it,” said Roth.
“I guess that would make sense with your theory.” She sighed. “I almost wish it was Owen. If it was Owen, then I’d have something to fight, you know? But this sickness… there’s nothing to fight. And it keeps getting stronger and stronger.”
He hung his head. “You’re right. It’s scary.”
They scrubbed in silence for a few minutes.
Nora was finished with her table. She moved to the next one and began to scrub it as well. “You know, Roth, you’ve really helped us out. When we first talked, I swear I thought you were just a really big jerk.”
Roth grinned. “I am a really big jerk.”
“But we’re friends now,” she said.
“Only because we know embarrassing sexual things about each other,” said Roth.
She laughed. “I don’t even remember what it was you said when you were under the influence of the truth cordial.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” he said. “I however, remember all the sordid details of your love life with Sawyer.”
“Shut up, I didn’t tell you anything like that,” she said.
“Well, how about I refresh your memory about my embarrassing desires and frustrations, and in exchange you tell me all the sordid details of your love life? I’ll live vicariously through you guys since I’m clearly never going to get laid.”
She laughed. “You will. It happens to everyone.”
“Well, the best-case scenario right now is that I go back home at the end of the year, to a place where all the girls my age are at the developmental capacity of human nine-year-olds, and all the women who are sexually mature think of me as a child, which means that I’ll probably have to wait until I’m forty years old to have sex with a fairy. The worst-case scenario is that we’re stuck here in Helicon until we run out of food. And then we starve to death. And even if there are some tweens who are desperate enough to have sex with me, I doubt any of us will be thinking about it when we’re dying.”
Nora scrubbed a stubborn bit of dried-on food. “We’re not going to die.”
“Way to stay positive,” said Roth.
She didn’t want to think about dying. She focused on something else. “So, the fairies don’t mature until they’re how old?”
“Um, about thirty-five,” said Roth. “Give or take.”
“That’s interesting,” said Nora.
“Well, the fairies don’t really need to reproduce that much,” said Roth. “Because we all live for so long. It makes sense from a biological perspective.”
Nora grinned. “I was talking about biological perspectives with Sawyer. I never thought about the biology of fairies, though.”
“Oh, well, we have biology,” said Roth.
“But you mature like a human?”
“Yeah,” said Roth. “Apparently, halflings usually do. We tend to be a lot more human. The human genes are stronger.”
“Interesting,” said Nora. “Is there anything else different between fairies and
humans when it comes to reproduction?”
“Well, fairies are kind of backwards to what I understand about humans in terms of sex drive,” said Roth.
“What do you mean?”
Roth wrung out his rag and moved to another table. “Fairy women have a much higher sex drive than fairy men.”
“Really?” said Nora.
“Yeah. And from what I understand, the male fairies have less sensitive sex organs than their human male counterparts. So, that’s why you hear all these stories of fairy women seducing human men. Because human men seem to be more into it than fairy ones. And that’s why I exist.” He smiled at her ruefully.
“Huh,” said Nora. “Well, why do you think that is?”
Roth shrugged. “Nature’s idea of a sick joke?”
“Right,” said Nora. “Like the placement of the clitoris.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s badly placed?”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “It’s not in a properly stimulative area.”
He considered. “I would think it would depend on the position, actually.”
“Well, do fairy women have clitorises in a different place than humans?”
“I don’t think so,” said Roth.
Nora scrubbed. “And you? If you’re half-fairy, is your organ less sensitive?”
At the same time, Roth said, “I don’t actually have a clitoris, so I don’t really know.”
They looked at each other, and both of them got very red in the face.
Nora began scrubbing even harder. Up until that point, the conversation had seemed very academic and interesting. But then, suddenly, they’d both managed to make the whole thing personal and embarrassing.
Roth cleared his throat. “I think so, yes.”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“My, um, organ.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “You know, we could stop having this conversation anytime if it’s making you feel…”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “It’s probably not really a friend-appropriate conversation anyway, is it? We’ll just stop, then.”
“Good.” She scrubbed. But as she did, she couldn’t help but think about the fairy men and their less-sensitive penises, and how that drove fairy women to seek out human men, and how much she felt just like a fairy man, because she couldn’t seem to enjoy sex properly. And she was curious.
The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4 Page 82