He was a human, and she was a Heartless.
All of Cato’s warnings rushed through her mind, making her clench her jaw tightly. Damn the Unseelie for seeing things that she’d missed. Of course she was attracted to Eskel; he was an attractive guy. But attraction didn’t necessarily have to lead to anything, including deep feelings. As long as she could keep her emotions toward him strictly friendly, then she had nothing to fear. For either of them.
“What’s wrong?” Eskel asked, drawing her back to the present. He eyed the cupcakes and frowned at her. “Was it something I said?”
“No,” she took her cell phone from her back pocket and fiddled with it, “they’re from Mavek, that’s all.”
For a second it looked as if he was about to get angry, then he caught himself and heaved a frustrated sigh instead. Running a hand through his blond hair, Eskel turned his back on the cupcakes and folded his arms and ankles in a mock casual pose, leaning against the counter. But nothing could mask his annoyance, however, especially when the truth was flickering in his deep blue eyes.
“Can we call a truce on that topic as well?” he suggested. “And, by a truce I mean, can we not mention his name anymore? At least for the rest of the evening. I don’t want to fight, Arden.”
Which insinuated that there was still a great deal that he wanted to discuss with her about Mavek, the Tithe, and the rest of the Unseelie. Arden couldn’t blame him; talking about one always led to the other, and they had agreed to leave the faerie talk off the table. Normal conversation, that’s what they needed. A calm afternoon where they did regular things like regular college students.
“The living room is through there,” she pointed toward the opposite door that led to the main hallway. “How about you pick a DVD and I’ll order the pizza?”
“I was thinking about that, actually,” some of the tension eased from his shoulders as they relaxed forward, “the other night in my room. I couldn’t sleep,” he added by way of explanation when she lifted a brow. “Have you ever thought of adding pepper flakes?”
She had not. Nodding her approval, she waved him off and scrolled through her contacts. He disappeared and a moment later she heard him rifling through the DVDs on her shelf.
Left alone, she tried not look at the cupcakes while she placed their order.
It was another week before Tabby was well enough to return to school. Arden spotted her entering the dining hall and felt a rush of relief.
Though she didn’t exactly look bright and shiny, a honey-toned glow was replacing her former pallor, and the bags beneath her eyes were fading. Tabby was dressed in a warm, sunshine-yellow sweater, her hair braided to one side. Her scrubbed appearance and cheerful attire helped mask the cautious way she moved through the room toward Arden and Eskel.
“Hey,” Eskel spoke first, standing and tugging a plastic chair out for her.
“Hey.” Tabby sat, easing her backpack onto the ground. She fidgeted, alternating between staring out the window at the gray day and then back down at the blue table top. Finally, she took a deep breath and blurted, “Thank you for saving my life. And I’m sorry that I didn’t believe that the Unseelie were real.”
Arden resisted the urge to glance around to make sure no one had overheard that last part. Reaching over, she rested a hand over Tabby’s and squeezed lightly. “It’s fine,” she assured her friend.
“Just maybe avoid eating things you can’t name,” Eskel added, winking when Arden glanced at him.
“I know, it was stupid!” Tabby exclaimed. “Trust me, Cole has already lectured me on my mistake.”
As soon as Tabby had become conscious enough to speak, she’d demanded answers from Cole, and she knew her cousin far too well for him to get away with lying. So Cole had filled her in on everything and also told her what he and Arden were. He’d at least been nice enough to warn Arden, stopping by her house a few nights ago to explain that he’d done so.
“Tollbooth’s tonight?” Tabby asked, propping her chin on her hand. “I could really use some down time after what I just went through.”
Arden dropped her gaze and feigned interest in opening her water bottle. “I can’t.”
She’d already promised Mavek that she would visit the manor. Titania was apparently getting anxious by the absence of one of the Heartless, and wanted to see for herself that Arden hadn’t changed her mind about the Tithe. After what had happened with the kelpie, however, Arden was more concerned with seeing the Erlking.
She hadn’t told Mavek about what had happened, not wanting to reveal that she’d been with Eskel. She knew eventually she would have to, for the Erlking threatening her like that was a big deal, but she wanted to protect her budding relationship with Eskel badly enough to risk it.
“You’re seeing him tonight, aren’t you?” Eskel stated dryly. He stabbed at the macaroni and cheese on his plate, slicing the pasta into tiny pieces in the process.
“Cole says that you don’t have a choice,” Tabby’s voice shook a bit. It wasn’t surprising that she was scared, not after what the goblin fruit had done to her body. She’d almost died. “I feel bad for all that crap I said about you and him.”
Arden straightened her shoulders. “Mavek doesn’t force me to do anything.”
“But—”
“Don’t bother,” Eskel cut Tabby off, his food all but mush by now. “She won’t listen to reason.”
“I won’t listen to your reason,” Arden corrected. “Just because we don’t see eye-to-eye on this doesn’t mean you’re right and I’m wrong.”
He dropped his fork with a clatter and glared across the table at her. “Ditto.”
“Okay,” Tabby drawled, waving her hand between them like a partition. “Sorry I brought it up. Anyway, let’s talk about how I’m not dead instead. Yes? Great. We need to do something awesome to celebrate.”
Arden and Eskel shared a glance.
“Like?” Arden asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“Party,” Tabby shared, and it was obvious that she hadn’t just randomly thought it up. “At your place.”
Arden grunted. “No. I go to enough events as it is, and besides, there’s no way I’m letting a bunch of strangers into my house.”
“What do you mean strangers?”
“I know you,” she said. “You’ll invite everyone you pass on the street. No way, Tabby.”
“Fine.” She relented. “Well, something else equally epic then. Something more than just the three of us eating pizza at Tollbooth’s and catching a movie after. Something we’ve never done before.”
“Maybe we should crash one of these other ‘events’ of hers,” Eskel suggested to Tabitha. “See if they’re actually any fun.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Arden snapped. She snatched up her tray and stood so abruptly that the table shook. “I have to go or I’ll be late. I’m sorry I can’t spend more time with you on your first day back.”
“I’ll hang out with you,” Eskel told Tabby as Arden walked away.
Arden tried not to be bothered by it, but she couldn’t shake her disappointment that she couldn’t stay with them. If she didn’t go, however, she wouldn’t make it to Rose Manor in time and Mavek would be royally pissed. She’d promised him after all that she would show up, and that she’d get there before dark.
With the increase of Unseelie in town, even Mavek was getting worried about her walking around alone at night. He’d asked her not to go out anymore, especially not when all she had was her bike. Even with a year’s worth of training, there was no way that she could take on an Unseelie for long. And it wasn’t exactly something that she wanted to attempt anyway.
When she stepped out of the dining hall, a slim man fell into step at her side. Arden narrowed her eyes but didn’t stop walking, heading down the stairs and over to where she’d locked up her bike earlier.
“Hello,” the man said, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly when she glanced up from the bike lock.
Hi
s hair was curly and the color of copper wire, eyes almond-shaped and as green as moss. Freckles dotted his entire face, and his outfit was made up of different shades of brown. He was still as a statue while she quickly appraised him, all except for the shadow dancing at his feet.
“Brix,” she practically growled his name, yanking her bike off the rack with more force than necessary. Without waiting for him to reply, she flung a leg over and took off in the direction of her house. It wasn’t that she feared him—she was angry with him for what he’d done.
Of course, she was under no delusion that she could actually get away from him, so when she turned the corner and pedaled up to her house, it wasn’t a shock to find him lounging on her front porch.
“Did you know,” he began conversationally as she rolled her bike to the back, “that I was around when the first bicycle was invented?”
“Amazingly enough, I really don’t give a shit.”
“Ah, you’re upset.”
“Not at all.”
“Lying has always been a strange human practice, one that I struggle to understand.” He clucked his tongue and shifted, balancing on the balls of his feet. “I won’t apologize for my actions on the equinox, Arden Archer. I am what I am, who I am. And you knew that already.”
“You poisoned me!” She spun on him, hands fisting at her sides.
“You could have refused the drink,” he pointed out evenly. “I didn’t force it down your throat.”
She stormed off toward the back door, swinging it open and almost hitting him on the head with it. Stepping inside, she turned quickly and braced her hands on the doorframe to keep him from following. “You are definitely not invited in.”
He not so subtly tried to peer over her shoulder, first over the left then over the right. Not seeing anything of interest, he settled back and sighed. “Can’t say I blame you there.”
“Why are you here, Brix?” Not that she expected him to have a reason.
“I was sent to spy on you.” He canted his head, watching for her reaction. When she remained impassive, he resumed trying to see past her into her house.
“Who sent you?”
“The Erlking, of course.”
“Of course,” she murmured. She hadn’t seen the Erlking since the other week when he’d sicced the kelpie on her. The thought of him taking such an interest in her made her very uncomfortable.
And afraid.
“Did he also order you to give me the bakkheia wine, Brix?”
“Indeed.”
“Was there a reason he asked you to do that?”
“I’m sure there was.”
Arden inhaled slowly, willing her patience to rise and her anxiety to lower. From what Mavek had told her about Brix’s kind, she should be grateful that she was making any progress here at all. She only needed to know one more important detail from him before she could continue.
“Why are you telling me any of this?” Arden asked with her hand on the doorknob, waiting for his response. Depending on what he said next, she was either going to slam the door in his face and bar herself in—not that that would do much good against an Unseelie—or she was going to rethink inviting him in.
“Because.” His eyes shifted from a bright, golden-tan to the vibrant green she was beginning to think he favored. “I knew a Heartless once. A little thing, he was. And yet, he walked into our world like a giant.” His expression changed, the barest hint of sadness sliding over his features.
Arden cleared her throat, a bit uncomfortable with the new idea that Brix could feel emotions other than mischief. It made him too real, too… human.
“Let me guess,” she drawled in a poor attempt to regain her footing, “he crawled out a worm?”
“He didn’t get out at all.” Brix took a single step closer, lowering his head as if to divulge a secret. At his back, the wind gusted forward, hard enough to send his curls bouncing around his falsely angelic face. “They broke him, Arden Archer. They took his insides and exposed them to the outside, and all because he couldn’t do what they wanted. Because he changed his mind.”
Arden frowned. “About what?”
He searched over her shoulders again at the inside of her house.
“Brix?” she pressed.
“It’s against the law for a Heartless to fall in love,” he whispered.
Immediately, her mind summoned a picture of Eskel. With an inner snarl she forced it away.
“I’m not falling in love,” she growled, mostly because she felt better saying the words aloud. She barely knew Eskel in the grand scheme of things.
“Did you know,” Brix continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “it’s against the law for a Heartless to fall in love?”
Arden’s frown deepened. “You just said that.”
“Yes, but I didn’t finish. To fall in love with a Bloodheart. There’s no rule against one falling for a Blackheart, like myself.”
Mavek. Oh crap, Brix knew about her feelings for Mavek. Arden found that she wasn’t surprised. Over the past month, she’d come to realize that the whole damn world knew about the way she felt for the Midnight Prince. Her embarrassment over that was already starting to wane.
“So, when I confessed my feelings to the Heartless boy, I thought it would be alright.”
Arden stilled, shock entering her now. He couldn’t actually have been referring to himself, could he?
“And when he confessed in turn, I didn’t stop to think of the consequences,” Brix continued, confirming her suspicions. “Well, that’s not entirely true. As I’ve said already, I did not believe that there would be consequences. We broke no law. And then the king found out.”
“The Erlking?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” she repeated a second time. Dread crawled up her spine. Arden didn’t want to feel bad for him; she could tell where this story was going and she didn’t want to know the rest. She didn’t want to look at him with pity, not after what he’d done on the equinox, orders be damned.
“Do you know why we really have three Heartless, Arden Archer?” He met her gaze for the first time since starting his story, yet the look in his eyes was still misty and far away. “Only the strongest can survive the Tithe. Only the best will be accepted in exchange. Our offering was rejected one year.” A shudder passed through him. “Many were lost.”
Arden was torn between wanting to press him for more details, and wanting to tell him to shut up.
“Why was it rejected?” That was the part that confused her. Why would a soul be rejected by the Underground?
“It wasn’t good enough,” Brix told her, as if that was all the answer she needed. “My Heartless boy fell in love with a dark thing, and as a result, he lost his life.”
Her circumstances were not the same. She wasn’t in love with just any Unseelie, she was in love with the Midnight Prince. He would never hurt her, especially not for something that he’d secretly always known.
“I’m sorry that happened, Brix,” Arden began tentatively, not wanting to offend him, “but, I still don’t really know why you’re telling me this. If it’s because of my feelings for Mavek—”
The look in his eyes stopped her cold. There was a mixture of fury, frustration, and torment there. Arden found that knowing Brix was capable of a range of emotions made hating him harder to do.
“There’s so much more to this than you,” he said, “or him. Or me. There’s so much more to this, Arden Archer. Open your eyes. The Erlking sent me to spy on you because he knows the ties I hold to those you care for. You see, it’s not really about you at all. It’s about me. It’s about my Heartless boy. It’s about confessing things to people that you shouldn’t.
“A name is a powerful thing, it’s true, but,” he shook his head, “love? Love is the most powerful of all. Love is even more controlling. It clouds your mind and gets you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t. Gets you to miss things. It’s both a killer and a savior.”
Arden was having
trouble keeping up with him jumping all over the place like that. She focused on the parts she thought mattered the most.
“Go back to the part about having ties to people I care about,” she demanded. “What do you mean? Are you talking about Mavek? You have ties with the Midnight Prince?” That would be strange, as Brix was one of the Erlking’s main subjects. In their hierarchy, Brix had to listen to Mavek, but he took his main orders from his king. For instance, there was no way Mavek had given the okay for the Erlking to send a spy on her.
“He could have killed me, too,” Brix said then. “I begged him, I confess. But he refused. Living was a greater punishment for costing him the Tithe. Living with the memories of what the Erlking did to him. Death, it wasn’t delivered swiftly. There was torture. And this? Me, watching you? This is just another level of what he deems penance. My Heartless boy, Arden Archer? The one the Erlking took from me? You know him. You have his name.”
“I don’t…” She paused, thought it over. It didn’t take her long. “No. You can’t mean—”
“Everett Cain Montgomery was my Heartless boy.” He leaned closer once more, so that the tip of his nose practically brushed against hers. His demeanor changed as well, acquiring the dark threatening air that always seemed to cloak the Unseelie.
“And so we come to the reason I am telling you all of this,” his voice had turned serious and hard. Whatever he was about to say next, he meant for her to listen, and listen well. “You must not fall in love with Thomas.”
Before she could ask him anything else, he stepped back, morphing from man to cat in a blink. His white furry form darted down the porch stairs and across the yard, leaving Arden and her bewildered thoughts in the dust.
Most of what Brix had said didn’t make sense to her. She needed time to carefully deconstruct what he told her, turn everything over in her mind until she could get a better grasp on it all. But there was one thing in particular that really bothered her now, pricking her like a thorn.
Who the hell was Thomas?
“You’re quiet.” Mavek took his eyes off the road to glance quickly at her. He’d picked her up from her house ten minutes ago to drive her to Rose Manor. “I thought we had made up?”
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