“Pasdon and Mamon are here?” Trey asks them while they continue to hug. Victus pulls away from Trey first, leaving Charisma to shift in Trey’s arms for a solo hug.
“They’re at the main house,” Victus affirms. “Mamon will be relieved to see you—you know how she worries.”
“She makes a career of it at times,” Trey replies, while his hand rubs the girl’s back tenderly.
“She has every right to worry,” Charisma says, wiping a tear from her eye as she pulls away from Trey’s side. “You don’t make it easy on her with your lifestyle choices.” The statement is a fact without the malice of an accusation.
“I know. You’re right. I have this thing for danger, though, Charisma.” Trey smiles at her.
The next tear that slips down her cheek is wiped away by Trey. “Shickles,” she says in a very cute and completely sweet way, “I promised myself that I wasn’t going to cry.”
Trey hugs her again and she cries more on his chest. I feel sick. Not because it’s a disgusting display of emotion, but because it’s not. It’s love. Victus moves away from them, joining me. He reaches a hand up and rests it on my hip. “Kricket,” he says in an affectionate way. “You look like you might need some help getting down from your spix.”
“I think I can manage—”
He doesn’t let me finish, but reaches his other hand up to my waist, plucking me off the spix as if I weigh nothing. He hugs me to him like a brother would. “We were worried about you too, Kricket,” he says in my ear and my heart squeezes tight, but I refuse to cry. I’m not weak—I need to figure out how to be stone again before this paper heart of mine is the death of me.
I rest my head on Victus’s shoulder, because fighting tears is exhausting and I’m already so tired. Trey is by our side an instant later. “Hey, you want to stop touching her, grabby hands?” he asks Victus in a good-natured way.
“No. I don’t.” Victus continues to hug me with a teasing smile for his brother. “This is my soon-to-be sister and look at her. She looks like she can hardly stand on her own at the moment.”
All humor is erased from Trey’s face when he gets a better look at me. “Give her to me,” he orders, reaching out and pulling me away from Victus as he hands me over. “She never says anything!” Trey complains to his brother. “She never whines or shows vulnerability. It’s so frustrating.”
“She’s right here and she can walk,” I say, wiggling to try to make him put me down.
“See what I mean?” he asks Victus, reluctantly setting me on my feet with an exasperated sigh.
“Ahem.” Charisma clears her throat near us.
Victus grins. “You still want to do this?” he asks.
She rolls her eyes at him and nods vehemently.
“Okay,” Victus sighs. “Charisma still thinks she can’t greet you, Kricket, until she’s been formally introduced. I told her it’s unnecessary, given the circumstances, but she doesn’t want to offend you. So.” He makes a grand sweeping gesture toward me as I stand by Trey’s side. “Fay Kricket Hollowell, coriness of Rafe and priestess of Alameeda. Soon-to-be Dreykaress Kricket Allairis, it is my honor to present my intended consort, your soon-to-be sister, née Minness Charisma Aleesia Sandersault. Soon-to-be Hautess Charisma Allairis of the Valley of Thistle, ancestral lineage House of Rafe, Isle of Skye, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera . . .” He trails off in a bored tone.
Charisma sinks into a deep curtsy before us. When she rises, I have no words to say to her. They’ve all run away from me when Victus introduced her as his intended consort. I glance at Trey to gauge his reaction. He’s grinning from ear to ear.
“My new sister, huh?” He glances at Victus with a quirk of his eyebrows. “Well, it didn’t take you very long once I called off our engagement, did it? I saw your clothes in her closet, you knob knocker,” he says playfully.
“So you’re not upset?” Charisma asks as she exhales a deep breath she’s been holding. The relief on her face is exponential.
“The only thing that I’m upset about is that you both made me be the bad guy again,” Trey replies honestly. “As if it’s my job with you two or something. Why do you think I volunteered for that mission to Earth? I wanted you two to admit that you love each other. I was sick of being in the middle of it, stuck in between you both.”
They both look shocked. “You planned for us to betray you?” Charisma asks, looking ashamed. “And you put yourself in extreme danger to do it?”
“No,” Trey says softly, “I planned for you to be in each other’s company without me around so that you could realize just how perfect you are for one another. You complement each other. Charisma, you like to take care of others. It frustrates you that I won’t let you do that with me. But Victus loves all of your attention. You can baby him until next Fitzover and he will be the most contented Etharian to ever walk Thistle. The danger of the mission I agreed to was just a thrill.”
“I don’t enjoy being babied,” Victus lies with a grin.
Trey snorts, “You’re a fuss bucket, Vic.”
“I love her,” Victus says quietly, looking his brother in the eyes with all the banter gone from his expression.
“I know you do. I’m happy for you,” Trey returns with a genuine grin.
“Victus and I must look like awful people to you, Kricket,” Charisma says to me in a melancholy tone.
I turn my gaze upon her; my emotions over what I’m hearing are a jumbled mess. I don’t know what to think or feel. I say the first thing that comes to mind. “It just feels bad right now because your secret’s out. But it can’t be as bad as it was before, can it? It’s not like having your love be an unspeakable thing that you carry around—something you can only daydream about—about the places you’d go with him if you could—the things you’d do—the person you’d be with him. You no longer have to hide behind pretend smiles whenever he’s near, hoping no one else will guess what he means to you—hoping he won’t guess, either, because he’s meant to be with someone else. You must have wondered if you’d ever have a real smile again, and it must have been torture when your paths remained aligned straight ahead, never allowed to intersect, just continuing with the same common symmetry pulling you to him but keeping you apart at the same time.”
“How did you know all of that about me?” she asks, stunned. “Is that one of your priestess gifts? Reading people?”
“No,” I laugh humorlessly. “I’ve just drowned in the dark before too.”