I don’t fancy getting caught in the middle of any of that again. To attackers, I’m not a person—I’m collateral damage.
“What’s out there?” I ask, wanting to pinpoint exactly where in the commune I am. I’m guessing near the mouth of the Tunnel since he’s waiting for signs of his army.
“Grassland,” he says, his voice rigid and gravelly. Definitely still annoyed with me.
“I can smell the sea,” I tell him.
“It is not far from here.”
Turning my back to the curtains, I lean against a ribbed pillar and eye him up. Despite having been with him three times now, my cheeks still flush at the sight of his length between his legs.
Though, he is not as impressed with me. His cool gaze is like ice to my skin.
“They make the best toffee in France around here.” My statement carries a hint of want. And it is what I want—to enjoy my final moments of life. “It’s nice to sit and listen to the sea, too.”
Coolly, he arches a brow over a bleak inky eye. “Will that end all talks of your wish to die?”
Didn’t realise it got under his skin so deeply. A kuri shouldn’t have that much of an effect on a dark fae. And that’s a twisted truth we are both glaringly aware of, but we sidestep it.
“If you take me out of here to find toffee, some wine, and to listen to the sea, then I’ll put a lid on it.”
A frown creases between his brows.
“I mean I’ll shut up about suicide,” I clarify.
The frown smooths out and he lifts his chiselled chin to look down his nose at me. For a beat, he studies me, considering my promise.
Aren’t fae all about bargains?
That’s what the stories say. But then, how much of the stories came from the litalves and not the dark ones? It’s hard to tell. And I don’t fancy asking, either.
“I accept,” he finally says and, leaving the lantern on the countertop, he marches into the bedroom to dress.
I finish as many of the corn chips as I can manage before he leads the way out of the door. I note that before we go, he carries no satchels with him, so he expects to return. Maybe I have some more time before his army come than I first thought. And that’s a great relief—the pills will have plenty of time to do the job before I’m forced into a band of brutal fae.
A long-sleeved top was the right choice, but I should have gone for a cardigan, too.
So close to the sea, a chilly breeze runs through the darkness and ices over my skin. I hug my prickling arms around myself, sticking close to Cliff.
With only the lantern to guide us, the darkness feels much as it did when my old group would pass through towns without a torchlight in sight, keeping as unnoticed as possible.
Now, I hear the faint skittering and slapping of critters in the distance. They are becoming a white noise, I’ve been hearing them so much lately. The noises fade away as we walk down the main road to a sweet shop tucked beside a green grocer’s.
No need to break in or destroy the handle, since the door is already ajar. Orange light illuminating my way, I slip inside after Cliff and head straight for the glass counter under the till. Grabbing a white paper bag from the rack, I stuff it full with stale clumps of toffee, some powdered bon bons, and salted caramel slices.
Then we move on to the grocer’s shop across the road. Cliff doesn’t let me wander; he leads the way straight to the back corner of the shop where the sign above the shelves reads ‘De l’alcool’.
As I roam the shelves, eyeing the rows of dusty bottles, I find I’m suddenly appreciative of Cliff’s reluctance for small talk. A sleepy effect has climbed over me from the pills and, with conversation, he might be prematurely tipped off to what I’ve done.
To mask the effects, I grab a bottle of vodka and snub the wine. I need a better excuse than ‘one glass of wine too many’ to explain away the new increasing weight to my eyelids and how I’m forced to clench my leg muscles to stop myself from swaying.
Cliff leads me out of the shop without a word and finds us a bench on the main road to park on.
First, I dig into the vodka. It goes down a treat, so nicely that my lashes flutter with a special pleasure and, as I pull it away from my lips, I loosen an ‘ahhh’.
I trade the bottle for a clump of toffee that’s so stuck together that there’s just no chance of prying the pieces apart. I nibble on it instead for a beat before I offer some to Cliff.
Staring straight ahead into the darkness with those bleak eyes of his, he simply shakes his head. I lean my temple on his solid arm and tuck in.
Over the skittering of the critters, the faint song of the sea climbs through the dark. I can make out waves crashing on rocky shores and even the squawk of seagulls out there somewhere.
It amazes me as much as it befuddles me that these animals are still kicking. How can they survive in the darkness? How do the flowers still bloom and the rodents still scurry down alleyways and the birds still fly?
To us—the humans—it’s a thick blanket of blackness draped over the world, suffocating all the light and therefore photosynthesis from this world. But maybe it’s much more complicated than that. What if, Mother forbid, the darkness will slowly eat away at our world and not kill it but change it, turning it into something like theirs?
Is this an evolution?
If so, what will be the end result?
Blinking ahead at the thick blackness, barely penetrated by the lantern, I break into Cliff’s silent thoughts; “Is your world beautiful?”
In his quiet moment, I let my eyes shut and I savour the sweet taste of the toffee melting on my tongue. His bicep relaxes against my head, and I lean into him that bit more.
“Yes,” he finally says. “There is no sun or moon,” he adds. “Our light comes from the earth.”
I smile sleepily, then take a blind swig of the vodka. It blends nicely with the toffee. “Tell me about it.”
He takes a long, deep breath that shifts him beside me. As he exhales, he says, “The fruit that grows on our trees glows as your moon does. Stones deep in the caves of the mountains glitter like your midnight skies. Some of our fields gleam white, wild peaches burn orange, and the leaves our hollow trees shine with pinks and deep blues. Light is all over our world, as is the darkness.”
I pick on one thought. “Are your peaches like ours?”
His arm shifts against my head; he twists to look down at me. “Sweeter, juicier, and intoxicating to your kind. One of your favoured bottles,” he adds, grazing his light fingertips down the length of the vodka, “would be less to your body than a whole wild fruit from my world.”
In answer, I hum. His stare still cuts over my face as he studies me.
“No more of this,” he decides and takes the bottle from my loose grip. “It is interacting with the black powder.”
Lazily, I just nod, my hair rustling against his arm.
“You need rest,” he tells me. “Can you walk?”
I pry my eyes open and look up at him, at the worried crease between his brows, the grim set of his mouth, and my heart flips in my chest.
“I’m fine,” I whisper and peel myself off of him. It takes me a moment but I build the strength to push up from the bench. I snatch the bottle of vodka from the bench on the way.