Page 54 of Invidia

It was weird of me to feel so weepy in the first place. My emotions were always a rollercoaster, but they didn’t normally include waterworks.

“Where are we going?” I asked, snuggling in close as Evrin led me to the portal.

“There’s a cottage for sale that I thought I would show you, if you want—”

“Yes!” I squealed, barely resisting the urge to jump up and down. “Ooh, I’m so excited.”

“Tell me about the meeting this morning.”

I filled him in as we made our way through the in-between, keeping my voice low. Really low, which made me realize that Shade hearing was much better than I’d previously thought.

Evrin’s responses were more muted than Astrid’s, but his arm was tense beneath mine as I relayed Lochan’s words.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think it’s wise to be cautious around Lochan. And I hate that you are sleeping under the same roof as him.”

“I don’t love it either, but at least Iris isn’t.”

Evrin hummed, guiding me out of the in-between and into an entry room that seemed a lot smaller and lower than any of the others I’d been into.

“This is Carneath,” Evrin said, pushing open the door, the sound of crashing waves and the smell of the ocean immediately greeting us.

“Wow,” I breathed, stepping out and scanning the horizon. There was a meandering stone staircase that seemed to perfectly follow the curves and contours of the gray land, like it had formed as a natural part of the landscape. At the top of the stairs was a clifftop with small stone cottages scattered along it, though they were several hundred feet apart. “Evrin, this place is magical.”

I tore my gaze away from the view to look up at him, finding him already staring down at me. “You like it?”

“I love it. It looks like a fairytale.” I hesitated for a moment. “It looks expensive.”

“Not at all,” he replied, surprised. “Carneath is an ancient settlement. Shades used to be shorter than we are now—the internal beams in these homes are a hazard for anyone with horns.”

“Which is conveniently not an issue for us,” I said cheerfully, very much seeing the silver linings.

“No,” he agreed wryly. “It’s certainly an advantage I’d never considered before. Shall we? We’re going to that one,” he tilted his chin at the closest cottage, at the top of the stairs. “The owner has left it unlocked for us.”

“Let’s go!” I was already dragging him toward the steps, desperate to get a closer look.

“You don’t think it would be too isolated for you out here?” Evrin asked.

I almost squealed at the seriousness of the question. The future it implied he was certain of. I’d been trying to keep my expectations at a firmly manageable level, but it was impossible when he talked like that.

“I don’t think so.”

There were other cottages, but they were so far away that they were barely noticeable along the cliff's edge. “You could just drop me at the palace or Elverston House before your shift if I want to see everyone, right? Selene and Austin don’t live at court, but Austin still seems to pop up pretty regularly.”

“I’d had the same thoughts. And my shifts in the in-between don’t need to be as long as they are—I can reduce them, or take more frequent breaks should you wish to return home during the day,” he said, seeming as though he was mostly thinking out loud to himself.

“Home,” I sighed dreamily, one of my inside thoughts making its way out of my head. Evrin gave my waist a gentle squeeze, fussing over me as we climbed the stairs before promptly tripping over one himself.

“They were designed for shorter Shades,” he pointed out, nudging me as I attempted to squash my smile. “As you’ll see when we get up to the cottage. This area is very old.”

I hummed, examining the rough-hewn stone steps with new eyes. My parents had once taken me to Greece to attend a Hunters gathering, and these stairs reminded me a lot of the ones we’d seen in Rhodes. They were old old.

“I wonder if the Hunters—back when they were the Hunted—ever lived here. Maybe Shades weren’t so giant back when they were knocking up my kind on the regular?” I suggested. “You know, shrunken down by those human genes.”

“You might be onto something there,” Evrin murmured, absently touching his hair with his free hand. The lack of horns did give his head a far more human shape. Maybe it was more of a recessive gene than… curse, or whatever it was being attributed to?

He pushed open the heavy wooden front door, and I could have sworn my heart stopped for a moment. “Oh, Evrin, it’s beautiful. The ceiling! Oh my god. That is incredible.”

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