Page 6 of Midnight Kingdom

“Pyre?”

“Doesn’t Pyre naturally know everything?” I ask with feigned humor.

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t tell Pyre if that’s what you’re asking me.”

“Then I’m the only one you’ve told?”

“Yes.”

He faces me and his eyebrows crease in frustration. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

“I didn’t feel the time was right.”

“And why am I the only one you’ve told?”

I shake my head. “It just felt right to tell you… now. I didn’t want to tell the others because I didn’t want to bring them down. It’s so important to free the Midnight Queen that I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. And I thought maybe this news was big enough that it might bring everyone down and we can’t afford to be down. We have to focus on the positive.”

Dragan reaches out and wraps his arms around me, in a move that surprises me. When he pulls me against his chest, I lean into his touch instinctively, grateful he gives me this moment of peace in his arms while the others are out of sight.

“I hate it that you’re going back to the castle with us,” he whispers into my ear. “After what Variant forced you to watch and this obvious… interest he’s developed in you. And now he knows you’re an intact angel…” He pulls me away from him and glances down at me. “Does he also know you’re Succubus?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

He nods and takes a deep breath. “You should have stayed with Pyre.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head staunchly. “This is as much my fight as it is yours now. It belongs to all of us.”

He exhales in such a way that I’m fairly sure I haven’t changed his mind.

I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in. “Now you know,” I say.

“Now I know,” he answers as he runs his hands through my hair and the two of us grow quiet. The smell of old books and rotted wood fills my nose and it’s a smell that seems strangely comforting though the feeling makes little sense. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Dragan and I have been allowed this moment together—a moment between the two of us and one where it seems as though we’ve repaired whatever tension existed between us. Maybe that’s naive to think but somehow I feel as though things are different between us now. It’s like we have a common understanding that we were lacking before.

“Were you and the others friends before all of this happened? When you were kings?” I feel Dragan shake his head and feel slightly disappointed. “What were you then?”

“We were allies, Eilish, and we became as close as brothers but the three of us never would have known each other if not for the Midnight Queen’s oath. Restoring the balance brought us together and ultimately pushed us apart. In some ways, nothing has really changed.”

“Are the three of you incapable of patching your differences then?”

“That remains to be seen,” he replies impassively.

“And are we incapable of patching our differences?” I ask as I look up at him.

“I hope not.”

“But you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” he answers. I nod as I drop my attention to the rotted wooden floor beneath me.

“I’m trying, Eilish,” he admits.

“I know,” I say with a small smile as I suddenly feel the need to get away from him, just so I can breathe, so I can think. Dragan has a way of stealing my focus, my thoughts.

“Eilish,” he starts.

“It’s okay,” I interrupt and turn around to offer him a smile before I decide to return to the group in the other room. Immediately, I notice Flumph where he sits on the floor. The sprite still reads from a book about faeries and other creatures. I sit beside him and reach for the book nearest me, which happens to be an old tome about the humans. There are pictures of them, revealing them to come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. I find their fragility beautiful and tragic, all the same.

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