Page 70 of Kiss the Fae

“If we’re gonna do this, you’ll have to return the favor,” I dictate.

“Fair enough. Illuminate me,” he prompts.

“My favorite winged creature? A lark.” And when a sarcastic grin winds across his face, I shove his shoulder. “Get off your high throne. It’s not a vanity thing.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“It’s the first bird I ever saw. I mean, it’s the first one I remember truly observing, so it was the first time I realized how much I love anything that flies.” I tuck my hair behind my ears. “They can do something I can’t. They get to live in the sky, they travel with the wind, and they’re fearless when they do it. I’m right jealous they get to see the world from above. Growing up, I wanted the same freedom.”

I trail off, knowing I’ve gotten carried away. All my jabbering has cranked a smile out of me.

Cerulean considers that smile while asking, “Freedom from what?”

I shrug, though it’s nothing to shrug about. “I was a chimney sweep.”

The Fae’s reaction is immediate. His attention jumps to my eyes to see if I’m in earnest, then he shifts his frown toward the jagged mountain paths. Don’t know why, but he looks disturbed. “Will you tell me more?”

19

I don’t have to tell him a damn thing, yet a fistful of thoughts punch through my mind. Quit while I’m ahead or see where this goes, find out where this will lead. Treat this parley like another twist or turn in this mountainous labyrinth. Talk with my captor, keep him close. Find a truce but don’t yield. Dive off the edge but don’t crash.

Maybe I want to hear myself say it aloud. Or maybe I want to tell someone who’s opinion doesn’t matter, because there’s no risk. Or maybe his reaction does matter, a little.

I talk about being a tyke. Not the parts about having a home, a family, and a sanctuary. I talk about everything that came before. I live in Middle Country, but my roots are buried in the south among the dragons.

“I’m the foundling daughter of a brothel keeper,” I announce, crossing my legs. “I was born during an ale brawl between patrons, popping out of my mama’s womb and into the waiting arms of the wench who helped deliver me. Don’t know who my papa is—or was—but my mama didn’t have time for suckling or swaddling, so she dumped me at an overcrowded orphanage before I could crawl, which transferred me to Middle Country and another overcrowded orphanage, which I ran away from when I was eight.”

I throw a pebble into the valley. “Nobody ever told me the streets were just as mean. I got plucked from an alleyway by a man with the face of a bulldog, who turned me into one of his chimney sweeps.”

Cerulean listens as I describe the two years I spent scaling those blackened brick lungs. Two years of coughing on ash and trying not to pass out from exhaustion. Two years of soot flecks caking my eyes. Two years of raw elbows and scraped knees. Two years of grime-stuffed nails and whooping fits. Two years of crying myself to sleep.

My captor kept a retainer of us on hand, rotating the sweeps depending on which of us was hacking the least on any given day. If anyone refused, they’d get the switch—or worse—and we’d have to watch. Only a fraction of the sweeps made it through those years.

“I was crushed inside a flue one morning, trying to stifle my sobs,” I tell Cerulean. “Don’t know why, but that particular chimney didn’t have a cap, so I glanced at the clouds through the ceiling, where a box of blue shone down on me.”

My throat swells at the memory, but I smile through it. “That’s when I saw the littlest bird circling and singing over and over, as if it knew what I needed. I thought about freedom, how that creature made it seem so easy, and I stopped crying. It gave me comfort, and that was enough to get me out of there.”

I’d always been afraid my captor would find me if I tried to escape, but I didn’t care right then. While he was busy dragging another girl to a customer’s townhouse, I scrambled down the flue, raced out of that building, and followed that bird as it flew over the town. I ran, and ran, and ran in the same direction, until I bumped into an old man with a friendly face.

The lark had swooped down and perched on Papa Thorne’s shoulder as he braced me steady, concern etched across his dark features. I fought to kick him in the shin, but when I noticed the bird, I stopped.

My grimy face and shredded knees told Papa Thorne what I was. He wiped away the black coating my hair and revealed a shock of white beneath the cinders. After that, he bought me a big fat cheese tart and took me to a healer, and the bird stayed on Papa Thorne’s shoulder the whole time. That’s how I knew he was safe. And that’s how I found a home.

My sisters came after that, stumbling separately into our lives that same year, bringing their own stories with them. Papa Thorne isn’t someone who sees an abandoned child and leaves them to their fates. So we became a family.

“The lark stayed until I was able to sleep through the night without coughing. Then it swooped off into the wild, maybe to save others,” I say. “That’s where I get my name from. Since I didn’t have one when Papa found me, he suggested that I name myself. So I chose Lark, to thank the bird for giving me hope.”

The moon and stars pump light onto the range. As I watch the sky inhale and exhale clouds, Cerulean’s attention sears a trail across my profile. The instant I meet his eyes, he bends one knee and lounges into a negligent pose, the opposite limb draped close to mine, both spilling off the rim.

Sprawled like that, he says, “Except you didn’t need wings to free yourself. You simply needed to run.”

Lucky for him, he said that without being condescending. “You saying it was always in my power to run away? ’Cause that’s not how it felt for two years.”

“I have this habit of believing how something feels and what that feeling means…well, perhaps it’s rarely obvious until the moment is over. What do you suppose?”

“Is that a jab?”

“No. It’s me asking what you think?”

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