Page 90 of Kiss the Fae

By the time I’m done snoozing, it’s still early for the Fae. Groggily, I mosey to the wardrobe, where an assortment of dresses fills the rack. My eyes sweep across rich pigments of royal blue and robin’s egg blue, and majestic tints of alabaster and salted white. Lustrous colors of the sky, woven of textiles that don’t exist in my world. The clothes ripple beneath my fingertips as if threaded with mist from the clouds, the radiance of raindrops, and filaments of moonlight.

All my size and fancy. None that I’m planning on hopping into.

The nightgown had been fine, an exception when I got to this tower scraped, bruised, and grimy. But my general rule? I dress myself. I choose what goes on my body, nobody else.

That aside, I need something spiffier for what I’ve got planned. Where am I gonna get that?

I slink out of the tower once more, hoping a stroll amongst the fauna will provide an answer—better yet, a thousand answers to a thousand questions. Inside the park, I amble down a random path, pausing under a moonflower trellis to grin at the antelope curled in a bed of grass.

“If you don’t leave, I’ll make you,” a voice grouses.

I swing around to find Moth festering on a tree branch. Her diminutive legs peek from a hazel skirt, her bare toes wiggling. I should have known the groundskeeper was an early riser.

I approach the trunk. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad for the distraction.”

Her frown turns waspish. “In that case, I’m leaving.” But she doesn’t move. “I mean it.”

“Suit yourself. But I’ll be awful comfortable out here with all this wild peace. And I’ll have you to thank for it.”

She hisses but stays put, watching as I dare to climb the tree and dump myself next to her. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse Moth assessing me, her gaze oozing with judgment. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was lonely.”

“Ha. Humans and their lies. You must be getting desperate, terrified to continue your ill-fated trek up The Solitary Mountain. Thinking about what’s in store?”

Guess she doesn’t have many people to take her petulance out on. “Thinking about my sisters,” I admit. “They’d love this place. I wonder what they’d do if they were here, in this maze.”

That shuts her up. For a second. “I do that sometimes…with Cerulean. He’s like a brother to me. We learned to read from my parents, and we used to play hiding games in The Watch of Nightingales.”

Cerulean told me some of that. “Must be nice to have a brother.”

“I wouldn’t mind a sister, too.” The ghost of a smile quirks her mouth, then she realizes what she’s doing and scowls. “That’s not a request.”

I can’t help the snicker that topples out. I must be more jittery than I thought, because why mention my sisters to Moth otherwise? And who the hell knows what possessed me to perch beside her.

I reconsider what Moth grumbled in the tower about having a right to be hostile, which reminds me of her family’s empty cottage. “Where are your parents?”

Her glare scrolls toward me. “They tried to save the fauna. You captured them.”

Fuck. I don’t need to hear the rest.

She’s no different, detesting humans for being humans, then detesting them for rebelling. Her mama and papa were among the rebels who fought to rescue their animals, then they got caught and…well.

Only three survived the ambush. Moth’s parents weren’t that lucky. My people took that from her.

“I’m sorry.” When it comes to this, I’m not good at saying the right things. That’s Cove’s specialty, so I phrase my words carefully. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose my parents that way. But I sure do know what it’s like to live without ’em.” When Moth’s brows crinkle, I confide, “They left me.”

She turns away, dissecting that information. For a while, we sit in silence.

“Do you really have a sanctuary?” she asks.

My head snaps toward her. “Where did you hear that?”

“I eavesdropped on you and Cerulean last night, when you sat on the tower ledge. I listened until you followed him into the park. Is that what you meant? When you said you understood why I love tending to the fauna?”

“It was. Poachers are a reality where I’m from—some got no choice,” I’m quick to say when Moth grimaces with outrage. “For some people, it’s either that or go hungry. But other gits do it for profit, and somebody’s gotta stop them. Somebody’s gotta help the wild, so that’s what my family does.”

Moth rolls her shoulders, loosening a crick. “I can…respect that.”

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