Page 6 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

It’s likely I got here thirty minutes early and have spent every last one of them in prayer.

When my stomach dips with the blunt reminder this isn’t a social call, I thread my fingers atop the table and force a smile. “Sorry to change topics on you so suddenly. I will want to know everything that’s going on in your world—including which animes this season you’re finding time for—but the issue at handis taking up a lot of RAM in my brain…”

Alana mirrors my position on her side of the table. “Of course. You had concerns about the offer Xios presented yesterday.”

“I do. Could you start by telling me what you know? No offense to Alexios, but I’ve heard stories from Meda, so I don’t exactly trust him.”

“Yeah, he’s a twerp.”

I snort. “That is the verdict, yes.”

Alana’s smile tames until she is the picture of royal grace. Thoroughly stern, she meets my gaze. “Castor has somehow managed to manipulate a dryad sapling into bearing an ent child. Dryad saplings aren’t normal trees. They are germinated in Faerie for decades until they are saturated thoroughly with magic, then they are brought here and planted. Their sisters nurture them, and very rarely one brings forth fruit. Thattwoin this harvest have resulted in fruit is unheard of.”

“Is there any reason we’re calling ababyafruit?” I ask.

Alana blinks and tilts her head before laughing. “Oh, right. That is a little weird in human context. Sorry. It’s literal. In human mythology, dryads are tree nymphs whose spirits are bound to a specific plant. If the flora housing their spirit dies, so do they. But none of that is true. Every dryad sapling will eitherbecomea dryad—embracing the magic in them—or a regular tree—as that magic fizzles out. The dryads don’t live apart from their spirits. When a sapling brings forth a literal fruit, the plant pours all its energy into it, then dies when the fruit falls.” She shapes her hands together. “The fruit’s a mango-looking thing, about this big. The little dryad baby kicks through the skin when she gets hungry, then the eldest of the copse decides who takes care of her until she is old enough to be on her own.”

I blink. I calculate. I let my lips part. “Do dryads not have belly buttons?”

Alana splays her fingers, losing her regal airs. “I asked the same thing when Cael told me about it. Apparently their little bellies are connected to the stem of the plant, so they do? But, wow—” She flicks a finger between us. “—same wavelength.”

I can’t find the will to smile. My mind is stuck firmly on the image of atinybaby growing inside a mango. My heart squeezes. “So, Castor managed to nurture a sapling until it became an ent boy…but since it’s barely possible for one to become a dryad, we can assume he tampered with nature?”

Alana’s smile withers as she lowers her gaze. “Yes.”

My hand closes into a fist. God, give me strength. “Do you think he’s okay?”

She pulls in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “He’s unseelie. That means something in his origin is innately dark.” Her jaw locks. “That doesn’t mean he can’t live a happy life.”

“Why am I being brought into this reverse Rumpelstiltskin, Mother Gothel situation? I’m told Castor doesn’t have time for the infant, but what does everyone else seek to gain? I’m not stupid enough to think Alexios is telling me the full truth when he says Castor is using the baby as collateral.”

Alana’s eyes fix on me, emotionless pools, so chillingly unlike what I’ve come to expect from her.

Voice rocking with a mixture of subdued rage and brokenness, I continue, “It’s one baby. No good prince would bend the knee and risk the rest of his kingdom to spare a single, unknown infant who, from what I’m hearing, wasn’t evenmeantto be born. That’s real crappy collateral.”

“Castor hasn’t made the child’s existence public. Since Xios and I haven’t included Cael in the Villain Protection Program, knowing he wouldn’t approve of our efforts, he still doesn’t know there’s an ent baby at all. When the sapling was stolen, the only way we consoled Pila was by reminding her how delicate it is for a dryad to be born. Uprooting the plant alone meant it lostmost of its chances. We could not offend Castor just to retrieve a hopeless plant. Our choices were to let it go—or start a war.” Alana combs her fingers through her short dark hair. “You aren’t wrong that Cael wouldn’t risk so much damage to spare one creature from anything, not even if that creature is an innocent. Castor has to know that. So, either Xios isn’t telling either of us everything he knows, or he doesn’t yet know what Castor is actually planning.”

“Is Xios on our side?”

“He is under oath to Cael, which means failure to abide by our laws can result in any punishment Cael deems fit. I trust Xios. I don’t know if you’re aware how many of the unseelie are born…but Xios is mine.”

“What do you mean he’syours?”

“Xios came from the darkest places in me. He is a culmination of the thoughts and feelings that could have killed me. His existence is how I survived my bleakest moments before I had anything akin to substantial help.”

My brow arches. “So, he’s like your depression baby?”

Dryly, Alana chuckles. “Yep, my brain likes to refer to him as my itty bitty emo infant son.”

I don’t have the energy to respond to that with a smile. “Do you know if this emotional attachment you have to him is reciprocated?”

“I know that he cares. I know that his soul’s song is a suffering, lucid tune—woven with a melody of gentleness. I know that Cael has never felt malice in him. I know that our people respond well to him. The fae, each in their own way, are good at recognizing patterns in a person’s character. If anything were off, Cael or I would hear about it directly. Our people, oureclipse, does not hesitate to express itself to its leaders.”

That’s a beautiful picture. But I’ve spent my entire life hearing the voices of unseen faeries who did not mean halfso well. “Do you know what your depression baby asked for in exchange for letting me see past glamours and enter Faerie without going insane?”

Alana’s dour mood brightens. Scooting to the edge of her seat, she plants her hands back on the table. “Do tell.”

“Everything.”

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