Page 97 of A Fae in Finance
But I dutifully sat again, looking around the table. I hadn’t had a family dinner in months—it had been months even before I was trapped in Faerie, because I’d been so busy at work.
As Everly had said, she sat on the bench between Sahir and Aram, lolling side to side so her head rested on first one and then the other of them. Every time her head landed on Sahir’s arm, he smiled down at her, his face so soft it sent a stab of unnamable longing through me. Or maybe namable but unwanted longing.
I sat between Grumps and Grumpy, not lolling at all. Grumps had taken the foot of the table and Rijska the head.
They all reached for the food in front of them, and so I did the same. There were six dishes—a salad of sorts with the purple veiny leaves I’d become accustomed to, a ricelike dish, a pressed protein that looked suspiciously like an extra firm tofu slab out of a package, soft dinner rolls, a thick brown sauce, and what appeared to be a tub of unflavored yogurt.
I gaped when Grumps handed me the yogurt. “You guys have this?”
Grumps grinned, one thick-knuckled hand still on the container, his eyes crinkling with crow’s feet just like a mortal man’s. “Sometimes our friends who walk the mortal world return with gifts.”
I glanced around and saw that everyone had taken a heaping spoonful.
“We should discuss,” Aram said, when everyone had filled their plates. “How to stop the mortal girl from withering.” His left hand splayed out on the table; he tapped his fingers in restless staccato.
Sahir pretended to steal a bite off Everly’s plate, and she squealed.
“Well, why is she withering now?” Rijska asked, intent on Aram’s face. She stared at him with wide, trusting eyes—Sahir’s eyes, with an expression I’d never seen on his broader face. Without any apparent conscious thought, she laid her right hand over Aram’s left on the table. He flipped his palm up and squeezed.
“There is an answer,” Grumpy said. She had filled her plate with heaping scoops of yogurt and nothing else. My chest tightened in anticipation. Who knew what Grumpy might say?Faerie curses, ora lack of dopamine.
Everyone turned to her, expectant. She stuck her spoon in the yogurt and plopped a dollop into her mouth.
“Well?” Sahir prompted.
“I do not know the answer,” Grumpy said. “Only that there is one.”
Grumps sighed, a heaving exhalation that put Sahir to shame. I glanced at Sahir, whose lips quirked like he knew what I was thinking. Sitting across from him at the table, I could see again the shadows beneath his eyes, the hollows under his cheekbones, and the unshaven stubble at his jaw. I’d never seen him so tired.
“Perhaps the Queen or the Duke will know the answer,” Grumps volunteered, tearing a soft roll to pieces on his plate. He tossed a piece to Everly, who flinched under her father’s arm and then giggled. Rijska glared at her father with enough force that I, personally, would have crawled under the table. He ignored her and continued, “Though I cannot advise you to ask them for it.”
Now there was aDuke, too? Was he planning some kind of land invasion as well?
I stared at Aram. He had a faraway expression in his eyes, and I wondered what he knew. He seemed more alien than the others.
“Some of the humans do not wither,” Sahir said. “Those who wandered into the Court through winding roads open only to them.”
I looked around the table, struggling to process. Were they all trying to figure out why I was unhappy? Didwitherjust meanexperience crippling existential depression?
“But it does not matter.” Rijska ripped a roll in half. “No matter who you ask, you will have to travel the roads. And we know the Queen’s soldiers have become bolder.”
Sahir looked at her. “You have seen them?”
His sister shook her head. “No, but we have heard from others. They wait along the paths between the Courts,” she said. “They waylay travelers and take them captive.”
Aram put a hand on Everly’s head.
Grumps stared at his son. “You will need a company for your journey, Sahir.”
I couldn’t stop myself, the sudden surge of rage. We didn’t need a magical mystery quest or another faerie to give us riddles. “I already know how to stop me from withering,” I said, slamming my fork onto the table. “You need to let me go hometo my family.”
Sahir looked from Everly to me. And I saw him realize, fully, what had been done to me.
He sagged onto the bench, limbs lengthening. His body started to flicker.
“Oh no, youdo not,” I shrieked, shoving away from the table so hard that my chair fell over again. “No, you donotturn into a vine monster! This isnot your pain.”
I was roaring by the end, hands flat on the table, hunched over and staring at him.
