Page 138 of Trick

Nicu watched him go, then asked, “What’s a half-wit?”

I framed his face. “Listen to me, Nicu—”

“Is it a monster? Is it going to eat me like thunder? Thunder eats the grass.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you. I swear it. Thunder won’t eat you because you’re a fae. You have magic. Papa gave it to you.”

Almost. He almost brightened, but then he jumped when a brittle creature two cells down shrieked, the prisoner’s paper-thin voice ripping apart. “Alarm, alarm, alarm!”

Nicu shrank into my chest. “Don’t leave me. I’m scared.”

I hugged him tightly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Papa goes.”

“But he comes back. He comes back because he loves you. He loves you more than anything else.”

“Love is the sun. You have a yellow sun in your tummy, like Papa and Jinny. Your hair is a red ribbon, and your brown dots—” he tapped the freckles on my nose, “—are stains from the rain. If you leave me, there will never ever be colors again. They will die.”

“No,” I said. “You’re all the color in this world, not me. You’re Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter. Your eyes are good luck clovers.”

“I don’t want to be colorful without you, Briar Patch. You make me happy orange and Papa smitten pink.”

“In truth, my name is just Briar.”

“Just Briar,” Nicu repeated in a remarkably accurate imitation of my voice.

He stared at me like I belonged to him, like he belonged to me, like we belonged to each other.

Like I made this dungeon safe. Like I made the world safe.

I’d held back for so long, despite Father’s death, Mother’s disappointment, Eliot’s heartbreak, and Poet’s passion. Nicu was the pin that burst me open. After weeks of resistance, two bloated tears popped and rushed down my face.

Nicu extended a finger and traced each wet path. “You’re raining.”

I’m crying because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

Perhaps this was how Mother felt about me, unconditional and absolute.

The solitary torchlight pulsed against the sooty walls. Our shadows formed a single body. I watched myself disappear into Nicu.

I loved this boy.

I loved his father for making him.

A servant balancing a plate trailed behind the guard, set the meal on the cell floor, and curtsied to me. Straightening, she crinkled her nose at the scent of excrement permeating the walls and darted upstairs.

Nicu gobbled the food, his lips smacking with each bite.

While he bent his head, I uncorked the sleeping draught. “Can you eat and drink all the treats in the world, Nicu? Is there anything that makes your throat and lips burn, or makes you sick?”

With a full mouth, he answered, “When Jinny eats nuts, she gets a duck mouth.”

“Does anything do that to you?”

He shook his head. I laced his milk with the vial’s contents and watched him guzzle it. Unclasping my wool cloak, I swaddled it around his shoulders and flopped the hood over his head. Within moments, he yawned. I guided him to a spot on the floor, sat against the wall, and gathered him onto my lap.

“Tell me a story,” I urged. “When you’re finished, Papa will be here.”

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