From storm and shadow, p.30
From Storm and Shadow, page 30
“Hey, no.” She grabbed his arm. “Ash, stop. I mean it!”
He swung around to face her. “You want me to just leave—”
“Yes! Just leave it. Him. Them!” She sniffed, pulling him back inside the ballroom. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you kidding? Some asshole makes you cry and it doesn’t matter?”
“He’s not the asshole who made me cry!” she yelled.
He stared at her. Other people were staring too, she suspected, but she couldn’t pull her gaze from him. His expression was frozen. Confused. And then she saw the way it shifted the moment he realized she meant him. He cursed beneath his breath. “I’m sorry. Silver, I—wait!” he called after her as she pushed past him. “Please just wait!”
She ducked past people, aiming for one of the other arched doorways. She had to get out. The gardens were extensive. She could lose herself out there. Cry into the rose bushes and then head back home through the faerie paths when she was ready. It was so stupid, really. How dare any single person have the ability to make her heart feel so crushed? It shouldn’t be possible.
“Silver, just wait!”
Dammit, why was he still following her? She ducked past an arrangement of sparkly seaweedy-looking plants and onto a different terrace. Her left heel twisted sideways, and she almost toppled over. “Ugh, stupid, stupid thing!” She kicked it off, then attempted to send the other shoe in the same direction, but the damn thing was somehow stuck to her foot. She reached down, tugged it off, and flung it sideways with a furious yell.
“Whoa!” From the corner of her eye, she saw Ash duck low. “Did you just throw a shoe at me?”
“No! You were just—in the way! Stop following me!” She grabbed two fistfuls of her skirt and hurried across the terrace and down the steps, faster now that she didn’t have to worry about her ridiculous footwear. The grass was cool and damp beneath her feet, and the evening air was fresh against her burning face. The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate her path between the roses and statues.
“Would you just stop?” Ash shouted. “What is going on? Silver!”
She came to a halt, her back still to him, breathing hard and forcing tears away. Just ahead of her lay a small round pool with a fountain at its center: two figures entwined, lips almost touching, rising from a frothing display of water that was probably supposed to be a wave. Wonderful. Completely freaking wonderful. Even the water feature was mocking her. She gritted her teeth and pointed her gaze determinedly at the ground.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Ash said from behind her. “You told me you wanted to come to this thing with him, and now he’s kissing some other girl, but you’re upset with me, and—” She heard the sound of his hands falling to his sides. “I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”
“You don’t know? You don’t know?” She swung back around to face him. “You and I were supposed to come together!”
He paused, a completely bewildered expression on his face. “We were?”
“Yes!”
“I—okay. I’m sorry, but I somehow missed that part.”
“Because you were too busy being a silly, stubborn boy about Jerryn!”
“Because ... you said you were coming to the ball with him. He asked you out. You … started dating?”
“No! We did not! He asked me to come with him to this stupid thing, and I did not say yes! I came to talk to you, and—”
“Wait. Hang on.” Ash held both hands up. “You said this was what you wanted. Silver, I’m just ... I’m really confused. The only thing I want is for you to be happy, and you said—”
“Seriously? That’s the only thing you want?”
“Yes!”
“No! That cannot possibly be true. What about what you want?”
He paused again, looking a little startled now. “What?”
“What do you want, Ash?” She hesitated, then blurted out, “Is it Odette? Is that who you want?”
“No,” he answered immediately. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can see how it might have seemed that way. I was—”
“How it might have seemed that way?”
“Odette is definitely just a friend.”
“In the same way that I’m a friend?”
“No. Yes. I—I mean—”
“Ugh, this is all so STUPID!”
“Silver.”
“WHAT?”
He pointed above her head. She looked up. Oh. A thousand fat droplets of water hung in the air above her. Above Ash. Above the space between them. She suddenly became distinctly aware of the absence of bubbling water behind her. And then, in the next moment, she became equally aware of the strands of magic bleeding invisibly from her body into the air above her. The magic that was holding all that water up there. She became aware of the effort it was taking to keep it up there.
Well. Crap.
“I assume that’s you?” Ash asked carefully. “I don’t think it’s me.”
“Yes, Ash, it’s me,” she snapped, biting down her embarrassment. She was too old for this kind of uncontrolled release of magic. “Remember years ago when you concocted a layer of syrup and brought it down over my head? Well, I figured it was time to get you back.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “You wouldn’t dare.”
She inhaled deeply, and her voice was low and steady when she answered. “You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t dare.”
His brows inched up. “Here? While you’re wearing that dress? And with your hair and makeup all perfectly—”
She let go. And even though she was expecting it, she still gasped and tensed as the deluge struck her. It was over within seconds, every droplet now soaking into the earth, leaving her and Ash completely drenched. She couldn’t help it. She started laughing.
He blinked at her through the water clinging to his eyelashes. “I can’t believe you did that.”
She laughed even harder. “Really? Do you even know me at all?”
He shook his head, but there was an undeniable smile on his lips now. “Okay. You’re right. I can totally believe you did that.” He wiped a hand over his face, then sighed. “Silver, I’m really sorry about—”
“Can we just pretend the last few weeks never happened?” she blurted out.
He hesitated for barely a second before answering. “Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. And I’m so sorry. Things have been so weird, and I hated it.”
“Ugh, me too. It was horrible. But I didn’t know how to get things back to the way they were before.”
“I know, me neither.” He gave her a tentative smile. “So … are we okay?”
“Yes.” If they could take a gigantic step over the past few weeks and all the embarrassing shouting she’d just done, then they were good. “I think we’re okay. Or at least, we will be.” She answered his smile with a hesitant one of her own. “Should we go back inside, or … I don’t know, maybe you should go back and I’ll go home. Pretty sure at least half the ballroom heard me yelling at you. I think I might get some strange looks if I go back in there.”
“Have you forgotten we’re both dripping wet? I don’t think either of us will be welcomed back into the ballroom.”
“Oh, right.” Silver looked down at herself, then ran her hands over the damp lace that clung to her arms. Now that her anger had fizzled away, she felt terrible about soaking the dress Mom had spent her precious spare hours on.
“You didn’t ruin it,” Ash said, as if he could read her mind. “You still look beautiful.”
“Oh. Um …” Her cheeks burned again. “Thanks.”
“I-I mean … objectively.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry. We’re supposed to be working on not being weird, and I’m just making things worse.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe it’ll take a little bit of time.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.” Then he took a deep breath, looked around, hesitated, and then asked, “Do you … want to dance?”
“Out here?”
“Well, we’ve already established we’re probably not welcome in the ballroom.”
“True. Okay, sure.” She shrugged, hoping the movement looked natural. Inside, she was trying to figure out how her brain would continue sending commands to her feet with Ash standing so close to her. She forced herself to focus on other things: the damp grass tickling her feet, her wet dress brushing against her ankles, the music in the distance.
Ash moved closer, took her right hand in his, and placed his other arm around her. His fingers skimmed over her bare skin before his hand settled at the small of her back. Also bare skin. A tiny gasp of breath caught at the back of her throat. Oh holy courts, please tell me he didn’t hear that! She swallowed and forced herself to take a normal breath. Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, DON’T FREAK OUT. She concentrated on the music emanating from the ballroom and cleared her throat. “Um, what dance is this?”
“I have no idea.”
“Really?” She looked up at him and forced her lips into a teasing smile. “I thought you knew everything.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Right, sure.” She laughed and felt herself relax a little. This she could do. Teasing, joking. This was their thing. This was normal.
Ash’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled back at her. “I honestly have no clue. Maybe we should just, like … sway?”
“Okay.” So they started swaying. And Silver kept breathing. And this was … okay. This was enough. There didn’t need to be more between them as long as she had this. Her best friend. Not ignoring her.
“I really am sorry,” Ash said eventually, as Silver made sure to keep staring over his shoulder instead of up at his face. “About the past few weeks. I never wanted it to be like that. I know we were still hanging out in a group, but somehow … I still missed you.”
“I know what you mean. I missed you too. But now … this …” She dared to look up and meet his eyes. “It feels almost normal again.” That wasn’t entirely true, but perhaps if she kept telling herself this, she would eventually believe it. What was more important was that Ash believed it.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, his honey-gold eyes never leaving hers. “Things feel right again.”
Look away now, she told herself. Look away, look away. But she couldn’t. Ash didn’t look away either.
A moment passed.
Another moment.
Another moment.
Too long, Silver thought, as she sensed something change between them. But still she held his gaze, and he held hers, and somehow she felt it all the way down to her toes. Her heart thrummed faster, and she was hyperaware of his touch, the imprint of his hand against her lower back almost like a brand. Her every nerve ending seemed to be on fire. And then—
He kissed her.
It was featherlight, tentative. Somehow both strangely foreign—this was Ash!—and blissfully right. Her stomach dipped. Her eyes glided shut. Ash’s lips moved with more pressure against hers, and his hand pressed firmly against her back. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but she was vaguely aware of her own hands sliding around his neck and tangling in his damp hair. Then his fingers slipped beneath the edge of the fabric that skirted her lower back and pressed into the skin at her waist. Her breath caught—far more audibly this time—as he pulled her tighter against him.
This, this, this. This was what she wanted. How could she ever have thought that just friends was enough? It would never be enough. Not after this.
His mouth was hot against hers, and something like the delicate crackle and zap of magic tingled on her tongue as it touched his. A shiver rushed up her spine as Ash deepened the kiss. Seconds, minutes, an eternity—she had zero concept of time right now. Then he was dragging his lips along her jaw and pressing kisses against her neck and beneath her ear. “You,” he murmured breathlessly. “You are everything I want.” And her heart exploded with happiness.
“Silver?”
She sprang away from Ash, her face flushed. Blinking rapidly, as if she’d woken abruptly from a dream, she cast her gaze about for the owner of the familiar voice. And there she was, standing beside one of the rose bushes. Not dressed in her ballgown. “Mom?”
Mom hesitated, her eyes moving back and forth between Silver and Ash. And the look on her face … was that sadness? Then she took a quick breath. “I’m sorry, Silver girl, but we have to go. Right now.”
Silver frowned. “Now? But—”
“It’s urgent.”
“There you are!” Now it was Dad stepping around the rose bush, and Silver barely had a second for mortification to crawl across her skin before Dad was darting past Mom and grabbing Silver’s arm.
“Dad, what’s—”
“Not here. Let’s go.”
“But what about—”
“Now, Silver!” It wasn’t anger, but fear, and it was chilling enough to keep Silver from arguing any further as her father tugged her across the grass and away from Ash.
“What happened?” Ash called after them. “What’s wrong?” Silver looked back to see him following hastily.
“Go back to the ballroom, Ash,” Dad said. “Now.” Then he and Mom were dragging Silver through the gardens and around the side of the manor house, refusing to answer her questions, muttering shaky half sentences to each other, and then before Silver could process what was happening—before she could even look back in search of Ash—they were disappearing into the darkness of the faerie paths.
Twenty-Nine
NOW
* * *
A yelp escapes my lips as I’m dragged across the floor beneath the water droplet curtain and into the utter darkness of what is usually the vibrant, colorful Rainbow Room. “Got you.” The voice is a labored grunt in my ear. Greenwood. “Figured I’d station myself by the door once I found it and wait for you to get there.” His hands are hooked beneath my arms. “You won’t be making it out of this club a—” I swing both fists back as hard as I can. He cries out as I strike his head.
Then another set of hands grabs my ankles, and suddenly I’m sliding swiftly back out across the polished floor of the entrance area. Unfortunately, Greenwood is with me this time, also on the floor now. Shouts greet my ears, and Greenwood scrambles close enough to hook an arm around my neck. His other hand is grabbing a guardian knife from the air, and my own hands are pulsing with magic, and—
Thwip.
Something shoots past my face, there’s a yell in my ear, and then Ash is pulling me swiftly onto my feet. I spin back around to face Greenwood, magic still sparking around my fingertips. A glittering gold arrow has pierced straight through his shoulder, adding a second wound to his left arm. With his right, he releases the knife and grabs a sword instead—
Another thwip, and then another, and two more arrows protrude from his body. He collapses against the wall beside the water curtain. “You,” he gasps, glaring at Ash. “You’re a traitor to the—”
“Put your dirty hands on anyone I love ever again and I will kill you,” Ash snarls. Then he reaches for my hand, and just before he can grab it, I release all the magic I’ve been gathering into a shield layer that ripples across the whole foyer. Then we turn and make for the pair of glass doors.
The two bouncers stand with magic sparkling around their hands. Their expressions suggest they’re considering attempting to stop us, but Ash lifts one arm, displaying the now visible guardian marking on his wrist. “Guild business,” he snaps as we push past them. “I suggest you don’t get involved.”
We hurry down the steps. “Faerie paths,” I tell him.
“I know.” He’s already pulling a stylus out of his pocket. Once we’re beyond the glamour layer and I can no longer see The Gilded Canary, he stops and raises his hand to the wall.
“Quickly, quickly, quickly,” I mutter, half of my attention still back inside the foyer where my shield magic feels like it’s starting to take strain. If the other councilors found their way out of the Rainbow Room—if they’re busy blasting my shield with their magic—we won’t be safe for long.
A doorway to the faerie paths spreads across the wall. And then I feel an invisible snap. My shield is gone. “Ash—”
“Hey!” The shout comes from just behind us.
“Go!” I shout, and we dive into the darkness together.
“Don’t think,” he tells me as we fall through the nothingness, and I struggle to keep glimpses of numerous locations from flickering through my mind.
“Oof!” I strike the ground and roll a few times before coming to a halt. Earth, leaves, trees, moonlight. Wisps of mist. I pull a breath into my lungs. “Is this Stormsdrift?”
“Yes. I recognize this spot. We’re close to the river. Faerie paths must be working right now.”
“Stormfae,” I say, pushing myself hurriedly to my feet. It’s the first time I’ve uttered the word since reading Mom’s journal.
A good few paces away from me, Ash is on his feet too. He has a crossbow raised. My hands are up, magic pouring to my fingertips again. We wait, breathing hard, eyes combing the shadows around us. I’m half expecting the councilors to follow us here—wouldn’t put it past Greenwood to have placed some kind of tracking magic on me while we were still in the club—but the seconds tick by and no one shows up. No shadowy black mist seeps across the ground to morph into a ferocious creature. No threatening fae beast leaps from the shadows. Still, we wait. I hear the quiet rush of the river, and the buzzing hum of insects, and the distant rumble of thunder. I see glow-bugs dotting the fronds of a fern.
Eventually, Ash lets his crossbow disappear. I lower my hands. Slowly, we face each other. “I’m sorry again,” he says. “About everything back there. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you. And I know it was a huge risk, but we were completely outnumbered. We wouldn’t have made it out of there without the Guild’s help. But look.” He reaches behind him and lifts the back of his shirt. When he brings his hand back around, something sharp and glittering sits within his grip: the Icicle Pendant of the First Seelie Queen. “We did it,” he says.
