Page 150 of Nine-Tenths

"He knew," Onatah says softly. "Because it's happened before."

Chapter Forty

Onatah splashes another tot of whiskey into everyone’s cups but Hadi’s.

Okay.

This is going to bethatkind of story.

"Charlotte was Dav's first Favorite," Onatah starts gently. Hadi shoots a startled look at me. I slump lower. "She's the one who gave him that nickname. She gave him front gates. She loved to dance as much as him. Can you imagine Alva-draig Tudor doing the Charleston? It was hilarious."

"How did they meet?" Pedra asks.

I’m glad she does, because my tongue has shriveled.

"Ypres, 1915. She was a nurse. She was kind, but angry at the pain the war inflicted. He was the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of a battalion."

I may find real-life history class boring AF, but even I knew that Ypres was both a Canadian triumph, and a slaughter. It's where John McCrae wroteIn Flander's Fields: poppies, black birds wheeling across a gun-smoke sky, and crosses, row on row on row.

"Dav wouldn't allow the doctors to treat him until his men were seen to. To hear Charlie tell it, he was the most stubborn cuss to bleed all over her tent. Dav says he was helping the nurses with first aid. Charlie said he was fluttering around like a moth, leaving slipping hazards in his wake. She stuck him with an anesthetic and apparently he went down like a sack of potatoes," Onatah chuckles.

Charlie. Of course Dav would fall for a strong-willed, devious woman, who served people through healing, and called herselfCharlie.

Still not jealous.

"When he came to, she was dressing his shoulder. He said she was glowing. Charlie said it was the light hanging above her head. But Dav spun it out that it was like she was atwyleth twyg, come to snatch him into the fairy realm."

Okay, maybe a bit jealous.

Has Dav ever talked with Onatah about the first time he saw me? Did he compare me to a bog witch?

"Charlie was an incomparable goddess, okay? I get it," I grump. Onatah kicks me under the chair. "Ow!"

"Don't be like that," she tuts.

"I'm not," I protest.

Hadi snorts.

"By the time the Great War was over, Dav had won Charlie over, too. She agreed to move to Canada, to become Dav'sFavorite. But the life was… restrictive." Onatah shakes her head. "Dav… he doesn't pick humans that acquiesce or kowtow. He never has, not even for his casual lovers. You're so much like her, Colin. You're both bold, and blunt, and clever as fuck. And you give a shit about people, you know? Parties, and diamonds, and whatever else royal Favorites get themselves all worked up about, that doesn't matter to you. You're pretty in the same way, too—big eyes and stupid hair."

"Hey!"

"Charlie scandalized the county when she arrived with a bob."

"I feel like I should protest more." But the compliments, however backhanded they are, fill the hollow place today’s other revelations carved out in my chest.

"You’re also good for each other in the same way. He smiles more, he's grounded, he's focused. And you, kid, you're calmer, too."

"How do you know that?"

"Do you think I'd let my BFF moon over a human and not scope you out?"

"You were here before?" Hadi asks.

"Multiple times."

"Shit," I say. "I never noticed." I point to her horns.