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Felt. It stabbed deep. “Yes, I know.” He reached out to touch her face, hesitated when she seemed about to flinch again. “You are safe with me. I would never hurt you. It is just…the energy… The energy is not…”

Ah!

He focused his flagging strength, reached into his faerie hoard, willed his hand to find what he wanted, drew it forth.

“Here. This is what I mean.” He ghosted his hand over the framed sketch of the hummingbird.

She had not wanted to sell it, he recalled, but he had insisted, because it was the most Poppy of the drawings she had made, the most free, and he had admired it on the wall until Heather had allowed him to collect it.

“See how you can feel the flight, the freedom? It is a wild bird, in repose for a moment, yet still untamed. Just as you and I. We fly free, we are full of life, we—”

Poppy grabbed his hand. “Where did you get that?” she said in a high voice.

“I purchased it,” he said without thinking, then froze, realizing what he had done. The truth he had unveiled.

“You bought it at Café Legend,” she said in a dull voice. “And you didn’t tell me.”

“I… Yes.” He straightened. “I bought it. I desired it, and I bought it.” He swirled the drawing back into his faerie hoard, but the damage was done .

“How many?” She swallowed. “How many did you buy?”

He had not counted them. His head was spinning too much to count them now. And even if he had known the number, the look on Poppy’s face would have frozen his tongue.

“Oh, god,” she whispered, sinking into her painter’s chair. “You bought all of them, didn’t you? That’s why I never had to pay the commission. That’s why…”

“I only wished to help you,” he said, panic seizing his throat.

This was not how it was supposed to go. She was not supposed to know this, not until he found the right time to confess it to her.

But there would never have been a right time.

And she would have learned eventually, when she was traveling with him.

He had not thought further than the rains’ end, but he could not have hidden them forever.

“I desired them. And I wished you to not be unhappy.”

She looked at the floor. “Of course. Of course you didn’t.”

“Poppy, I…” He fell to his knees before her, so that he could see her eyes. “I wished for you and your mother to be well, to be taken care of.”

“Get up,” she said.

He stood, staring at her bowed head in pained silence.

“I get it,” she said at last. “I do understand. I know you were being kind. I know you didn’t mean to…

But it meant something to me. It meant everything, that people were buying my art, that they saw…

” She heaved a shuddering breath. “I know I should be strong. That I shouldn’t care if people like what I make.

That I should have faith in myself as an artist. But god, Rai…

” Her voice broke, and she visibly collected herself.

“It was all a lie. You let me believe that I was a success, when it was always just you.”

“I did not lie,” he insisted, though he knew he had. Omission, semantics, the tiny ways he knew to conceal the truth beneath a lesser truth. To wield truth as an untruth and claim innocence.

“Maybe you didn’t. You didn’t lie. But I…” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry you don’t like the painting.”

“But I—”

“I’ll… I can repaint it,” she said. “Or…or I can give you back the money. I can’t give you all of it right now, because I’ve spent a bunch, but I can… I’ll save up and send it back to you in installments. Just tell me where—”

“I do not want the money,” he said sharply. “I want you to have the money, for your mother’s needs.” So that you can come with me.

“Okay. Thanks, I guess.” She lifted her head. Her eyes were damp and red, boiling with hurt. “Tell me,” she said in a clipped voice. “Would you have commissioned me if I didn’t want to sleep with you? If I’d kept it strictly business?”

“Yes.” That was not a lie, at least. He had been so hungry for her presence, he would have taken any scraps she offered. He knew that as surely as he knew… Ah, no, he knew nothing as surely as that, not anymore. He did not even know himself.

She searched his face, then jerked her head in a nod. “I need to think,” she said. Her voice was no longer broken, but it was something worse. Neutral. Emotionless. “Can you… I need to be alone for a while. Can you just…go?”

He wanted to take her hand, but she’d clasped them around her knees. “May I return?”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. No light. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll send you a text, okay?”

Rai stared at her carefully blank face, as still as a field of ice. “I will…await your text.” He looked away, feeling that ice grow inside him, ice that he had caused to form. “I am sorry. For the lies, for everything I have said or failed to say.”

She granted him half a smile. “Thanks.”

He turned away, though it felt like he was wrenching his own roots from the ground, tearing himself apart to leave her in pain. She had told him to go, and he… He was not supposed to push, or be selfish. He was supposed to make Poppy happy.

He had failed.

Rai strode down the hall and out the door, set free his wings, launched into the air.

He was weaker than he should be, and the thought filled him with rage, rage at his own failures, at his lies, at his foolishness.

His rage carried him to his motel room door, and he staggered into the welcoming damp.

He was so dry that it hurt to take in the moisture from the air, and he froze in the middle of the room, let the hurt possess him, pass through him, his judgment and his penance.

He was still wearing the helmet, though the bottles were empty. He nearly flung it across the room, but no, he did not wish to break it. He did not wish to break anything, not ever again. So he set it aside carefully and made his way to his tub. It was still half full, as he had left it.

The phone in his jeans pocket vibrated.

Poppy! He eagerly snatched it out, staring at the lock screen, but it was not Poppy. Not yet. It was another message from Ofelia, the preview displayed across his lock screen.

You are a fool .

He almost dismissed it as he had the others, but then he steeled his jaw. Unlocked the phone. Tapped on the message to open it. Read it and all the other messages Ofelia had sent. Fool. Blockhead. Puddle. Leave. Go. Go now. Go before I must drag you. Before it is too late.

He took a deep breath and composed his reply.

You are right, he typed. I am leaving tonight. He considered adding an emoji, to convince Ofelia of his honesty, but none of them seemed correct, and finally he just sent it. Let her imagine what emotions he might be feeling.

He set his phone where he could see it from the tub, that he might know the second Poppy had summoned him, and settled himself in to soak, that he might have the strength he would need when he saw her again.

There was no need to hide anything any longer. And it was only right that Poppy know all. Why he had lied, what he had planned, the fathomless depth of his love.

And then he would steal her away.