Page 50 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter thirty-two

Callan

W hen I open Selene’s door and reenter the hall, Matthias, Esme and Sol stare back at me. “She’s fine.”

Esme speaks first. “Is it true? Her shadows turned solid?”

I nod, frowning. “She’s sleeping. It was as if the maegis sucked the energy from her.”

Their expressions turn contemplative. Matthias ducks around me. “I’ll check her over.”

I turn to follow as he slips inside the bedroom, but Sol stops me.

“I never heard of a faeyte who could wield Hala’s maegis like she does, Callan. Like it’s a weapon.”

“She had no idea.” The shock on her face wasn’t feigned, that much I know. Nor was the darkness in her eyes—as though a shroud had fallen, blanking out the stars. “We’ll be down at the dock tomorrow.”

“I’ll stay with her tonight,” Esme murmurs. When she sees my face, she grimaces. “You can’t be with her all of the time. Better to be fresh for tomorrow. You’re exhausted, Cal. I don’t even understand how you’re still upright, let alone coherent.”

The rejection hovers on my tongue, but I bite it back. She’s right. “You’ll call me if she wakes up. If there’s anything.”

Her smile deepens. “Obviously.”

Sol says nothing when I settle on the floor in Matthias’s vacated spot. He only sinks down beside me, both of us pulling up our knees like the children we used to be, waiting one by one to explain a prank gone wrong to Merrick.

“She’s not a normal faeyte,” he says.

I shoot him a look. “So you’ve told me.”

The pause stretches out for longer this time. “She doesn’t look at you like a faeyte should.”

My heart thumps unsteadily. “I don’t think so, either.”

“Tread carefully, Cal.” Sol’s warning is discomfiting. “Don’t dally with her.”

I swing my head to his, my eyebrows flying up almost to my hairline. “You’ve changed your tune. No longer is she a big, scary faeyte?”

He shakes his head. “She’s not scary. She’s scared , Callan.

Terrified of whatever lingers inside her.

And she’s no fool. If she’s worried, we should be too.

And the two of you should be careful, with Petyr tracking you.

He always had a habit of breaking his toys.

And from memory, he used to enjoy breaking yours, too. ”

My gut clenches as I stare at that door. “She’s strong.”

“She is.” Sol’s fingers tap a restless rhythm against the smooth stone floor, refreshingly cool beneath us. “But is she strong enough?”

I force out a breath. “To fix the Never? I don’t know. She’s the best chance we have.”

“But you don’t want her to do it.”

I tilt my head in question. He snorts. “If you don’t want your thoughts to be so obvious, maybe keep them away from her for a while.”

“It’s not that.” My hands clench and unclench.

Pressing my head back against the white, solid wall, I sigh.

“I don’t want her to risk herself for us.

She’s one, singular faeyte against a void created by the goddess who gifted her maegis in the first place.

But we’ve already seen her do the impossible, Sol.

I have faith in her. But I can’t lose her. ”

Not again.

My mind is made up, I realize. All these years, I have been waiting.

Crossing the Never. Eking out an existence, putting one foot in front of the other and wondering when something would finally happen .

When it would all begin, or all end, and most days I oscillated between wishing for one or the other.

Now, I know who I was waiting for. And every day I have waited for her was worth it. “Whatever happens, I’ll stand with her.”

“So,” Sol says after a moment. There’s a smile in his voice. “He finally falls.”

I shove at his shoulder as if we’re teens once more. “Perhaps I’ve had enough of you and Matthias showing the rest of us up.”

He huffs a laugh. “Your Selene comes nowhere close to my Matthias. She has wings . Like a bug.”

I adore her wings. “Yours has a mouth nine times the size of his body.”

“Hey!” We both look up guiltily. A smirk plays around Matthias’s mouth as he steps out of Selene’s room, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Solomon loves my mouth. Don’t you, baby?

Callan, ask him what I did with it before we went to dinner.

God knows it’s been so long you could probably use some advice. ”

“Matthias,” Sol hisses. But his grin spreads, before he swallows, tugging at the neck of his tunic. “Don’t tell Selene I said that, about the wings. I don’t mind the wings.”

Matthias kicks at my foot, holding out a hand and pulling Sol to his feet. “You know you can stay with us tonight, if you want to.”

“Absolutely not ,” Sol says promptly. “Sorry, Cal. I have plans. And so does Matthias.”

Matthias’s ears turn pink. “And we’re still here? I’m seeing a lot of talk, but no action.”

I hold up my hand. “I’ll stay here.”

After a quick goodbye, Sol muttering something in Matthias’s ear that has their feet tripping over themselves to escape, I stare at the door for a few more minutes.

And then a few more, before I finally force myself into movement, slipping into the bedroom beside hers.

But it takes longer still for sleep to find me.