Page 9

Chapter nine

Jade

T he summer air is thick with sugar and heat and music that blares from tinny speakers hung like bunting between food stalls.

Everything smells like fried dough and grilled meat.

And the colors, the neon signs, pastel paper lanterns, ribbons twirling in the wind, are too bright, too loud.

The kind of overstimulation I usually avoid.

But Flyn’s here.

So. I’m here too.

He’s waiting near the entrance to the fair, a riot of color behind him and that same easy smile stretched across his face like he’s exactly where he wants to be.

His hair is messy in a deliberate way, blond curls catching the pink and gold of the fading sky.

He’s wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt with tiny flamingos on it like some kind of ridiculous invitation to happiness.

I hate how much I love it.

“Jade,” he calls, spotting me. He waves like I might not see him otherwise, like he’s not the most obvious, sunlit thing in the whole damn crowd.

“Hey,” I say, managing not to trip over a child wielding a balloon sword. “You weren’t kidding about this place being busy.”

I’d been so dubious when he suggested it. But the more I thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. A fair is so very Flyn . And looking at his beaming face, I was right.

“I told you,” he grins, falling into step beside me. “Chaos, noise, overpriced snacks. What’s not to love?”

Everything, I think. Except the fact that it is an embodiment of your personality. But I keep that to myself.

Instead, I nod at a cotton candy stand and raise an eyebrow. “Shall we start strong?”

“Oh, absolutely. We’re going full cliché tonight. I’m talking hotdogs, caramel apples, rigged games, maybe even a Ferris wheel if you’re lucky.”

I huff a laugh. “And if I’m not lucky?”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to bribe you with fried food until you forgive me.”

It’s too easy, falling into rhythm with him like this. Too easy to forget that this, whatever it is, is built on the fragile bones of a year-long silence and everything I’ve never told him. But right now, in the syrupy heat of the evening, I don’t want to remember.

I want this.

We skip the cotton candy, but Flyn buys a fresh doughnut within the first five minutes. He tries to offer me a bite, but it’s covered in powdered sugar and already melting in his hands, so I wrinkle my nose and decline.

“More for me,” he says, taking an enormous bite and immediately coughing. “Oh god. I inhaled sugar.”

I laugh, actually laugh, and he looks so pleased with himself I have to look away.

We meander through the crowd, dodging toddlers and teenagers, the occasional glittery face-painter, a guy on a unicycle juggling glow sticks. Flyn’s energy is pure momentum, dragging us toward anything that looks shiny or loud. It should be exhausting. It usually would be.

But when he grabs my wrist and pulls me toward a booth with oversized stuffed animals and a grumpy teen holding plastic darts, I follow without protest .

“You’re good at this sort of thing, right?” he says, handing me the darts. “Mysterious past, nimble hands, acute observation skills.”

I stare at him. “What exactly do you think I used to do?”

Goddess, if he thinks I’m some sort of cool assassin, he is going to be deeply, deeply disappointed.

He just smirks. “Win me a frog, Jadey. I believe in you.”

I should walk away. I should scoff and fold my arms and say something cutting.

But instead, I take the darts, aim carefully, and nail three balloons in a row.

I’d give Flyn the stars if I could, so this is a small ask and a very rare occasion that I’m glad for my inhuman heritage.

Things that are apparently hard for full-blooded humans, are easy for me.

Flyn whoops in delight. He fist pumps the air. He acts as if I just won gold at the Olympics and not at all like I’ve just hit three balloons with wonky plastic darts.

The teenager working the stall looks deeply unimpressed. He even gives an eye roll when Flyn excitedly points to his choice of prize.

The frog is huge. Ridiculous. Fuzzy and green and so bright it hurts to look at.

Flyn cradles it like a baby.

“I’m naming him Reginald.”

I stare at Flyn in bewilderment. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, I’m deeply serious. He’s coming home with me. He’s gonna have a little place on the end of my bed. I might even get him a monocle. We’ll see.”

I shake my head, smiling despite myself. I like the image Flyn has painted. I like it a lot. This ridiculous frog is going to live on Flyn’s bed, and every night and every morning, Flyn is going to see it. See it and think of me. The person who won it for him.

We wander for what feels like hours, pausing now and then to eat or rest or just lean against a railing and people-watch. It’s warm, but not uncomfortable. The kind of summer night that wraps around you like a loose blanket, soft, a little sticky, full of potential.

There’s a band playing on a small makeshift stage near the center of the fairground. Flyn stops to listen, bobbing his head slightly to the beat. He glances at me. “You ever dance?”

“Not in public,” I say flatly.

“Tragic,” he says, grinning. “Guess I’ll have to dance enough for both of us.”

He does, for a few seconds, ridiculous and floppy and entirely unselfconscious, and I want to be annoyed, but mostly I want to grab his hand and not let go.

With one last heartfelt, belly deep laugh, he abandons his exuberant dancing and leads us to a quieter section of the fair. I snatch in a sneaky, calming breath and try to let my ever-present tension go.

Flyn either doesn’t notice, or he is far too kind to mention it. Instead, he launches into a verbal adventure.

Flyn tells stories. About work. About his sister Cara’s work as a wedding planner and the bridezillas she has had to deal with.

He talks about his niece Sorcha demanding a unicorn cake with ‘real magic’.

I laugh at most of them. He notices when I don’t and lets the silence settle without trying to fill it.

Then he buys me a drink at some makeshift lemonade stand. Mine’s blueberry basil, weird and refreshing. And we sit on the edge of a fountain, the fair a glowing backdrop behind us.

“This doesn’t feel like real life,” I say before I can stop myself.

Flyn glances sideways. “No?”

“It feels like… a memory someone else had. All the color and music and lights. It’s too much. Too perfect.”

He leans back on his hands, legs stretched out. “Real life can be pretty perfect, if you let it.”

I look at him. At the way the light spills across his face. At the softness that sneaks into his expression when he’s not performing. There’s something about the way he watches me, quietly, carefully, like he’s waiting for me to open up.

“I almost didn’t come,” I admit, my voice low.

It’s a terrible confession. Especially since meeting up again was all my idea.

“Why?” There is no condemnation in his voice. No hurt, outrage or judgment. Just a plain, simple and honest curiosity.

I shrug. “Because I’m not good at this. At… fun. At relaxing. At trusting that someone isn’t just being nice because they feel sorry for me.”

He’s quiet for a long moment.

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” he says, finally. “Not even a little bit.”

Something tightens in my chest. “You don’t even know me.”

“I’m trying to.”

I want to believe him. I want to believe that this isn’t some brief flicker of interest, that he won’t disappear again when things get hard or complicated or ugly. That he won’t look at the truth of me and flinch.

But he’s looking at me now and he’s not flinching.

“Do you ever wish you could have a redo?” I ask suddenly. “Restart your life and not make the same mistakes?”

Not that being born a freakish twisted science experiment was something I chose. Being born into slavery and then sold into a harem were not mistakes of my making. I know this, yet somehow I always feel like the blame is mine. As if I’m the one who fucked up my life.

The fey called, and I listened. I think the guilt I carry over that calamity is rational and valid. But it only seems like the icing on the cake that is the disaster of my life.

I take a deep breath. Framing it all as a mistake is the only way I can talk to Flyn about it. It’s the only way I can keep my secrets. The only thing he might understand.

Flyn tilts his head, considering. “Sometimes. But mistakes are part of life. I think about who I am now more. He’s an awful lot smarter, believe it or not. I like him better.”

“I don’t like myself,” I say, too quietly.

He shifts closer, knees brushing mine. “Then maybe it’s time to meet the version of you that exists now . I bet he’s not as awful as you think.”

I huff out a laugh, but it catches in my throat. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“Only about the important things.”

We’re too close now. The crowd feels distant, muffled by the buzz of the generators and the thrum of my own pulse in my ears. I can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin air between us.

Flyn’s gaze drops to my mouth. Just for a second.

My breath stutters.

I think… maybe this is it. Maybe he’s going to lean in. Maybe I’ll let him.

But I hesitate. And that’s all it takes.

A kid shrieks in the distance. A car horn blares. The moment cracks.

Flyn clears his throat and leans back a little, fingers raking through his blond curls. “So. Ferris wheel?”

I nod. Smile like I’m not trembling inside. “Yeah. Let’s go.”