Lila stared down over the rooted city holding her robe tightly around her, but she was not looking at the pink and gold hues peaking over the horizon but to the sightless mist that flickered before her eyes.
Nyssa had her pink hair styled beautifully in a braid that was swung over her left shoulder. She was at her desk eyeing a thin slip of paper, hand covered over one eye, as one of her legs bounced up and down.
There was a pale lily tucked in her hair. Lila flicked her hand through the air and Selene was curled up in bed with another woman; Veela had said that they were lovers but she found that hard to believe.
Selene had always been wary since being kicked out of the hells. Funny, the light was still on and Selene had fallen asleep with her glasses on. Arm draped over her so-called lover. Drooling even in her sleep. When they had shared a bed as the two youngest, Selene used to drool on her all the time and never admitted it. And I had thought I was the problem.
The mist flickered again and there was Simone, the eldest, dancing in the trainyard with one of her wives.
Curious, wives weren’t supposed to show passion and certainly outside the palace. But Simone had been an exception, especially recently, trying to teach her wives how to dance, as if they would possibly be a perfect distraction to pull of a heist against the Aydian Boc family. Clever idea, but no.
A knock on her door, caused her to wave the mist away until she saw who it was and relaxed. No, not her husband. A tall dhampir strolled into the room. He could have been mistaken for a woman but Veela preferred it that way, delighting in everything feminine.
Sometimes Lila was jealous of how well he pulled off the mermaid dress, which seemed to be his favorite. Even the face he put on looked effortless. He was very pretty, and she was staring.
“My Lady,” he curtsied low, and she noticed the glint of his fangs unsheathed beneath his lips. “The invitations have been sent. All shall be at the gala.”
“I don’t like how you kidnapped that one girl.”
“Amelia, she is very close to Selene.” And yet there was more. Always more with this one.
“She still hasn’t told her, has she,” Lila said, grinding her teeth.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then why not go directly to my sister?”
“You know why.”
“Enlighten me.”
Veela sighed and sat on her bed, ignoring the clicking of her tongue. “Selene would never return to the hells for any reason. It’s a sore spot. But if someone she was invested in, no offense,” and Veela ignored her hiss. “if she wanted to go then she would be impelled to go.”
“A gamble. A sightless gamble.”
Veela shrugged. “The gala is in a week. You have plenty of time, my Lady.” Was that a mocking tone? She could never tell.
He yawned and his eyes glimmered with pink and orange. For a second she thought to say am I boring you. But he had done so much for her. “The gourmet will be yours, Veela,” she said. “It needs to be in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.” Laying on her bed like that, he almost looked like a cat, but as soon as he heard those words he stretched out and sat upwards as if he had floated up off the bed.
“And risk your sister’s safety?”
“It’s more than that.”
“Always is….”
“I could never ask us to be a family again. That moment has passed,” and her nails pressed into her palm, her many bracelets cutting into her skin. “But I want them to see me. It is selfish.”
“All of this to bring your sisters home? Couldn’t you have thrown a party instead. Oh right, Gala, right.” Veela let out a sheepish grin, but she knew he was just playing. Always scheming, no doubt one step ahead of her. It did not bother her as it should have. And the day, she had trapped him, she had seen his intentions. He meant no harm to the Bocs or her sisters.
He cocked an eyebrow and kicked his feet back and forth, and she could have laughed except for his next words. “And what of your husband?”
Vastyia Armeca. Her childhood friend. She did not want to get him involved in any of this and she had seen Simone voicing her intentions to him. She was going to be so hurt by all of this.
Even her parents were sponsoring the gala.
“He is well aware that I mean to free the miasma, though there are some times where we have had extensive discussions if that would be the right thing to do, but he does not know anything about the book, other than the fact that my sister intends to steal it.”
“A poor plan I might add.”
“Simone was never a schemer.” She dared not mention what her sister was doing for her community, and how she was managing to avoid the committee. “Though sometimes I wonder if she is the cleverest out of all of us.”
Lila felt a passing pain in her stomach and looked to the mist once more but she could not see through the fog, could not see any of them at all.
Dinner was quiet. Usually the long table held her husband Vastiyia and her but tonight it was just her that he lavished his attention. They sat across from one another. Vastiyia poured the wine for Lila.
His hand trailed over hers. The wine swirled in her cup, cloudy and dark. He was slightly withdrawn as he ate in silence, cutting into the sirloin. His eyes seemed to say we haven’t spoken in a really long time. And yet neither could find the way to breach the silence.
He poured her more wine.
“This should be easier shouldn’t it, preparing for your parents’ arrival,” he said, his voice taut and graveled. She took a deep breath. This was her childhood friend, who had been with her since early age.
When he had come to her and explained that something was terribly wrong with his own shape. That she had under the guise slipped into the cave of versis and helped him find a new name. His coarse hands gripped hers as if in earnest.
“It’s terrifying,” is all that she could say. She felt that sometime along the way she had lost him. She hadn’t put in the effort as much is what she told herself. Not for herself, her marriage or her sisters.
Perhaps that was why she vied for cloudy wine and listless evenings, or the call of the trapped and burning smog lying below the palace to be released, to open and tear through what was locked away below, and what she could never have above.
He did not retrieve his hand. “I have not seen them in so long,” she said. Her parents believed her childhood friend had been killed, and a prince risen in the place, from another land, but no wealth.
They had, had to scheme; trick a woman who became one his wives later so that he could slip into wealth as if he had worn it long before it swallowed him. She missed how wild he used to be before the money, but not before her other wife or her other husband.
She loved them both. She wished they were here. She hated sitting here like this in silence. It never suited her.
“What if we didn’t invite them? What if we had a different kind of party? Forget the festivities.”
“If my sisters show then my parents will come as well.” She didn’t realize it, but she was shaking. She drank more wine. “I am powerless against them and I am a coward for it. They have slighted my sisters time and time again. At least Nyssa was brave enough to leave!” the wine glass sloshed and the red tapestry over the tablecloth nearly ripped from her fingernails pressed into the table. “Every time they visit, I have to pretend to get through it. Like it’s another part of my life that I must get through. And you’re no longer my husband, and we have to hide and play these games! I’m too old to play games, Vastyia. I know it’s not my place but I—I am tired of lying. I am tired of you being a secret. Even if they disowned me, robbed me of my wealth and sent me away I would welcome it! And yet I could not do that Arnon or Lest. Take their home away from them.”
“Maybe it’s not home.”
“It’s yours!” She eyed him. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just think they—we…deserve better.”
“Lila, do you not feel like you are ours?” The question bit in and sunk right in.
“Sometimes I’m not even here anymore,” Lila said fervently sipping on her wine. “I am a phantom in my own home. Not because of you, Vastiyia. Never because of you. I worry too much. This gala is for my own selfish reasons. I miss my sisters so much.”
Her hands were trembling again and he did not let go. Goddesses bless him. He didn’t let go. He never had, even when there were sometimes that she wanted to set him free.
“And yet you’re willing to go through the hells to do it.”
“And put you right there with me, right in the hells, right in the pretending. It shouldn’t be like this, Vastiyia. It really shouldn’t be.”
“Sometimes we compromise,” his voice was glib in her ears. There was that damn word again compromise. A marriage shouldn’t be like this in the hells. Didn’t have to be. “Do you still mean to release the miasma?”
“I…am not sure, but if I did I would go with them. Would you come with me?” she asked.
He did not answer at first. “I’m not sure.” Her heart sank. They had this conversation before and sometimes he answered easily, but now even now…it was not enough.
She put the wine down and his hands slipped out of hers, leaving him alone as she left once more towards the wide window.
She did not move when he entered her bedroom. When he apologized and wrapped his hands around her. It was as if all the light had gone out of the room. She leaned back into his embrace as he planted his lips on her cheek.
She could not ask the question. If you do not come with me, what does that mean for us. He did not answer. She should be the adult. She should have an answer! Even from here she could not feel the mist as it screamed out below the city.
She heard a knock at the door and Vastiyia kissed her once more and approached the door even as she sat at the foot of the bed.
Veela bowed his head and entered. She did not miss the way her husband scowled as he approached the bed and sat next to her. “Nyssa has agreed to come.”
“And Selene?” she hated the way the words pressed out of her mouth.
Veela shook his head and his hair nearly shook out of that high ponytail. It made his face seem rounder, almost like a cherub instead of a viper.
As if sensing her throughts he gave a commiserating pat on the shoulder and shook hands with Vastiyia before stiffly accepting the gesture. But not before answering, he called back. “She’ll answer. I’m sure of it.”
No she won’t. I stood by and did nothing as they cast her out of this home and now I’m inviting them back. Like they are welcome when they should never be. And they did the same to Simone.
This gala wasn’t for them. It was for her. The door slid close and locked.
“You’re much too hard on yourself,” Vastiyia said sitting by her side. “I think…that if Arnon and Lest were to find that you were leaving. They would join you as well.”
“And why wouldn’t you also?”
“The humans frighten me,” he said, blushing. “I don’t think I would fair well amongst their kind.”
“You would have us.”
“That I would. I could never leave you, Lila. It would kill me.”
“More than living amongst humans.”
“They value their own pets over their fellow creatures.”
“Then become their pets,” and his eyes glinted dangerously as he laughed. At least that’s what my sister was doing. She scrubbed the image from her thought, thinking of how she had accidentally scried on her sister for a moment with her human lover. How could Selene be enamored with a human?
“And what if you were to rule over them, what if we were to rule over them. Teach them the right ways?” Vastiyia said, folding into her.
“I think, I think I would like that very much,” she said. As the words rolled through her head again and again.
To rule over the humans. Now that would be fitting indeed. “We’ll make it happen,” he said and she believed him. “I have no doubt my sisters would agree with the decision. It would be a mercy.”
A mercy indeed.