Duskrun 31, 20231
I haven’t opened this since Solrest.
The spine cracked when I bent it back, which felt unnecessarily judgmental for an object I abandoned in the bottom drawer beneath three old school programs and a birthday card from Elliot that says congratulations on surviving another year of being terrifying.
He drew fangs on the cake.
They look better than the ones attached to my costume.
Elliot is in the hospital again.
That sentence should be harder to write by now. It should require effort. Preparation. Something ceremonial involving grief and expensive stationery. Instead it comes out clean because we have done this often enough for terror to become administrative.
Elliot is in the hospital again.
His fever climbed yesterday afternoon. His counts are worse. They admitted him before dinner, and the nurse at the front desk looked up when we entered and said, “Cassie, they’ve already taken him upstairs,” before anyone gave her our names.
That is where we are now. The hospital knows us.
Mother knows which chair in his room does not recline properly. Father knows which vending machine eats cards and which specialist takes too long to return calls. I know the difference between the monitor sound that means Elliot moved and the one that means someone needs to come quickly. None of us discuss knowing these things because saying them aloud would make them feel permanent.
I left twenty-eight minutes ago.
Mother told me to go home and get ready. Father agreed without looking away from Elliot’s chart, which means Mother had already spoken to him about it. Elliot was asleep, or pretending to be. His eyes stayed closed when I kissed his forehead, but he caught my sleeve before I could step away.
“Send pictures,” he mumbled.
I told him to rest.
He told me that wasn’t a picture.
Then his hand went loose again, and for one horrible second I watched his chest to make sure it kept moving.
It did.
It is still moving now. Mother texted six minutes ago.
Fever unchanged. He’s sleeping. We’ll call if anything changes. Go enjoy yourself.
Enjoy yourself.
As if enjoyment is a switch I misplaced somewhere between the pediatric wing and the parking garage.
The black velvet dress is hanging from my wardrobe door. The corset catches the lamplight when I move, dark and soft and cut low enough that Mira Quinveil temporarily forgot how words worked in the boutique.
She would object to that description.
She would say she was assessing the tailoring.
Then she would tug at her sleeve, look three inches to the left of my face, and begin explaining Fae garment construction until one of us died.
Mira cannot lie.
I know that now.
She can redirect. She can answer a different question than the one I asked. She can bury the truth beneath six layers of sarcasm and one unnecessarily detailed warning about magical hospitality. She can remain silent with enough force to make silence feel like a personal insult.
But she cannot lie.
I asked whether our outing was a date.
She said it wasn’t.
Then I asked whether she could say that while knowing she wasn’t allowed to lie.
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
I should not have enjoyed that as much as I did.
No, that is also dishonest. I enjoyed it exactly the correct amount.
The problem is that wanting someone and choosing them are different things. Mira wants me. I know she does. I saw it when I stepped out in black velvet and she stared at my mouth before remembering she was supposed to be annoyed. I saw it when I touched the gold fabric against her skin and her magic warmed the fitting room. I saw it when she removed her glamour and stood there waiting for me to decide whether the truth of her was too much.
Her hair looked like fire deciding it wanted to be touched. Her eyes were so dark the gold and silver inside them should have disappeared, but they didn’t. They caught every scrap of light in the room and held it.
She looked terrified.
Not of me. Of what I might see when I looked at her.
So I kept looking.
I wanted her before I knew what she was. I wanted her when I thought her greatest secret was that she cared too much about winning arguments. The pointed ears and impossible eyes did not create anything. They only made pretending more difficult.
She showed me something real, and I still don’t know whether she understands what that cost her.
Or what it cost me.
The necklace is lying beside this journal.
It looked harmless wrapped in black silk. Cold metal, dark pendant, faint violet light. Then the shopkeeper said the Veil had noticed me, which is the kind of sentence any reasonable person should respond to by leaving the necklace exactly where she found it.
I brought it home.
Obviously.
It pulsed once when I set it on the desk. Not dramatically. No thunder. No ominous chanting. Just one faint beat of cold beneath my fingers, like something knocking from the other side of glass.
Mira did not know what it meant. I could tell because she started trying to organize the problem into categories. Marked. Veil-reactive. Unknown significance. She looked offended by every phrase that failed to explain enough.
I’m wearing it tonight.
Partly because it belongs with the costume.
Partly because I refuse to be intimidated by jewelry.
Mostly because if it reacts again, I want Mira close enough to see it.
That is probably reckless. Spending time with her has apparently damaged my survival instincts.
My phone lit up a minute ago.
Elliot:
did you put on the vampire thing yet
Me:
You are supposed to be sleeping.
Elliot:
did not answer question
Me:
Almost.
Elliot:
send proof
Me:
Later.
Elliot:
scared quinveil will see you and combust?
Me:
Go to sleep.
Elliot:
that means yes
Me:
I can have them confiscate your phone.
Elliot:
abuse of power
Elliot:
have fun cass
I stared at the last message until the screen went dark.
Have fun.
I want to.
That is the ugliest part.
I want to put on the dress. I want to wear the necklace. I want to step into whatever impossible place Mira’s family has hidden behind the ordinary world and watch her pretend she isn’t checking whether I’m impressed.
I want to see her in gold.
I want her to look at me the way she did in the fitting room, except without mirrors, shopkeepers, or an entire rack of enchanted fabric listening to us.
I want one night where the loudest thing in my head is not a monitor.
And if Elliot’s fever rises while I am gone, I know exactly what my mind will do with that wanting. It will sharpen the memory until every good part becomes evidence against me. I will remember fastening the corset while he slept under a hospital blanket. I will remember laughing while Mother watched his temperature. I will remember Mira’s face and wonder what kind of sister lets herself forget.
But I don’t think Elliot wants to be the reason I stop living.
I would never say that to him. It sounds too close to giving the universe ideas.
Stable is not safe. Sleeping is not healed. Tonight is not a promise that tomorrow will be kind.
They are only the things I have.
Elliot is stable.
Mira wants me.
The Veil has noticed something it refuses to explain.
And I am going to Veilwake.
Afterward, I will go back to the hospital. I will take the chair that doesn’t recline. I will listen to every machine and pretend I am not counting the spaces between sounds.
But tonight, Mira Quinveil is going to see me in black velvet and try very hard not to react.
I intend to make that impossible.
Both things can be true.
I hate that they have to be.
—C