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🎄 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 🎄
with bonus art and my most thiccc wordcount yet
(seriously, go get water and snacks)
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warning: marginally more mature themes in this chapter
𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐧
They walked beneath a shared umbrella. It was early, but Cardan was learning to be less offended by the bright mortal hours.
A fine mist fell in the wake of yesterday's storm. Lazy gusts sighed through the laneways and rippled along the surfaces of puddles. It only looked like a regular mortal morning, but it felt entirely new.
I am, and always have been, yours.
Swiftly, and without fanfare, everything had changed. He felt it the moment Jude emerged from her bedroom that morning and met his eyes across the kitchen counter. The experiences of their shared past converged with the possibilities of a shared future in one small, wordless exchange. Just a smile, offered and reciprocated.
She had given neither spoken nor written acknowledgement to the note slipped beneath her door last night. Cardan supposed she did not need to.
Her answer was there in the details.
Little things, like the way she steered the umbrella between them as they walked to work. Careful not to let the metal frame brush the jutting tip of his ear. Careful to keep him sheltered, even at the expense of her own saturated shoulder.
Ser Jude of the Well-Angled Umbrella. He was her creature to protect, now.
She caught him staring and looked a question at him.
'You smell different,' he observed.
'Thanks?'
He nodded to affirm the compliment. 'You don't normally wear perfume.'
'It's body butter,' she corrected, tightening her hold on the umbrella, suddenly defensive. He couldn't imagine why. 'Heather got it for me last Christmas. Plum Pudding, or Sugar Plum Princess, or something like that. Whatever, it's organic.'
Unable to resist ruffling her feathers further, Cardan gestured to the makeup edging her eyes, winged out like a pair of black knives. 'And those, they're new too.'
'Sure, yup.' She whacked a road crossing button in a way that made Cardan grateful he was not a traffic light. 'Oh, and I shaved my legs and put on matching underwear. I groom, okay? Satisfied?'
'Immensely.'
He considered that information in smug silence, resisting the urge to inquire as to the colour of the alleged matching underthings.
A mystery best solved by moonlight, he decided.
The sun crept through a patch of cloud as they arrived at the cafe, causing steam to curl up from the concrete. He was tasked with shaking out the umbrella while Jude sifted through her handbag for the key. He didn't even know she kept handbags. Everything she ever needed usually materialized from her pockets and, on occasion, a sexy, strappy little thigh holster.
But there would have been no concealing it beneath that skirt.
The garment she wore was short, tight and tartan-printed. A strip of forest green between her slinky black top and tights. It hugged her generous mortal hips and thighs, pronouncing her every step to anyone paying attention, and he happened to be paying very careful attention.
He watched that skirt sway all the way into the cafe, stopping as its wearer reached the counter.
She sighed, then. Her hand went out to caress the wooden surface in one long, sentimental stroke. She looked like she was saying goodbye.
'I've made an executive decision,' she announced over her shoulder.
Cardan sent the umbrella home to a thin metal basket and closed the door behind himself, sealing the room in readiness for an impromptu staff meeting.
'The ivy stays.'
He raised scandalised brows at her. 'Tell me we're keeping it just to spite the photographer.'
Her eyes narrowed to wicked half-moons. 'You bet your sweet faerie ass we are.'
Ha! Nobody had ever called it sweet before. They were usually too distracted by his tail to notice...
'And, in fact,' she went on, gesturing broadly about the cafe. 'I think it could use a little sprucing.'
He sketched a dramatic bow. 'By your command.'
'Please, none of that. The power goes straight to my head.'
Transformed as it was in tone, the morning looked set to continue like any other thereon in. The coffee machine groaned to life. The room quickly filled with the bracing scent of ground beans and bright, upbeat music.
Unbearable ordinariness, easily remedied by magic.
He stretched his fingers and pulled up a chair to stand on. Reaching up above the door, he sank his hands into a leafy sprig of ivy, closing his eyes tight in focus. Power passed through his fingertips to every stem and leaf. The plant shuddered like a cat stretching after being stirred from sleep.
Grow, he bid. And the thing grew. And grew.
The branches stretched along the walls, seeking other sprigs, crosshatching with other coils to form a frame of green along the edges of the ceiling until it all began to creep inward. He concentrated until his head ached; until he had constructed an entire living ceiling of lushest ivy. It was a good thing the electric lights hung low, otherwise they might have been swallowed in the sea of green.
He heard Jude whisper his name in wonderment. Soft and reverent, like an enchantment.
Perhaps a flourish?
When Cardan closed his eyes this time, he imagined himself home in Elfhame. He saw the things that grew along the floor of the forest and willed them into existence here. Star-shaped white flowers. Brazen red clusters of holly. Bioluminescent mushrooms that radiated their own starlight.
But it was here he had to stop.
For he had become lightheaded, and his arms were trembling. He detached his hands from the ivy and peered down at them. The glamour concealing his true skin skipped and flickered. Beneath it, his fingertips looked dipped in soot, and his complexion had taken on a sickly greyish pallor. He turned his hands over to discover veins like inky black tree roots running along his wrists.
'Ah,' was all he could say, and even that came out a little breathless.
'Cardan?'
He balled the unsightly hands into fists and plunged them into his pockets. 'You should... fetch your camera.'
'Sure, okay.'
He waited until he heard her rummaging through drawers in her office before he sank into his chair, breathless and dizzy.
The plant-magic usually took a toll, but never quite like this.
And now something warm and wet was creeping along his upper lip. He touched it and, sure enough, his finger returned shiny and red. He borrowed a few of Jude's favourite curse words and buried his bleeding nose in a silk handkerchief.
'It's blurry!'
Cardan peeked over the silk to see Jude squinting into her camera-viewer, fortunately paying him no close attention. She aimed the thing all around the room to no avail.
The result was just as blurry when she tried photographing the room with her phone. Mind you, that might only have been her ineptitude for mortal technology. An ineptitude they shared. They had daily squabbles over the receipt printer, debating whysoever it might be beeping at them.
'So how does it work?' She asked, eyes still set upon her new ceiling. 'Is it a glamour?'
'It's all real,' he assured, catching his breath at last. 'Every leaf and bud and berry.'
'Then where's the trick?'
'The mushrooms. They give a glow that distorts mortal lenses.'
'Smart.'
Ah, finally. 'You recognise the flowers?'
'I do, and...' she trailed off, bringing her arms tight around herself in the way she did whenever they discussed home. Not a posture of defence, he realised, but one of comfort.
On slightly unsteady legs, Cardan rose to join her.
'Do you remember the Brugh,' he asked, 'and the dais?'
'Mmh.'
'There is a secret room behind, with walls covered in sweet-smelling moss and these,' he made a sweeping gesture to the ceiling that finished with his arm draped across her shoulders. 'A mortal could read by their light alone. So bright, they were. Bright as starlight.'
She chewed the edge of her lower lip. 'Not a bad place for a tryst.'
'I didn't say that. You did.'
Sometimes I wish it were otherwise...
There was a breath of silence as one song gave way to another. A smooth tune that usually played around closing time. One they both could sing the chorus to. Jude's singing voice, like her laughter, was not a sweet-sounding thing. But it was rare, and that made it lovely.
'What do you miss most?'
She had borrowed his habit of filling silences with the first thing on her mind. The question lacked context, but he could parse the when and where of it in her wistful tone.
Dancing. At this moment, dancing was the thing he missed most from his days at court.
He held his answer a moment longer, distracting himself with one of her chestnut curls. He twisted it around his fingers until it looked like he wore a set of glossy rings. The scent of sugared plum drifted lazily through the air between them, emboldened by her warm mortal skin.
How dare she be so unbearably lovely.
'I would show you what I missed,' he said at last.
'The milkman will be here soon,' she replied, as though anyone should give a damn.
'Tell me, darling, will you ever tire of all that seriousness?'
She gave a dutiful sigh. 'Someone has to be serious, otherwise we'd just swan about all day.'
'We're overdue a good swanning, you and I.'
'I don't pay you to swan.'
'You don't pay me at all!'
Now was as good a time as any for Cardan to fish her hands out from under her arms, kissing the back of each in turn. Right, then left, then right again. With each kiss bestowed to the backs of her hands, he asked a question.
'Do you ever get the urge to sing? To cut your hair? To take off your shoes and sprint through the woods, screaming a war cry at the top of your lungs?'
'Sometimes.'
Here he flashed a Cheshire grin. 'And what of the urge to dance?'
'I suck at dancing,' she lied.
'No matter, I have skill enough for us both.'
The old ways came to him as automatically as the drawing of breath. He stepped back to sketch a low, extravagant bow with his tail sweeping out behind him for balance. As he rose, Jude moved into a deep curtsy, no small feat in that restrictive ensemble she wore. He liked that she did not lower her gaze for the gesture. She kept her eyes fixed upon his; warm brown, edged with perpetual challenge.
'I think you were my last dance,' she admitted softly.
How fitting that he should be her next.
How foolish the mortal men for never asking her for the pleasure.
He closed the distance between them, guiding her hand to his shoulder. He sank his own hand down her waist, halting at the flare of her hip, swallowing a low sound that threatened to escape him as he drew her near. Nearer than near.
They'd been here before.
A lifetime ago, it seemed.
When last he held Jude in this way, beneath the Brugh, before the brutality and betrayal, she had not been so composed, nor so sure of herself. Her tongue had been sharp, but her eyes had flitted nervously about the room. He recalled the scent of poison in her sweat. The sallow pallor to her complexion. The watery worry in her eyes, put there by Locke.
You really hate me, don't you?
Almost as much as you hate me.
A moment longer, and he might have drowned in nostalgia.
But Jude's steady breathing brought him swiftly back to the present. It made him newly aware of her every dip and curve, pillowed flush against him. Warm and real. Familiar in ways he'd never thought possible for a pair of fools so set upon hating one another.
They stood poised for a musical cue. Just a beat more, and then...
They were dancing.
In this, as in almost no things, Jude was happy to be led. To surrender herself to him. To be swept and swayed and spun along the creaky wooden floor.
She was at his command. The very thought delivered a rush of power, heady as wine.
He danced to keep her guessing. Sometimes he would bring her too near to a wall, only to spin her to safety at the last possible second. He lifted her over the empty milk crates, surprising her with the display of strength. When the singer crooned a long, lingering note, he dipped her low until her hair swept the floor.
A slower song came at last. He brought Jude against his chest, rewarding her with respite. She panted and draped her arms lazily about his neck, happy to be swayed in slow circles around the empty cafe.
For a moment, Cardan felt happier than he had any right to be.
Naturally, that terrified him.
In his experience, bliss too often preceded disaster. The woman he held felt suddenly like a dandelion in his arms. One gust of wind and she might scatter into a thousand seeds, tossed about on the breeze. Never to be his again.
Never this whole. Never this near.
He hissed at his own wretched sentimentality and did the only thing within his power, which was to draw her nearer. The embrace elicited a soft gasp. He must have squeezed the sound out of her.
'Marry me?' he tried casually.
It was half in jest, though he wouldn't have been able to utter the words if there were not some degree of truth to them.
'Hilarious.'
Ah well. It was worth a shot.
☕ 🐍 🍄 🗡️ 🖤
𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐞
Happiness is a candle.
More specifically, the candle's winking flame, sheltered preciously between two hands. Light preserved for a length of wick and wax. A comforting, yet fleeting glow.
Not unlike a mortal lifetime.
The happiness Jude felt right now was a candle lit at both ends. Flame chewing to the quick of her heart at double the natural pace. Beautiful. Bright. Burning her in pools of searing melt.
But what a lovely light it gave.
Her mortal childhood had been fleeting. Her Faerieland adolescence, just as brief. Her days at Cosmic Brew were all but numbered.
And then there was Cardan.
In the grand expanse of a faerie lifetime, Cardan would be considered an infant. A boychild toddling on the precipice of immortality. No matter how convinced he was of his feelings for her; no matter how sure he was of her significance in his story; Jude knew she was barely enough text for a chapter title.
Time would blot the memory of her from Cardan's heart and mind. Time would not offer her the same courtesy. That was the nature of mortal lovers of the fey; to carry a flame while being forgotten. To be discarded at the first sign of wrinkling or sagging.
Am I ready to burn to the quick for him?
She would ask herself this question over and over. All night, staring at the words slipped beneath her door. All morning on the way to the cafe, and then during their dance. All day, with him at her side, because apparently he was convinced there was no better place to be.
Am I ready to burn to the quick for him? Am I ready...
Well, considering the fact she had shaved and put on matching underwear that day, the odds were certainly leaning in Cardan's favour.
'Et voilà,' said Cardan, sliding a freshly poured latte across the counter toward her, 'un café au lait de compromis.'
Yes, that's right. Cardan had been promoted to the noble station of barista. He was a quick study and a true perfectionist. It warmed her heart to watch him make such fast friends with Toad.
He had also attempted some French.
That was new, but not surprising given the amount of reading he did in the evenings. There were probably multiple language books dotted amid his ever-growing stacks of plays, poetry and dated fashion magazines.
'So, Latte of Compromise?' she guessed. He nodded enthusiastically.
'Proof that you can be serious while also swanning about,' he explained, sniggering at his own joke. 'Well, I thought it was clever.'
Poised upon the surface of the latte, Cardan had poured a perfect swan. Clever, indeed. The bird rippled in shades of caramel and cream. A silky milkfoam masterpiece, the likes of which she herself would have taken weeks to perfect. In truth, her swans were still a little wonky.
Pride for her student and hateful envy warred for dominance within her.
Envy won out.
'Pretty milk won't conceal an over-extracted shot,' she said snobbishly. Then, bringing the cup to her lips, 'Let's see if it tastes as good as it looks.'
'I think you'll find it tastes every bit as good as it looks.'
His words were chocolate-coated with innuendo. He really was an insufferable flirt. The only countermeasure for it was to flirt insufferably back at him.
So, when she sipped and lowered the cup, she made a point of swiping her tongue along her upper lip to clear away the milkfoam. One swipe, slow and suggestive. He grinned appreciatively at the gesture.
'It's gorgeous,' she purred, handing the cup back to him. Watching as he sipped from the opposite side.
'I know.'
'Absolutely. Freaking. GORGEOUS.'
Now there was a voice Jude hadn't had the pleasure of hearing in a while.
'Heather?'
'I mean, you're a little early for Christmas,' Heather went on, waving excited hands at the newly-grown ceiling. 'But, holy shit. Like, wow.'
Jude rushed out from behind the counter to embrace her friend.
Heather's visits to Cosmic Brew had become fewer since Jude had her feud with Vivi. She had worried that a thin layer of ice might have settled over this friendship, but the tightness of Heather's squeeze suggested otherwise.
Time was good at that. At melting old ice.
Looking over Heather's shoulder, she could not deny that part of her had been hoping Vivi would be trailing along behind. Another part was awash with relief.
The ice between sisters was still arctic.
'You want your usual?'
Heather gave two thumbs up, sliding comfortably into a chair. 'Make it extra strong, I need all the help I can get tonight. Graveyard shift, y'know.'
'You got it.'
Jude went to the Regular's shelf in search of Heather's mug, a sparkly, cartoonish unicorn head with a porcelain horn and a purple mane forming the curling handle. She set it down before Cardan and was met with unhelpful sniggering.
'How does one drink out of this?' he asked haughtily.
'This from the guy who used to do shots from acorn shells?'
'Touché.'
'So, this is going to be a dirty chai. That's—'
'A chai with a shot of espresso,' he finished for her. 'I know.'
'Good. Good boy.'
'Good what?' He was watching her now beneath low, suspicious brows. He even pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. 'Are you quite well?'
Was she well? Not really.
She felt flighty and nervous. Sixteen and stupid again, eager to make things work in the mortal world. Eager to fit.
'So,' she said with a renewed attempt at composure. 'It's a dirty chai. Extra strong. Dollop of honey. Sprinkle of everything. Cinnamon, chocolate, pixie dust if you've got it. Make it pretty.'
'You care a lot about this person,' Cardan observed quietly.
They both watched as Heather shed her sunflower-print puffer jacket while continuing to take in the room, eyes wide with childlike awe. Her phone came out to take pictures. She frowned and swore when they all turned blurry.
'Heather gave me a home when I thought I had none. She taught me how to be human again.'
A wry grin tugged at the corner of Cardan's mouth. 'Did she rope you into a contract, too?'
'Hilarious. Truly, you are the king of wit.'
'And you, the queen of spoiled fun.'
'Don't screw this drink up, that's my first decree as queen.'
'Heather taught you to open your home to strays from Faerieland,' he admitted thoughtfully. He was right, too. 'Excellent coffee is the least I owe her.'
Jude kissed his cheek. 'Thank you.'
He had such rosy, elfish cheeks. She would never tire of doing that.
Heather wore high brows and a wide smile as Jude joined her, sinking into the opposite chair at her table. A day occupied with training Cardan on the coffee machine had earned her a chorus of squeaks and aches in her legs. She realised this was the first time she had rested them since they'd opened that morning.
'So,' Heather began.
'So.'
Silence. Loud silence.
'We're going to bypass Buddy the Elf?' Heather asked, meaning Cardan.
'Dunno, are we going to bypass kitty-chan?' Jude replied, meaning Vivi.
Heather bounced a brow over her spectacles. 'She's still doing her own thing, I guess.'
Ah yes. Always her own thing. How very Vivi.
Vivi only managed a year in the mortal world before restlessness got the better of her. She quickly developed a folkish habit of going off on long, debaucherous adventures with glittering troupes of solitary fey. They ventured all over the world, going wherever the wind willed them.
She had no qualms leaving Heather and Jude to water her plants and receive her packages. She liked a mortal lifestyle, but she had no intention of respecting it.
That was how Heather had eventually come to find out about Vivi's fey nature. The police had shown up at their apartment after receiving multiple complaints of bills being paid with envelopes of acorns. Vivi hadn't even bothered to pay for express post so as to preserve the magic long enough for the glamoured acorns to make it to the bank. Jude filled in the rest of the story.
Heather hadn't even freaked out.
She probably didn't have the energy to. She was neck-deep in studying to become a nurse, juggling hours at the hospital with artistic side projects. Tattoo designing and suchlike. The news of Vivi being a faerie almost seemed to come as a relief. It meant Heather no longer had to wait for her to grow up and behave responsibly.
Jude, on the other hand, was still waiting on that change in her sister.
'You two are still not talking, huh?'
Jude shrugged a shoulder at the question. 'I send messages. She replies with stuff like "this number is no longer in service" so I figured she was still cold-shouldering me.'
Heather snorted. Jude wondered what she had done to earn it.
'She dropped her phone while flying a horse over the ocean. Typical Vee, right? It really is out of service.' Oh. Oh yes that did deserve a snort. 'She's got a new one now. Give me your phone and I'll plug in the number. Sorry, but you type like a grandma.'
Jude handed her phone sulkily to Heather.
Still, it was a relief to know Vivi hadn't been the one sending her those cold, robotic messages.
Heather finished inputting the new number and returned Jude's phone, along with a very serious-looking white envelope. Within it, Jude found two tickets printed on quality stock, trimmed with red and embossed with fanciful medical insignia.
'A pinning ceremony?'
'I'm graduating,' Heather explained, eyes alight with hard-earned excitement. 'And you're invited! You, and your plus one, of course.'
'Heather!' They hugged again. This time, Jude made sure to squeeze. 'I'm going to get you the most colourful lanyard I can possibly find.'
'How about an industrial-sized sack of coffee beans? I can snack on them between shifts.'
She mimed digging into a bag for handfuls of coffee beans. Jude laughed.
Cardan cleared his throat.
'One dirty chai in the decapitated head of a unicorn.'
Heather went to take the cup, looking up to thank him. Instead, she let out a scream. The cup slipped from her fingers, shattering into a dozen sparkly pieces upon the floor.
Cardan hissed at the spray of hot milk all over his ankles. Heather found a packet of tissues in her pocket and offered them to him.
'I see blood every day at the hospital,' she said, forcing a chuckle. 'You'd think I'd be used to it by now!'
Blood?
Jude scanned Cardan's legs and feet. The shards of unicorn cup shouldn't have cut through his shoes or trousers to draw blood. Indeed, they hadn't. But there was blood. Right there, on his lovely face. Two red rivers were oozing steadily from his nose. How the hell had she not noticed?
The blood just appeared.
Cardan refused Heather's tissues, opting instead for a silken handkerchief that was already coated in a thick patina of blood.
'Excuse me,' he mumbled through the silk.
She watched him shuffle off to the office and heard the wheelie chair squeak beneath his weight. Heather had already knelt to collect the pieces of cup from the floor.
She nodded toward the office. 'Go, I got this.'
Jude found Cardan looking as though he'd gotten himself into a nasty fight. Dark streaks of red had been wiped in a hurry, leaving dramatic stains on his chin and cheeks. The top drawer of her desk was already unlocked, and had been since she'd fetched her camera from it that morning. In it she found a packet of chemical-smelling wipes for the cleaning of wounds.
Cardan winced as she brought one to his face, but he remained still, reluctantly allowing her to mop up all the red.
'I didn't think faeries got nosebleeds.'
He shifted in the squeaky chair, trying and failing to remain dignified. 'It's not as though I've never bled before.'
'Heather's a nurse. I could get her to take a look?'
'No, please.' He caught her hand, lowering it from his face. There were worried lines between his brows, but he managed a smile in spite of them. 'I'm sure it's noth—ugh. I'm sure...'
Hmm. 'It's not nothing, is it?'
'I'm fi—ugh!'
'What? What's going on?'
'I just need a moment.' He seized her hand, the hand that held the antibacterial wipe, and bestowed an insistent kiss upon it. A kiss that asked for no further argument. 'And please, for the love of all that is good, do not force chocolate upon me again. It isn't a cure-all.'
This angle was not usual for them. Him sitting low, her standing over him. It was so easy to reach out and run fingers through his crow-feather curls. The hair was soft. Soft as sin. The sensation made her shiver.
Cardan closed his eyes and hummed beneath her touch. All those lines of worry he wore seemed to melt away.
He looked alright. Better than alright. Maybe it really was just a nosebleed?
'Go,' he said, gentle and assuring. 'Go to your friend.'
He was a sweet, vainglorious flirt. If something really had been wrong, surely he would have made more of a fuss? Soaked up all the attention?
So, with no reason not to trust him, she left.
☕ 🐍 🍄 🗡️ 🖤
Jude and Heather decided to take their conversation away from the cafe. The sun was setting between two skyscrapers. The sky was clear and the air still and bitterly cold.
It was close enough to closing time that Jude didn't mind turning the sign and locking the door. They walked and talked until they stumbled upon a coffee cart parked beside a playground. It was steadily filling with children, each towed by a parent trying to wind up a phone call.
Amid the chaos of excitable children, Jude spotted a mother kneeling to bundle a girl in swaths of chunky scarf. She tugged a beanie onto the child and gave the pom-pom on top a playful tug.
Jude gave a melancholy sigh and sipped her coffee.
'It should be illegal to make coffee this bad,' she thought aloud. Twenty minutes in line and five whole dollars per cup just added salt to the wound.
'You should try the stuff they give us at the hospital,' Heather chuffed, taking a sip from her own cup. 'This is gourmet by comparison.'
They were perched upon a picnic table now, bottoms on the top, feet on the seat. A perfect spot for people-watching.
'I'm sorry about your unicorn cup, Heather. I'll get you another one.'
'It's fine. No offence, but it was a pain in the ass to drink out of.'
Jude could just imagine the look on Cardan's face if he'd been within earshot of that comment.
'Hey, about your barista...' Heather sounded suddenly serious.
'Yeah?'
'He looks sick, Jude. Like, really sick.'
'What kind of sick?' she asked tentatively.
'Uh, oof. How do I...' That did not sound good. 'He's a faerie, right?'
'Right.'
Heather moved a section of her cloudlike hair to show a tiny sprig of rowan woven into a braid. She then leaned forward to lift the leg of her jeans, revealing socks turned inside-out. When she tapped her pocket, Jude could hear the unmistakable crunch of salt.
'The glasses are enchanted too,' she said, readjusting her elegant round frames. 'They give me truer-than-true sight. I can see straight through to bone.'
Jude swallowed. 'You've done your research.'
'More than that, I've been taking night classes in fey medicine. You would not believe how many of them turn up to the hospital in mortal glamours, expecting to be stitched up like normal humans. They're beautiful, vain idiots who would rather glamour their wounds than have them healed. They need all the help they can get. Do you understand what I'm getting at, here?'
'I understand.'
For a while, Jude had suspected her own true sight had faded. It was a temporary spell, after all, applied upon arrival in Faerie.
She recalled the first night Cardan had spent in her apartment. The way he had pulled the glamour from his face and put it so effortlessly on again. If her true sight had still been intact, she wouldn't have seen any change; she would have only seen the ghostly character beneath.
What if time on land hadn't done a damn thing to heal the impact of the Undersea? What if he was still that ghostly character?
That foolish, vain bastard. He only let her see what he wanted her to see.
'I think there's a lot of fighting going on among the fey,' Heather said gravely, her words suggesting many sleepless nights, many tiresome shifts. 'So many Folk are showing up to hospital battle-wounded. One of my classmates is fey, passing as mortal. He said this isn't usual. Something's changed in the past decade.'
Madoc.
Jude shivered. She felt her shoulders stiffen with tension and her heart pound within the walls of her chest. Heather's phone started ringing and she jumped, spilling the shitty coffee all over her nice skirt.
This day had started so well.
'I'm fine,' she insisted, accepting tissues when Heather offered them. 'Take the call.'
It was the hospital. Heather was needed as soon as possible. It wasn't far, so Jude offered to walk her there.
As they went, Heather asked all sorts of questions about Cardan. What type of faerie he was? What sort of magic he possessed? What poisons did he avoid (iron and pop-tarts)? She even requested a short history lesson on his family.
Heather seemed most interested in Mab, the great grandmother who had drawn whole-ass islands from the sea.
'So, they're earth benders!' Heather deduced. 'He needs earth!'
Jude tried not to frown. She'd been doing that too much and now her forehead ached. 'Earth? He's living on it, isn't he?'
'No, like, soil. From his homeland. That's where his great nan drew her power from, right? The land. That land.'
'Okay, what do I do with the soil?'
'Rub it all over him. Feed it to him. I'll let you two figure it out.'
Right. Soil from Elfhame. She could do that.
Probably.
They arrived at the hospital where Heather went on tiptoe to give her a parting hug. The squeeze was mutually tight this time.
'Heather, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Vivi sooner.'
Heather shrugged, neither accepting nor denying the apology. 'It wasn't your truth to tell.'
'But we're human. Vulnerable. I should have looked out for you.'
'You're kidding with that, right? The fact that we have a sooner expiry date doesn't make us weak. It makes us dangerous.'
'You sound so sure.'
'Every damn day is precious to our kind; we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I'd rather be human than anything, and that's coming from someone who watches a shitload of kemonomimi anime.'
Jude tried a brave smile, recognising her own projection of vulnerability. She still had a lot to learn.
'We are as shooting stars,' she mused aloud, 'brief but bright.'
'Poetic. Who wrote that?'
'Me.'
'You're such a Care Bear,' Heather teased. 'All the best with your faerie prince.'
Jude felt her eyes grow wide. 'How did you know he was a prince?'
'I didn't. Lucky guess.'
Luck.
Now there was an idea.
☕ 🐍 🍄 🗡️ 🖤
The windows were opaque with steam when Jude returned to Cosmic Brew. Cardan must have run a load of dishes without remembering to turn on the extractor fan.
It didn't matter. All the moisture was probably good for the new living ceiling.
Blue-tinted steam poured from the door as she pulled it open, stained by the gentle glow of the mushrooms. They gave such a sufficient light, she decided not to bother with the switch.
Inside, a lone silhouette sat at the bar with his tail flicking thoughtfully out behind him.
He looks sick, Jude. Like, really sick.
Heather's words had haunted Jude every step of the way back. Even going so far as to inspire her to make a return journey to the playground where she went on her hands and knees, combing through a patch of unmown grass beside the picnic table where they'd sat. Her careful search eventually turned up one perfectly symmetrical four-leaf clover.
She only hoped she wouldn't need to use it.
Jude entered the cafe, finding the floor slick with soapy water. The chairs were stacked, and Toad was munching contentedly through a pair of cleaning tablets. If Cardan had the energy to perform such a perfect close alone, he must have been feeling fit and fine. The scene relieved some of her accumulated concern.
But relief, like happiness, is so often short lived. Burned at both ends to the quick.
'Hey,' she tried, and was met with silence. 'The place looks great.'
More silence.
Cardan's shoulders only rose and fell with steady breath.
She dropped her keys and handbag on a stack of chairs and travelled slowly around the counter, stopping opposite Cardan on the other side. She reached across to touch him as she had earlier. To run fingers through those iridescent curls, tempted by the glossy twists soaked in bioluminescent blue.
'Please, don't.'
Cardan captured her wrist and lowered it gently to the countertop, stopping her before she could make contact.
'What? What is it?'
His other hand emerged from the shadow of his body to place something on the counter between them. A weighty object that made a soft, metallic ting as it landed.
'When I first sat here, and you said I had some usefulness...' He sounded distant. Cold and aloof. 'Well, this wasn't exactly what I was expecting.'
Half of the Crown of Elfhame sat before her, winking at her like a cruel punchline.
It was the same half that usually sat wrapped in a tea towel, locked in the top drawer of her desk. Only, she hadn't left that drawer locked today, had she?
Shit.
'Who's blood?' Cardan asked, pointing to a brownish stain at one end of the crown.
'Mine,' Jude admitted, matching his curt tone. 'I stepped on it. I was limping, remember?'
'That's right. You claimed I bit you.'
There was something so sinister about a joke delivered through unsmiling lips. Maybe it was the lighting; the fact she couldn't quite see his face. Maybe it was the icy edge to his voice. Whatever it was, Jude felt suddenly grateful for the expanse of polished wood between them.
'I didn't think you'd ever want to see it again.'
He nodded slowly, picking the piece up to turn it over in his hands. 'It feels like holding their ghosts. It's cold.'
Something in the way he spoke had her full of sudden remorse. As though her grubby mortal hands should never have made contact with such an ancient piece of magic. As though it ought to have been buried rather than collected like a shiny coin.
'I will ask this only once, Jude. Where is the other half?'
'It might be under the tree where I found you,' she lied reactively. There was a shadow of threat in Cardan's words that made her reluctant to reveal the truth to him.
'This makes more sense,' he said with a lofty sigh, setting the piece down again. 'A plot for the crown, rather than whatever I thought we had. I'm such a fool.'
'A plot? It's nothing like that.' She reached again for his curls. This time, he didn't stop her. 'Perhaps I'm just fond of collecting shiny, pretty things.'
'Come Jude, we know each other too well for tricks.'
'Yes, we do.'
'I know of your brother's true parentage.'
She snatched her hand away from his hair. 'Oak? What the fuck has this got to do with Oak?'
'I know what purpose I might have served your father in winning him a legitimate throne, and the sworn loyalty of all my great grandmother's allies.'
'What? Just—start making sense!'
'Oak! Bastard son of Dain! Your own stepmother cut him from his mother's womb and delivered him to the Grand General like a golden ticket!'
Jude had to clutch the counter for balance. The terrible thing was, everything he said had to be true. It had to be. There were pieces missing. Perspectives to be considered.
That didn't make it any easier to swallow.
'How did you...' she tried and failed.
'Mermaids are vicious gossips.'
She looked up and found his dark eyes flickering at her in the now ominous glow of the mushrooms. He lifted his chin to face her more fully, the high apples of his cheeks and tip of his nose catching shards of light. He was every bit the beautiful, dangerous boy she'd butted heads with in Faerie.
He was pissing her off as much, too.
'I liked you better as a literal snake,' she told him.
'I liked you better when you were Madoc's brat in earnest, holding a sword at my throat rather than a knife at my back.'
'Yeah? You liked that?'
A swift hike of her skirt, and Jude had the knife strapped to her thigh unsheathed and bared before him, glistening in the bluish light. She let Cardan get a good look at the weapon before she put the tip of it to his throat, tracing a harmless line from apple to chin.
He gave a soft hiss at the sting of cold metal, but he was smiling. Smiling like this was for his amusement, not hers.
'This is your preference, huh?'
Cardan chose to dodge her question with one of his own. 'How the hell did you fit that thing beneath that skirt.'
Spanx. 'Wouldn't you like to know?'
He gave a nervous chuckle. 'I would. Very much.'
'You're an idiot,' she decided, throwing the knife into the countertop. It landed beside the crown piece with a satisfying twang, swaying with the force by which she had thrown it. 'And you've done me too much credit.'
'Have I? How so?'
'I didn't flee from my foster father only to run back into his open arms with a prince and a crown in tow. I sell coffee and mind my own business. You're just here because I like having you around.'
'You have some experience in spying,' he accused, apparently unconvinced. 'You told me that much yourself. Why should I believe a single word you say with secrets like this hidden away in your drawers?' He presented the crown piece dramatically. Then, sparing a cursory glance toward her knife, 'And in your skirt.'
Jude massaged her temples and groaned her impatience.
'A spy can grow fond of their cover,' he went on, speaking in stupid riddles now. 'A prisoner, fond of their captor.'
'You're not a prisoner!' she bellowed. 'You signed a contract!'
'Ah yes, our contract!' he bellowed back. 'Tell me darling, while we're putting cards on the table, was The List your idea, or Madoc's?'
No. Nope. That was the last straw.
Jude plucked her knife from the counter. Cardan flinched, as well he should. The weapon was an incredibly unsexy human design with a neon-orange butt and a chunky grey grip. A hunter's knife, meant for bushcraft. The grip housed a pocket of space intended to keep tinder dry.
He's flint, you're tinder.
Taryn's words reared like a mocking echo as Jude glared over the edge of her blade, unfurling a bit of paper from the pocket in the hilt. A folded-up pizza menu. It was almost a month old now.
Cardan's eyes narrowed, then widened with recognition at the co-signed list scrawled on the back of it.
'Fuck the contract.'
With that, she tore it into ten tiny pieces before his eyes, taking sick pleasure in throwing the bits of paper at him like vengeful confetti.
'Jude!'
'And while we're putting our cards on the table, why don't you show me your true face?'
He shuffled awkwardly in his bar stool, plucking bits of List from his curls. 'Perhaps I'm naturally this pretty, is that so hard to believe?'
'Drop the glamour, coward.'
'Careful, Jude. All that smoke pouring out of your nostrils will set off the fire alarm.'
Little shit. 'You said we knew each other too well for tricks.'
He leaned forward across the counter, close enough to whisper. Close enough to fill the air between them with the scent of pomegranate tea, still lingering on his soft, full lips.
'Why does it matter?'
'Because I know you're sick,' she confessed, meeting him halfway, her own lips halting at the precipice of a kiss. Her head tilting in unspoken invitation.
'I know my sickness, and I have found my cure.'
The kiss that followed was a slow, sensual thing. A careful exploration. A brush of lips, but never quite a full press, as though Cardan had to test and savour every angle before committing to a favourite. When at last he found his favourite kiss, he stole it like a clever thief.
Thank goodness, Jude thought. She couldn't have held her breath another second.
She reached up to bury greedy fingers through his hair. To draw him deeper. Cardan groaned as though he had been put out of one misery, then thrust into an entirely new one. The counter between them became a divide between realms as much as bodies.
Something had to be done about it. Fast.
No sexual advances was never a rule for Cardan, and she thought he might have realised that the moment he witnessed her hike up her skirt to lift herself upon the countertop and close the distance between them.
She slid herself across the polished wood until her legs dangled over the other side. She then captured Cardan between those legs, drawing him close in a stocking-clad vice. Kissing him fiercely all the while. If his kisses were slow, explorative things, hers were blunt and brazen.
In the moments between kisses, brief as they were, Cardan looked as though all the insouciance had been wrung right out of him. He became a maskless contortion of terror and mad delight.
But the bewildered prince soon found his bearings in her bold embrace. He stabilised himself upon her thighs, driving his fingers up the outer curve of them, working his way steadily to her hips. There was plenty of plush mortal padding to be found there. A novelty to the lithe and elven fey. Jude flattered herself to take the low, amused sound he made as an indication of his appreciation for her shape.
She liked his shape, too. Every pretty inch of him seen, and yet to be seen.
She even liked the feel of his tail coiling up her calf. She hadn't expected to like it so much. By all rights, it probably should have creeped her out, but instead it had her reaching down to briefly confirm whether that tuft at the end was as soft as the curls on his head.
It was. Nice.
Cardan took the gesture as an invitation to do some investigating of his own. He shifted her hair to clear a path to her ear, taking time to acquaint himself with the human curve of it. Taking time to kiss her there. To do a little more than that...
With him so well distracted, Jude stole the opportunity to reach into her bra for the four-leaf clover she'd hastily tucked there. Cardan pulled away to watch her.
'Did you need help with that?' he asked, dipping his chin to indicate her top.
Well, at least he hadn't noticed the clover. She nodded.
It was a form-fitting sweater, but he tugged it off her body without fuss, apparently well practiced in the art of alleviating women of their garments. Not that she was complaining. She watched him lean back to take in a fuller view of her. To admire the dips, plains, and everything in between.
It took conscious effort not to fold her arms across her chest. None of this was new but... It had been a while.
'What a gorgeous shade of cranberry,' he cooed, doing away with that torturous silence.
She thought he had been referring to her cheeks. Her face had been set aflame since the sudden, unplanned shirtlessness. But no, it was the fancy bra he was referring to. An uncomfortable thing trimmed with dark ribbons and lace. It hardly ever saw the light of day.
Or the light of mushrooms.
Cardan traced the lacey edges of it, unperturbed by the quickening rise and fall of her chest. Spurred by it, if anything. Now and then he would deviate to a stretch mark, tracing the lines of uneven skin as though they were mere extensions of the lace. Decorations rather than imperfections.
Her heart raced and ached all at once. He made her feel so unbearably lovely.
'You said this was part of a matching set?' he inquired, eyes still set upon the swell of her chest.
'Wouldn't you like to know?'
This was another interesting angle they'd never tried. Her sitting on the counter, him staring slightly up at her. As their eyes met again, their kisses began anew.
They'd been doomed to this fate the moment she'd made her first tear in that contract.
From his lower vantage, Cardan's kisses allied with gravity, drawing her down toward him. Deeper into his orbit. He savoured his natural advantage, seizing her lower lip between his teeth, tugging and releasing at whim. Her mouth felt raw and wonderfully tingly in the wake of him.
She shouldn't have let it go on this long.
It only made it all the more painful when she pulled away to watch as he frowned at a strange sensation on the tip of his tongue. He reached up to pluck the unknown something from his mouth.
A warm, wet, withered little four-leaf clover.
'Oh, Jude.'
'I'm...'
No, she wasn't sorry. He was the one who had refused to cooperate. He was the one who left her no choice but to transfer it between their kisses like poison.
And he was too late, of course. The plant had already worked its magic.
The glamour flaked from Cardan's face, neck, and hands, shedding like holographic fish scales. Jude saw the sallow skin beneath and it stole the very air from her lungs, causing her to utter a sharp gasp. She regretted the sound the moment she'd made it. It seemed to cut him deeper than any knife ever could.
Looking down at his hands, Cardan quickly confirmed her betrayal. He could only shake his head in unbelieving silence, quietly processing his own shitty luck.
The four-leaf clover was an impolite bit of magic, taught to her by Tatterfel. "For use only in emergencies" the imp had warned whilst advising on the trickery of the fey. To rob a faerie of their beautifying glamour was to invite a very special sort of wrath.
Cardan seemed far from wrath. Strangely, he seemed just as surprised by the sight of himself as she had been—as though he had expected the sickness to have faded by now.
Jude cupped his face. His true face.
'I'm going to help you,' she assured shakily. 'I know what to do.'
The light of the mushrooms grew dim as he drew away and became slowly swallowed by shadow. He must have wanted it dark while he worked at repairing his glamour. Jude lowered her eyes to afford him privacy, despite the fact she couldn't see an inch before her. Even the moon seemed to sink into Cardan's new shadow.
What strange power he wielded, even in this weakened state.
'We should have called truce,' the darkness whispered.
She nodded, knowing his fey eyes could see her clearly.
There was a scuffle of shoes, and then she felt fabric pressed into her hands. He had found her top on the floor and returned it to her. She felt the press of his lips to her cheek and bit down another gasp.
His kiss was cold as death.
'Goodnight, Jude Duarte. Do not wait for me in the evening. Do not look for me in the morning.'
She dug her nails into the wool. 'Where are you going?'
'I'm off to get properly shitfaced,' he admitted with a weak chuckle. 'Then I intend to bury this crown under that tree you mentioned. Perhaps say a few words.'
She nodded again. 'Promise you'll be careful.'
'Only if you promise you won't try to fix me. If you have a scheme for it, I doubt it'll be without danger.'
She couldn't make that promise.
So, he wouldn't make one, either.
He left her there in the darkness, shivering. Arms and belly exposed to the cold. Lips raw. Heart still racing. A stupid, lonely fool.
A stupid lonely fool with a plan.
🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐧
𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫
𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰
𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐰𝐞'𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨
𝐦𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐰
𝐬𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟
𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬...
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