on the menu tonight:
🍄 bonus scene (cut from last chapter)
🍄 lockscreens
🍄 playlist
🍄 fanart feature
🍄 author's notes
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cut from the end of Tryst by Mushroomlight
as the chapter was already quiiiite long,
and I was feeling that cliff-hanger ending
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𝐀 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬
𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐞 | 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠
It was half past midnight, which meant that Vivi was late.
Jude paced her living room floor like a caged beast, checking and rechecking her gear. Salt—check. Turned-out socks—check. Knives—check, check, check. Pistol—locked and loaded.
All she needed now, was a ride.
A sudden gust of wind drew her attention to the open balcony door. It threw her curtains into a frenzy and sent the pages of Cardan's books fluttering like hummingbird wings. The gust soon subsided to a steady pattern of whooshings. Wingbeats.
An enormous creature was hovering there, right outside her apartment.
'A peryton,' she whispered, as though to afford greater reality to what her eyes were seeing and yet hardly believing.
A winged stag. A mythical beast, stranger in the flesh than any faerie schoolbook had ever depicted. It had a feathered mane, a dove's tail, and a pair of creepy talons where its front hooves should have been. The composition of features was made all the more strange by the tangle of blinking Christmas lights hung through its antlers.
Music blared from a portable speaker slung from the peryton's saddle, upon which sat four beautiful persons laughing and chattering as though they had just returned from a most fabulous party. One of the beautiful persons, adorned in scores of sunset-hued silk, slid from the saddle to land upon the balcony with catlike grace.
Vivienne.
'Hey!' Jude called between wingbeats.
'Hey back!'
'Can you tell your friends to park that thing a few blocks away? It'll wake up my neighbors.'
Vivi dismissed her troupe with a bouquet of blown kisses. The peryton swooped away into the night, looking wonderfully out of place silhouetted against the lights of the city.
'You look like a little girl seeing her first unicorn,' Vivi teased.
'I thought peryton were meant to be extinct?'
'Really? I just came from a land where they're as common as raccoons. People chase them off their lawns.'
'Where?'
Vivi tossed a bit of fabric over her shoulder. 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'
Jude quirked a brow. 'I don't know, I've seen some weird shit in my time.'
'Atlantis.'
Yeah, that skirted on the edge of believability.
Jude welcomed her sister in from the cold. A fine dusting of snow coated the living room in the peryton's wake, thrown in by the beast's gusty ascension. It was the first snow of the season, too. A little early this year. The first flakes had fallen almost as soon as Cardan had left the cafe.
A coincidence? Maybe.
But after the outstanding bit of magic he'd exhibited that morning—turning her cafe into a terrarium—Jude thought that a fall of snow didn't seem entirely out of his reach.
She pictured him walking alone in it. Cold and confused. Ashen and utterly depleted beneath his beautiful glamour.
Off to find himself a bar and a generous pour of wine, no doubt.
She would need to carry out her plan swiftly in order to be back here by morning, in case he did come home. She would welcome the sight of him in any state. Stonewalling, or shouting at her. Alone, or accompanied by a beautiful someone he'd found at the bar.
It didn't matter how she found him; the only thing that mattered was that she had the means by which to cure him.
Hence, Vivienne.
'So, what are you supposed to be?' asked Vivi, eying her amusedly from head to combat-booted toe. 'A spy? Ninja?'
'Yeah, well. You look like you're about to give me a dodgy palm reading.'
'Ha! And I'll charge you through the nose for it.'
Jude hadn't been expecting a hug. She hadn't known what to expect after so many months of silent ice between sisters. And yet, here were Vivi's arms, wide and welcoming. Having gone through a slight growth spurt upon returning to the mortal world, Jude found her sister only came to her shoulders now. It felt like hugging a woman-child.
'Ooo—you smell like boy!'
Jude shifted out of the hug immediately.
Vivi padded about the apartment in bare feet to sniff the air, each step serenaded by stacks of her sparkly anklets. She stooped to get an affirming sniff of the sofa.
'It all smells like boy. Pretty boy. Familiar boy...'
'Mind your business,' Jude snapped.
'If you got married without inviting me to the wedding, I'm going to kill you. Then, I'm going to kill your new husband. Then, of course, I'll post a gift.'
Funny she should mention husbands.
Marry me?
Hilarious.
A proposal was an odd thing to spring on someone so early in the morning. Cardan had to have been joking. He was always smiling or snickering at something. Jude had a hard time believing he could take anything truly seriously.
And yet, seeing him shell up with melancholy when he had discovered the crown... Seeing the way he lamented—of all things—not being needed at the cafe...
Jude wondered now if all the snickering was just another sort of glamour he wore.
Her eyes went to the balcony for probably the hundredth time that evening. Searching for pigeons.
Searching in vain.
Vivi cackled at something in a dated copy of Vogue Paris, snatching Jude's attention back to the living room. She must have found it left open on the arm of Cardan's favourite chair.
'Heh, shoulder pads.'
'Tea?' Jude offered. 'Coffee?'
Vivi pouted. 'Beer? Whisky?'
'I got both.' Hidden behind vegetables to deter a certain thirsty prince.
'Beer then. Long as it's cold.'
'Cold as ice.'
Jude used the edge of her benchtop to flick the caps off two chilled bottles of Sapporo. The sisters clinked bottles and took a long gulp. It went on so long, in fact, it almost became a challenge. For a tiny person, Vivi could really pack away her drink.
Jude would claim she let her sister win.
'You sounded nervous on the phone,' Vivi said, her question punctuated by an offensively loud belch. 'You seem fine now. Everything okay?'
If Jude had sounded nervous, it was only because she had called Vivi as soon as Cardan had left Cosmic Brew. She hadn't even bothered to pull her top back on before making the call. The shakiness of her cadence would have been a combination of lingering arousal, shock, and cold boobs.
'Just another screw up,' Jude answered vaguely.
'What, do you save them just for me?'
'No. It's not like Sophie.'
Vivi seemed relieved. 'It's "boy" isn't it?'
'He needs medicine.'
'And there's no other place you can get it?' No safer place, she meant.
'None I could authenticate beyond doubt. If I went looking for it at a fey market, it might be fake. Tainted. Plus, it should probably be fresh.'
'Fresh?'
Jude shrugged. 'Just a hunch.'
'Fair. Always honour your hunches. They're a little like human-magic, in a way.'
'I'm trying to.' Jude offered her sister an appreciative smile. Vivi returned it, all the wider in her feline way. 'Calling you was a good start, right?'
'Heather gave you my number, huh? How's she doing?'
Jude retrieved Heather's graduation invitations from the purse she'd used that day. She handed one invitation to her sister.
'See for yourself. You're my plus one, by the way.'
Vivi beamed at the invitation. 'I have the perfect dress for it.'
'Cool, sure. Just don't make this about you. This is her day.'
'Fine, fine. I'll bring flowers.'
'And come up for air once in a while,' Jude went on, crossing her arms over her chest. 'Faerieland is forever, but the humans you care about...'
A strained silence stretched between sisters. Vivi's eyes flicked toward the door. Jude wondered if she might be planning an escape. She wouldn't stop her, but she would regret throwing away her best chance at helping Cardan, all to make a point that never found its mark.
Then, Vivi cleared her throat. 'Is that my stuff?'
She gestured to two humongous Target bags Jude had left upon the kitchen counter, placed like a pair of plastic elephants in the room.
'Sure is. Help yourself.'
In truth, and in true faerie fashion, Vivi was not here entirely out of the goodness of her heart. Jude wished she could say otherwise, but bargains were in her sister's blood.
Vivi had followed the phone call by texting through a lengthy shopping list, which she expected Jude to fulfil by midnight. A trip to Target and two bursting bags of cheap shit later, and here was Jude, offering bribery for a magical boon.
Tamagotchi and tinsel for a ragwort pony. Not the worst deal.
Vivi skimmed through her bags of loot, the slits of her cat-eyes blown wide with excitement. She squealed at a box of sparklers. She pew-pewed at a water pistol. She found a packet of jingle-bell baubles and gave them an enthusiastic shake.
Jude didn't know what sort of party Vivi was planning for her peryton pals, but it seemed harmless enough. Sweet, even.
'These are perfect,' Vivi beamed. 'It'll be just like mom's Christmas!'
'That's a month away, we're still in November.'
Vivi blinked, genuinely shocked. A reminder of just how strangely time passed for the young and immortal. Particularly the young and immortal revellers of Atlantis.
'You're so fond of the human aesthetic,' Jude muttered audibly, 'but never the reality of it. Or the responsibility.'
Vivi rolled her eyes. 'Here's the responsibilities rant, back to haunt me like the ghost of Christmas Whatever.'
'Yeah, well. Humbug.'
'Life is short!' her sister cried, shaking baubles for emphasis. 'Who has time for responsibility?'
'You, asshole. You're immortal.'
'Not around you I'm not. You age me, Jude. I can feel my hair greying. Back pain! Taxes!'
Jude massaged her temples for the second time that day. Her capacity for bullshit was quickly waning.
'You're such a dick,' she concluded.
Vivi drained the last drops from her bottle and set it down on the dining table, right beside a coaster. Beside, not on.
'Maybe,' she admitted, 'but I come bearing ponies, so I can't be all bad.'
Jude couldn't argue with that.
☕ 🐍 🗡️ 🍄 🖤
The roof of Jude's apartment building was coated in a delicate quilt of snow. It crunched gratifyingly beneath her boots as she went about strapping bungee cords to her newly-summoned ragwort pony, attaching stacks of tupperware she hoped to fill with soil. Vivi had summoned herself a pony, too, though that beast would bear her elsewhere. It had been well established between sisters that Jude intended to carry out her plan alone. Unaided.
Mist plumed from the snouts of the ponies. They chuffed excitably, hungry to take to the skies. Snow clouds curled overhead, their bellies sprayed gold by the light of a million mortals going about their business.
Jude paused her preparations to take in the view. There was a chance she might not see it again, and eminent danger had a way of making everything a little more beautiful.
Most of the lights were still on in the apartment building across the way. TVs flickered in living rooms. An elderly man watered his orchids. A girl two rooms down lifted her cat to dance to whatever tune blared through her headphones. A nude couple on the top floor crashed together, toppling to their bed in a tangle of limbs before their light went quickly out. A siren wailed in the distance. A dog barked.
Nights like this had a way of making you feel a sense of loneliness and belonging all at once. Part of something while being entirely apart from it.
A spectre in your own story.
How strange Cardan must have felt while witnessing such scenes. To be thrown from luxuriant exclusivity into an endless hum of human continuance. Not a prince, but a cog in the mortal machine.
Always a little torn between two worlds herself, Jude knew the feeling well. Cardan's presence usually quelled that sense of misbelonging, and she now felt it strongly in his absence. He was as preternatural as a peryton and yet he had a way of making everything feel so sweetly normal.
They were strangers in a strange land, but no such strangers to each other.
Jude touched her cheek where Cardan had bestowed that parting kiss. Then, as though summoned by an unspoken prayer, a soft chorus of cooings sounded behind her. A caramel coloured pigeon stared unblinkingly from its perch between the ears of Vivi's ragwort pony. In its beak, a single polaroid photo.
Huh.
Cardan had stolen her camera. She knew it instinctively. A camera for a crown.
'Oh, hey little guy,' Vivi greeted brightly, offering her arm. 'Whatcha got there?'
The poor creature bobbed its head in confusion, unsure which sister should receive its note. Perhaps Jude's wide, desperate eyes put it off, because it went obediently to Vivi's arm.
'It's for me!' Jude almost shouted.
Vivi gave her a strange and well-deserved look. Mercifully, she did not protest. She merely extended her arm to transfer the bird to Jude's waiting hand. Its grimy talons dug deep into her leather glove, and its feathers ruffled against the bitter cold. It seemed to have completed a long journey.
Jude started with the busy note scrawled on the back of the polaroid.
'Treacherous creature,' it read. 'You, not the pigeon.' As though she needed that bit of clarification. 'I am seven drinks deep and yet I still cannot expel the foul taste of clover from my tongue. I hope you're proud of yourself. I hope you're quite pleased. Cheers to you, Queen of Spoiled Fun.'
The photo was disappointingly blurry. She could just make out the glint of a wineglass somewhere in the centre of it, held by a set of long, beringed fingers. The next pigeon arrived with a much clearer polaroid, landing on the arm of the correct Duarte sister this time. Jude found the subject matter of this photograph much, much more appealing.
It was a portrait of the prince himself, taken in a bathroom mirror.
He struck the sort of pose that belonged in black and white. So painterly he looked with his dark tousled hair and kohl-lined eyes. His deep purple shirt was arranged stylishly askew, and he wore a wine-stained smirk to match it. He hadn't bothered to glamour away his pointed ears or tail for the picture, which she thought was a nice touch, even if it spooked unsuspecting mortals sharing that public bathroom with him.
He was so stupid-beautiful. And to think, mere hours ago, she'd had all that wrapped between her arms and legs...
'Try not to sigh too often in my absence,' read the note on the back, penned in a sloppy, wine-drunk hand.
Too late for that, she wanted to reply, but she had already burned enough moonlight.
She tucked both photos into her pocket, but not before she had pressed the mirror-selfie quickly to her lips. Vivi was too distracted to notice, labouring away at attaching her Target haul to her pony with a borrowed bedsheet. The pigeons were the only witnesses to Jude's moment of girlish sentimentality. One tender kiss bestowed upon the paper impression of Cardan's stupid-beautiful cheek.
The sisters then mounted their respective ponies, making careful checks of moonlight and wind speed.
'It's funny,' Jude mused aloud, not quite ready to say goodbye to her sister. 'You can picture a plan in your head clear as day, but it isn't until you're sitting on the damn horse that it suddenly feels like everything might go wrong.'
Vivi reached over from her pony to put a warm, affirming hand upon Jude's shoulder.
'We'll be fine,' she tried to assure.
'Wait. We?'
'Cloud cover's good,' Vivi observed, ignoring the question. 'Madoc's knights won't see us landing in all this.'
Jude cleared her throat. 'Us?'
'I sent an owl to Taryn to check if dad was in town or away on bloodthirsty business. Or, is it bloodthirsty pleasure? Bit of both, I guess? Anyway, I thought the pigeons might have been from her. Taryn. But, she usually sends something more fancy, like a falcon. I guess no news is good news, right?'
Jude shook her head in disbelief. 'I'm going to need you to back all the way up and start from—'
Vivi dug her fingers into her pony's mane. Her eyes narrowed in focus, aimed skyward.
'Do you remember the way?' She called over her shoulder.
To Elfhame? 'Like the back of my hand.'
'Good!' Vivi gave her pony a healthy kick. 'I'll race ya!'
Jude could only watch in silent stupefaction as her sister shot into the sky. Fortunately, that moment's delay on the rooftop afforded a final, very flustered pigeon a few precious seconds to deliver a new note.
Just a bit of paper this time. A bit of napkin, actually, stained with a few drops of whisky.
'Dnt do annyting stupid.' The note implored. 'Plese, Jude :( '
'Tell him not to worry his pretty head about it,' Jude told the pigeon, despite its enchantment being complete. It was already back to preening itself. 'I've done a thousand stupid things before. I'd do a thousand more for him.'
She spurred her pony toward the edge of the roof and halted there, steeling herself for a leap of faith. Never had she taken flight from such a height. Frosty wind teased her hair like an unspoken dare. Floors upon floors below, pedestrians crossed the road, bundled in scarves and jackets, lifting ant-sized hands in wonderment at the snow.
In faerie stories composed by humans, magic was so often fuelled by things conjured in the heart. Things like faith. Courage. Love.
Dnt do annyting stupid...
Jude wasn't sure there was enough room in her trembling heart for faith or courage right now, but there had to be a little of the other thing. If there weren't, she probably wouldn't be here...
Poised at the precipice.
Closing her eyes.
Spurring the pony forward.
Falling.
They made a graceful dive into the snowy night air, sinking a few terrifying floors before climbing back into the sky. Not until they were properly flying did Jude recall the mechanics of breathing.
The air was crisp and sweet this high above the city. She drank deeply of it, savouring the wind in her hair. The discovery of stars above the snow clouds. The expanse of dark sea on the horizon.
It struck her, then. Squarely in the chest in the place where her courage and faith and love should have been.
She was homeward bound.
reader, I'm not sure either of us are ready for the absolute cataclysmic shenanigans I have planned for this next chapter :')))))))
I was going to include this scene at the beginning of the next chapter, but I'd prefer to just get the heck to Elfhame and hit the ground running, ya know?
it will be A Time, so see you there x
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───── ⋆ 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐬 ⋆ ─────
there's a link in my bio (since I'm unable to link text here)
otherwise, cinnamonspacedust.com/snakesandlatteslockscreens
I've got loads of other lockscreen designs on my site too ( cinnamonspacedust.com ) including watercolour tfota art and minimalist tfota art - the kind that make it easier to see your icons
if I haven't included your favourite chapter art as a lockscreen yet, feel free to request it! I'll do my best to see to requests when I can :)
also, for the record, I'm 100% fine with use of any of my fanart in any way (profile pictures, wallpapers, icons, edits etc etc) - they're technically Holly Black's characters so I'm not precious about it, but credit is always nice! and if you let me know you're using my art for something it's such an encouragement <3
enjoy!
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───── ⋆ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ⋆ ─────
cosmic_brew by neonacademia on Spotify (link in my bio)
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───── ⋆ 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐭 ⋆ ─────
as you can probably imagine I was so excited to receive fanart of a scene from my fic! in this piece, Cardan decided to keep and serve the crochet sunflower sweater instead of throwing it off the balcony as he did in "The Slyfooted Snoop"
by iren-witch on tumblr
needless to say I'd love to see more cute serotonin-rich stuff like this from you guys, so if you have any snakes&lattes themed art/hc's/writing/moodboards you'd like to share, feel free to send it through to me here or on tumblr - I'm neonacademia on there too (link in my bio)
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───── ⋆ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 ⋆ ─────
Soooooo that last chapter got some reactions :')
I love a good impassioned reaction to a chapter. I do I really do. Raging or raving, I love it all.
just... try to be nice please
I'm not too proud to admit that your comments and votes are the reason why I'm still posting
2021 was A Damn Time. As I'm sure most of you are finding, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find enjoyment in my usual hobbies (painting, reading), but I've found a lot of happiness here, nerding out about tfota with all of you
So, to reprise my last interlude chapter: thank you for reading, commenting, reacting as you go, voting, following or even just lurking!! I didn't expect Snakes & Lattes to last as long as it has, but since you're still here, so am I :) <333
I'll leave you with these snaps I took while spinning this story in 2021
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!!
take care and bless x
ya girl G