May eyed Welkin, her expression drawn with suspicion.
"I already know he and Audrey were engaged," she said, perhaps a touch more snarky than she meant to sound. "I don't think it can get worse than—"
She froze in the middle of a sentence she didn't dare finish. Of course it could get worse than that.
"Oh no." The color drained from her face, her stomach gave an unpleasant turn. "She's not still in love with him, is she?"
Welkin replied with a light laugh. "May, I think I'm the wrong person to ask but, even if I wasn't, it's not as if Audrey and Jeremy's relationship was exactly reciprocal in the first place."
May and Dom shared a startled look.
"What does that mean?" Dom asked, sounding uneasy.
For a moment Welkin paused to think on how best to proceed. "Theirs was more a relationship of convenience than true romance. This isn't to say they didn't care for one another, but I believe Jeremy may have been far more invested in their coupling than Audrey was, I'm afraid."
"You believe, or you know?" May was tense. A small part of her was embarrassed by her jealousy. A bigger part of her just needed to know the truth. "Because those are two very different things."
"Fair enough," Welkin agreed. They touched their fingertip to their temple. "I know that's how Audrey felt. Perhaps you recall me telling you her life force was weak when I salvaged it; that I needed to complete her by filling in the blanks with essence from myself in order to make her whole. It's the reason Em is her own person and not simply a reincarnation of Audrey."
May riffled through her memories. "Vaguely, sure."
"In doing so, I became privy to all of Audrey's consciousness. Her thoughts and feelings and memories. So you can trust me when I tell you I speak with authority on this matter."
"So what you're saying is, you basically read the diary of your daughter's soul," Dom chimed in. "For shame."
Welkin flinched, their cheeks darkening with a furious blush. "Not willingly!"
"Never mind that," May hissed, shooting Dom a dark look which didn't seem to phase the look of mischief in his eyes. "If Audrey wasn't in love with Jeremy, how did they end up engaged?"
The Star made a dismissive gesture, waving the screwdriver they held with flippant abandon. "Like I said, theirs was a relationship of convenience. Jeremy pursued her in the beginning, with little success, I might add. But WIND was engaged in a harrowing and draining business. It was their shared thirst for justice and bitterness toward the Loyals that eventually drew them together. And who else could understand their unique experiences than one another?"
May nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. But if it's not that — not love — then what is it about him you think I don't want to hear?"
Her question tugged at the corners of Welkin's mouth. When they smiled, May couldn't help but feel they were pitying her.
"What I don't think you want to hear is that Jeremy isn't the villain he has quite convincingly made himself out to be."
May laughed without thinking. Even Dom looked unconvinced.
"C'mon, Welkin," he insisted, sounding incredulous. "The guy's a bit of a dick."
"I don't disagree that his behavior can be boorish," Welkin agreed. "Nor am I implying that his lingering heartbreak is an excuse for some of the questionable decisions he has made as of late."
Heartbreak. The word pierced May like an arrow. Wallowing in her bitterness toward Jeremy made it easy for her to forget he had not only lost the woman he loved — watched her die right in front of him — but that he had his hopes dashed when he discovered what remained of her soul was in love with someone else.
"But I assure you, he's not a bad person." Welkin laid a soft hand on May's wrist. "Just a confused man with a habit of making rash decisions. If you are the ocean, then he is fire — intense, wild, and unpredictable. But you're both devastatingly powerful when you put your minds to it."
With a sigh of resignation, May slumped back in her seat.
"You were right," she mumbled. "I don't like what you had to say."
*
The truck bounced into a fuel station parking lot, jostling May awake. She didn't remember falling asleep, and peered out the windows groggily as she tried to get her bearings.
"Where are we?" she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "How long was I asleep?"
"A few hours," Dom replied. "You didn't miss anything. Unless you have to pee, you should go back to sleep so you're rested to take over for me later."
"Pee," Welkin spat with a shudder of revulsion. "Of all the disgusting human functions, your methods of waste elimination truly are the worst."
"Our methods," May corrected, unlatching their seatbelt. "You're one of us now. Go forth and eliminate."
On the verge of gagging, the Star shoved the door open and sprinted inside the station. May turned back to Dom.
"Speaking of human functions, do forest spirits even have to sleep? Or are you just going through the motions?"
Dom hitched his thumb toward the back of the truck. "I'm gonna need to get some quality time in with my cuddle buddy at some point."
He was referring to the small potted tree — more a seedling, really — the team had forced him to take along for the trip. May had assumed they were joking when they suggested he use it to refresh his glamor while on the road.
"This is easily the weirdest road trip I've ever been on," May muttered as she slid out the passenger door. Back on solid ground she stretched long, savoring the sensation in her cramped muscles. She surveyed their pit stop — the mountains had given way to rolling foothills and soon the surrounding forests would retreat, to be replaced by long green stretches of farmland. May rubbed her stomach and was idly wondering whether she should purchase a snack at the station or wait to find something more substantial in the next town when Welkin pushed back outside.
Their eyes met and, without saying anything, Welkin motioned for May to follow. She glanced back at Dom, who had clearly been watching because he nodded and waved her off while he continued to fuel the truck. Welkin skirted around the building, a flutter of their cloak trailing behind like a beckoning finger. May jogged after and followed as the Star hurried across the cracked asphalt and into the brush of the neighbouring woods.
"Shouldn't we wait for Dom?" May called, surprised by how quickly she had to move just to keep up.
"We'll only be a moment," Welkin replied as they came to a sudden stop. They turned to face her, their expression impossible to read. "It's finished."
May blinked. "What is?"
Wordlessly, Welkin reached into the folds of their cloak and retrieved a device — the same one they had spent the entire trip obsessing over. The finished product appeared to be some kind of armored gauntlet, meant to strap around one's forearm to offer protection during combat. But there was more to it than that, a bulk May couldn't account for.
"Give me your hand," Welkin ordered.
May hesitated. The flame of intensity in Welkin's eyes was making her nervous.
"Will it hurt?"
Welkin let out an impatient huff. "Of course not. Hurry up, we need to get back on the road. Roll up your sleeve."
Still unconvinced, May pulled the cuff of her hoodie back and offered her hand to the Star. Behind her, the sound of snapping twigs and displaced foliage announced Dom's arrival.
"What going on?"
May looked back at him over her shoulder. "I think I'm being used as a guinea pig for something."
Meanwhile, Welkin made a dismissive noise as they slid the gauntlet onto her forearm. They had salvaged a stray neoprene glove from one of the team's wetsuits, cutting off the fingertips and securing it to one end of the contraption they built. This they slid over May's hand before strapping the rest of the device to her arm.
"Dominic, will you make a pile of stones?" Welkin asked as they adjusted the straps. "Something we can take aim at."
Dom didn't second-guess the request, setting to work at once and whistling cheerily to himself as he hunted for sizeable rocks. May, on the other, was perturbed.
"Take aim how?"
"How does that feel?" Welkin stepped back and ignored her question.
May twisted her forearm to the left and then right. "Fine, I guess. What—"
"How's your range of motion? Give it a shake and see if it stays put."
"Welkin."
"May."
"Ugh." She shook her arm, rolled her wrist. The device stayed put. "Happy now?"
"Very." Smiling, Welkin looked quite pleased with themselves. Reaching back into their cloak, they pulled out the bottle.
May frowned. "When did you take that from me?"
"When you fell asleep and nearly dropped it," Welkin accused, grabbing her hand and pulling her closer. "Remind me never to trust you with the veritable force of an atomic bomb again."
"I am both offended and horrified," May replied, a lightheadedness setting in at the thought of just how much power she had been unknowingly carrying around on her person. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I'm saying something now." Welkin twisted a latch on the device revealing a round opening. "Now I'm going to need you to hold very still.
May held her breath as she watched Welkin carefully unseal the Champagne bottle.
"I'm having second thoughts about my involvement in whatever this is," she whispered.
* * * * * * * * * * *
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