Adeline was looking at me again, and this time there was more than a little assessment in her expression. Before I could blink, she was out of her chair, standing right before me. She held a hand out, and even though my brain was screaming at me to pretend I didn’t have a hand, I couldn’t stop from reaching out and touching her.
The moment I did, I was hit with the sensation of a warm breeze drifting along my body. My curls even felt like they lifted up, before they rested against my shoulders again.
“You are a special one, Willa.” Adeline was talking to me, so I figured I should pay attention. Siret snorted from beside me, but I ignored him. “What is it about you that has captured the interest of my sons so thoroughly?”
I sensed nothing malicious in her gaze, despite how much she frightened me: she was actually one of the kinder gods I had met so far. Even so, her words raised every insecurity I had ever had. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my throat of the emotions suddenly lodged there.
How was I supposed to answer that question?
“You’re right, Willa is special,” Siret inserted. “A being born a dweller, though she’s more powerful than a sol. A being cursed, though she’s immensely gifted. She’s smart and resourceful. She has sacrificed for us … and she’s our family.”
“That’s right,” Yael added. “We’ll kill anyone who hurts her, that’s a promise.”
Adeline didn’t show an ounce of concern at those words, even though they could have been construed as a threat. Instead she smiled, which had a small gasp slipping from my lips. I was pulled up then, and she wrapped me up in a firm embrace. The warmth of her touch spread right to my toes, which were encased in smooth white slippers.
She stepped back, still keeping both hands on my shoulders. “Welcome to the family.”
I gulped in some air. “Uh, thank you … happy to … be here.” You’re an idiot, Willa.
I’d spent every sun-cycle in Topia lately, and yet for some reason, this one god in particular had me completely losing my mind. I’d just turned into a blathering moron.
Before I could do something completely embarrassing, like cry, or vomit on her, she released my shoulders and turned back to take her previous seat. “Okay, I think it’s time you tell me everything that has happened. Abil is woefully ignorant of the finer details, we all know that man is interested in himself first, and everything else in the worlds second.”
I had no clue if Adeline and Abil were still a couple, or if they had been together to have their children and now just caught up only in regards to co-parenting situations. Something to ask later.
Siret began to explain the prank that had gotten them punished in the first place, forcing them to weaken on Minatsol for such a long time. Coen told her about how I ended up as their dweller attendant, and how I helped them retrieve something from Abil, which he shouldn’t have had.
The explanation went on and on for some time. Rau, the curse, Staviti, and the attack on Blesswood. Adeline listened intently, only interrupting to ask the occasional question. I was beginning to gain a new appreciation for her intelligence. It started to occur to me, though, that it was strange she hadn’t bothered to check in on her sons, since she seemed to care about them so much—at least based on what I was seeing. How could she not have known about any of this? Surely someone would have informed her that they had been banished to Minatsol?
Unless … they often got banished to Minatsol.
“Where is the cup now?” Adeline asked. She was directing the question toward Aros, which surprised me.
I would have thought that Coen would be the one to hide the cup, since he stepped up to be the ‘responsible’ Abcurse in most situations.
“Sienna’s vault,” Aros answered, casting a sideways look at me.
Don’t ask, I told myself, just as my mouth blurted out the question, “Who’s Sienna?”
Coen coughed.
None of the others answered.
Eventually, Adeline stood from her chair again and moved to a sideboard, pulling out a tray of crystal bottles and tiny crystal glasses. She quietly poured out seven precise measures of yellow-gold liquid into the tiny glasses, arranging them all on a smaller tray and carrying them over.
“Sienna is the Beta of Revelry,” she told me, holding the tray with one hand as the guys all reached over to grab their drinks.
She took one of the glasses and handed it to me, before claiming the last one and returning to her seat. She sat back, lifting the glass up to the light and casting refracted golden patterns on the wall behind her.
“She made this wine—named it Tears of the Sun.” Adeline smiled at me again, and then tipped the glass to her perfect lips, downing the liquid in what seemed to be an entirely ungodly way.
I just sat there and blinked at her, before turning my attention to my own glass. It didn’t feel warm. I would have thought that the sun would cry little teardrops of fire or something.
“They aren’t actual tears of the sun,” Aros told me. “Sienna is a glorified tavern-keeper. The main God of Revelry is an immortal named King. He hosts a dinner party every night on his platform.”
“And a breakfast party every morning on his platform,” Rome added, with a grin.
“And a lunch party.” Yael tipped his glass toward me with a brief smile before he drank the whole thing down the same way his mother had. I now assumed that it was just the proper way to drink the stuff.
Adeline was laughing now, the sound a tinkle of perfection. “He actually has a party on the rotation, every rotation,” she explained to me, shaking her head. “His system can’t process alcohol the way the rest of us do, so he is forever sober while his companions grow more intoxicated around him—that’s why the parties are so short and so frequent.”
“So, Sienna made this stuff?” I asked, swirling the liquid around a little bit before tipping it to my lips and drinking it all down.
I had expected it to taste terrible, to burn or tingle or coat my tongue in fire—but that wasn’t the reality. It was amazing. It was like breathing in the purest form of air and feeling it melt into liquid across your tongue. It was cool and sweet, silkily slipping down my throat and alighting all throughout my body.
“Whoa.” I set the glass clumsily aside, bringing my hands up before my face, expecting them to be glowing or something. “So Sienna can make heaven in your mouth. Is that why you gave her the cup? So she could make the sun cry?”
Coen cleared his throat again. I was beginning to interpret that sound as don’t ask, Willa, you don’t want to know.
Adeline jumped in to explain. “Sienna had a brief liaison with Aros.” She shot Aros a look that seemed oddly disapproving, but Aros had wiped his expression blank, and was looking from me, to Coen, and back.
Oh.
OH.
Him and Coen. Seduction and Pain working together. Suddenly, everything made sense.
“You hid the sacred and special and irreplaceable—” I began, before Siret cut me off.
“It’s very much replaceable, Staviti could make them all sun-cycle long—”
“You gave the very sacred and special and irreplaceable cup that I stole,” I barrelled over Siret, “to your ex-girlfriend. That makes sense. I mean, why wouldn’t you? That makes sense. That’s okay. I’m okay with that.” I reached out, snatched the glass off Coen that he hadn’t had a chance to drink yet, and tipped it down my throat.
Siret didn’t even wait—he just handed over his glass as soon as I was done with Coen’s. The barest arch of Adeline’s perfect right eyebrow was the only reaction she showed.
“I’m really not okay with it,” I told her, practically bouncing out of my seat at this point. I felt like my slippers had grown wings. That even I had grown wings. I suddenly felt as though I could have stepped into the actual burning sun and it wouldn’t have been able to harm me at all. I was light. I was fire. I was invincible.
“She thinks she’s light,” Aros muttered to Siret. “If she jumps off the platform, it’s on you.”