“The wind blew me,” I tell her a bit sarcastically, but also, I’m being a bit literal.
“Did it just?” She peeks around me like she might see it standing there beside me, then she nods at the fairy. “And who’s this?”
“Rune,” I say as she flits over to her, extending her hand.
“Ah.” Itheelia nods. “I’ve heard good things.” Rune chimes, pleased, as Itheelia looks over at me, gesturing to the cut on my cheek. “What happened here?”
Rune trills angrily, and Itheelia gives me a tall look, nodding for us to come inside.
“I fought a minotaur and won.”
She stops still for a moment before she looks back at me. “What?”
“Oh.” I give her a quick smile. “You know, the minotaur on the island with the labyrinth?”
“Yes.” She stares at me.
“Well, Peter wanted to play a game—”
“What kind of game?” she interrupts.
Rune tinkles loudly, and I sigh. “A stupid one.”
Itheelia stares over at me. “What kind of game?” she asks louder and clearer.
“I think it was a sort of rescue scenario he invented in his mind, where he’d put me in danger and then he’d save me, and then—”
Rune jingles hotly, and Itheelia—who obviously speaks Stj?r—stares at her in disbelief.
“Well, what then happened was that Peter—very true to himself,” I add to appease Rune, “became distracted and…left me.”
Itheelia presses her lips together. “With the minotaur?”
“Yes.”
“And you survived?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you did.” She touches my arm gently. “But how?”
“I just won the game.” I shrug, and she looks confused. “You know. I got into the maze, and then the hedge grew around me, and then I was able to stab him in the eye, and then he sort of…fell over in pain, I suppose? And then he gave the dagger back, and the hedges opened up and let me out.”
Itheelia stares at me for about four seconds, and I can’t read her face.
“Right.” She blinks five times and then nods. “Tea?”
“Oh.” I pause. “Sure, thank you.”
She moves over to the stove and puts the kettle on. She looks over her shoulder at me. “In the eye.” She lifts a brow, sort of impressed. “I didn’t think you’d have it in you.”
I lift my shoulders like the whole thing was out of my hands. “I was just trying to survive.”
“Aren’t we all.” She gives me a look as she hands me my tea and Rune a tiny one. Itheelia sits down opposite me. “How is my boy?”
I frown at her, defensively. “How should I know?”
“Ahh.” Itheelia lets out a big, dramatic sigh. “Still beating that drum, are we?”
“I don’t know to what you refer,” I tell her with my nose in the air, and she and the fairy trade looks.
“She’s a bit exhausting,” Itheelia says to Rune, and she jingles in agreement. Itheelia eyes me. “A mother just wants to know about her son, Daphne. Do you think I drink all this tea because I like the taste?”
I shrug. “Perhaps.”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “It takes like grass.”
I look at the teacup she just handed me. “I suppose it does,” I concede,* and Itheelia gives me a stern, maternal look.
“And you will drink it anyway.”
I take another sip, and so does she.
“Did you say the minotaur gave the dagger back?” she asks as she blows into her tea. Steam rolls off of it.
I nod.
“Which dagger was it?” she asks.
“Oh.” I smile at her. “It was one Jamison gave me for my birthday, so I was pleased the minotaur returned it, actuall—”
“Gold and rubies?” she asks.
I nod. “I love it very much.”
“So does he.” She gives me a careful look. “I gave him that dagger.”
“Oh.” I frown. “Should he not have given it to me? Was it—”
“It’s his.” She flashes me a smile that looks a kind of tender I don’t know about. “To do with what he pleases.”
Rune flits ups and whispers something to Itheelia, who gives her a look, and I don’t know what they’re talking about.
“Finish that.” Itheelia points to my teacup before her eyes pinch curiously at me. “He hasn’t said anything to you?”
I look over at her curiously. “About what?”
“About…anything?” She shrugs like she meant nothing by it, but her eyes flicker over my hand. I glance at it confused before I look back up at her.
“No?”
She nods, thinking whatever it is she’s thinking all the way through.
“What?” I frown, not liking the feeling that she knows something about Jamison that I don’t, though I’m quite sure there is plenty.
His mother gives me a sympathetic look. “He keeps his cards close to his chest, doesn’t he?”
My shoulders slump a bit. “Impossibly so.”
“You had a spat,” she says to me.
“Just a tiny one a while back,” I lie. “But not anymore. It’s fine now.”
She nods.
“Did he tell you?” I ask her, but she just shakes her head as she walks over, picks up my empty teacup, and peers into it. Rune flies over, lands on her shoulder, and squints into it as well, both of them for a moment, then Itheelia looks over at me, back to the teacup.
“Hmm,” she says to herself and then takes it away, and right as she does, Rune flies over to me, and with her tiny little hands, she pinches my right cheek a million times.
“Ow!” I try to swat her away, but she just moves to my other cheek and does the same thing again. “Rune!” I growl, and she ignores me, flying behind me and tugging at my hair. “What are you—”
Then—
“Mum?” calls maybe the best voice in all the worlds, and I sit up straighter immediately and toss Rune a grateful look. She’s a better friend than she is a fairy, and she’s a phenomenal fairy.
I look over my shoulder only to catch sight of him as he walks into his mother’s house.
“Mum,” he calls again, and then his eyes land on me. “Oh.” He looks confused but not displeased. “What are y’doing here?”
I say nothing for a few seconds. I don’t know why? Because he’s so lovely to look at, sometimes words escape you.
“I had a fight with Peter.”
“Surprise, surprise,” he says, though he looks pleased.
I give him a look. “I just went for a walk.”
Jamison’s face falters. “And ye came here?”
I purse my lips before I nod.
He frowns a bit, and I like very much the shape his face goes when he goes like this. “No’ to town?”
I shake my head, not too sure what to say.
Itheelia appears behind me. “Just to your mother’s house, darling, so don’t be too vexed.” She gives him a look.
Jamison rolls his eyes at her before they snag on me.
In two steps, he crosses the distance between us, a hand on each of my cheeks as he pulls me into the light.
“What the fuck happened to yer face?” He frowns, but my heart skips a beat.
I shake my head a little bit but not too much, because I don’t want to shake him off.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t let go, stares at me so intensely I swallow heavy, and something starts to pool in my belly.
Jamison breathes heavily through his nose. “Did he do this?”
“No,” I say as Rune trills away unhelpfully.
Jamison looks over at her, and I feel relieved that he doesn’t speak Stj?r too well.