“So that’s it? My family.” Luke nodded, calmly, as if he was simply confirming what he had long suspected. “You’ve always been jealous of them. And you’ve always thought I was stupid, but I’m not: I know what’s going on. It wasn’t about us being Sunborns, was it, Elliot? It was for the same reason you keep coming back to the Border, year after year, despite us not having any fancy eye pods. Nobody wants you in the human world, do they? Nobody ever did. I don’t blame them.”
Elliot should have laughed at Luke saying dumb stuff like “eye pods,” should have been able to brush this off and say that Luke did not understand anything.
Only Luke did understand what mattered. What Elliot had never spoken of, what he had tried to hide and flattered himself his friends did not know . . . it had been obvious all along. And Luke had revealed it, so simply, tearing away all the color and imagination of this world as if it were nothing but painted backdrops for the school play, leaving Elliot with nothing but the gray fa?ade of his father’s house.
Nobody wants you in the human world, do they? Nobody ever did.
He was not able to laugh.
Elliot got up, and Luke watched him with wide wary eyes. Even looking at Luke was unbearable. Elliot’s blood felt as if it were on fire, burning and racing, as if it would char away his skin from the inside out and expose his bones. He’d tried as hard as he could, he thought, pretended as hard as he could, and it had not been enough. This was over. He was done.
There was nothing left but the urge to make Luke sorry.
Elliot went searching among the cluster of troops standing away from the harpies, at the edge of the woods. He found Dale among them, talking, and he walked over, and silenced Dale with a kiss.
To his distant surprise, Dale responded. Dale kissed him back, kissed him beside the roaring campfire, and went with him into the wild dark of the woods.
The moonlight-cast shadows of branches painted black traceries on Dale’s skin. Dale’s mouth was eager and welcoming against Elliot’s, a little warmth in a long cold night.
Take that, Luke Sunborn, Elliot thought. I can take something from you, after all.
He was ashamed of himself, but that came later.
Elliot woke in the woods, to find dawn caught in the trees. He clambered up, adding clothes and subtracting leaves and dirt from his person. He left Dale as he made his way, not back toward the camp, but to the other side of the woods. He couldn’t stay where he was, and he did not know how to go back. The only place to go was farther away.
That was how he stumbled on the battlefield at the edge of the Forest of the Suicides.
Elliot knew intellectually what harpies did to the bodies of the fallen, at the end of a battle. He’d read about it. Reading was not the same as seeing it.
Elliot stared around at the torn flesh, dried blood, and settling flies. He tried to imagine how this scene must have looked when the blood was fresh and the sun was setting last night, when Luke must have seen it. He remembered how he had editorialized the accounts of harpies on the battlefield for Luke. Luke had not known what to expect at all. Luke must have seen this, and seen desecration, and monstrousness, and believed it was in his blood.
Then Luke had come back to them, and snapped at them, and Elliot had not given him any leeway. There had been a lot of times where Luke, the one who was usually less hurt and more secure, the happier one, had let Elliot get away with snapping at him, had defused situations Elliot was trying to escalate by just accepting whatever Elliot dished out, had not taken what Elliot said in the wrong way or assumed the worst of him. He’d been able to afford generosity. He’d also chosen to be generous.
Elliot had, he realized, been waiting for Luke to hurt him for years. Since the first day, he’d thought it was only a matter of time until Luke punched him. The more Luke mattered to him, the more Elliot expected to be hurt. When the blow had finally arrived last night, he had not thought about anything but the pain.
Except that Elliot should have known better: four years of friendship should have told him more than his childhood fears. Luke would never hit somebody who could not defend themselves. Luke would not taunt somebody about their broken home for fun. Luke had been wounded and lashing out.
Unlike Luke, when Elliot had been the one who was less hurt, he had not chosen to be kind.
Elliot understood, now, why Luke had been so edgy around Elliot since they all learned about Luke’s heritage. Luke had been really vulnerable, for the first time, and he had not trusted Elliot not to hurt him.
He’d been right not to trust Elliot. Look at what Elliot had done.
Elliot put his face in his hands. When he looked up, it was to find Serene standing beside him at the edge of the woods, gazing out on the battlefield. A shadow crossed her pearl-pale, tranquil face: it was the only sign she gave that the sight before her disturbed her at all.
“I was wondering where you were,” said Serene.
“Were you?” asked Elliot.
“Well, no,” said Serene. “Not really.”
“Right,” said Elliot. He looked out at the battlefield, rather than keep looking at her. That scared him less.
“I told Luke that the way he spoke to you was excessive, and that he owed you an apology,” Serene stated.
“You—you did?”
Elliot had not thought Serene or anyone else would care what Luke had said, after what Elliot had done.
“Then you made your startling appearance at the campfire with Dale,” Serene continued. “I have never seen gentlemen conduct themselves in such a fashion before. Except in certain woodcuts that my cousin showed me when we were young, but that is not important. I noticed that you then went off into the woods.”
Elliot winced. “About that . . .”
“Do not explain matters to me. I did not come down with the last fall of leaves at the season’s turning,” said Serene. “There is no need to carve me an explicit woodcut.”
“Not sure how to carve explicit woodcuts anyway,” Elliot murmured. “Though I might be willing to give it a hilarious try.”
“After this incident between you and Dale Wavechaser, Luke’s paramor . . .” Serene said slowly. “I still feel that the way Luke spoke to you was excessive, and he owes you an apology. Just because he is finding adjusting to a harpy lifestyle difficult does not mean he is allowed to mistreat his friends.”
“You don’t understand,” Elliot said. “We never told you. We’re not friends.”
He told Serene all about the truce he and Luke had agreed on in the library so long ago. Serene listened.
When Elliot was finished, Serene said: “May I ask a few questions?”
“Yes,” said Elliot.
“So this truce was all your idea,” said Serene.
“Yes,” said Elliot.
“And you kept bringing it up,” said Serene.
“Yeeees,” said Elliot.
He felt like this was coming out wrong, somehow.