LILY
Things with Zephyr were less tense after that night. Lily still felt more comfortable with Roan, Will, and Alkamy, but they weren’t as painfully awkward as they had been before they talked. Violet was hard to resist, and they’d bonded over a collection of daggers that Violet had been forging by way of her own affinity to fire. She’d apparently started to do so as a child, and the earliest of her handmade blades was an ugly, crude thing. It was still impressive, and the tiny actress had started helping Lily practice with her own affinity to fire.
The issue, of course, was that as Lily thought about Zephyr’s explanations, she realized that she needed to create more distance from Creed. Her ability to meet the Queen of Blood and Rage was not the same as agreeing to obey her. It did, however, highlight the fact that the queen was perfectly at ease with violence as incentive. She’d already called Daidí and Erik and asked them to be extra alert. With Erik, she was vague. With Daidí, she told him that she’d met some students “like her” and felt nervous. It wasn’t a full truth, and he knew as much. It was the best she could do right now. She’d learned years ago that phone lines were never truly secure.
“Do you need to come home?” Daidí asked.
“Not right now.”
“Later?”
She paused. “Maybe. I’m not in danger, and there’s something . . . comforting about being around people like me.” She laughed lightly then, knowing her father would understand what she meant after more than ten years of having multi-layered meanings in their conversations. “There are constantly people watching when you’re like us though.”
“Ah, paparazzi problems,” he said.
“Some are worse than normal watchers,” she agreed, letting him know that it was the “not normal” watchers that were an issue. For years, that had been a code word for those who watched the fae and fae-blood.
“I didn’t think they came on campus.”
“You know how it is,” she admitted reluctantly, all but saying she’d been unable to stay on campus.
“Lilywhite!”
She sighed. “I know. I’m protected though.”
“Do you need Cerise?” he prompted, using their code word for weapons.
Lilywhite laughed and clarified what sort of weapons she wanted. “Like Hector would separate from Cerise!”
“Right,” he agreed, knowing that her emphasis on her father’s largest guard was a request for a bigger gun. She already had a small one with her, but she felt the need for something with more stopping power.
“Oh, and if he’s coming anyhow, could you send a few of my favorite pieces of jewelry too?”
At that, her father became very quiet. He knew she’d taken a small purse gun and several blades with her already. All she could hear was the steady rhythm of his breathing for several moments, and then he asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to come home and get them yourself?”
“Not right now, but I’ll tell you if it changes. Can you . . . can you talk to the Gavirias for me? I want Erik and his family to know that they matter to me.”
“Should I tell them everything, Lily?”
“No,” she all but whispered. “I’d rather that some things stay between us if possible, Daidí.” She took a big gulping breath for courage and asked, “Do you remember Mom being pregnant?”
“You’re my daughter, Lilywhite. No matter what else happens in this life, no matter what you ever hear . . . you are Lilywhite Abernathy.”
“I have questions that doesn’t answer,” she admitted.
“When I get back from the Gavirias, I’ll come see you and answer what I can.” He took a breath of his own, exhaled in a sigh, and told her, “I expected you’d have questions. I hoped that Creed . . . that he could help.”
“Don’t let Se?or Gaviria hear that you’re matchmaking,” she teased.
Like the rest of their conversation, her father heard what she was really asking and said, “At some point—”
“But not right now,” she cut in firmly.
“Fine.” Daidí paused, and she could hear people in the background now. Then he ordered, “You’ll be careful.”
“I am Nicolas Abernathy’s daughter,” she promised. “You be careful too.”
“Always.”
“Get back to work,” she said in lieu of good-bye.
The week of their truce was almost up, and the closer that proof came, the more Lily worried. She had spent the past day and a half mostly alone in her room when possible.
She wasn’t hiding. She simply needed space. Abernathy Commandment #11: Know when to walk away from trouble. The problem was that she wasn’t sure this was trouble she could escape. Despite what she’d said to Zephyr and the assurances she’d given Daidí, Lily wasn’t ready to meet the Queen of Blood and Rage, not now, possibly not ever. Even if Lily hadn’t grown up reading and re-reading the tales her mother had written for her, seeing the news her whole life more than clarified exactly why Endellion was a living nightmare. Just in the past two weeks, the water supplies in ten mid-sized cities around the world had gone toxic. The media spin on the disaster ranged from environmental causes to governmental negligence. However, a few journalists, notably all independent media, suggested that this was yet another act of terrorism by either fae-blood sympathizers or by the fae themselves.
Lily could allow that they might be wrong, but ten coordinated attacks were unlikely to be an accidental disaster. Thousands of people sickened and died, many of them children or the elderly, whose immune systems weren’t as strong, because their water supplies were tainted.
By Sleeper cells like the Black Diamonds.
Unfortunately, knowing that the queen was a terrorist wasn’t news—or a legitimate excuse to refuse her invitation to the Hidden Lands. If Lily refused, she’d be taken against her will. If she went . . . honestly, Lily had no idea what would happen if she went. Abernathy Commandment #13: Don’t ask questions when you’d rather not know the answers. The queen clearly had no compunction about killing. Would being a strong fae-blood be a strength or weakness in her eyes? The fae-bloods publicly claimed that being descended of the fae was a strength, a way to unify the two worlds if only humanity would stop polluting the earth. They were, in effect, radical environmentalists. Lily didn’t agree with their theory that peace was that simple, but she did agree that humanity needed to stop being so careless with the earth.
“Your door was unlocked,” Creed said softly.
She looked up to find him in the doorway to her bedroom. She hadn’t even noticed that he was there until he spoke. Now she couldn’t see anything else. She didn’t want to cause more problems than necessary, so she had avoided any private conversations with Creed for several days now.