29. Chapter 29
29
Graysen
T he subway. Fuck me. Out of everything Ascendria offered, Wychthorn wanted to ride the subway.
From the images she’d tacked onto the walls in her quarters, I figured she’d want to scout out all those urban gardens growing in cracked concrete. Maybe drift between food hawkers while she tasted their offerings. Perhaps watch someone get inked and pierced or find a dive bar to while away her afternoon before investigating the darker side of Ascendria—the rabbit-warren streets, the graffiti and crumpling brickwork and smashed windows. Immerse herself within the broken souls of the city.
I knew she wouldn’t be interested in anything that Danne Pellan would want to show her.
He knew nothing of worth about her. Nothing.
He’d show her the glamour of Ascendria. The city that many Horned Gods played within was often the hunting grounds of the Houses.
Cocktail bars. High-rises and lush green parks. The Monarch Tower, thrumming with tourists, so she could take in the city’s skyline overlooking the great glassy lake. He’d give her a tour of the streets on the plush warmed seat of his limousine, creating a barrier between her and the city, within its safe padded shell and bulletproof glass. He’d probably take her on a stroll down Park Avenue with all the boutique shops selling designer dresses and jewelry. Or escort her to that stupid jazz bar he’d spoken of earlier today.
But Wychthorn wanted the real Ascendria. The raw, real side, dirty and dangerous, where our mortal drug dealers hustled on dingy street corners.
But the subway? I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.
Her eyes shone with glee as she dropped coins to collect her subway ticket .
She smiled at everyone she met and said hello in passing, seemingly oblivious to the wary looks they shot her like they suspected she was high on crack. Sage prowled beside her, unseen yet felt by the mortals. His wraith presence caused goosebumps to flourish on their skin and sent shivers running down their spines as his shadowed form rippled through their bodies.
Wychthorn bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, jittering with exhilaration, shooting me a crooked grin, and erupting into stupid giggling, a drunk-on-life kind of laughter.
She was glowing, as fucked up as that sounded. My little bird glowed.
Her scowls made her beautiful. This, though—the simplicity in her excitement—she was breathtaking. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to look away. Hells, I need to look away.
I realized, then, that while she was beginning to thaw toward me… Fuck. I was so fucked… She’d melted right through the wall of ice I’d built to keep her out. But today I’d promised myself to put aside who we were to each other. Forget I was a Crowther and she was a Wychthorn and let her have one day of freedom before I clipped her wings forever.
Just be a guy taking a girl on a day date.
Fuuuck…
How sappy was that?
I followed as she swiped her ticket and pushed through the metal turnstile with an overly stuffed tote bag hanging from a slender shoulder, and watched as she carefully lined her toes right at the tip of the yellow line, leaning forward to peer down dark tunnels, waiting impatiently for the first train. She gripped my arm tightly when the rumbling train arrived, metal screeching and grinding as it slowly ground to a halt, its doors whooshing open right in front of us. Stepping on board, we moved from seat to pole to the window and back to the seat again; drifting through the carriages as we swept through the dark underground tunnels; to come to a stop at a new station. Stepping off the train onto a new platform, we’d find another train to whisk us away in another direction.
And that’s what we’d been doing for the last few hours.
There was no rhyme to where she went. We got off only to get on and head back the way we’d come. Follow the lines to the end and back again. Head west, then south, and cut along an eastern line. It got to a point where even I didn’t know where we were.
I should have known.
I should have fucking known then that she’d been playing me.
One moment she was there… And I glanced away.
The next—
She was gone.