Chapter 25 Silva
Silva
The Plundered Pixie was silent when she arrived that morning.
Aelin was sound asleep at her grandmother’s house, her great-grandmother already on scene, practically hopping from foot to foot, eager for an afternoon of unsupervised spoiling.
The Pixie staff wouldn’t be around for several hours, and the alley was empty upon her arrival.
Silva was glad of it. She didn’t have it in her to deal with conversations beyond the single one on her agenda.
She wasn’t sure if she was even ready for that one. That one is going to be hard enough.
The hallway was dark when she entered it, pushing open the door from the alley, relieved to find that her key still worked.
I guess that’s a good sign. She was aware of every creak in the ancient wood as she crept her way up the staircase to the apartment, taking note of the grocery delivery on the stoop. He’s here then.
A case of water, a case of energy drinks, a case of the fruit and nut-packed protein bars he used to keep in his office.
There was nothing else. Silva frowned. Hardly groceries.
There was a brown paper bag on top of the case of water, slightly crumpled, rolled tightly and stapled, indicating the groceries had been sitting there since the previous day, at least.
Good drugs ~ R
Silva pursed her lips, eyes narrowing. These clearly had not come from a pharmacy.
There was no answer to her knock at the door.
She’d been half expecting that. Once upon a time, she would have stood on these steps flailing with indecision, utterly bereft at the thought of being ignored by the orc inside, simultaneously flagellating herself for her desperate neediness and feeling sorry for herself over Tate’s inability to be transparent about anything.
That Silva, she reminded herself, sliding her key into the lock, was long gone. If he’d wanted to keep her out, he should have been more proactive about calling a locksmith.
The first thing she noticed after dragging in the completely insufficient grocery order was how empty the apartment still was.
The last of her moving boxes had been removed two weeks prior, more than enough time for his to have been delivered.
Silva had cleaned the blood from the floor after she’d left his side at the hospital, not wanting it to stain the tiles and feeling almost guilty as she did so, as if she were erasing him for good.
Looking at it now, no one could guess the big room had been the scene of his bloody arrival just two weeks earlier.
Two weeks.
Silva had gone straight to the hospital after leaving Aelin with her mother.
“I might need you to keep her overnight. I-I have to go to the hospital. A friend is hurt, and I don’t want to pick her up too late.” A friend. She knew her daughter would be fine. Aelin loved spending time with Silva’s mother and grandmother and knew that they would keep her well entertained.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting upon her arrival in Starling Heights. Are you family? Yes, she was prepared to answer.
Too late, because there was already family present speaking for Tate. Rukh had called Elshona, and the orc had met the ambulance at the hospital, identified herself as Tate’s next of kin, his medical power of attorney, and his voice in the world while he was unconscious.
Silva felt in the way, useless, relegated to the sideline, his long-ago birthday party all over again.
. . . And then, when the doctors had demanded to know what had happened to him, telling them he was suffering from a hemopneumothorax, needed to be intubated and have a chest tube placed to drain his collapsed lung, she’d been grateful that she had not been the one to stammer and lie before the human doctors.
After he was stabilized, she and the big orc woman stood silently beside his bed.
“Didn’t expect to see you again, lamby.”
Silva gave Elshona a ghost of a smile, nodding. “I could probably say the same to you. And yet here we are.”
“Here we are indeed.”
When Elshona had left to find coffee, Silva continued to sit there at his bedside, her fingertips resting on the crisp white hospital sheets, centimeters away from his hand, tears running down her face.
“Please don’t die. If you die before we get a chance to talk about things, I’ll have you brought back to life just so that I can kill you myself. I know a witch.”
She was afraid to take his hand fully in hers, not wanting to jostle him, afraid of touching the IV in his hand and the tube in his side. She hooked her pinky finger around his, deeming that safe enough, the contact of his skin enough to open the floodgates of her tears.
Five years. And now he was back.
She’d left the hospital shortly after, but not before she’d pressed a feather-light kiss to his fingers, leaving her tears behind.
Elshona was left with the strict instruction to call her the instant he was awake.
As much as she wanted to sit there at his bedside, pinky hooked around his every minute of the day and night, she couldn’t.
Aelin had a routine, needed structure, didn’t deserve to have her little life interrupted just for Silva to accomplish nothing sitting there while he was unconscious.
Besides, they had a move to complete. A move that seemed even more important now, as he would need his apartment to come home to, once he was released. Home. The thought brought her up short and made her sway in the apartment’s kitchen the day she’d mopped it.
He was home.
She’d done stupid, dangerous things looking for him, scraping herself down to the marrow and then rebuilding herself back up to learn to be a good mother .
. . and now he was home. Not just back. It was only the difference of a word, but saying he was home made all the difference, made her heart stumble at the thought.
Bringing him home was all she’d wanted in all her searching.
She took Aelin to the little community festival in Cambric Creek on the last day, inviting Dynah to join them on a whim, having settled into their little condo at last. Home.
She and Aelin went shopping at the Food Gryphon, finding the peanut butter brand he liked, a box of his favorite tea, filling the cart with nonperishables for his cupboard.
His clothes were gone from the apartment, and she had no idea which store his favorite black T-shirts came from, but she did her best. Recovery clothes, soft and snuggly.
Warm lounge pants, shirts that were as close to his preferred style as she could find, and a slate gray bathrobe and slippers.
He was home. She wanted him to feel at home, to be comfortable when he was released from the hospital at last.
“Who are we shopping for, Mommy?”
She’d given her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “We’re shopping for Tate. He’s in the hospital right now, but he’ll be home soon. And you’ll get to meet him then.”
She’d stocked the kitchen in the apartment, put fresh linens on the bed and fluffy new towels in the bathroom, prepped for his homecoming as best she could.
And then she’d needed to redirect her attention, because her daughter’s needs still came first. She enrolled Aelin at the preschool in Cambric Creek for the start of the following month, took her to story time at the library, visited the petting zoo at the farm.
She did her best to put the hospital in Starling Heights out of her mind.
Elshona was his voice. There was nothing Silva could do but sit idly at his bedside until he woke, and her daughter needed her to be present.
The week passed.
The day she and Aelin met her mother and grandmother for lunch in town, Silva was reminded how different her status was now that she was a mother.
Everything had been going fine. Aelin had cheerfully told them about her new bedroom and the festival they’d attended. Silva mentioned that she was going back to work for her previous company.
Her mother looked pained, setting her teacup down with a sigh.
“Darling, I still don’t understand why—”
Her grandmother’s hand had shot out, gripping Silva’s mother by the wrist, and whatever her mother had been planning on saying died in her mouth. The two elves had a furious, silent conversation with their eyes, and the rest of the lunch had gone on without incident.
Dowagers were at the top of the food chain, and her grandmother adored her.
Now that she had a baby, now that she was back .
. . they would do whatever she wanted, in whatever capacity she demanded it.
It shouldn’t have been what was required, but she wasn’t about to ignore the reversal of fortune.
No need to be a mouse. No need to split herself.
Just Silva.
The second week passed, and her phone stayed silent.
She could go back to the hospital, could see for herself, but the thought paralyzed her.
He was supposed to be home; he should have been home by then.
Unless something terrible happened. She called Elshona.
Left a message. Texted. Called her again.
When she had her phone in hand to call the orc woman a third time, Silva instead decided to call the hospital in Starling Heights herself, half convinced he had died and no one had bothered to tell her.
The nurse on the phone had argued.
“Miss, I understand you’re concerned, but we don’t give patient information out on the phone. To anyone. I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t been able to prevent her frustrated tears from rising to the surface. “I do understand, but . . . please. Is there anything you can tell me? He was in the ICU with a collapsed lung. An orc. I just want to know that he didn’t die.”