Chapter 1 Galilee #2
It had stung, even if it was the truth. Gali sometimes felt guilty about how smooth being a Kincaid had made her life, but she pushed the feeling aside.
Like Nana Darling had said, it was okay to take some time to figure things out, and Gali had a lot to figure out, like how to live away from the Kincaid house, what to do with the ache stinging away inside her, and why the foreboding kept following her.
She ignored the light and the heat that churned out of her.
This was a gap year, she figured. Plenty of people did that.
Oriak?, on the other hand, didn’t share Gali’s guilt or awkwardness around being born into obscene wealth, and she was committed
to her plan of drowning Bonbon with indulgence. When they got the news that Bonbon’s latest book was an indie bestseller,
Gali had expected a fancy dinner (because that’s what Oriak? had said they’d be doing), but then Oriak? had them helicoptered up to a private rooftop with an even more private chef, and that’s when Gali learned they had very different definitions
of the word “fancy.” Bonbon had cursed up a blue streak, and Gali had laughed until her sides hurt the next day, but the night
had been something special the three of them could hold together, and Oriak? had been so pleased.
Nothing was ever boring with those two. It was a far cry from having only her cousins to hang out with back at the family
home—the Kincaids could take loyalty a little too far, shutting out anyone who wasn’t part of their sprawling clan and not
really understanding why anyone would want to leave. In that, Gali’s cousin Celestial was the perfect Kincaid, and Gali most
decidedly was not. Her mother had tried for months to stop her from leaving, but in the end, Nana Darling had simply overruled
her.
“The girl’s life belongs to her, Collette. She can spend it wherever she sees fit.”
“Thank you, Nana Darling,” Gali had said, and even though she meant to sound grateful, her voice still came out irritated.
“I thought that was obvious.”
Collette had glared at her. “Other people ain’t like us, Galilee Kincaid,” she’d warned. “Don’t be too strange, now.”
“Be careful of your wanting,” Nana Darling had added thoughtfully. “It could eat up a world.”
Gali had nodded, but her mother’s words were the ones that stuck to her skin.
She knew all too well what “strange” meant.
Strange was asking the weather to do as she pleased, simply because she wanted it.
Strange was coaxing half-dead things back to life, taking away little aches and pains—things her family knew about her
and never blinked at, not when her cousins could see the future and sometimes the hidden past, when they knew words and roots
to do many strange things themselves, when the Kincaid dead walked easily through their citrus orchards on the right night
with the right work.
Nana Darling could tell you stories that’d grow legs and walk right around you, scenes playing out in the air like you’d been
eaten up by a movie made of her memories. Even Celestial had secrets Gali wasn’t allowed to know, something about creek beds
and dirt. But Gali also knew she was a hair past strange, tipping over into something else. It was there in that burst of
blistering light spilling from her palms when she woke from a nightmare, or that terrible brief moment when the ache in her
stung too deep and she’d had to scream and scream until a force she didn’t recognize burst out of her mouth and cracked the
screen of her television. It was in the great weight of her wantings, buried deep and heavy inside her. She didn’t know what
she wanted or how to run to it, so Gali ran in the other direction.
With Bonbon and Oriak?, she felt blessedly normal. One weekend, they sat picnicking in the park by her building, and Gali
whispered to the sky to hold off because it looked to rain. It was a small magic, something she’d been doing her whole life,
and sure enough, the clouds rolled gently back so everything was blue again. A few bees hung in the air around them, and the
sunlight was so pretty, piercing through their glasses as the three of them toasted to Bonbon’s newest book deal with sparkling
wine Gali had picked up.
“We have to celebrate!” Oriak? said, clapping her outrageously manicured hands together. Small pearls shone off her stiletto
nails, and diamond bracelets encircled her wrists. She looked entirely too expensive to be sitting on a blanket spread on
the grass.
“I thought this was us celebrating,” Bonbon countered dryly.
Gali gave her a look. “Like she’d let you get away with just a toast, Bon. You know good and damn well she can’t help herself.”
Bonbon glared even as Oriak? beamed with delight. “Thank you! It is not a celebration unless we have bubbles—”
“We are literally drinking champagne in broad daylight,” Bonbon interrupted.
Oriak? turned limpid and disappointed eyes to her friend. “First of all, the fact that you would call this champagne wounds
me deeply.” Gali snorted with laughter, and Oriak? threw a wink at her. “Second of all, as I was saying, it doesn’t count
unless we have bubbles, bad bitches, bachelors, and—”
Bonbon raised a hand. “Alliterate one more time and I will throw myself into the street.”
“I think,” Gali cut in, fighting a smile, “Oriak?’s tryna tell us about a party.”
Oriak? looked outraged. “Of course there’s a party!”
Bonbon dug her fingers into her eyes. “Oriak?. What did I say after the last one?”
“You said no more parties, but—”
“I said absolutely not, over my actively decaying corpse, will you drag me to another one of your hellscapes masquerading
as a party.”
“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that—”
“It caught on fire!”
Oriak? paused and tapped a pearled nail against her lower lip. “You know, I forgot about that. I should really check on Nikolai,
he was so upset that his act went wrong.”
“He had second-degree burns,” snapped Bonbon.
Gali was enjoying herself immensely. Warmth lay over her skin like a blanket. This was what it was like to be normal, to have
friends and sit in the sun and just banter. “Well, shoot,” she drawled, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of her
voice. “Fire-eaters, am I right?”
Oriak? waved a lazy hand. “He’s fine. His scars make him a little more interesting now.”
Bonbon narrowed her eyes. “Your parties are a menace and a hazard.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Oriak? replied blithely. “Because this isn’t one of my parties.”
Gali leaned forward, intrigued. “Really? You said everyone else can’t throw parties worth a damn and that you’d rather drink
boxed wine than attend.”
“I did say that. And to be clear, I’d rather die than drink boxed wine.”
“We got kicked out of that one party because you called the host a tasteless coon with all the charm of a dead possum.”
Oriak? shrugged elegantly. “Yes, and I meant it.”
Bonbon leveled a deeply suspicious gaze at her. “So whose party are you planning to drag us to then, exactly?”
Oriak?’s answering grin was sharp and up to not a single iota of good. “My father’s.”
Gali’s mouth fell open.
Oriak?’s father was . . . well, he was almost certainly a criminal and possibly under investigation by international law enforcement,
if you believed the gossip forums, but he was rich as sin and, more to the point, he was Nigerian. That combination automatically
meant his parties would be spectacular.
“Absolutely not!” Bonbon glared at her friend. “No offense, but you basically told us he’s involved in, like, organized crime.”
Oriak? rolled her eyes. “Don’t be gauche, darling.”
Gali grinned, deliberately stoking the fire. “She never said organized crime, Bon. In fact, she never said anything about what he’s involved in. She was very careful not to.”
“Yes!” Oriak? pounced on that detail with glee. “See? What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
Bonbon’s eyes slitted again. “I think you’ll find it absolutely can.”
Gali pouted and pitched her voice high. “But, Bonbon, what if it’s something really cool? Like an orgy. And then we miss it because you were being boring.” She drew out the last word in a whine, and Oriak? gave her an impressed look.
“Not to dash your hopes—which I approve of immensely, by the way—but it’s actually a fundraising gala.”
Gali deflated, but Bonbon perked up. “See, now that sounds almost civilized. You should’ve led with that.”
“Fundraising for what? Your daddy doesn’t need the money,” Gali pointed out.
Oriak? rolled her eyes. “None of them do, but that’s not the point. It’s for a pet project of his—one of the museums that’s
returning colonial acquisitions. Dad’s loaning them an artifact he just acquired that’s some ridiculous big deal. He even
got a whole security team just for it.”
Gali was intrigued. Artifacts always fascinated her, especially if they were old enough to have existed while generations
of humans lived and died, lived and died, over and over again. To outlive centuries of people seemed like a miracle everyone
took as commonplace.
“What’s the artifact?” she asked.
“I have no idea yet.” Oriak? flicked a ladybug off her sleeve and made a face. “But we could go check it out while we’re there
if you want.”
“I do love a private showing,” Bonbon chimed in.
Oriak? lit up the way she always did when someone accepted a gift she was giving. “Anything for you, my favorite author.”
“You don’t even read my books,” Bonbon replied, laughing.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Oriak? winked at her. “Besides, your books are scary.”
“Kinda the point, princess.”
Gali listened to them bicker and let the rest of her senses expand around her.
The land underneath her was still strange and unfamiliar, but the park was a soft hum of life, and the clouds were waiting on the horizon, humid with rain.
They would roll back in whenever Gali asked them to, and then their little world would be washed anew.
For now, she stretched out on the blanket and smiled up at her friends, and they smiled back at her.
Predictably, Oriak? insisted on dressing Gali and Bonbon for the party.
“Don’t even think about arguing with me,” she’d said. “The stylist will meet you both at Gali’s loft.”
Bonbon had indeed looked like she wanted to argue, but Gali nudged her. “Just let her do this,” she’d whispered. “You know
how happy she gets.”
“Ugh, fine.” Bonbon allowed herself a smile. “We probably do need the help anyway. God knows how fancy this party will be.”
By the time the night of the party rolled around and they were standing in front of the large mirror in Gali’s loft staring
at their reflections, it felt like they’d left “fancy” somewhere in the rearview mirror. Bonbon did a small pirouette, her
eyes wide and shocked as the woman in the mirror spun with her, a gold dress clinging to her body like armor. Her legs were
miles long, smooth and muscled, with feathered gold sandals wrapped around her ankles. Gali reached out and touched one of
the long braids cascading down Bonbon’s back, decorated with pearls.
“You look amazing,” she said. Bonbon’s makeup was metallic and avant-garde, dark eyes and sharp gold cheekbones, and her black
hair was braided into whorls and loops close to her scalp.
“I feel like some kind of warrior in this,” Bonbon said, her mouth widening in a slow smile. Her lips were a deep burgundy,
and a small diamond tooth gem shone on her upper left canine. She looked up at Gali, and her smile went even more radiant.
“You look unreal, friend!”
Gali grinned and smoothed her hands over the shimmering dress she was wearing, a million glass teardrops that seized the light with a silk lining underneath.
Musical chimes sounded as she moved, like an unearthly choir.
If she didn’t know better, she’d have said whoever made this dress had whispered a spell into it.
The copper coils of her hair were pinned up intricately at the nape of her neck, with sparkling accents winking through.
Her eyebrows had been thickened, her lashes spiked and black with mascara, and her fingers were stacked with jeweled rings.
She was too scared to ask if the gems were real because, knowing Oriak?, they probably were, which meant she had a fortune on her hands.
Bonbon’s phone rang, and she scrambled to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Are you ready? The car is outside.” Oriak? sounded brisk, no doubt in the middle of her father’s party planning.
Bonbon rolled her eyes. “I told you we could’ve driven ourselves over if you would just share the address.”
Oriak? burst out laughing over speakerphone. “Share the address? That’s so cute.” Her voice leveled out, deadpan. “Get in
the damn car.”
Grumbling, Bonbon grabbed her things, and the girls headed downstairs. A gleaming black limo was parked outside with a chauffeur
holding the door open for them.
Gali glanced at Bonbon. “Here we go,” she said.
There was something about the night around them, something that raised the fine hairs along Gali’s arms, something whispering
just around dark velvet corners, smelling like the forests and running feet, an open and panting mouth. She took pictures
of their looks to send to her cousins, then she and Bonbon climbed into the limo. Flutes of champagne were waiting for them,
along with a crystal bowl of oysters nestled in crushed ice. Bonbon raised an eyebrow and lifted a glass as the limo pulled
away from the curb.
“Here we go, I guess,” she echoed.
Gali grinned and downed her drink as they were whisked off into a spangled night.