Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The cramped backstage area of the opera house felt small and claustrophobic.
Nos stood in the shadows between costume racks, watching Ibin check a sidearm pistol with the methodical precision of someone who had done the deed countless times before.
Her movements were sharp, efficient, but he could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands lingered just a fraction too long.
They would be separating soon. Serrik would go with Puck to find the tree at the heart of the Maze. The rest of them would accompany Abigail and Ava to face Valroy directly. It might be the last time they were alone together.
The last time he could say what needed to be said.
Shutting his eyes, he swore to himself in his mind.
“Ibin,” he called softly. He loathed how her name caught in his throat. He sounded like a damnable child.
She looked up from adjusting the leather straps that held her daggers, her expression expectant. “What is it?”
For a moment, Nos found himself lost for words. How did one confess feelings that had been building for what felt like lifetimes? How did one explain the terrible, wonderful ache of loving someone who was not even…real?
At least not in the traditional sense.
Worse yet, how could he confess the terrible truth that he loved someone that he himself had made?
What manner of narcissistic cretin did that make him?
“I need to tell you something.” He stopped, running a hand through his stringy dark hair. “Before we…before tonight.”
Ibin set down her weapons and turned to face him fully, her expression growing serious. “Go on.”
She was no longer wearing the flowing white dress of her usual garb, but had somehow discovered an antiquated soldier’s uniform in costume storage that fit her. Seeing her like that was utterly perfect and stung every nerve in him, leaving him raw. Defeated. Unable to stop himself.
“I love you.” The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other like water breaking through a dam. “I have loved you since the moment I dreamed you into existence. I know it is wrong, I know it is selfish and twisted and morally despicable—”
“Nos.” Her voice was gentle but firm, cutting through his self-recrimination. “Stop.”
He looked up at her, expecting to see disgust or pity in her eyes. Instead, he found something that looked almost like relief.
She laughed through the words. “How daft do you think I am?” A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Do you think I haven't known how you felt about me from the very start?”
He shut his eyes. “You knew.”
“You're about as subtle as a brick through a window, mate.” She stepped closer. “The question is, why have you never said anything?”
Nos felt his throat constrict. “Because you're my dream, Ibin. I created you out of my own loneliness, my own need for…for someone who would understand. How could I ask you to love me back when your very existence is tied to what I wanted you to be?”
“You really want to know what I think about that?” Ibin's voice carried an edge he'd never heard before.
He nodded mutely.
“I think that’s utter bollocks and you’re making excuses for being too damn shy to get out of your own way.
” The words came out with surprising vehemence.
“Do you want to know what I remember from when I first became aware of myself? When I first opened my eyes in that strange place between dreams and reality?”
Nos found himself holding his breath.
“I remember looking at you and thinking you were the most annoying and pathetic creature I'd ever seen.” Her smile widened at his expression of shock.
“Sitting there in your misery, all woe-is-me, so convinced of your own unworthiness that you couldn't even look me in the eye. I couldn't stand you at first, Nos!”
He blinked, stunned. “Then why—”
“Because you grew on me, you stubborn, stitched-together bastard.” She reached out and touched his face, her fingers tracing the mismatched features that marked him as something cobbled together from dreams and nightmares.
“Because despite creating me, you never once tried to control me. You never demanded that I be anything other than what I chose to be. You gave me freedom to become myself, even when that self was sometimes cruel to you.”
Nos felt tears prick at his eyes. “But the fact remains—”
“The fact remains,” Ibin interrupted, “that I'm sick and tired of being lonely.
I'm tired of standing next to someone I care about and watching him torture himself because he thinks his feelings are somehow invalid.
I'm tired of pretending I don't feel the same way because you've convinced yourself it would be wrong.”
“Ibin…”
“I don't give a rat’s arse how I came to be, Nos. Dream, nightmare, construct, whatever—I'm here now. I think, I feel, I choose. And I choose you, you magnificent disaster.” Her voice grew softer. “If you'll have me.”
For a moment, Nos couldn't speak. The weight of decades of self-doubt, of loneliness, of believing himself unworthy of love, pressed down on him like a physical force. Then Ibin stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, and all of that weight simply…lifted.
He held her tightly, burying his face in her hair, breathing in the reality of her presence. “I thought…I was so afraid…”
“I know.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. “But we don't have time for fear anymore. Not tonight.”
They stood there in the shadows, holding each other as if they could somehow stop time through sheer force of will.
“Promise me something,” Ibin said finally, pulling back to look at him.
“Anything.”
“Promise me that whatever happens tonight, you won't sacrifice yourself trying to protect me. I can handle myself in a fight, you saw to that, and I need to know you're not going to do something stupidly heroic.” She poked him in the chest.
Nos smiled, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, it felt genuine. “I promise. As long as you promise the same.”
“Deal.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, and it was everything he had dreamed it would be and more. Real, solid, chosen—not because she had been created to love him, but because she had decided to.
When they broke apart, both of them were smiling despite the circumstances.
She lifted her pistol and shot him a lopsided grin. “Let’s go save the day, eh?”
By the stars, he loved that woman. “Let’s.”
Serrik was forced to do the thing he wished to do the least.
He had to speak with the half breed.
Puck was a…fascinating creature. The only offspring of a Seelie and Unseelie, as far as he was aware.
Though he could not be certain of that. He had, of course, been trapped in exile for so much of his existence as to render it nearly total.
Only enough of his life had been spent outside the Web to establish his hatred of his fae brethren.
Almost by design.
Another reason not to trust what was to follow this evening.
But, with a sigh, he ventured off into the opera house in search of Goodfellow. It was not hard to find him, as Puck was having what appeared to be an animated conversation—nay, argument—with a mirror.
As someone who was quite accustomed to such illusions having more meaning than they might at first portend, Serrik paused in the shadows to watch the exchange. But the mirror was matching his movements, and did not seem to respond to his movements in any unnatural way.
“No, you absolute moron, I said the Maze, not the Phase,” Puck hissed at his reflection. “The big scary tree in the middle of Valroy's personal nightmare realm, not the bloody moon cycles! We’ve already done that bit!”
“Everything all right?” Serrik asked, approaching with his usual measured pace. He had reverted to his human form for easier movement.
“Oh, just coordinating with my other selves,” Puck said cheerfully, turning away from the mirror.
“Existing in all places at once is so complicated.
Past me thinks he knows better than present me, and future me won't stop being cryptic about what's going to happen.
It's like herding cats, except the cats are all me and we all have different opinions about causality. And everybody forgot the donuts. How can you forget the donuts in an apocalypse? Rude!”
Serrik had no knowledge of what a donut was, but he assumed it was a food item. And utterly irrelevant to the moment. “I…see.”
“No, you don't, but that's fine. Most people don’t.” Puck clapped his hands together, and the mirror behind him cracked into a spider web pattern. “Right! Transportation to one heavily defended horrifying murder tree, coming right up. Hope you're not afraid of squishy blood floors.”
“That is…not a concern," Serrik replied dryly. “The heavily defended part, however…”
“Oh, that." Puck waved a hand dismissively. "Details. Trust me, I have a plan.”
“I have heard tell that your plans tend to involve a great deal of unpredictable.”
“Well, yes, but that's rather the point, isn't it? I am Chaos Incorporated, trademark symbol”—he made a ding noise—“and chaos is unpredictable, and unpredictable is exactly what we need right now.” Puck's grin was sharp and entirely too confident.
“Besides, it's not like we have a choice.
The tree needs to be destroyed, and you're the only one here who might actually be able to do it.”
Serrik stared at him flatly. “I am aware.”
Puck's expression grew serious for a moment. “Are you certain about this? Once we start, there's no going back. Valroy will throw everything he has at you.”
“I am certain.” He clenched his hands at his sides. “This needs to end. One way or another.”
“Right then.” Puck began tracing symbols in the air, and reality shimmered around them like heat haze. “Hold on tight, and try not to look down. The space between spaces can be a bit disorienting if you're not used to it.”
“Puck,” Serrik said, just as the world began to dissolve around them.
“Yes?”