Chapter 42
TRACE
The expressions that crossed Edwin’s face were comical. Eventually, he spluttered, “That was not what I was expecting. At all.” He shook his head. “I presume Evergreen is the nearest translation from the Fae?”
“It is,” I confirmed. And because sometimes I could be a bit of a dick and his attitude was needling me, I added, “It surprised me when the Council suggested using it, but I have to confess it was flattering.”
“I bet it was.” A snort in the back of his throat told me he hadn’t finished. “So just how long was your affair with my sire then? ‘Two guys passing some time’. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
I mentally choked him for being so insensitive in front of James, who’d perked up like a squirrel when Edwin spoke, but I kept my tone light as I said, “Do you ever think without your cock being involved? Dalziel does live in an ancient pile surrounded by pine forests. He might, do you not think, have seen the coincidence of my surname as a sign? Or perhaps he wasn’t quite arrogant enough to call a new multi-species venture the Millar Council. ”
Edwin wasn’t a dumb blond. He evidently picked up the shut the fuck up undercurrent in my lighthearted retort. “I guess Evergreen Council sounds better too,” he conceded. “And yes, Dalziel’s arrogant, but not about stuff like that. He generally prefers to keep a low profile.”
“There you are then.” I ran my fingers through my hair, muting a curse as it didn’t ripple but instead snarled on a knot.
“Give me a moment,” I muttered, summoning a magical tweak to my previous human appearance.
“That’s better.” Now I had the same greying locks Edwin and James were used to, but they lay tame and gnarl-free around my shoulders. “We really should go to bed.”
James went readily this time; evidently he was as tired as he looked. But, when we were all clad only in underwear and squeezed into my bed, he refused to close his eyes.
“Are you uncomfortable?” I asked him. He was in the middle and a bit squished, because even Isher hadn’t been able to magically stretch the walls of my new home and only a standard double fitted – just.
“No, I’m quite cosy here.” He was on his side, facing me, tucked against Edwin’s front. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until I know something though.” His eyes were ringed with dark shadows, so I knew he was fighting exhaustion and therefore whatever it was had to be important.
“What is it you want to know?” I yawned as I spoke, the events of the evening catching up with me, especially coming on top of a hard day’s graft.
James looked at me, then at the ceiling. I watched his Adam’s apple bob before he ventured, “I can’t stop thinking about you being punished for something. And like, fuck, that’s a really harsh punishment…”
“You want to know what I did?”
His gaze returned to me. “Aye. Is it bad of me to ask?”
No, but I hope you won’t decide I’m not worthy of your love after all.
“I’d want to know if our positions were reversed,” I assured him. “Eddie?”
He smirked. “We’ve already established I’m a nosy bugger. Of course I want to know.” His grin faded. “I’ve done some shit I’m not overly proud of over the years. I don’t think whatever it is will make me think too badly of you. Spit it out before lover boy here starts snoring.”
James huffed, but I noted his hand clenched Edwin’s thigh and his breathing became shallow and fast.
I shuffled so I could lie flat and avoid eye contact with them as I said, “It wasn’t long after the war. The ’14 - ’18 one.” I felt Edwin stiffen; oh, Goddess, he might really not like this. “We’ve already established I was pretty and pampered.”
“Go on.” Edwin’s tone was unreadable.
“I’d stayed well out of combat zones. I’d been forbidden to get involved anyway, but the Fae don’t as a rule like being forbidden to do anything and I was no exception. So I’d come through the Glimmer—”
“What is that?”
I’d forgotten James wouldn’t know. “The Fae lands. In our language, our world is known as The Glimmering of the Vales. That’s not even a very good translation, but to be honest, there isn’t a better one.
The meaning doesn’t translate. We also call the portals we use to access either world the Glimmer. ”
“Oh, okay. So you’d been coming through from the Fae world, but more than you were supposed to?”
“That’s right. I was fascinated. The soldiers, the changes to daily life, the news articles, the propaganda, the leaps in medical knowledge.
I would glide around unnoticed under a glamour of fog or smoke and, for want of a better expression, poke my nose in.
” I pinched the bridge of said nose. “Insufferable arrogance on my part to think I could use the suffering of thousands as a live history project, but I did.”
“Hardly something I’d consider worthy of the kind of punishment you got saddled with,” Edwin said, his tone now definitely cautious.
I felt mortification engulf me. This man beside me had been part of that horror; the carnage, the cannon fire, the sheer misery of existing on the battlefields of France and Belgium.
“That wasn’t what got me cursed and exiled.
It was after the war. Remember, I was as shallow as a puddle.
Vain as anything and used to being lauded for my looks.
” I huffed. “Goddess knows, I had precious little else to recommend me. Plants don’t care about looks or personality as long as they get tended. ”
I rolled towards the wall and covered my face with my hands.
Then immediately rolled back again so James could hear.
“The wounded were everywhere. Some of them were literally shells of the men they’d been previously.
” A lump formed in my throat. “I tried to avoid them, because they weren’t aesthetically pleasing.
I didn’t want them ruining the mirror I held up to myself with their broken expressions and shabby, ill-fitting suits. ”
“Ouch,” Edwin murmured.
I ploughed on, determined to finish this. “I should have helped. I could have helped. Maybe offered a kind word here and there. It wouldn’t have taken magic to be even vaguely decent. But no, I was repulsed by those shadow-men.”
“Shit.” James’ murmur echoed Edwin’s.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You remember the part where I told you I was a shallow, vain, self-obsessed arsehole? I wasn’t exaggerating.
” I kept going, because it was never going to get any easier to admit this.
“Well, one day, I passed a small group of folk. One man was being quietly fussed over by his friends. He looked up as I passed and caught my eye. He was…” Hot tears of shame threatened to spill over.
“…horribly disfigured. Probably burns, or maybe shrapnel. I don’t know.
It doesn’t matter. What does matter is it wouldn’t have killed me to offer a smile or even a tanner for a pint of beer to take his mind off his afflictions—”
“A tanner?”
I turned my head towards James, my eyesight blurry.
“Sixpence. Old nickname for the coin. Anyway, instead of showing the barest hint of decency, I acted like the worst of my kind and sneered at him, then said he should have been put out of his misery like a lame horse.” I hugged my torso.
“I spat out my vitriol in Fae, which I shouldn’t have done — we’re specifically forbidden from speaking it amongst humans — and although the poor man realised I was saying something hateful, most people wouldn’t have had a clue what language I’d spoken or exactly what I’d said. ”
Edwin sat up. “Then what happened?” He sounded strangled, disbelieving.
“One of the group he was in was his mother. A Fae. The poor lad had been brought up on Earth and had refused to leave for our world to avoid conscription. He’d been badly injured and not even Fae magic could cure him, or not on this side of the Glimmer.
His mother had been given permission to take him across the border to try, which is why she was there that day. Glamoured, of course.”
“Shit,” James muttered again. “That was bad timing for you.”
“It felt like it at the time,” I confessed. “But I’d like to think I’ve become a better person for being caught and punished. I deserved to be punished.”
“So you were what, taken back to your world and…?”
“Imprisoned until my trial. I’d not only broken Fae law by speaking my language aloud in your world, but I’d deeply insulted the son of a princess.
” I winced. “More than insulted. I’d as good as said he shouldn’t have been allowed to continue living.
Not my finest hour. I was lucky to avoid execution.
The Fae can be swift when they demand retribution. ”
“They might have killed you?” James sat up too, so I did the same. “That’s…I guess I still have a lot to learn about the supernatural world.”
We both looked up as Edwin began pulling on his clothes, his face grim. “What are you doing?” My voice broke.
He glanced at me, his expression bleaker than I’d ever seen it. “I need to be alone for a bit. This is a lot. James, babe, please get some sleep before you fall over.” He cupped his cheek and pressed a swift kiss to his lips. “I love you. I just need some time.”
He was out the door before I could beg him to stay.
“Fuck.” The tears broke free. “I’ve…I’ve…” I had no more words. The pain in my chest watching Edwin walking away like he couldn’t bear a single second more in my company was more than I thought I could live with.
James wrapped his arms around me. “You know Eddie fought in that war? Maybe he’s thinking back to how it could have been him. Flashbacks are a thing with war, right? Give him some time. He’ll come around.”
I wasn’t so sure. At least Edwin’s love for James seemed secure, which right now was something to hold onto. I urged James down again and pulled the covers up, tucking them around him. “Now you know and you’ve not run screaming from me, d’you think you could please try to sleep?”
He nodded. “You did something awful, Trace. You paid for it. More than paid, I’d say. I won’t run.” He hesitated. “Will you hold me?”
He was asleep within minutes, the creases in his forehead ironing out as his body relaxed and took him deep. I lay there for what seemed like hours until finally exhaustion claimed me too.