Chapter Two
POPPY
Riven’s smirk lingers in my head as I step into the cool autumn night.
A snap of wind howls down the alley, and I have to pull my cardigan tighter around myself to keep the chill from penetrating into my bones.
Only a hundred steps around the building, and I’ll be at the stairs to my apartment. I can do this.
Lamplight shines off the rain-slicked street, and leaves cling to my boots, sticking to the sides and ruining the new shoe-shine I’d magically lacquered them with earlier. I growl. This is not helping my sour mood.
I’m irritated at Riven. His talking about the Festival and how he is going to enter it definitely triggered my mood.
Watching Angora act like a privileged twat didn’t help either.
She thinks the sun orbits her, and her actions tonight highlight the very reason Riven shouldn’t enter the Festival.
What will she do if they aren’t matched…
and what will become of him if they are?
From the edge of town, I stand overlooking where the cobblestones fade into dirt and watch the caravan of Festival trailers rumble in.
Workers hop down with ladders and strings of lanterns, dragging bright fabrics, wooden booths, and enchanted signage across the clearing.
Even half-built, the scent of sugared pastries and pine from the decorative garlands rides the breeze, mingling with the clang of hammers and the snap of canvases being unfurled.
By tomorrow, it’ll be as dazzling as always.
Banners shimmering, crowds laughing, the whole town pretending the show and the love it brings are miraculous instead of what they really are.
A gamble. It's beautiful, yes. But to me, it’s all begun to feel like a grand, glittering shell.
Hollow in the center where love is supposed to be.
And I need to get away from it. Now.
Soft light glows from my living room window, hazy in the growing mist. Just a staircase and a door standing between me and the cold and triggers of my past disappointment. Maybe I’ll conjure a bubble bath tonight and drink cocoa whilst watching a hologram play. A perfect night, honestly.
The only thing that would make it better would be if I had someone to share it with.
A pang of loneliness thrums in my chest, refusing to let the memories of my last festival fade.
I stomp up the stairs, anger roiling in my gut.
It was supposed to be magic. A month of Fate-blessed challenges, of becoming known, being chosen.
But all it ever gave me was endings and promises that dissolved once the crowd was gone.
I used to believe that the Festival was spun from stardust and destiny, a place where the Moirai whispered your soulmate’s name straight into your bones.
Now, it feels more like a cosmic joke I kept falling for.
Three attempts, three disappointments, and not a single love worth keeping.
The Festival didn’t bless me—it bruised me, over and over, until I learned to stop offering it my hope.
I’m done.
And now Riven is about to thrust himself into the very pit I long to avoid. Idiot.
Cool metal presses into my hand, the doorknob turning effortlessly as I mutter an unlocking spell, never having found my keys. My small apartment hugs me, cluttered plants whispering hello from their shelves and my half-finished crochet project winking from its perch on my couch. Welcome home.
My scarf uncoils with ease, the jacket on my back soon joins the others on the coat rack, and my shoes add to the pile by the front door.
I try to push the thoughts about tomorrow from my mind, but even from the edge of town, I can hear the sounds of the stalls being set up through my open windows.
With the twist of my hand, the tea kettle starts boiling and a cinnamon tea bag floats behind me as I shut the cracked windows to cut off both the noise and the crisp autumn air from invading my space.
I’d planned to avoid the whole thing this year. To barricade myself inside with caramel popcorn and hologram plays, allowing my magic to do all the heavy lifting for a day or two. No hopeless romanticism. No meddling Fate. No pretending I’m not bitter about being the Festival’s personal chew toy.
But no.
Riven, my hot, reckless, and annoyingly lovable best friend, has gotten himself tangled up in some nonsense again.
And after swooping in to help me tonight, he looked at me with those stupid earnest eyes like I’m one of the few people he actually trusts—which I am—so now I feel morally obligated to support him.
Which means leaving my cozy apartment, putting on real clothes, and watching him march straight into another doomed relationship with someone who doesn’t deserve him.
Friendship is a curse.
I curl up on the loveseat, blanket draping gently over me. My eyes caress the tendrils of steam rising from my mug, and my resentment toward Fate only deepens. One heaping spoonful of resentment for each of the three years I had hope.
Well, for one year, I had hope and a belief in destiny woven into the very fabric of my being.
The second year, I was nervous but still optimistic.
In the third year, I was skeptical but still trying.
And now? Now, I think it’s all a crock of shite.
How does the Festival get away with claiming soul matches when it’s only ever brought me disappointment?
Probably because it has produced enough sickeningly sweet couples lost in love to earn this claim to fame.
A claim which very well may include Riven a month from now.
The warmth of my mug presses against my chest, my thumbs dancing along the rim as I think.
Riven entering it again makes no sense. I know better than anyone that he gave up on love years ago after watching his parents’ marriage rot from the inside.
Hells, it’s why he, an affluent fae lordling, volunteered to join the war and fight the ogres from the front lines instead of taking his title and never working a day in his life.
His romantic relationships are as shallow as a quickly dug grave.
I know it’s because he fears letting someone in, and lust doesn’t require anything truly intimate from him.
None of his girlfriends, scary as they are, get close enough to hurt him.
But the Festival of Fates is the antithesis of that.
The Moirai expect vulnerability. Demand it, even.
No male, not even one with his libido, could be that desperate. He’s had enough bedmates to exhaust a lesser man, and yet he’s entering the Festival for more?
Ceramic clinking against wood grounds me as I set my mug on the side table and stand.
My legs move without thought, pacing in a tight circle as I fight the truth bubbling within me.
Obviously, I don’t want Riven to enter the Festival because I think he’s doing it for the wrong reasons and the whole thing is doomed, but also…
I think I’m afraid he’ll end up with what I’ve always wanted when he doesn’t even take love seriously.
It’d be just like Riven to stumble through the trials with that careless charm of his and walk out, hand-in-hand, with a soulmate…
while I, on the other hand, followed every rule, prayed for love, poured my whole soul into it, and somehow still ended up with empty palms.
I force myself to head to the bathroom, bare feet whispering across a worn sage-green rug, the soft shimmer of charm-lights coming to life above me like lazy fireflies.
My cozy little apartment, with its overstuffed bookshelves and teacups drying in the rack, seems to sigh with me, coaxing me to relax as I march past the clutter of my quiet life and push open the bathroom door to start the bath.
Riven is a grown fae male, I remind myself as I twist the tap and the warmth of the water seeps into the air.
He can spend his very long life with whatever storm-brained beauty he wants.
It’s none of my business. If he wants to chain himself to a woman who sees him as a trophy instead of a person, that’s his cosmic prerogative.
And, honestly, I’ve seen him do stupider things than this and stood by him.
I’ll show up for a couple of hours tomorrow, clap politely, be the supportive friend he deserves…
and then do something for myself after. Something decadent. Something blissfully Fate-free.
Like vanishing to a sun-drenched island and letting the whole realm sort itself out without me.
I don’t know where that thought came from.
I’ve never done anything like that before, but it sounds nice right about now.
I could leave under the cover of night and return only once the entire ordeal is over.
By the time the bath finishes filling, steam curls around my shoulders like it’s trying to comfort me, and I finally begin to relax.
I flick my wrist and a holographic play blooms across the tiled wall—bright costumes, swooning leads, and all those ridiculous happily-ever-afters that never seem to make their way to me.
Resolve soaks into me as assuredly as I soak in the hot water now.
I’m done chasing destiny. I’ll go because Riven begged and because I apparently have the spine of a damp leaf where he’s concerned.
Then, I’ll steal his most expensive bottle from the wine cellar, drown myself in it with absolutely no remorse, and disappear to a tropical isle.
A sun-soaked exile. No Moirai. No dice. No heartbreak. No Riven.
Just me, salt air, and the bliss of an empty future Fate can’t meddle with.