Chapter Seventeen #2
Before she can respond, another voice cuts in from a nearby table.
“Oh, this is rich coming from you.” Heads turn. Two women are now moving toward each other, tension snapping between them. At first, I thought they were speaking to Angora, but it seems there’s more than one fight happening at the table right now.
“At least my match actually has influence,” one shoots back. “Not just a title he bought.”
“Bought?” the other girl laughs. “Yours inherited everything and still manages to be irrelevant.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—does yours even have a seat at court?”
“Does yours know how to keep one?”
And just like that, the room tilts.
Voices rise. Chairs scrape. Someone knocks over a glass, the sharp crack echoing.
I blink, the sudden shift almost dizzying.
Aoife exhales softly, somewhere between amusement and resignation. “And there it is.”
The argument escalates fast. Words like status, alliances, and power are being thrown around like weapons. Other women chime in, some defending, some provoking, until it is less a conversation and more a full-blown shouting match.
Angora rolls her eyes, turning back to her food as if none of it matters.
But I notice the tightness in her jaw and the way her fingers curl a little too firmly around her glass.
I look down at my plate, at the carefully arranged, beautiful food.
At the ridiculousness of all of it.
“Is this what ‘girls’ night’ is supposed to be?” I mutter.
Aoife huffs a quiet laugh. “Depends on the girls.”
I pick up my fork again, though my appetite has dulled slightly. “I think I’m doing it wrong.”
Aoife tilts her head, studying me. “Or you’re just not pretending as hard as everyone else.”
I pause. The word pretending nearly stopping my heart.
Across the room, the argument surges louder, someone now standing, another pointing a finger.
Fake dating. Strategic matches. Power plays dressed up as romance.
“What?” I choke out.
Aoife’s brows bend. “At acting like you like the other girls,” she clarifies.
I laugh, forcefully, and take another bite, the saffron suddenly harder to taste.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Maybe.”
“Ladies, please, stop it,” a helper of Fate begs. “Please, talk about anything else. And you two,” he points at Angora and a witch she seems to be in a staring contest with. “For the love of Fate, stay away from one another.”
Silence permeates the space before a druid woman in the corner gets a wicked grin and says, “I wonder whose match is the biggest.” That’s my cue.
“Since dinner is over, and as it was the only official item on our agenda tonight, I think I’m going to leave,” I whisper to Aoife.
Her eyes are wide, and if she had pearls, I think she’d be clutching them. “Me too.”
Cool night air hits me like relief. The drama in that room was oppressive.
I wave goodbye to Aoife, promising to catch up with her another day, and start the short walk back to my bungalow.
The path is elevated above sea level, putting me about twenty feet above the water.
In the distance, I see the sun dipping below the horizon, serving as a backdrop to the snapping arms of the kraken that both guards the waters to protect us while also trapping us here.
Waves crash against the rocks below, the sound accented by the hum of cicadas and the flicker of wind threatening to blow out the lantern lights.
Bioluminescent algae dances under the boardwalk, lighting my way past the other bungalows until I make my way to mine.
Some candles are lit inside, a light glowing faintly enough to let me see Riven’s outline in the window.
Guess he bailed out of guys’ night early.
Shocking, considering how much he likes a good party and an open bar.
My energy shifts with the opening of the door.
As annoyed as I can be with Riven, and as put out this entire Festival debacle is for me, he is still one of my safe spaces.
My shoulders relax, and I feel the line between my brows melt away.
He’s dancing again, though there is no music, so this is a telltale sign of his intoxication.
His body isn’t moving with as much finesse as it was at the talent show, but he still looks good doing it.
“Someone’s tipsy.” I collapse on the bed. “My night was horrific. How was yours?”
The bed dips when he flings his body dramatically next to mine.
“Same. If I had to hear one more man describe a woman like she’s a horse at auction, I was going to start a fight.” He boxes with his shadows, throwing punches that move through them like a hot knife through butter. “What about you?”
“Not relaxing at all. They were fighting as if this is a competition where we are rivals.” I throw my hands up.
“It makes no sense. Each of us could ‘win’ and still no one would lose.” I blow out a long breath, causing my hair to fan out.
“When I think of girls’ night, I think of face masks and talking about boys while eating good snacks.
” I grab my bag off the nightstand, looking for the bag of crisps I’d stowed away in there on the ferry ride and promptly forgotten about.
Drinking makes me snacky. “They just wanted to fight and throw drinks.”
Riven rolls over, propping his head on one hand. “My pores have been looking a little big lately.” He shrugs and points suggestively at my toiletries kit. “I’ll have a girls’ night with you.”
I laugh, real and unguarded . That’s the most genuine thing that’s come out of me all day. “Really?”
“As long as you snap in jalapeno poppers, yes.” His face is painted in genuine want, like he’s just waiting for me to say yes. This. This is why we’re best friends.
“We’ll have to see what the Moirai’s kitchen has.” Since my magic has been limited to conjuring what is on the Isle and nothing more.
I kick my shoes off and tuck them under my legs, scooting closer to Riven until our thighs are touching. My pointer finger taps on the bed, and, in the blink of an eye, a serving tray covered in snacks and face creams appears. Including the poppers Riven is now looking at with hearts in his eyes.
The bowl closest to me is filled with a blue clay mask. The brush stuck in it is cool in my hands when I pick it up and poise my body in Riven’s direction.
“Hold on.” He grabs two poppers and stuffs them into his mouth before saying, “Paint me, baby.” His body rolls one more time, head resting on the pillow and eyes closing. His term of endearment sends my core tightening. Ignore it. This is how he is. An eternal flirt.
I start painting the mask on his skin, keeping the words Angora drunkenly said hidden behind my teeth. It would do no good for Riven to hear them. For his fears to be spoken into existence. That she got over him so quickly and also thinks so little of him. Or of me.
Instead, I start recounting other stories of the night.
I tell him about the amazing food, thrown drinks, and ridiculous dresses the other women wore.
He laughs when I mimic their voice and report the insults they spewed at one another.
When I’m done painting his mask on, he does mine, taking the bottle of wine I snapped in by the neck and drinking straight from the bottle.
I press my thighs together, an instinctive reaction as a bead of red wine gathers at his lower lip.
It lingers there for a breath, catching the light, before slipping free.
It drags a slow, deliberate path over the curve of his mouth and down along the pale line of his scar.
My gaze follows it up until the moment his tongue flicks out, unhurried yet precise, and catches the drop just before it falls, sweeping it away with a languid ease that makes my pulse stutter.
I force away the thought of him dancing on stage at the beach that pops up. There’s something similar to the way his tongue moved that reminds me of the sway of his hips when he dances.
Afterward, we sit crisscross on the bed, drunkenly laughing.
“If anyone sees me like this”—he points to his face, covered in a dried clay mask, his cucumber-slice-covered eyes looking at me even though he can’t see me—“I’m blaming you.”
I snort. “I think your ego could survive this.”
“My reputation,” he slowly plucks the cucumber off his eye, taking one to his mouth and biting into it with his sharp incisor, “would be ruined.”
My laughter fades into something softer, a comfortable silence that is sliced by a quiet inhale when his bare knee brushes mine.
Poppy, don’t be an ignorant wench. It’s a graze.
He’s drunk and uncoordinated, and clearly it’s been too long since I’ve been intimately touched if I’m confusing this for that.
His shadows crowd in, huddling around us like children joining their parents in bed.
His hand lands gently on my thigh, and I hold my breath.
“This is so much better than doe and stag nights,” he says, eyes closing as he settles in like he’s about to fall asleep. His arms open to me, an act he’s done a dozen times. I yip when his shadows push me into his hold, but then willingly settle my head on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “It is.”