Chapter Twenty-Four
POPPY
Current Festival
The walk back to the bungalow is quiet. Lanterns burn low on the path, gold light trembling against the visage of Riven’s shadows that linger nearby.
The brunch had lingered well into the late afternoon, and by the push of magic, darkness had fallen on the island, and lightning was fracturing the sky in the distance.
Due to the ever-open patio, there’s salt in our bungalow’s air, hovering around the rumpled bed and the glass surrounded by coins from our game last night.
The room feels smaller than it did this morning.
Or maybe I am just more aware of the space between us.
Brunch provided the perfect opportunity for Riven to win Angora back or at least make her want him again.
I suppose it also provided me with the same opportunity, but all it did was highlight how much I don’t want Rodrick anymore.
How much I don’t want anyone else, really.
Riven tosses his jacket over a chair, and I remove my shoes carefully.
I’m bone-tired. Emotionally wrought after days and days of tumultuous trials.
We’ve only been here a couple of weeks, and at this point, I don’t know how I’m going to take much more.
I’m emotionally raw, feeling more like a wrung-out washcloth than a powerful witch.
A knock comes from the front door. Three sharp raps that are anything but polite or gentle.
“Who is that?” I ask, but Riven doesn’t even look surprised.
He drags a hand down his face and plasters on a tired, crooked grin.
“Do you think they schedule these ambushes, or is shock and awe just Fate’s love language?
” He pulls open the door to reveal an equally tired employee of Fate on the other side.
He is gazing longingly over his shoulder, like he’s looking for someone.
For the first time since being here, or being in the competition in general, I wonder what Fate’s minions do when the sun goes down and they’re no longer tasked with doing the Moirai’s bidding.
Do they have lovers? Families? Or do they live only to serve Fate?
He has a basket tucked into the crook of his arm, and in it are two small glass vials and a stack of gilded cards.
My breath catches in my throat.
I’d know the viscosity of that potion anywhere.
Truth serum.
The air changes, maybe because I’m holding my breath, as Riven reaches out and takes the basket from him.
I can’t tell him the truth. Not about my growing feelings for him. Not about the way I ogled his tree trunk quads in his swim trunks. No. That’s going to my grave.
The man’s voice is smooth, rehearsed, as if he’s already given this speech a dozen times tonight.
Maybe he has. “Tonight, you will be tasked with a private bonding trial. Here we have a short-acting truth serum.” Okay, maybe I can just tell the truth about my favorite foods or something equally inane for the short amount of time it’s in my system.
“It was formulated by the Moirai to target matters of love and attachment.” There goes my avoidance strategy.
“And it makes you reveal even more to yourself than to your partner.”
“And if we don’t do it?” Riven’s voice is challenging, and annoyingly, his defiance of a task I also don’t want to do is only making him more attractive to me.
“Mandatory participation.” The helper of Fate’s voice is laced with faux kindness, but his eyes bear the weight of deep annoyance. Maybe he has a little someone on the island he wants to get back to, and Riven’s questions are keeping him from them.
“I didn’t ask if it was mandatory.” Riven’s head cocks to the side.
“I asked what happens if we don’t do it.
” I know what he’s thinking. He’ll bear a minor penalty to avoid emotional intimacy.
If it can’t be joking or flirty, Riven doesn’t like saying it.
And for once, I agree. Riven leans in, propping his arm against the doorjamb and giving the man before him one of his most charming smiles.
A smile that could get him out of almost anything.
“You know the cost, Casanova.” He eyes Riven up and down like he couldn’t see more through the act if Riven was made of gossamer. “Seven years of bad luck in love.”
I exhale sharply, and Riven mutters, “They’ll never let us rest.” He slams the door in his face. “Thanks, bye.” He exhales dramatically, the force of his breath moving the pieces of hair framing my face as if I were standing in a sharp wind.
The room is suddenly too quiet, and Riven cracks a rueful smile as he palms one of the faintly glowing vials.
“If I have to spill my guts, thank Fate it’s to you.
” His eyes meet mine, and I watch as he, without hesitation, downs the entirety of its contents in one swig.
No jokes. No performance. And I know that even though he would rather walk through hot coals than be emotionally vulnerable, he wants me to be hurt even less.
He would do anything to keep me from the curse.
That’s how good a friend he is. That is what I can’t afford to lose.
I, on the other hand, do hesitate. Seven years will come and go, and a witch lives a very long life, but losing Riven because I spilled my guts while high on truth serum is something I can’t come back from. I don’t want my truths dragged out into the open.
“Come on, Pop.” His lips remain tugged up, though a dubious tilt changes his smile.
“I thought we were in this together.” I hate it when he’s right.
“Don’t make me look like an ass all alone, and it’ll happen soon.
I can feel my demons rattling the doors of their enclosure, waiting to get out.
” Is that how he sees his unfiltered truths?
Demons? A hairlike fracture cracks my heart.
He’s right. We’re in this together.
Before I can reconsider, again, I open my lips and tilt back my head. Cool, viscous syrup runs down my throat, tasting of unspoken truths and melted strawberry candies. It settles in my stomach, coating the nervous, acrid bile bubbling in there with a blanket of the Moirai’s magic.
Now, we wait.
I sit on the edge of the bed. My fingers swirl together like fish chasing one another, something I can also see happening below me.
Through the glass floor, I can see two clownfish tailing one another around the edge of an anemone.
I wonder if they’re friends. Or enemies.
Or pretending to flirt for the benefit of the onlooking starfish and eels.
Pinpricks begin at the tips of my fingers. Is this the potion? Or am I just nervous? Though I’ve made it, believe it or not, I’ve never dosed myself with truth serum, so I have no idea what the effects of it feel like.
Riven is sitting on the floor, playing catch with himself by throwing a wadded-up pair of socks in the air. He looks unaffected.
Until he doesn’t.
He stands, and his posture stiffens, spine snapping ramrod straight like he’s physically fighting the effects of the potion.
A crack sounds out as he aggressively rolls his neck, and the sock ball falls untended to the floor as his hands clench into fists at his side.
The skin of his cheeks and ears flush with a pink hue, and I watch with my own breath caught in my chest as his pupils dilate and a look of shock contorts his features.
“Oh,” he breathes, hand clutching the fabric over his chest. “That’s…
unpleasant.” Riven grits his teeth and sucks in a sharp breath.
“I can feel my thoughts trying to escape.” He presses his palms against his temples, shadows crowding around them like they are trying to aid him in keeping his thoughts trapped.
“Or maybe they’re rallying against me.” What could he have trapped in his head that he’s so afraid of letting out?
I try not to take it personally. I want to be his safe person, and I am; he just doesn’t like to be known. Not wholly.
“Well,” he rasps, a humorless laugh just behind it.
“If there is anything you’ve ever wanted to ask me, now is the time.
I won’t be able to lie.” I stand, walking gently to him until his hand is in mine and I can lead him to the deck so we both can sit down.
A gentle sea breeze ruffles the baby hairs at the nape of my neck, and the salt lingering in the air stings a little when I inhale deeply.
“Fate, help us both,” Riven barks out, shattering the silence between us, looking like discomfort made mortal.
“Let’s get this over with already.” He can’t hide right now, and he hates it.
For a man who has always been at home in the shadows, being stripped bare in front of another was the worst thing that could happen to him.
I feel the effects of the potion taking over, though I’m not as physically afflicted as Riven is.
A warmth starts in my chest and fans out, washing me in a languid state of disarm that begs my tongue to speak of my growing affection for Riven.
The thought of it is as scary as it is freeing.
Maybe truth wouldn’t be so bad. No, I don’t want to lose him, but, in this moment, harboring that secret for a couple of centuries feels like a sin.
I glance back up and find Riven looking like he’s about to crawl out of his skin. “You can ask the first question.” Maybe that will take the edge off him a little bit.
At this offer, he seems to lock in. His mouth moves without time for much thought. Like the question had already been poised on his lips. “How was your bombshell date?”