Ioin leaned down and kissed the sylph. No, not just kissing. He was trying to plunder her esophagus with his tongue like a pirate raider.
I took a deep breath, then another, my stomach churning.
That was definitely Ioin. My boyfriend.
Who’d been kissing me the night before.
Who hadn’t texted me good night or good morning.
I felt like I was made of stone, watching everything like I was outside my own body.
The sylph floated into the air, giggling, and dragged him away by the hand. Ioin followed without a fight, tugging at the short hem of her dress.
Without thinking, I got off my bike and let it drop against the stone wall. Ioin was slowly obscured by the rain, then he rounded a corner.
Walking out of my life without so much as a goodbye. Had he purposely met the sylph here so I’d see them?
I walked into Web and Peaseblossom mechanically, mentally replaying the image of Ioin shoving his tongue in the sylph’s mouth over and over again. Even when I accidentally bumped into the guy in front of me, a tall Gentry Fae with a long caramel ponytail, I mouthed, “Sorry,” without really hearing it.
Had I been that terrible a girlfriend?
Ioin and I had both known it wasn’t very serious. Fae-human relationships rarely worked out permanently, and I only had six months left to decide if I wanted permanent residency in Avilion, or if I was returning to my home isle, Emain Ablach, where humans were entirely unwelcome.
He knew I wasn’t keen on going home. That maybe our relationship had a chance to become more than just a summer fling.
But… he could’ve said something. Not met another nymph at our morning meeting place and kissed her in front of me.
I didn’t realize the Gentry Fae was talking to me until a hand tapped my shoulder.
“What?” I snapped, and looked up into a pair of irritable burgundy eyes.
They were some damn pretty eyes despite being narrowed in annoyance, the color of garnets and fringed in black lashes.
“You keep stepping on my foot,” he said. His voice was deep and dark, edged in a low growl.
Then I realized I was shaking. My arms were clamped around my chest and a shiver that just wouldn’t stop had me jittering in my shoes, even though I wasn’t cold at all.
“I’m sorry.” I backed up a step, hugging myself tighter.
Ioin hadn’t given any sign he was unhappy with me. At the very least he could’ve ended it in person.
How long had he been seeing the sylph? The twins had never liked him and had kept hinting that he wasn’t what I thought. Maybe I’d been pulling the wool over my own eyes.
The caramel-haired Gentry Fae was still looking at me, his lips moving, but I didn’t hear it. He finally shook his head and turned around, stepping up to the counter to order.
When he left with a white paper bag in hand, I tried to force a smile on my face for Sylvaine, the bakery owner’s daughter.
She had a look on her face that told me she’d seen exactly what Ioin had done, her teeth clenched in an uncertain smile of her own. “Hi, Briallen. What can I get you this morning?”
“Hi, Sylvaine.” I tried not to think about the fact that Sylvaine was also a sylph, her floating platinum hair bound into a tight braid to keep it from going everywhere. I kept seeing that cloud of floating blonde hair brushing Ioin’s face. “Lemon twist tart, please?”
She made an apologetic grimace. “We’re all out, but we still have honeycrisp apple fritters, apple pie tarts, apple blossom blondies… and hey, the guy who just left paid for yours. He said you looked like you needed something to cheer you up.”
For a moment the cold, numb feeling left my chest. I wasn’t one for mixing with Gentry Fae, being a lesser Fae myself, but… even though I’d stepped on his foot, he’d still tried to do something nice for me.
But the taste of apples right now would make me gag. I’d had a lifetime of apples; my time in Avilion was supposed to be for fun, freedom… everything but apples.
“Thanks, but I’ll wait until tomorrow. Pass it on to the one behind me.” I backed away as Sylvaine shrugged and brushed a rogue strand of hair back under her hairnet.
“Briallen, you don’t have to be so upset. He’s just a human…”
I grimaced for real, unable to keep the fake smile on. “Yeah. See you tomorrow, Sylvie.”
Then I fled Web and Peaseblossom, taking a gasping breath when I reached my bike. There was no sign of the Gentry who’d paid for the tart I wouldn’t eat.
Nobody would understand or care about the gaping hole of uncertainty in my chest. Fae simply didn’t have their feelings hurt over humans.
And Ioin was just a human, one with an inconstant heart. Avilion was a playground for them, a city with a thousand varieties of Fae for their picking and choosing.
Like the apples of Emain Ablach, I’d had a bite taken out of me, and the rest was tossed aside.
I picked up my bike and pedaled down the street to the Fairy Ferry office, no longer shivering quite as hard as I rationalized what the inevitable end of that relationship was.
Sylvaine was right. Ioin was just a human, and I was a dryad. Like the trees I came from, my heart was covered in a thick layer of bark.
It would take more than six months of a fling to burrow beneath it.
It was my pride that was wounded more than my feelings. I would’ve respected Ioin enough to tell him if I was ready to end our relationship, but I supposed I’d placed too much trust in his ability to return that respect.
I chained my bike next to six other bikes outside the Fairy Ferry office. Everything about Fairy Ferry was glittering and pink; from the paint around the windows to the boxes and baskets spilling over with pink primroses, down to the welcome mat outside.
I pushed the door open as the bell tinkled overhead.
My fellow couriers were all soaked to the bone as well, all of them looking some shade of gloomy. It was obvious why when my boss, Numa Purkiss, snarled at me from the other side of his desk.
He was a greasy little satyr wearing a violet waistcoat over his furry chest. Several horns curled out from his skull in all directions, and his cheeks were permanently reddened after a lifetime of drinking pixie vodka for dinner every night.
In other words, the complete opposite of the Fairy Ferry aesthetic. I’d always wondered what he was compensating for.
“You’re late, Appletree!” The satyr bounded up from his swiveling chair and uncapped a marker he kept tucked behind one of his horns. Numa kept a board of all the girls working for him, and my name, Briallen Appletree, was sandwiched between Nadiya Korova and Audra Brightbreeze. He drew a slash next to my name. “And you’re soaking wet.”
“That’s because it’s raining, Numa. We’re all going to be soaking wet.” The last of my sadness had finally mutated into anger and disappointment, and the last thing I needed was a handsy boss who made us wear short shorts giving me a lecture. That little slash was the only one next to my name. I’d never been late before. “You charmed our packages, right?”
My table was laden with that day’s delivery parcels. I leaned over, checking the tags and pretending that Numa was not looking at my butt creases.
Today’s deliveries would take me to Mothwing Falls, Acionna Harbor… and there was one small package marked to an address in Thornwood, the high-class district reserved for the Gentry Fae.