Carrie Jones - Entice

I start up the stairs. I have no idea if Astley is actually here, but even if he wasn’t, I’d want to explore. Honestly, it might be cooler if he wasn’t here, because I have no idea what I’m going to say to him about what just happened at his mother’s house and how he abandoned me there, or about what she said. He had another queen and he never told me. Even if he didn’t quote-unquote kill her, that’s a pretty big lie by omission.

Nick did that too. He lied to me when he didn’t tell me that his parents were dead. I never even had a chance to confront him about that. I learned after he was gone.

I pause for a moment, trying to will the pain in my chest to dwindle down, and also so I can think. Why do people and pixies and weres lie so much? Why can’t we all just be honest with each other? It would be so easy to just not trust anyone ever, but you can’t go through life with a pair of scissors in each hand, snip-snip-snipping away at everything people say or don’t say, can you? You have to leave one hand free to catch the truth.

I contemplate my situation for a second. The stairs would normally be easy to climb, but thanks to ye olde gunshot wound they’re proving a bit much for me. Still, I start up again, climbing to the level of the house, which is probably thirty feet or so above the meadow. When my feet hit the deck, the world goes a little wiggly and I almost think I’m going to pass out.

“Pixies don’t pass out,” I mutter. “We are total badasses. We do not pass out.”

Looking through the giant window, I try to spot Astley inside the house. There are globes of light that seem to float at different levels in the air. They cast a soft and mellow glow, like candles. It is the opposite of how I feel inside. What am I doing? I’m confronting another pixie killer, and this one happens to be my king. Brilliant. I am brilliant. Obviously I have a thing for drama now too.

There’s a door in front of me. It’s made of glass and twisted wood that’s been sanded soft and smooth. The handle is wood too and has the face of a horse carved into it. My fingertips touch it before I think about it, caressing the horse’s nose. It almost feels real. The door opens easily. It’s not locked. I step inside and let the door shut behind me, trying to sense if Astley’s here. He is. I can feel his sorrow like a paper cut against my heart.

I don’t see him, though. I look across the living room I’ve stepped into. Unlike his mother’s house, the furniture is all streamlined and modern. It seems expensive, but a different kind of expensive. It’s almost a Japanese feel. I step into the room. My sneaker leaves a wet mark on the floor. There are other wet marks from where Astley must have stepped. I’d follow the glitter trail, but there’s glitter all over the shiny wooden floor-it’s more like someone shook a carton of it over the floor than there being any one traceable trail.

Bamboo-type mats rest on the floor. Water that has dripped off Astley’s clothes darkens the white into gray. I follow the water trail around the squarish white sofa and armchair. He’s in the corner, huddled into the fetal position, perched on the balls of his feet and facing away from me so that all I can see is his back.

“Astley?”

When I say his name, his back shivers, even though I know he’s not surprised. His senses are amazing. He heard and smelled me way before I came inside, probably before I even climbed the stairs. Still, his back moves as if I’ve startled him. Nothing else moves, though.

I try again. “Astley?”

Still no answer. Against my better judgment, I reach forward and gently touch his shoulder. It is hard beneath the leather jacket.

He stands up and turns around so slowly. All my skin crawls. A million spiders seem to run up and down the surface of me. I yank my hand back, touch my face, but there’s nothing on me. It’s him that’s making me feel this way. He turns fully around and he doesn’t look human at all. The glamour is gone. He is in full pixie mode, all blue skin and teeth, eyes that glint. I shudder even though I know that this is how I look too-like a monster. But it’s more than that. He feels like a monster, like some horrible, primal, lethal pixie king instead of the usual calm, slightly troubled Astley.

I back away. I can’t help it.

“Stay,” he commands.

I can’t move. My feet stick to the floor, held by some invisible force that must be coming from him.

“You’re scaring me, Astley,” I say, but my voice doesn’t sound scared. It sounds calm.

“Am I?”

Back in 2004, this forty-nine-year-old guy Ye Guozhu was sentenced to prison in China because he applied to demonstrate against forced evictions. The court said he was “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” He was upset because people’s homes and businesses were being destroyed so that fancy places could be built. His restaurant was one of those buildings. His home was another. The government didn’t give the people any money. They just evicted them.

According to Amnesty, he was tortured. The police beat him before his trial, suspended him from the ceiling, hung him by his arms. According to Amnesty, the police used electroshock batons.

These are the sorts of things out-of-control pixies would do, but worse… even worse. How can I imagine worse? I don’t have to imagine it. I saw it when I rescued Jay Dahlberg from my father’s lair. But pixies can do good. Both Astley’s dad and mine sacrificed themselves for us, and can there be a higher good than that?

Astley winds around me again in a clockwise circle. His hand lifts up to my cheek. His fingernails are claws. Yes, I am scared, but I’m also not scared, because I know he needs me and he’s never been mean to me. But his mother said…

“Did you kill her by accident?” I ask.

He stops. His mouth opens, revealing all those sharklike teeth. His eyes close for a second as if he is suddenly very, very weary of it all. “Why would you say that, Zara?”

“Because I can’t believe you’d just kill someone.”

“You have seen me kill.”

“But only to protect others or in self-defense.”

His hand loses its tension and his forehead tilts and touches my own, resting there. I still can’t move, but I don’t feel like I’m in danger anymore.

“I look like a killer, though, am I correct? With all my pointy teeth, the sharp claws?” He whispers this.

“It’s not about how people look,” I insist. “It’s about what’s on the inside. It’s about our actions.”

“But you forget, Zara. We are not people. We are pixies.”

“Doesn’t matter. The rule still applies.”

He laughs a soft, sad laugh. Just as quickly as the laugh enters the air, it is gone. “You believe things so fiercely.”

“I believe you aren’t evil.”

“Then it must be true.” He moves his forehead off mine. His hands go to my shoulders. “I apologize.”

Just like that, I am no longer restrained. Still, I don’t move away. “Tell me what happened with your queen, Astley.”

His face crumples. “She died,” he whispers. “And it was my fault. I killed her.”

His glamour comes back. His eyes implore mine, soft and needy human eyes.

My hands reach up and grab his shoulders. “Just tell me, Astley.”

“I didn’t want you to ever know,” he says. His voice is still quiet, church quiet.

“Why not?”

“I want you to think I am perfect.” He closes his eyes as if it’s too much to look at me.

Nobody is perfect, though. We all want everyone to think we are, but perfection is some crazy mythical state that we can never achieve. It is a goal beyond our grasp, always shifting and changing and taunting us, because it knows… it knows we can never reach it.