Page 33 of Songs of Vice
He’d made tasting his a damn-near sexual experience. I doubted I would enjoy it the way he did, but I took a small bite. The flavor exploded in my mouth, sweetness from coconut alongside spice that burned my tongue all wrapped in a crunchy shell. “Mmmm.” I released a groan of my own. “God, what is that?”
“Delicious, isn’t it?” He took a few more bites and licked his fingers before answering. “It’s Bakarwadi. It makes me miss home but I always love packing some on these trips.”
“Did your mother or someone special make them for you?” My voice caught oversomeone special.I hadn’t considered if he might have a partner, and I feared his answer.
He grinned. “I cannot imagine my mother cooking.”
“Me either.” I laughed as I tried to picture Palaria in her silks and skirts anywhere near a kitchen.
“And as to the second part…” His voice grew husky. Goosebumps rose along my neck even though he didn’t sit close enough for his breath to reach me. “I’m afraid I don’t have anyone special to send me off with treats.”
“Me either.”
His eyes roamed down me, as if he took stock of every inch of me before landing on my gaze again. “A chef at the palace of the Prasanna court made these.”
“Oh. You’ve been to the palace?”
“Many times. I work for the Maharani, after all.”
A dozen questions sat on the tip of my tongue. Like were any of the things I’d read in books actually true about the Unseel… Prasanna fairies? Were they dangerous to humans? Did they steal people? What kind of dark magic did they possess? I didn’t want to say something that would show my ignorance or hurt his feelings, so I kept my lips pressed together.
“What do you wish for out of life, Lira?”
I sighed and raised my face to the star-studded sky which swam between the branches of the trees. “I want to return to Madalia and have enough money to survive in the human lands where I grew up.”
Sai gasped then remained quiet for a moment. “You grew up in Madalia?”
“From the time I was four until I turned sixteen.”
“How did you pass the inspections?”
That was the best part of Madalia. They didn’t allow magic. Not like here near the Seelie court where the Domorians policed it. Madalia allowed no fae in at all. For twelve blissful years, I’d lived magic free. I traced my fingers over my current necklace. “My mother had a jewel enchanted with magic that suppressed mine.”
“There are only a few stones in the world that are capable of that, and they’re very rare.”
A bitter smile slipped up on my face. “I know. I’m not sure how she got it, but she’s told me many times when I’ve threatened to run that I couldn’t afford to buy another, and they’d never allow me back in. She destroyed my first one.”
A stab of resentment ripped through my heart at that memory. She’d summoned me back at sixteen and was pleased with me at first. I was everything she’d hoped: comported, well spoken, mannered. But I wanted nothing to do with magic. That was an unfortunate twist to her plan. She’d wanted me brought up with more refinement than her lifestyle would allow. She didn’t expect that I wouldn’t fall immediately into her arms and thank her for the burden she wished to hand me.
She’d yanked the necklace off me after one especially bitter argument and stamped the heel of her boot against it, smashing the delicate stone. The magic left it like a flame that burned in whirling colors before crackling into nothing.
“What have you done?” I reached towards the dull pieces.
“What I should have done the moment you walked off the boat and back into Landre. You’re a siren, Lira. Magic is inherent to you. It’s time for you to stop cowering behind these wards and learn to exercise that.”
She walked away, leaving me knelt before my last scrap of hope. I would never make it onto a ship if the Domorians suspected I had powers. That necklace dampened them enough to pass. I should have run before. I should have been brave and decisive and bold. I should have been anything but who I actually was.
Sai lifted a pebble from the bank and brushed dirt off it. “Is that what your necklace is if it’s not a zevar?”
I lifted the pendant. “This? Oh, no, it’s not magical. It’s just the style that was popular in Madalia. It’s a miniature of me.” Warmth stole over my cheeks. “That sounds foolish to wear a picture of myself…”
Sai grazed my cheek with his fingers which froze my words. He snatched his hand back. “I’m sorry. When your face colors like that it’s so beautiful, Lira.” His eyes met mine with hunger and want in them and I wondered if mine reflected the same. He shifted his tone. “If I had a face like yours, I’d wear it on a locket as well.”
I laughed as the tension between us whisked away with the breeze and I leaned in closer so he could see the necklace. The designer had painted the background a pale blue, to match my eyes, and he’d cut my silhouette—my hair pulled into a sleek updo—out of an ivory stone that he affixed on top. It was the only thing I had that reminded me of before I’d returned to Mother, before my life went to hell.
“A boy gave me this, actually.”
Sai’s expression hardened. “Is that who you wish to return to?”