“Such things never are,” she said.
“It’s not….”
She waited.
Instead, I said, “I have to go.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not running away from you,” I promised her. Even though I sort of was.
“As if you ever could,” she said. “I’d be liable to chase you until your legs tired and then drag you back to my den and never let you leave.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
“Sam. You need to watch your back, okay? I don’t know what’s out there. I don’t know what’s coming. But you need to make sure that you’re ready for it. If I find out you’ve gone and gotten yourself killed, I’ll murder you. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
She stood up from her desk and walked around it, never taking her eyes from me. She towered above me as she put her strong hands on my arms, squeezing them tightly. She bent over and kissed my forehead, a loud smack that itched. “Life is about chances. Unless you take them, you’ll never know what they could bring.”
I nodded, because it was the only way she’d let me leave. And I think she knew that.
“I’ll be okay, Mama,” I said. “You’ll see.”
She looked like she didn’t believe me. “I hope so, Sam. For all our sakes. Watch yourself, precious. The world has teeth and wouldn’t care if one such as yourself got bit.”
I turned and left my fairy drag mother standing alone in her office.
RYAN WAS waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Moishe was glaring at him, and the other courtesans were watching him with thinly veiled lust and interest in their eyes. He didn’t look at any of them, only at me.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and he said, “Sam, what I said in there—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I had to get out,” he said, looking away. “Of the slums. It cost money I didn’t have. Favors.”
I kept my face blank at the stark admission. He’d whored himself out so he could leave the slums behind. My stomach felt sour at the thought of it. He’d told me that I’d been a big reason for him leaving the slums. So, of course, I took it now as I’d forced him into this. It hurt. It burned. Guilt weighed me down, and I wanted nothing more than to put my arms around him and hold him close. To tell him that it would be okay. That everything would be okay. That I didn’t care what he’d done in the past because all we had to do now was look to the future.
But I didn’t.
I was getting too close to something that wasn’t mine to have.
So I said, “We all do what we have to.” I patted his shoulder and moved around him. Every step I took hurt more than the one before it.
CHAPTER 16
Oops
THE SUMMONING crystal lit up three days later. We were on the road to Tarker Mills, and I felt we didn’t know much more than we had when we’d started out. In fact, even knowing the possible location of the Prince only led to more questions, and if there was one thing I fucking hated more than anything, it was unanswered questions.
So I brooded.
Gary, Tiggy, and Ryan noticed, of course. I scowled at them and rolled my eyes any time they interrupted my thoughts. Gary told me I was acting like a little bitch. Tiggy said I was being rude. Ryan just looked at me with big eyes that made me want to hug him forever and not let anyone hurt him ever again.
Naturally, that pissed me off even more.
There were secrets between us all. Well. I had secrets, specifically the cornerstone business, and it was itching and crawling along my skin, a low-level irritation that was starting to build.