Finn must see something on my face; his gaze follows mine. He curses under his breath and stands abruptly. After removing the champagne from my hand, he places our glasses aside before taking my hand in his and leading me onto the dance floor.
“Sweetheart, please trust the process. It’s about Essos finding a partner for life. He’s been looking for a very long time, and he’s been patient about it, but you have to also… just…” Finn pauses, glancing toward the windows then to me. “Trust him,” Finn stresses emphatically.
“You all talk of trust as if it’s a piece of gum to be given freely. Trust is something that you earn. I can hardly think of a reason that he’s earned it from me.” I just told Essos I would trust him, and now I want to stomp back to my room and wash off all the makeup and just sleep for years. Instead, I focus on dancing, not looking up when Essos and Zara re-enter the room.
“Don’t be a child, Daphne,” Finn says seriously, his voice flat. “You’re better than that. This is no different from some dating show, or even just dating around. It’s not exclusive—it just sucks because it’s in your face that he’s with these other girls. He’s been looking for literally centuries. You can be patient for three months. Besides, from what I can tell, he’s givenyouhis trust.”
I look up and flash Finn a fake bright smile.
I’m lying to myself if I say I can’t pinpoint why I’m acting like a petulant child. I don’t want to share Essos. I don’t know if I want to be with him, but I am drawn to him in a way that I’ve never felt before. I want to explore whatever this is or could be in normal circumstances, where I have Cat at the ready with an excuse if the date is shitty. I want to be able to open up to him slowly. I want him to have time to earn my trust instead of me having to give it freely.
I consider the question I posed to Zara earlier. Why do I want to be here? I didn’t think it would be like this, having to watch the man I’m interested in make out with other girls, but if I was hoping he would kiss me eventually, why not consider that others would want that too? It was one thing to watch dating contests on TV—I never considered what it would be like to live through one myself. I’m drawn to Essos in a way I never was to anyone in the real world. I want to know what his hair looks like first thing in the morning and whether he has bad habits only his partner would know. I want to give this a chance. I’ll figure out what it means to be queen later.
Finn tries to engage me for the rest of the night, doing what he can to make me laugh. I try to ask leading questions about Essos where I can, but Finn doesn’t fall into my thinly veiled trap.
“Was there ever a Mrs. Essos? Does he even have a last name?” I ask, five glasses of champagne and two shots of tequila in. I feel bolder as I take another sip of champagne. Finn hesitates before he leans against the banister outside in the same place where I spoke with Essos just that morning. I lean on the banister too and look up at him, realizing that I might have stumbled onto something.
“There was someone in his life before all this, yes. And he does indeed have a last name; he’s not Cher.” He’s choosing his words carefully, clearly not as tipsy as I am.
I rub over my heart, trying to soothe this odd pang over Essos having been with someone before the Calling. “Who was she?”
Finn studies me, “She was another goddess, and she—” He cuts off suddenly, like he can’t go on. Clearing his throat, Finn tries again. “Then there’s also the women during the Callings. His last name is—” Again his voice cuts off. His head drops back in what I think is frustration. He reaches out and grabs an abandoned drink and finishes it instead.
“How are you not hammered right now?” I ask. I kick off my heels and drop three inches. I regret this action almost immediately, knowing that there’s no way I’ll put them back on. Having to look up at Finn makes me go a little crossed-eyed when I realize just how much taller he is.
“I’ve had a long time to build up my tolerance.” He takes another sip of his whiskey.
“So, what, you’re like immortal or a god too?”
Finns lets out a barking laugh. “Something like that. It’s a lot more complicated, and I worry that your tiny human brain will explode if I tell you too much. That happened to one of the girls once, and the clean-up was not pretty, so now we try to be careful with how much information you’re given. There are also lines I literally cannot cross.”
Essos’s words from earlier about the dangers of finding out too much too fast come back to me. I know I’m gaping, because my ability to control my facial expressions left me three glasses ago.
Finn fights to stay serious, but eventually, his lips screw up into a grin. “I wish you could see your face right now,” he says with a laugh.
I reach out to hit him. “Don’t be a shit. That was so far from funny, I’m pretty sure it’s on another planet called Opposite of Funny.” I pause. “This is actually a pretty scary prospect. I mean, I’m facing down death, literally, like, that’s what Essos is, right? The God of Death? Sorry, God oftheDead—he said that God of Death was a demotion. Right, and like… It’s like, I can follow this bizarre fever dream down this path to god knows where, or I can go to my afterlife, and just be dead, and who even knows what that is?
“I don’t really know what I want from this whole thing, if I do even want it. Essos is asking me to trust him, but I have literally trusted only one person in my whole life, and that’s Cat. Even right now, if my insubishions…wait, that’s not right. Whatever, you know what I mean—they’re lowered, and part of me is whispering to stop, but the drunk part of me is just sitting on that part of my mind. Anyway…” I’m drunk-babbling, and I can’t stop myself. “So, it’s not easy to just lay my trust at someone’s feet and then watch him with other girls, which is like, the literal opposite of what trust is supposed to be, right? Is this like speed dating for him? And I’m, what, like, dating a guy who is dating fifteen other women, and are we even dating?
“I don’t know what I wanted out of life. I was twenty-one years old. But I do know I wasn’t done living.” I swipe angrily at the tears that spring to my eyes. I realize the second shot of tequila was a mistake, because it’s like a dam inside me has opened up, ready to spill my whole life to Finn. “Fucking tequila,” I scold myself, wiping at more tears.
Finn reaches out a hand and rubs my arm. “Is this okay?” he asks, and I nod, letting him envelop me in a hug. This manages to soothe me somehow.
He pulls back, wiping an errant tear. “Gods, this is only night one, and you’re already drunk-crying. This is not easy for you. I know. Essos knows. Sybil knows. Everyone knows it, but not everyone will care. For the past millennium, Essos has been alone. For the past five hundred years, he’s gone through this process, waiting for the right soul. Each time, there’s a large group of women, all scared, all uncertain. But so is Essos, because finding the right person to lead the Underworld and the Afterlife with him is fucking hard, to be frank. He wants a woman with a vagina of steel who won’t back down and is strong beyond her years. Every time I think he’s found someone, he lets his hope free, and it always comes back to him damaged. There is only one woman for him, no matter how many times he’s tried.
“He understands how you feel. He’s a really great listener, if you ever decide that you can open up to him. I’m sorry that you don’t have more people you can trust, but just like your trust is a bird you nurture inside you, afraid to let it go, so is Essos’s hope. He has let that bird go more times than I can even count, and it always comes back battered and bruised. Despite that, he always tries again.
“If there was ever a time to learn to trust, Daphne, it’s now.”
Before I can respond, Cat pokes her head outside. “There you are, gorgeous! Sybil wants us all in for a final dance before weretirefor the evening.” She grins, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead. She’s been dancing the night away with her sorority sisters who are leaving. She’s always fought to include me, but I know tonight is important to them. Mindful of what they all must be going through, I stayed out of the fray as they sang their sorority songs, although I managed to get roped into those two shots.
Finn stands up and adjusts his suit jacket before offering his arm to me.“Come on, Cinderella. You may have already lost your shoes, but you have one more dance before you turn into a pumpkin.” I smile and take his arm, letting him lead me inside. I leave my shoes where they fell.
Around me, the sisters of Epsilon Lambda Delta are hugging those who are leaving. Tears run down their faces. I watch them hug and dance as contemporary music plays, a farewell to those who won’t be with us in the morning.
Before we begin our final dance, I reach up a hand to pull out the clip that was holding my hair in place, and I shake my dark locks free. Uninhibited, and far less deadly to his feet with no shoes on, I let Finn lead me onto the dance floor once again. He twirls me, and I feel like we’re stealing the show when, out of the corner of my eye, I see Essos watching.
Instead of worrying about him, I focus on me.