I didn't know if she meant trying to be friends or trying to kiss or trying to breathe, but right now, all of them seemed colored by the effort of me trying to believe her. I pressed my hand against her hair, holding her to me, filled with the certainty that she was going to hurt me again and that I didn't have the strength to push her away before she did.
When I look back at that afternoon, I think of all the ways I could've kept Eleanor from seeing how I felt about James. I imagine how I could've kept her from seeing me at all. Or, if I couldn't hide, there must've been a way to hide our association.
James was waiting at the bus stop with Roundhead. Stupid Dee had gone back to the school. Apparently, making James feel like shit took a lot out of her and she needed her beauty rest.
Roundhead knew some magic tricks--seemed he had hidden depth--and he was making paperclips appear in his hands and disappear. It was easy for me to see the sleight of hand he used to accomplish it, but I had to admit that he didn't suck at it. He presented his tricks in a sort of perfunctory, unaffected way, like so, of course magic exists.
And James was smiling at it in a sort of ironic way that I was beginning to get awfully attached to. He smiled because he knew magic existed and he knew also that what Roundhead was showing him was not magic, but he was still being fooled, and he liked the dichotomy.
I sat several yards away from them, in the grass, far enough away that James couldn't sense me but close enough that I could hear what they said. James burned from within, as usual, with a fierce gold, and for the first time in several months, I realized I was hungry.
It was the first moment I realized that not making a deal with someone before Halloween was probably going to be painful for me.
It was also the first moment I realized I didn't think I wanted to take any of James' years away from him, even if he'd said yes.
I felt like I was floating. I didn't know who I was anymore.
'Waiting for your bus?'
I didn't recognize the smooth, moss-green shoes that stood in front of me, but I recognized Eleanor's voice. I looked up from where I sat and saw Eleanor's nameless human consort at her side. He inclined slightly at the waist and held out his hand as if to help me up, but Eleanor slapped his fingers lightly and he withdrew them.
'Tsk. That's not a good idea, love. She's hungry and you, as you know, are delicious.' Eleanor looked down at me and held out her hand instead. Each of her fingers had a ring on it, and some of them were linked together by long gold chains that hung in loops beneath her palm. I stayed sitting. Eleanor frowned at me, an expression of delicate and excruciating pity. 'Do you not stand for your queen, dear? Or are you too faint?'
I looked up at her, and I knew my voice was petulant but I didn't try to hide it. 'Why? Will you have me killed if I don't?'
Eleanor pursed her pale lips. 'Oh, so you're the one who refused to help the other night. I told you before there were things we were doing here that we didn't need meddled with.'
Her consort looked at me. His face said stand up in a very blank sort of way. His thoughts were still very hard for me to read, but I could see that he'd seen death recently and he didn't want to see it again.
I stood. 'I'm not meddling with anything of yours.' I didn't think
I was. I guess I didn't really know. I looked at James, and
Eleanor looked at him too. By the bus station, a woman was approaching him, arms already outstretched for a hug from several feet away. James' face was lit with genuine happiness. I didn't think I'd ever seen him happy before.
Eleanor started to laugh, and she laughed so hard that even the humans, yards away, shivered and glanced around and remarked on the storm that was supposed to arrive later.
Eleanor dabbed at her eyes--as if she could cry--and shook her head at me, smiling disbelievingly. 'Oh, little leanan sidhe, is that your chosen, there?'
I didn't like her laugh, and I didn't like her looking at him.
'What an odd and appropriate choice you've made. I nearly killed him a few months ago, and the daoine sidhe brought him back to life for the cloverhand. And now you will finish him off.
It's got a lovely circular feel to it, doesn't it?'
I didn't say anything. I just crossed my arms and stood there watching James smile proudly at his mom hugging Roundhead, like he had invented both hugs and his mother.
'Oh.' Eleanor's hand flew up to her mouth. She leaned toward her human and her delight was hard to bear. 'Oh. Do you see that, lovely?' Her consort made a noise of consent. Eleanor said to me, 'So that is why you tremble with desire, little whore?
Because you have been going without?'
Bullshit I was trembling. I was fine. It hadn't been that long since Steven. 'It's none of your business.'
'Everything is my business. I care deeply for all my subjects and
I hate to think of you wanting for anything.'
'Is that so?' I sneered.
'You need only ask,' Eleanor said. She turned toward James, smiling distantly, like she was remembering. 'What's wrong?
He won't make a bargain with you? I can make him more pliable for you. He was very easy to break, the first time.'
In her head I saw the memory of him, broken and gasping, so clearly that I knew she'd meant for me to. My voice was fierce.
'I don't want to make a bargain with him. My bargains are my own business. You have your business and I have mine. I don't meddle in yours and you don't meddle in mine.'
I'd gone way too far, but that image of him had ripped something open inside me. I turned my head, waiting for her wrath.
But she just placed a hand on my shoulder and shook her head, clucking her tongue. 'Save your strength. If you mean to last until the day of the dead without making a bargain, you'll need every bit of it.'
I looked up into her face, and I saw that she was smiling. She was smiling in an awful way that told me she knew exactly how
I felt about James and she thought it was interesting. Eleanor, like all the court fey, liked to break interesting things, especially things she'd broken before.
I pushed her fingers off my shoulders, and when I turned to face her, she was gone.
U were right ok? Evrything isnt ok & i shouldv told u evrything. But i cant now. What if u told me 2 stop? What if u askd me if i really hadnt gotn ur txt? What if u askd me if i really knew what i wantd? I hate lying.
