THEY STOOD UP STRAIGHT AND PURE ON THE STALK, GRIPPING THE DARK LIKE PROPHETS
AND HOWLING COLOSSAL INTIMACIES
FROM THE BACK OF THEIR FUSED THROATS
AND HOWLING COLOSSAL INTIMACIES
FROM THE BACK OF THEIR FUSED THROATS
❀
Her heart beats loud, so loud. Louder and louder, and then—it’s too loud to be the heartbeat of anything but a giant, and, startled, Bexley looks up.
The first butterfly comes floating down.
She blinks hard. The thing is are a silver so bright it’s nearly transparent, dotted with brief splashes of black and jewel-blue; Bexley has to bite back a sneeze as it lands kiss-soft between her nostrils, batting its wings against her skin. Up close it’s more beautiful than she expected, delicate and intricate as the veins of a leaf. Her eyes go bright-wide. “August,” she breathes, and for the first time since they’ve met her voice is sincere, both in its softness and its surprise.
The ex-regent is even more confused when the second one comes to land on her forehead, a blur of bright yellow and orange. And the novelty has somewhat worn off by the time the third one, patchwork blue and purple, swoops down against her lips. But then it’s far too late to say anything—the air is a swarm of wings and legs and antennae, too thick to breathe, too dense to fight, and even as Bexley shakes her head and sends clouds of them flying they come back to nest on her hair and her shoulders and her scar.
August laughs against her neck, and Bexley’s stomach turns like the wings that beat upon her skin. Her heart feels uncommonly electric. With every breath, the cloud of butterflies around them shifts, then resettles; no matter how Bexley shudders, twists or snaps her tail, they fly up only to come down again. After a minute she gives up entirely. The world closes in, a teeming mass of jewel tones and blood-sunsets. August’s voice sounds again, and oh, she tries so hard to smile. Her mouth won’t quite make the shape.
I should not be here, she thinks, and I especially should not be enjoying it.
The roughness of his voice and the memory of his groan make her cringe just a little. (I should not be here, and I especially should not be doing this.) She rears her head and steps back, dislodging August’s grip on her neck, and when she meets his eyes is with a dry kind of smirk, one that is not sure whether it wants to entice or discourage. “Don’t,” says Bexley. Her gaze narrows. “Follow, I mean. Unless you’re planning on coming all the way back to Solterra. Send a letter, if you’re lazy.”
She bites out a grin and disappears into the hundreds of beating wings.
