Wander The Night by Sydney Cobb

Author:Sydney Cobb [Cobb, Sydney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Art Over Chaos Publishing
Published: 2023-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

SCENE 10

After a few minutes, Mustardseed and I return inside. We sit on the bed nearest the door and don’t talk about Oberon or Kavi or Mab. She doesn’t ask why Oberon never claimed me as an heir or why he doesn’t seem to be fighting as hard for his infant daughter. She doesn’t ask about Mab’s personal vendettas. She just asks random questions, and we eat cold pizza from the box. We talk about nothing of any real importance, and it’s wonderful.

When we’ve had our fill, we lie back across the bed and stare at the ceiling. And because she appears to have developed a calming effect on me—and also because I’m seemingly eternally exhausted these days—I fall asleep without any real intention to do so.

When I wake again, the cheap alarm clock between the beds reads 12:09. As sunlight is streaming bright and cheerful through the crack in the closed curtains, I can reasonably assume it’s noon rather than midnight. Mustardseed is curled up asleep beside me, close but not quite touching because she’s not a cuddler. I prop myself up on my elbows and see, from over Mustardseed’s form, Moth and Isobel asleep in the other bed. Moth must have lifted her glamour at some point. She’s lying on her stomach, and her wings are visible, folded down her back.

I slump back down and drag my hands over my face. I hate to involve them all in my family’s figurative closet skeletons, but I have no delusions of being able to pull this off by myself. If I had my glamour still intact, I would feel more confident. As it currently stands, I don’t have much chance of success.

I think of Ariel’s note, go to my satchel, and pull it from the pocket. I stare at the words encircled in red. I’m still not sure exactly what I was meant to do with a scrap of a play script. Frustrated and feeling trapped, I slip from the bed and out to the parking lot without a sound.

The air is fresher outside, though nothing quite so clean as that of Faerie, and I take a deep breath, trying to cast my thoughts into some sense of organization. Offhand, I glance again at the paper in my hand. I decide to read the words out loud. Perhaps if I voice my thinking, some clarity might come to me. Put it into the universe and all.

“Come with a thought I thank thee, Ariel: come.”

A wind whips into my face, and I throw up a hand to shield my eyes. I tighten my grip on the paper so it doesn’t get blown from my fingers.

“You called?”

The wind relents, and I drop my hand. I stare with wide eyes as Ariel stands in the parking lot, hands plunged into the deep pockets of their coat.

It takes a moment before intelligent speech is made available to me. When words do come, the intelligent part remains debatable. “Not that I’m not incredibly appreciative that

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