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CHAPTER FIVE:
❝ The Seelie Court ❞
"YOU," Esme was fuming. "You have NO RIGHT to tell me to go home!"
Nico squirmed restlessly under her stare. He hated when she was angry at him. He hated when she was angry, period. He watched her drive her car (he did not know the make or the model and neither did he care) angrily. She had called him over and now she was berating him as she drove uphill somewhere he did not know. All he knew that this drive was going to kill him. He was pressed too hard against the seat and even the seat belt strapped over his body did not make him feel safe enough at this speed.
He leaned on the cracked black vinyl of the passenger side door and chewed on his nails as he listened to her tell him off. The air in the car tasted like gasoline, a flavor that struck Nico and reminded him of the mixtape Esme had given him to listen to and to make him "catch up to the indie rock angry girl music" she thought he desperately needed.
He thought of Valentine. He thought of the dead Silent Brothers. He thought what might it be like - dying. When Nico had been smaller and more forgiving of miracles, he'd considered the moment of death with rhapsodic delight. In his life, death in battle was considered the highest of sacrifices, and received the highest of honors.
He bit on his nail, his teeth slipping and the sound was too loud in the car. Esme stopped talking. She looked at him and said, "Were you even listening to me?"
He was not.
After a long moment, he said decidedly, "No." Then, "I'm not sorry, you know." He turned to her. "At least not about telling you to stay back. I am about raising my voice, that was wrong."
Esme went quiet and her gaze stayed on the road. He could see the periodically passing streetlights shining in her eyes. Behind them, the Sun was rising. He did not know where they were going. He did not want to stop.
He looked away from her when the car came to a stop. They were on a dirt road. He roamed his gaze around the valley. There was a chasm nearby, he could hear the water rush in.
It was a good time of year to show off the town. It was a paint box of colors. Green hayfields, golden cornfields, yellow sycamores, orange oaks, periwinkle mountains, cerulean cloudless sky. The road was black and snaking and inviting. The air was crisp and breathable and insistent on action. Nico inhaled. Nico closed his eyes. Nico exhaled.
When he opened them again, he found Esme had already slipped out of the car and was now nowhere to be seen. He opened the door and ducked out, eyes squinting in the afternoon sun and then, on the dusty unpaved walk, footsteps.
There stood Esme, arms extended out like wings unfurling to fly. She stood at the edge of a cliff, her hair moving as the wind did. Nico thought she and the cliff seemed one entity -- a ship and its figurehead.
