Roshani Chokshi

“You hid me in a minotaur? Why couldn’t Tristan make a hiding dimension in a handsome Greek god?”

“His affinity is for liquid matter. Stone is difficult for him,” said Séverin, pocketing the knife. “So it was either the minotaur or an Etruscan vase decorated with bull testicles.”

Enrique shuddered. “Honestly. Who looks at a vase covered in bull testicles and says, ‘You. I must have you.’?”

“The bored, the rich, and the enigmatic.”

Enrique sighed. “All my life aspirations.”

“Are you breathing?” whispered Enrique. “I’m definitely not.”

“Not helping,” growled Séverin.

Now he was up to his elbow. The bear was rigid. It didn’t even blink.

A party invitation sounded like a poor consolation prize for getting knocked unconscious, but this was different

“Oh … you’re still mad?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Would giving you a present make you less mad?”

Laila lifted her chin. “Depends on the present. But first, say it.”

Tristan shifted on his feet. “I am sorry.”

“For?”

“For putting Goliath on your dressing table.”

“Where does Goliath belong? And for that matter, where do all your pet insects and whatnot belong?”

Tristan looked wide-eyed. “Not in your room?”

“Close enough.”

“Well,” he said finally. “At least it wasn’t like Nisyros Island.”

“Are you serious?” croaked Enrique. He trudged after his friend to the door. “It’ll be ‘like dreaming,’ you said. As ‘easy as sleep’!”

“Nightmares are part of sleeping.”

“Is that a joke?” demanded Enrique. “You do realize your hand is mangled.”

“I am aware.”

“You almost got eaten by a bear.”

“Not a real one.”

“The dismemberment would’ve been real enough.”

Séverin only grinned. “See you in a bit,” he said, and slipped out the door.

“The Eye of Horus,” breathed Enrique.

Envy flashed through Zofia.

“How…” she said. “How did you see that?”

“The same way you saw numbers in lines,” said Enrique smugly. “You’re impressed. Admit it.”

Zofia crossed her arms. “No.”

“I dazzle you with my intelligence.”

Zofia turned to Laila. “Make him stop.”

That happiness demands so little to stay. That it will curl willingly between two bodies every night, wrap ’round their children’s brows and take root in a kingdom’s earth whose peasants would thresh joy in the autumn and pickle smiles in winter and, come spring, watch it all bloom anew

“Was our life so terrible that you had to destroy it?”

“I’m not trying to destroy anything,” I said. “I’m merely trying to survive you.”

My flower wife, my sly blue sky. I had not fully registered, until that moment, that I was destined to lose something that night. The House had gambled on whether it would be my life, my love, or my memory.

Us.

We are two blues, the neat seam of dusk and dawn.

We share a sky, if not a soul, and yet we are cut of the same shades.