“I do apologize about the weather,” he says, keeping his arm firmly around my waist.
I snap my head up and stare at him, openmouthed. “Astley, why are you apologizing? Can you control the weather too?”
“No,” he says forlornly. “I wish we could.”
“That would almost make the pixie thing worth it.” I sigh before I can stop myself. My breath is irregular and sends rippling pain through my chest. The bandage pricks at my skin like some constant reminder of how horribly wrong things can go.
“I thought getting your wolf back would make it worth it,” Astley half asks and half says. It’s a probing question.
“It does make it worth it. I mean, it will if we can get him back, you know?” I hate the way my voice sounds so doubtful.
“We will.” He shifts his weight a bit and his fingers seem to lose some of their chill. “If I could control the weather,” he adds, “then I would make it warm for you. You miss the warmth, do you not?”
“I do.” I pull my coat around me a little tighter. “But at least it’s not blizzarding. That’s the bright side, right? I am consciously attempting to look on the bright side.”
His hand drifts up and pets the back of my hair. It’s almost like something a dad would do. His tone is affectionate. “I would say you are always looking on the bright side. If you were not, you would have given up a long time ago.”
I shrug. The motion pulls at the stitches. “Maybe.”
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
I almost smile. He just said “doesn’t” instead of “does not.” Maybe I’m rubbing off on him. I say, “A little.”
“I despise that you are injured.” His sentence comes out like a snarl.
“ ‘Despise’?” Now I do manage to smile a little bit. “Most people would say ‘hate.’ ”
“I am not ‘most,’ and I am not ‘people.’ ” He hardens up. I can feel his muscles fill with tension, and that tension is reflected in his voice.
We stand there for a second in front of a particularly imposing town house made of white granite. It’s five stories high, and the second and third stories bulge out in a sort of half circle. It is embellished with fancy sculpted engravings of ivy and hearts. Three giant windows dominate each level, except for the ground floor, where there are just two barred windows on either side of a dark wooden door. The door looks so heavy I think how Issie (or me in my pre-pixie mode) would never be able to pull it open by herself. The four stairs leading up to the door have black wrought-iron-style railings, only they aren’t iron. They are made of wood that has been painted and carved into intricate patterns. It does not fit in with the rest of the brownstones at all. I wonder if Astley feels like that sometimes as a pixie king, like he doesn’t fit in.
“Do you ever wish you were human?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just stares up at the building.
We are at his mother’s home. Underneath the regular smell of city sewer and car exhaust is the smell of Dove soap. Even without that smell, which tickles at my nose like an allergy, I can feel that we’re here. Still Astley doesn’t make a move up the stairs. He is hesitating. It is so obvious, and that hesitation makes me nervous, because he normally seems pretty darn confident, pretty darn unafraid. He is not the type of pixie who hesitates. Actually, none of them are. They are all like Nick, full of action and decision and confidence.
Not now.
“Is she so bad?” I ask as gently as I can, thinking a lot about his reaction to my mom.
He nods and in that nod is all the pain of fractured histories and despair. I know how it feels to nod like that, but I never imagined that he would be like this. There are so many layers inside of people, so much soul pain and angsty depth and heart hurt, and some, like Astley, hide all this so well that when it comes out in an action as simple as a nod, your entire world shifts a little bit on its axis.
No words leave Astley’s mouth. A taxi driver lays on his horn. The cab is about a block away and the angry sound ripples through the streets. The cold suddenly sinks into my bones and roots around in there.
“She is not a good mother. She is-” Astley breaks off midsentence and instead stares up at the solid wall of granite and window, the intricate details etched against it. Somehow, despite the elaborateness and even despite the way the second and third floors bulge out, the building seems flat. He draws in a large breath. Cars splash by on the street behind us, making their way through the night. Thunder rumbles above us.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I straighten up so that my ribs hurt a little bit less.
He shakes himself almost the way a cat does when she feels contaminated. He gives me a half smile-literally. Only the left side of his lips rises up.
“I exaggerate. All men have problems with their mothers. I am no different.” He steps toward the stairs. “I apologize again. It is unfair of me to burden you with my own familial issues.”
I move with him, thinking that what he said about all men having problems with their moms is totally not true, but whatever… now is not the time to debate. Although I do have to say, “You aren’t burdening me. Friends tell each other things.”
“Oh, are we friends now?” An eyebrow arches up, a classic bad-boy move, and I’m thinking it’s a cover, a mask of braveness, he’s putting on for both of us.
I don’t answer. I don’t know how to answer. I tug on Astley’s arm as if I need to get his attention, even though he is always giving me all his attention. “Was that why you were so mean to my mother when she showed up? Was it because you were mad at yours? Was she not there for you when you needed her?”
He turns slowly, very slowly. “I forgot how human you are still, how very young.”
“That’s not answering the question, Astley.”
“I was wrong to do that. I know that you consider it not to be my place, but in my world”-he makes a sweeping motion with his hands to indicate all around us-“in this pixie world, it is very much my place to protect my queen. It is instinctive. I know when you are hurt even in the subtlest of ways, even when you yourself may not realize it, when you may be repressing it.”
“My mother is a good mother,” I insist.
“I believe you, but to me… sending you back to Maine and not accompanying you-”
“Her job keeps her from being there all the time. She still has ten months on her contract.”
He eyes me and doesn’t answer. I can tell just from how he’s looking at me that he thinks it is a pretty bad excuse, but it isn’t. There are huge financial penalties if hospital CEOs just up and leave their jobs. It is unfortunate but true. Now that I’m pixie and my father is dead, I don’t know if she’ll want to come to Maine to stay at all. She might want me to move back to Charleston.
I decide to change the subject. “We’ve been standing here forever. Are you sure it’s okay for us to be here? It’s late. Should we wait until morning?”
“Do not worry. I called and she agreed to meet us. She is quite capable of being nice. It will be fine,” he says. Even though he says this in Mr. Reassuring voice, it’s pretty flat and fake. I mean, seriously? “Quite capable of being nice” is not very reassuring.