Chapter Eight

No more than three minutes after the Raven Queen exited my room, I heard footsteps approaching, then a light tap on the wooden door separated my room from the hallway. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The knock almost seemed intentionally gentle, as though whatever companion my mistress desired for me knew I was rattled and didn't like sudden, booming noises.

She entered with the same softness, a woman closer to my size than the queen but still a few inches taller than me. The first thing I noticed about her is just how unimposing her overall presence felt. I expected some strange invader of my space, and at the edge of my room stood a woman who existed somewhere between human and fae.

Although she carried pointed ears like my mistress, they were shorter, with a bit more roundness. And her eyes were a soft blue. They didn't pierce my soul. Nor did they swallow me whole like Varella's violet gaze.

My would-be companion wore tights and an oversized cream sweater that sat loosely over her alabaster skin. Her outfit looked as though she'd just come from Target instead of the land of Faerie. Wavy auburn hair cut at her jawline framed her round face. A few blemishes dotted the upper right side of her cheek. It was a curious thing because most fae I'd seen here in Featherstone, the humanoid ones anyway, had a flawless complexion. At least, that's the image their glamour projected for them.

While I analyzed her, the newcomer did not speak. She seemed to understand I needed time to figure out if she was a friend or foe, even if I knew my mistress wouldn't send a threat my way.

When her scent finally carried my way, I detected a coconut soap that washed over her natural smell. A little more focus revealed hints of chamomile.

The woman my mistress sent to keep me company didn't carry the same otherworldly beauty as most fae I'd seen here so far. She had the look of a woman who'd just graduated college and was still looking at career options in life. There were parts of her that appeared as human as me. But I could also detect a subtle glamour at play, nothing overwhelming. But I did notice my tension fading away at her presence.

It was then I realized if Varella carried an otherworldly beauty, this individual carried otherworldly trustworthiness. I looked at her face, and I suddenly felt comfortable sharing every secret. I'd tell her about my first kiss, my favorite story my mother used to read when I was little, where I buried a box with $5 in the backyard, and so much more.

The trustworthiness wasn't a compulsion. I didn't feel like she was the embodiment of truth serum. Rather, it was like. . . if being my best friend required someone to run a marathon first, she'd covered that ground in two seconds flat.

Her disarming appearance shortcutted right up to the front gate of my heart. And that left me suspicious. . .or it would have if I wasn't so emotionally exhausted from killing a lord in court earlier. I wanted to trust her, and that should have been a red flag. But my mistress had sent this person, so I had to at least assume the best and give her a chance, right?

Varella said she'd leave if I asked her to, I thought. And she hasn't advanced toward me once since stepping into the room.

Hell, the door was still open, as if she was asking, "Do you want me to leave?"

At last, she spoke, though not with a soft voice to match her unassuming appearance. Rather, her voice sounded like my best friend walking up to my locker in school, asking me if I wanted to come over for dinner tonight and work on our group project together.

"My name is Lily. It's nice to meet you, Sierra," she said.

"Likewise," I said, motioning for her to close the door and come inside.

She did so and walked closer to me, still stopping about 10 feet away.

"I'm sorry for staring. . .you're just so disarming," I said.

"That's my job," Lily said. "As one of the queen's wings, I'm supposed to blend in and be someone trustworthy."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, the queen's wings? Are you in a Paul McCarney cover band?" I asked.

That earned me a tiny smile.

"No, wings are the queen's intelligence gatherers. Just as talons are her knights. And feathers are her soldiers," Lily said without an ounce of mockery.

Then, with an immeasurable amount of dry humor, she added, "Though I do sing a pretty mean cover of Band on the Run."

I couldn't stop myself from snorting. Dad was always playing the local classic rock station on our sound system when he was home. So that meant for several hours each day I got to hear roughly the same top 40 tracks over and over. It typically drove me into my room where I tried to put in earbuds I stole from the lost and found at school or outside to go walking around the woods behind our house.

I'd memorized how the intro bumpers would go after a commercial break. "You're listening to 98.4 FM, The Rebel Rocker. [Farting noise] Northern Maine's classic rock station. We're not playing your grandma's tunes! [Car crash noise] This is where you crank it up [Police siren sound] and rock out loud. [Explosion noise]."

Truth be told, I didn't hate all the music that played in our house. I hated the man associated with it.

And strangely enough, Band on the Run would play about three times a month. I wasn't sure how the radio station managed its algorithms for what to play, but whatever genius made it determined that was how much the Wings hit would run.

"So. . . you're a spy?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lily nodded.

"My mistress sent you here to spy on me?" I asked, not necessarily upset, but confused all the same.

Now Lily shook her head.

"Why purpose would our queen have in spying on you? You're so submissive to her that you'd happily surrender any piece of information she wanted," Lily said.

I rolled my eyes. Great. So now the spy knew about the dynamics of my relationship with the Raven Queen. I guess that checked out.

"I'm here to provide comfort, a task I'm uniquely qualified for because of my skillset in blending in among people, sympathizing with them, and dropping their guard," she said. "Except I do not need to drop your guard. You don't even have one up. For you, I'm just here to do the sympathizing part," Lily said.

"Why?"

"Because our queen asked me to," she said.

Kicking my feet on the bed, I pondered how exactly this was supposed to work. My mistress had sent a spy to keep me company, no, to heal some of the damage done to my psyche from my last two murders. . . which were only a week apart. Gods, I needed help.

Well, maybe I should give her a shot, I thought.

"In my experience, it usually helps for my targets to think I'm handing over personal information to forge a tighter bond. Except, for you, I'll be sharing my real personal information," Lily said.

Looking down at the ground, I nodded. Her heartbeat was calm. I didn't sense any nervousness in her. Then again, she was a spy. Surely she was trained to control herself well.

"Why do you look more like a human than my mistress or the other fae in the castle?" I asked.

"Because I'm only half fae. My father was human. Fell in love with my fae mother. And despite the warnings of fae and human relationships being chaotic, they decided to try and make it work. My mother and I stayed with my father until he died of a car crash when I was nine. After that, my mother brought us here, swore fealty to Queen Varella, and I grew up among the full-blooded fae," she said.

That made sense. And. . . whether she was lying or not, I believed she was telling the truth. Though, I couldn't tell whether it was out of willful ignorance or the fact that she was. I think at the moment I just needed a friend. She sounded like a friend. Looked like a friend. Acted like a friend. So, whether she was one or not, I decided to accept her as one.

"How did you get into spying?" I asked.

She didn't hesitate to share more of her life story.

"Queen Varella recruited me at a young age. She had targets for me to keep an eye on in the human world, both faeries and mortals alike. And it's easier for me to slip into the human world than full-blooded fae. Iron doesn't hurt me as much as it does them," she said.

"Wait, so she made you be a spy?" I asked, shaking my head.

"No. It wasn't like that. Our queen has a healthy respect for free will. I think that's part of what makes you so willing to lay yours at her feet. You sense she'll never betray yours," Lily said, as I felt my face burn. "She asked if I wanted to be one of her wings. I thought it sounded interesting, and it turns out, I'm pretty good at it. But nobody forced me, Sierra."

Nodding, I took in a deep breath and exhaled.

"Okay, Lily. I trust you. Try not to break my heart. I'm feeling lousy enough as it is," I said, rubbing my arms, and starting to shake again.

She lowered her voice and asked if she could sit next to me on the bed. I just nodded. She walked over and placed herself beside me.

"So. . . how does this work?" I asked. "How exactly do you see yourself comforting me?"

Lily was sitting a few inches away from me. She thought for a moment and then said, "Whatever you want, Sierra. We can have some food brought to the room. You can talk, and I can listen. Or I can talk, and you can listen. If you want to sit in silence, I'm fine with that as well. The two of us can play cards, or you can just lay your head in my lap while I stroke your hair."

That earned her a look of surprise.

"Don't you think that last option is a little. . . intimate?" I asked, stumbling over that last word.

Lily cocked her head to the side.

"Well, I imagine there'd be some emotional and physical intimacy in the act, sure. But isn't that what you need right now? A soft heart? A tender approach? Comfort?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

I scooted a few inches backward toward the pillows and said, "Well — sure. All of those things sound lovely. But I'm not really looking to have any. I mean, I don't feel in the right place for us to. My mistress would surely be pissed if the two of us—"

The spy interrupted me and shook her head.

"Sierra, I didn't say the two of us would fuck. So you can calm down," she said, as my face then took on a level of brightness that could be used to guide ships into a harbor during a hurricane. "Gods, you've never just had a best friend who could share a platonic, physical intimacy before, have you?"

How could I respond to that? I'd had friends in high school, sure. I had friends in college. Sometimes I stayed the night at their homes, but we were never really close enough to have much physical contact.

I'd had two girlfriends, both short-lived. Neither were very cuddly people. And we didn't have much time alone together since Dad kept me on a tight leash. So what time we had was usually spent fucking or talking or eating. I didn't regret my time with Allison or Gabriella, but neither carried much emotional investment. Looking back, that's probably why our relationships fell apart pretty quickly.

"No, Lily," I said. "I come from a pretty fucked up home, and there just wasn't much room for that kind of thing."

My eyes stared down at the quilt we sat on. It was a solid gray color the housekeeping folks brought in yesterday morning when they changed out my bedding. I brushed my fingers across its silky smooth surface while avoiding eye contact with the spy.

"Do you want to try? If it feels weird, I can leave. But after what you've been through, Sierra, I think you could use a little affection and intimacy," Lily said. "Your call."

Dammit, this is awkward, I thought. I did want to lay my head in her lap, but. . . I dunno. It still felt disjointed, like I lacked the programming for that kind of movement outside of — no. I could do this. This is what girls do. We're close and vulnerable. We share, and it's a tenderness I shouldn't have been denied by the abuse from my fucked up father.

Lily sat up straight with her legs dangling over the side of the bed, and I scooted closer. A little closer. Nearer still. Okay, too close. Now I had to back up to lay my head on her thigh.

"This is so stupid," I muttered, rubbing my hands over my face.

"Hey, you're okay. I promise, Sierra. Nobody is here to hurt you or embarrass you or make you feel insignificant. I'm your friend. I'll keep you safe, and I will never betray your trust. You deserve to be comforted after all you've endured. Please just let me help you with that."

I took a deep breath, held it, counted to five, and let it out. Lily was apparently my friend. This is what friends do. It's going to be okay.

Slowly, I rested my head on her thigh. The world didn't end. Nobody came out from around the corner to point fingers at me and laugh. After a minute, I untensed my shoulders. And Lily, all the while watching my expressions, gradually moved her hand to the side of my face.

The coconut smell was stronger now. And I heard her heartbeat much more clearly. She started to run her nails through my hair, behind my ear and following my jawline down to my chin. I shivered a little at first. But after about the fifth or sixth stroke, her fingers felt familiar enough to me that I sighed and scooted until the back of my head touched her waist.

"You're safe, Sierra. I promise," she said.

This felt different than Varella stroking my hair. Lily wasn't dominant. There wasn't any sexual tension between us. I started to understand what she was talking about with a tenderness between two friends. And I started to cry. The tears and sobs came out of nowhere, but I flipped my head around so my nose was buried in her waist.

Wrapping my arms around Lily, I bawled for all the years younger Sierra had to go through life without any intimate friendships. I wept for the stifled tears and awkward moments where, in my youth, all I'd wanted was a fucking hug or a lap to lie in. And when one wasn't available, I'd make some stupid joke to shrug off the pain of being denied what I wanted. "Haha, yeah, I was just kidding." "Dude, that was weird. Lol." I broke down and howled in Lily's lap at the barest level of tender expression that'd been offered to me.

To her credit, Lily did what any good friend would do. She moved my hair out of my face, rocked me back and forth gently, and whispered quiet affirmations about how I could just let it all out.

Goddamn, three moments in her good graces, and I'd cried like a toddler being dropped off at daycare. Some fierce werewolf I was.

I whimpered as she resumed stoking my hair. She just kept saying, "You're okay. Let it all out. You're safe. Let it flow." And dammit, I did.

When I finally stopped, I sat up and mortifyingly said, "I got snot on your sweater. Shit. I'm sorry. That's fucking gross."

Lily told me it was fine and took it off, balling it up, and tossing it in my hamper like a basketball.

"Can I borrow something from your wardrobe?" she asked.

"Yeah, least I can do," I said, wiping my right eye, which was still a little blurry.

We dug around and found some silk pajamas. Hers had little dragons on them, and mine had an emblem of a wolf howling at the moon.

The two of us pulled some pillows and blankets down to the floor. We made an honest-to-gods blanket fort and crawled inside. That's when I felt the words start to spill out.

"I love my inner wolf, and I'm not ashamed of what I am. But knowing someone deserves to die and ending their life are two different things, Lily. My Dad beat me until I was minutes away from needing a visit to the emergency room. I knew from a young age that he needed to die. But it took me until now to work up the courage to let my wolf loose on him," I said, knees pulled up around me.

Lily scooched closer and wrapped her arms around me while I talked. She put her head on my shoulder.

"I have so many conflicting thoughts in my brain about it. Part of me feels like a coward for using the wolf to kill him instead of my own two hands. And another part of me feels like I'm solely to blame, even if the wolf killed him and ate his heart. I remember enjoying it, actually. The wolf took its time, disarming him, biting him, and ruining his legs so he had to crawl to make an attempt escaping. I have memories of him pleading and having the gall to remind me that he was my father, my flesh and blood. That was when the wolf. . . when I. . . crushed his throat. And while he sat there making those little gasping sounds, pleading for air that was plentiful in all areas except his lungs, I grinned. When his heart gave out, I howled in triumph before eating it."

She'd started stroking my hair again.

"He was a monster, Sierra. You were well within your rights to kill him and take your time doing it," the spy gently reaffirmed.

I sniffled.

"Why does it still feel so horrible? There's a weight in my heart, Lily. Like I've done the most awful thing. And no matter how right I was in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of karma or some universal balance, it still hurts. I can't make it stop," I said.

Lily let me sit with that for a second.

"My first assignment from Queen Varella was to gain the trust of an exiled fae prince. It took me a few weeks, but I wormed my way into his life and gained his trust. He was from the Panther Court, and our queen wanted some secrets he carried with him into the human world," she said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well, I did my job. The prince never suspected anything. But one of his lackeys was better than me and sniffed me out from the start. No matter how many lies I told, no matter the webs I weaved, he saw through it. Some fae are just impossible to fool. When I made my escape, he gave chase, and followed me back into the world of Faerie, intending to kill me before I reached the Raven Court's borders," she said, quietly. Lily stared off out of our makeshift shelter as she told this story, like the spy was reliving it.

"Did he catch up?" I asked.

"Yes," Sierra said, with a haunted tone. The spy was gone. This was just my friend sitting beside me relaying a similar life experience. So, I wove her fingers between mine.

It took my friend a few moments to work up the courage to reveal what came next.

"He was bigger than me. Knew the land better. And cut me off about a mile outside of the queen's territory. I'm not much of a fighter, you see. I leave that stuff to the talons and feathers. When wings do their job well, there's no need for fighting. We're gone before the battle begins," she said.

I nodded, waiting.

"The rage in his eyes. I'd betrayed his prince, and set out to do it from the start. And I'll never forget his anger. He was just trying to protect an exiled faerie from losing his secrets. Nothing dishonorable about it. But he threatened my life, Sierra. So, I chose to end his. I pulled out an iron dagger and killed him with it. Sometimes I still see his face. Probably always will. But I think that's necessary," she said.

"How is it necessary?"

"Taking a life is one of the most violent actions you can commit, Sierra. Life, when we get down to it, is the most valuable thing we have in the world. And to take someone's. . . even someone who deserves it. . . I think it should hurt. I believe it's a burden the life-taker should carry long after the guilt has left, so there's always an acknowledgment of that act of violence. That weight it leaves behind should serve to discourage more killing in the future, or at the very least, lead us to hesitate when faced with repeating the violence," Lily said.

We locked eyes, and I had to ask the burning question. I didn't disagree with her words. They were an honesty shared between friends, between killers.

"And today, Lily?" I asked, remembering Lord Harroldsen's face when the wolf killed him. When I ended his life.

She touched the side of my cheek, and I leaned into her palm.

"We're humans in a world of faeries, Sierra. This is a place where magic, passion, and bloodshed run freely, rarely inhibited by logic. And you're a werewolf on top of that. You made a choice today, and you'll live with it, just like you'll live with killing your father," Lily said.

I wanted to break eye contact but forced myself to keep it going as another tear snuck out of my right eye.

"After all that. . . has anything changed?" I whispered.

Lily wiped the escaping tear with her thumb.

"Yes. . . you have me now," Lily said. And she held me again.

The rest of the night was a wave of heavier and lighter moments. We did everything Lily initially suggested. We ate food, played cards, and talked about our time in the human world, all the while sharing a newfound intimacy.

When I couldn't stop yawning in the middle of the night, Lily suggested it was time for bed and went to dismiss herself.

I caught her hand as she moved toward the door. She turned and looked back.

"Please," I whispered and led her to the bed.

She nodded as we shed our pajamas. I changed into some shorts and a white tank top. She stole a gray nightie from my wardrobe.

I climbed under the covers first, and Lily followed suit.

The half-fae laid on her back, and I snuggled up to her on my side. She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt safe and warm next to her.

"Thank you for being here tonight," I said, yawning.

Lily caught my yawn, and I laughed at her.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Just. . . will you promise me something?"

"What's that?"

Clearing my throat and trying not to feel stupid about my words, I just asked point blank.

"Will you promise never to leave?"

Lily raised an eyebrow, and I coughed.

"I mean, obviously you'll have to leave on spy missions and stuff. What I want. . . will you always. I just—"

She interrupted me as I yawned again.

"Yes, Sierra. I'll always come back. I won't stop being your friend. I promise," she said.

"My best friend," I corrected her.

Lily grinned with her eyes closed.

"Yes, your best friend."