Chapter 42

About two hours later, Anton and I are…probably drunker than we should be.

But we just sit quietly on the very fancy day bed that Laila conjured out on the terrace, staring up at the three moons hanging in the sky, each of us thinking hard.

“Do you seriously think I’m a Selkie?” Anton murmurs, his brows knit together in thought.

“Do you think it was smart of Orion?” I murmur, holding up my lime knife and tracing my finger down along the sharp edge. “To let me conjure up a knife?”

“Oh my god, Juniper, put that down, you’re going to hurt yourself –“ he lashes out an angry hand, faster than I’ve seen him move before, and smacks the knife out of my hand.

“Anton!” I gasp. “I wasn’t going to hurt myself –“

“There was zero chance that you were going to leave this daybed with all of your fingers –“

But we both gasp as we realize, pretty much simultaneously, what happened.

We stare at each other and then turn our eyes to the knife, which is laying in my lap.

“Did you do that?” I whisper.

“Did you just drop it?”

“I don’t think so.” I shake my head vehemently.

“No way,” Anton breathes, leaning forward towards the knife like he’s scared it’s going to jump up of its own accord. “That’s impossible – I – I don’t have a body.”

“Maybe you’re like a poltergeist!” I whip my eyes up to his face, wanting desperately for it to be true.

“A what?” He frowns at me.

“Did you not have a childhood spent reading ghost hunting manuals?” I growl, frustrated. He grins at me like, obviously, he did not. I roll my eyes. “A poltergeist! Like, the kind of ghost that can move objects and scare people! Knock things off of tables and open cabinets in the night!”

“So like…” he narrows his eyes at me. “A ghost with all the powers of an annoying cat?”

“Well annoying you have, boy,” I say with a little snarl that makes him smile that slow smile that I like so much. “And now, maybe, you have the cat.” I gesture gracefully to the knife.

“Oh, June,” he sighs, leaning back against the pillows and covering his eyes with his hands. “Poltergeist? Selkie? The Prince of Hell’s best and I suspect only friend?”

“Not to mention handmaid to the charming and beautiful youngest Princess of Moon Valley,” I murmur, adding to his list of new identities.

“Well, that goes unsaid,” he murmurs, giving me a nod, even with his hands over his face. I laugh a little, liking him very much in this moment. “But seriously, June? I…I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

“I know,” I sigh, sinking back onto the pillows next to him. Anton drops his hands and looks at me. “I’m already so wrapped up in this new life and I don’t…honestly even know what I’m doing here.”

“What do you mean?” he murmurs, genuinely curious.

“I mean,” I whisper, looking down at the fancy blanket covering my knees and tracing the pattern with the tip of my finger. “That I came here thinking that I was going to marry Blythe and compete in some Game. And now, less than a week later, I’m doing something completely different. And I don’t even know if I want the things I came for anymore.”

Anton doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tease me, or prod, or cajole. Just…waits and lets me think it through.

“How can I be so different, Anton?” I whisper, speaking the question that’s been forming in my mind for days and maybe driving me a bit mad. “How, only a week after I was willing to give my life for a boy can I…not even be sure if I want him?”

“Do you not love him anymore?” Anton asks, quiet.

I raise my eyes to him, anger rising in me. “Well, everyone I meet – including your hot priestess girlfriend who mysteriously appeared in my room this morning – seems to think my fiancé is a jerk.”

Anton smirks a little, but I forgive him. He can’t help it. “And what do you think?”

“I think I’m confused,” I sigh, covering my own face with my hands this time. “And I’m not sure if I know him. Or if I ever knew him. I think I…need to see him, and then I’ll be clearer.”

“All right,” Anton says, quite steady next to me. “Then we’ll go find him.”

“What?” I whisper, dropping my hands from my face and looking at him with wide eyes. “Yesterday you yelled at me for this – and now you want to help?”

“Yesterday you brashly and insincerely dragged me into the Deadlands to make a point about who was in charge,” he murmurs, tilting his head and daring me to counter him.

I scowl, looking away, hating how well he knows and can already read me. Hating that he sees down to my basest self, the selfish and vindictive beast at the core of my soul.

“Don’t do that,” he murmurs.

I look up at Anton in surprise.

He just shakes his head. “Don’t hate yourself,” he says, quite steady. “I forgive you for yesterday. But I’m much more willing to actually help you, Juniper, if you take actions with your heart as their driving force. And if you’re brave enough to let me try to understand it.”

“Understand what?” I whisper.

“The good heart you have in there,” he says, reaching out to tap my chest just beneath the dip of my throat. “That you try to keep hidden from everyone for some reason.”

Something about that makes that heart seem to leap up into my throat, making it all tight. I clench my teeth, raising my chin, willing my eyes not to water. Failing.

“Oh heavens, June,” Anton murmurs, smiling softly at me. “You can’t go to pieces every time someone sees the good in you.”

“Not everyone,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Just you.”

Anton doesn’t say anything, just rests his head back on the pillows propped up behind us. I do the same, curling up on my side, leaning close to him so that our foreheads are only a few inches apart.

“Do you think it can happen again?” I murmur, my mind worried and turning.

“Me smacking weapons out of your hands?” he asks, his joke gentle. “Absolutely, June, you have no training – you almost lost a pinky slicing that lime –“

I laugh and smack at him, shaking my head. “Be serious, boy, I’m opening my heart to you.”

“All right. Ask me again. More specific this time.”

I exhale, slowly, and close my eyes so I can face it better. “Do you think in another week…I could change my mind again? Want something so totally different? Feel absolutely differently about the people in my life?”

“No,” he says, quite simple.

My eyes open and I peer at him, kind of mad that he’s not taking me seriously.

But he just shakes his head, watching me carefully. “I know what you’re asking, Juniper,” he says. “I know what you’re afraid of. But you’re forgetting that you’re not the only one making choices here.”

I frown at him, not getting it.

“What I’m trying to say, June,” Anton whispers, turning fully to me now, his nose just millimeters from mine. “Is that I’m not letting you go. So whatever it is that you decide, whatever your wayward little heart decides to chase, I’m going to be right there with you. All right?”

Tears flood my closed eyes and I kid myself that he can’t see them. “Because you’re tied to me?” I ask, nodding, my voice choked. “Because the Goddess…asked you to?”

I can feel it when he shakes his head. “No, June,” he says, simple and soft. “Because I want to be. Even if she came now and offered to take me back, I’d stay here with you.”

I laugh a little, thinking he’s exaggerating.

But as my wolf curls up in my soul, at peace and content in a way she rarely is, I curl closer to Anton and allow myself to rest. Because if that’s what he’s offering – even if he’s just saying it to be nice, to make me feel better…

I’ll take it. God, but I’ll take it. I’ll cling to it.

“So that’s our goal?” Anton asks quietly. “Over the next few weeks? Stay alive, find Blythe, figure out how you feel?”

“And figure out the mystery of the prophecy and stop girls from dying and find my mate and figure out why the Goddess of Life doesn’t want me in her temple and learn if you’re the lost Selkie poltergeist prince,” I murmur, nodding solidly.

“Cool,” he says, laughing a little at the absurdity of it all. “Sounds fun. Can’t wait to start.”

“And I want you to teach me how to hold a knife,” I whisper.

“You got it,” he murmurs. “I’ll teach you everything I know. We’ll make a fine little assassin Princess out of you, kid. You just wait and see.”

And I smile as I allow myself to drift off into my thoughts and then to sleep, there on the terrace with my best friend.

Because honestly, I can’t wait to start either.