Solstice (Midsummer #3)

12. Miri

12

Miri

I lit a cigarette and inhaled, wincing as it burned down my throat. Wrapping my robe tighter around my waist, I sat in the third-story loft with the window open, breathing in the cool winter air. February in DC usually brought snow, but this year, things had been unusually humid. I inhaled the scent of the city, vibrant with hustling politicians and reporters. Manhattan may have been the city that never slept, but DC was the city that never stopped.

I took another long drag on the cigarette and reached for my magic, calming myself in the steady hum of the surrounding plants and trees. They reminded me how small I was in the vastness of the world, that no matter how hard I beat myself against my own memory, the world continued to spin on.

Clenching my fingers and opening them, I focused on the energy of the earth flowing through my veins. I still had my gift, but the vibrant pulse that had once been my wall of thistles was long gone. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, still sensing nothing after these six long weeks.

But that only reminded me of the secret weighing on my heart, the secret I knew about the king and hadn’t told them. That Samhain, when I came face-to-face with Alberich for the first time, I remembered he’d saved me from the wreck that had killed my parents.

“Little Thistle, you’ll come to owe me quite a bit before we’re through.”

I should have told the others by now. I’d promised no more secrets, and here I’d been holding on to a big one for nearly two years. I didn’t have a good excuse for waiting. Perhaps I thought to do it in person, knowing they would want more from me than a brief FaceTime that was likely being recorded by our families. Perhaps I had hoped it was a fluke, that the king had been messing with me and it hadn’t really happened that way.

The what-ifs plagued me. What if the king only put that memory there to mess with me? Or contrasting that, what if he had really saved me from that wreck? If it was all true and the only reason I was alive was because of him? Was I not strong enough? Not disciplined enough? What could I have done better?

I sound like Ivy.

Laughing, I finished my cigarette and stabbed it out, immediately lighting another.

And now, I look like Lex.

They were cuddled around each other in her bed downstairs, the space between them growing smaller both physically and emotionally the longer their engagement went on.

I liked the sight of their closeness. It pleased me to know they had that intimacy when they couldn’t have Carter or me. But that pleasure had lately been laced with a bitter jealousy I struggled to contain. They lived together, spent every damnable second together, and once upon a time, it had been me in both their beds.

Marry Carter, they said. Come home to us.

Like it was that easy to leave my family behind. Would either of them do it for me? Doubtful. Hence the reason they were still engaged to be married in April, and I’d likely end up with some rich parasite twenty years my senior.

At least I’ll make a quick widow.

I grimaced at my gallows humor, another hot jab of anxiety stabbing through my stomach as every one of my molecules revolted at the idea of being around the Prince of Monaco.

Tough . Might as well get used to it now.

I narrowed my eyes as my recollection fought through the haze. Something about the prince, about Reginald, sent up red flags. No, not the prince specifically, but the royal palace and the room I’d stayed in. The thought of going back there made my skin crawl and my lungs heave, and I didn’t know why. It was more than the fact he was twenty years older than me. I’d known that my entire life. It was more than our imminent engagement and the next three decades as man and wife. I’d started to accept that years ago.

This was new and different. This made me want to claw my skin off and vomit until my insides were liquified.

Two weeks after Solstice, I’d gone to Monaco to visit the gardens as promised. Even in winter, they were blooming with glorious colors and splendor. Reginald had shown me around the grounds, and when I retired for the evening, things became hazy. I hadn’t drunk that much, but this didn’t seem like a blackout. There was a glimmer around this memory, almost like there used to be around the day my parents died.

When I’d woken up the next morning, I’d been sore between the legs and bleeding, but lacking any reason to think otherwise, I assumed it was my menses. But even now, I understood I was missing something, some giant piece of me had changed that night and would never be the same. It settled in my stomach like tar, poisoning me with each passing moment. It was there, just out of reach to understand it, but I couldn’t grasp it. Not yet. That was even more infuriating because it barely made sense.

Deep down inside, I feared the king truly had manipulated my memories again that night in Monaco. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

I pulled out my phone and texted my best friend and confidante, the only other person in the world who knew what it was to be loved by the powerful Washington-Fairfax duo.

Me: Are you awake?

Carter: Of course.

I smiled, touching my lips at the image of Carter somewhere in Eastern Europe, cold and covered in mud, filming some epic battle scene but taking time out of his day to text me back.

Carter: What’s going on?

Me: Have you felt anything weird recently?

Carter: Weird how?

Me: Like fairy weird?

Of the four of us, Carter had been blessed with luck. He could best anyone in a game of cards, not to mention his sudden rise to fame on the hit TV show Fractured Crowns . He’d become the world’s favorite knight, the one with a smoldering grin and a heart of gold. If anyone were going to get a hint that the king had broken through to our realm, my bet was on him.

Carter: I’ve been feeling fairy weird since Solstice.

Me: Me too.

Carter: What aren’t you telling us, Juliet?

I sighed. Leave it to him to flat-out confront me about it. Lex and Ivy had been tiptoeing around it all night.

Carter: We love you. We want you to be safe.

Me: I am safe.

There in that dark room in the middle of the night, I admitted to myself that I couldn’t keep this from them for much longer. I had my reasons in the beginning, but this was real now, and if the king could manipulate memories, we needed all the cards on the table. I couldn’t keep pretending nothing was wrong anymore.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I glanced down at Carter’s name flashing across my screen before answering it.

“Hello, Romeo.”

He sighed at the sound of my voice. “I love you, Juliet, and they know something’s up.”

Of course, they did.

“Though I admire your bravery, sneaking around the house with a telepath and a human lie detector.” The sound of Carter’s laugh warmed me, reminding me of our nights in California together. God, how long ago that seemed, ages and ages past. We were different people then. “You’re goonnnna get in troooubbble.” He sang it the way someone might taunt a sibling.

I laughed, shaking my head. “Who says I won’t enjoy it, yeah?”

He groaned. “Aww, c’mon. Don’t make me jealous.”

“Hmm, come home.”

“I will. Soon.”

My heart pulled for him. I hated when we weren’t complete, and even though Carter and I never had between us what we both had with Lex and Ivy, it was no less powerful for its uniqueness. Once upon a time, all we had was us. We loved each other, through and through.

“Are you okay, Juliet?” His tone radiated with concern.

Keeping this one secret from my spouses was killing me, and that was on top of the anxiety rolling around in my stomach about the fairy king and queen and whether they’d gotten out. If they had, it was my fault. I was responsible for it all.

Perhaps it was time we went to see Smythe. We’d delayed this long enough.

“I miss you, Romeo.”

“I miss you, too.” Someone in the background called his name. “I have to go. Call me back if you need me, okay?”

I sighed. “Okay. Go. Love you.”

“Love you.” And he hung up.

It had been good to talk to Carter, and some of his sunshine crept into my soul over the phone, but I couldn’t shake the notion something was terribly out of sorts. I stared down at my hands, clenching and unclenching them before going to one of Ivy’s houseplants, a beautiful pothos, and touching a tender leaf, making it grow three times its size.

It’s not the gift, my subconscious told me. Think harder.

It had to be the impending doom. It had to be whatever happened that night, on top of the stress of trying to be HRH Princess Miriam and a loving spouse to three people and the embodiment of Mother Nature. It was all catching up to me, and I needed to rest.

“Bleeding Christ, Miriam Stuart, get your act together.” I shook my head and laughed, taking another long inhale of the cigarette, mixing with the crisp winter night. Ivy’s alarm went off below, and I knew she planned to get up early so she could work out before going to the Capitol. And after that, we’d head out to find Smythe and hopefully get some more information on this fairy-tale nonsense.