Well, after the last chapter, I'm sure we're all looking for something good to happen to the boys, as they more than deserve it at this point! However, that's not what's happening now, so I hope you've all buckled yourselves in for another intense and potentially gut-wrenching chapter. Stay awesome, everyone!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Shion stood in the kitchen, hands covered in flour. The whisk sat on the counter top, perched neatly on the spoon rest Shion had made seven years ago for his mother's birthday at the pottery shop. The nice old woman who ran the shop offered to help him, simply because she'd thought the whole idea of such a small boy wanting to make something nice for his mother to be adorable.
She helped him through every step of the process―showing him how to properly shape the clay, smooth it out, and add color with a collection of paints she'd set aside for the few times she taught art classes.
Shion painted it a hodgepodge of blues and purples, because those were his mother's favorite colors. Looking back on it, there'd been no real pattern in mind. Shion simply painted what came to his imagination, hoping his mother would look at it and know that he'd been thinking of her.
After the spoon rest had been constructed, she placed it in the large oven―a kiln, she'd called it―and instructed him to return in a few days.
She hadn't accepted payment when Shion returned to fetch his colorful creation. She told him his company had been payment enough, and sent him on his merry way.
Shion had always made plans to return―Safu, upon seeing the spoon rest, expressed an interest in going to make something for her grandmother―but a nest of sprites had taken up residence in the bushes surrounding the pottery shop.
Perhaps it was the scent of the baking clay, or the ever-present assemblage of children to torment by pulling strands of their hair or knocking them over, but the sprites seemed to enjoy buzzing in and out of the shop. Sometimes they knocked things over and shrieked with laughter when they broke. They seemed particularly interested in the most expensive creations.
Shion didn't trust himself in the pottery shop. It was one thing to see the fair folk on the streets and pretend not to see them. It was another to try and ignore mischief unfolding within a closely confined space. Trapping himself inside the pottery shop meant he'd need to pretend not to notice the sprites yanking the most expensive plates off the shelves. It meant having to fake a startled shriek when the porcelain shattered on the ground, even though he'd seen the tiny fingers that'd caused it to tumble.
He patted his floury hands on the dish rag he and Karan kept aside for cleaning off their hands and tried to focus on the task at hand. Paying attention to the mixing bowl full of cookie dough felt better than letting his mind wander back to a few days prior, when Safu, Anne, and Roy had walked him back to the bakery.
Safu had called and texted him often after she'd convinced her friends to go back to her grandmother's house for some tea. She'd assured Shion that Roy had started asking questions―who was Nezumi? Why was he pestering Shion? When did Shion form an attachment with a Gang member?―but she'd managed to give him enough of a story to be satisfied.
As far as Anne and Roy knew, Nezumi was a customer at Karan's bakery who'd asked Shion out on a date. Things hadn't gone well on the date, and Nezumi seemed upset with Shion's decision not to keep seeing him. Safu interjected enough details to keep Roy placated with the answer, but not so many that Shion couldn't hope to keep up with it.
He was grateful to her for that. He'd never been good at fabricating stories. If Roy had asked him, well, then Shion would have been backed into a corner.
Enough of that. Shion shook his head. I've got to get these cookies in the oven.
It was quarter past noon, and already the bakery was running low on chocolate chip. As one of Karan's most popular recipes, she liked to keep them well-stocked during business hours. Shion's strange silence around the house had worried her enough to let the stock slip beneath her radar; she'd only noticed they were running low when she sold a dozen fifteen minutes ago and discovered six left on the pan.
Feeling guilty for having worried her, Shion immediately jumped at the opportunity to whip up another batch. Karan manned the front of store while Shion ducked back into the kitchen, covering his hair with a lavender bandanna and wrapping a crisp white apron around his waist.
Baking made him feel better. The monotony of mixing together the dry and wet ingredients, coupled with the mundane task of heating the oven to the proper temperature chased away the feelings of anxiety and misery that came with the knowledge that he'd made a horrible mistake.
"You let us know you can see us, and there are consequences that come with that mistake."
Shion pressed his lips together. I said, enough of that already!
What did Nezumi know about it? He wasn't exactly an honor student himself. And if Shion had made mistakes, then Nezumi had, too. He didn't have to let Shion help him. He didn't have to offer him a debt in the first place. He could have just jammed the silver knife between his ribs and―
No! Bad brain!
Shion slapped his hands over his face and exhaled into his palms.
What was he going to do?
"Shion?" Karan poked her head around the corner. A coil of her dark hair twisted down the nape of her neck; it'd been longer in Shion's youth, but she'd cut it to her shoulders recently. "Are you doing all right, honey?"
"Y-yeah, Mom, I'm fine." Shion bit back the wave of sorrow that came with the sight of his mother's face. Because of his mistake, this might be the last time he saw her. He didn't need to keep her worrying for him.
Karan stepped into the kitchen and let the door click shut behind her. She looked at the bowl of cookie dough, and her lips quirked up at the corners.
"That looks very good." She crossed to the sink and ran her hands beneath the water. "Want me to help you get them on the baking sheets?"
"Sure, Mom." Shion pulled two clean sheets out from their designated spot beneath the counter. He'd scrubbed them the night prior to keep from heading to bed too early, too afraid of the nightmares that'd come the moment he shut his eyes.
He pushed aside the misery and focused on rolling balls of cookie dough with his mother. While they worked, they chatted about things that had no particular meaning―the customers who'd come in, her friend Renka's new baby, the stray cat Karan had left a bowl of cream out for―and Shion treasured every word that came from his mother's lips.
Working beside her, Shion could almost forget that he'd been forced into his house for the sole purpose of hiding out from a faerie king. Shion could almost forget that an unspecified Court had placed a hit on him. He could almost forget that since the moment he'd been born, his fate had been sealed thanks to a damned curse that allowed him to see the monsters walking among them.
He could pretend to be normal.
But then a bony woman, nails dripping with blood, crawled across the alley laying just beyond the window Shion faced. Her hollow black eyes stared forward, not noticing Shion, though he'd definitely noticed her.
His stomach twisted, and Shion ducked his head and tried to focus on rolling cookies even though his hands were shaking.
He couldn't pretend to be normal at all.
⁂
Forty-five minutes to closing time, Karan pulled off her apron and hung it neatly from the hook on the back of the kitchen door. "I'm going to head to the store and pick up a few things for dinner," she announced to Shion, who busied himself wiping the crumbs off the small set of tables stationed in the lobby of the bakery.
Shion glanced up from his work and gave her a smile. "OK, Mom."
Karan grabbed her purse and tucked it neatly over her shoulder. "Are you going to be all right by yourself for a bit? I'll try and hurry, but I might not make it back before closing time."
"That's all right. I'll lock up at seven." Shion didn't mind working alone at the bakery for a short while. He loved spending time with his mother, but the bakery tended to die down just before closing time. Shion could handle the few customers who might venture inside, and he could certainly manage the cleaning on his own.
"As long as you're sure." Karan stepped forward and pulled Shion into her arms. "You've seemed so upset lately. Are You sure you're feeling all right?"
"I'm OK." The lie sat on Shion's tongue like a stone. He forced his words around it as he said, "Just some stuff going on that I don't feel like getting into right now."
I pissed off a faerie and now a king's out to kill me.
Karan didn't look convinced, but she understood that pushing Shion wouldn't make him speak. She simply smiled, kissed him on the forehead, and assured him that she would hurry back.
Shion waved as she ducked out of the front door, the tiny bell clanging after her.
Now that his mother wasn't there to cause a distraction, Shion tried to busy himself with cleaning the glass cases holding the baked goods, sweeping the floor, and preparing to Saran wrap the leftovers in order to prevent himself from falling into thoughts about the Fair Folk.
Outside the glass walls of the bakery, Shion could see the city of Kronos beginning to unwind for the evening. The sun had already dipped beneath the horizon―lulled into the depths by the fast approach of winter―and the skies were bathed a deep purple with streaks of pale pinks that hadn't quite dissipated. The streetlights clicked on, one by one, bathing the cracked sidewalks in buttery light.
Karan's bakery was situated in the heart of Kronos, as far from the forests and the public parks as a building could get. The Folk sometimes ventured this deep simply for a change of pace, but the iron and modern structures kept many of them at bay.
Shion returned behind the counter. He'd plugged his phone into the port upstairs in his bedroom, so he wasn't certain if Safu had tried to text him. On the off chance his mother happened to look at his phone and catch a glimpse of their conversations, Safu and Shion never mentioned the word "faeries" in their texts. They found codewords to communicate, vaguely describing the things they saw so that, without reading too deeply into them, one might assume they were speaking of a strange person they'd spotted on the sidewalk.
He briefly considered dashing upstairs just so he wouldn't have to be alone with just his thoughts. He didn't want to hold Karan back from going to fetch ingredients for dinner―and he certainly didn't want to worry her further―but having Safu to chat to via text might feel better than standing alone, though he was surrounded on all sides by the protective iron beams in the walls.
Shion grasped his house key and turned to sprint into the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom when the bell above the bakery's door chimed.
He whirled around, startled, heart slamming into his throat.
A tall, broad man stared back at him, looking confused. Shion's heart began to slow As he realized that this man wasn't a faerie or the silver-eyed boy Shion had foolishly saved. The dull pallor of his skin, unimpressive mousy brown of his hair, and the drunken gleam to his eye assured Shion that this person was just a human.
A customer.
"Oh," Shion exhaled, pressing his palm to his chest. "I'm sorry about that. You startled me."
He gave a good-natured laugh, which the customer didn't reciprocate. Shion's terror immediately vanished, replaced with a wave of awkwardness that made him wish he'd managed to get upstairs.
"Um..." Shion went behind the counter and tried to look as professional and welcoming as his mother did. "What can I get for you?"
The customer stepped up to the counter, scrutinizing the set of pastries splayed out before him. A muscle in his jaw worked as he shifted from one foot to the other; his hands were stuffed into the pockets of the black jacket he wore―part of a suit that had once been expensive, Shion could tell, but had fallen into a state of disrepair.
"You're... Shion, right?"
Shion's blood went cold.
He looked up, and the man stared back at him. He looked almost sad, and Shion could see his reflection in the man's eyes. One of them gleamed a bit more than the other. Shion realized in an instant it was crafted of glass.
"I'm sorry," the man mumbled. "You know, for this."
His hand darted out, and before Shion could turn around and book it for the safety of the kitchen, the man's hand clamped around his nose and mouth. Something sickly sweet clung to the man's skin; the second it entered Shion's nostrils, the world around him went fuzzy and dark.
To Be Continued...