SWNOVELS Sheer Cupidity: Chapter 16
LEX
The sky decided to collect little cotton balls of clouds earlier, and now those very same clouds have puffed up and decided to drip all over us.
Luckily, I’m not getting soaked since I’m hiding in the Veil with Belren while we stare across the dirt road. A road that’s forlorn, empty of anything next to it except for a solitary driftwood fence that seems to stretch on for miles.
We followed the server’s directions exactly, walking for at least an hour to get here. Yet now, I’m not sure if here is where I want to be.
“It looks unsafe, doesn’t it?” I ask from my perch on the wooden fence. Belren gave up trying to sit on it with me when he went through the post for the tenth time.
Standing next to me, he stares past the path. It cuts away from the road, through a field of wheat so tall we would’ve missed the building right in the middle if it weren’t for the fact that the house is seven stories high.
Seven.
And for every one of those levels, it tilts in a different direction and is made with a different material. It looks like it’s one strong gust away from blowing over into a mismatched heap.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Belren replies.
“That does not look fine,” I retort. “That looks like a disaster waiting to happen. The roof is almost sideways.”
He grimaces at that and tilts his head in the same direction that the top of the roof is leaning. “It just has character.”
I shoot him an incredulous look.
“Oh, come on, Pinky,” he says, moving to stand in front of me. “If it really does start to lose its battle with gravity, you can just flick back into the Veil before it crashes down on your pretty head.”
I will not get butterflies in my stomach for the fact that he just called my head pretty. Logically, it’s not even a very good compliment as far as compliments go.
This is what I tell myself as I stare at him, right up until my traitorous stomach flutters anyway.
Gods.
“Should we really go in there?”
“This is our only lead,” Belren reminds me.
There is that.
“Fine.” I begin to make my way across the road, heading straight for the small walking path that diverts through the field. It’s still raining, so there are puddles on the ground that I’m thankful I’m not stepping in.
We walk quietly for a few moments, my eyes locked on the seven-story atrocity ahead. “This fae that we’re going to visit…I should admit that I don’t really believe this person is an actual fortune-teller who can give us information on the ex-princess.”
“The barmaid didn’t say fortune-teller. She said he’s a seer.”
“You know what I mean,” I tell him as I sidestep a cluster of wheat stalks that have been snapped in the middle, bent in defeat. “I’m not sure I really believe that this person is actually a seer.”
Belren cocks a white brow, the silver of his skin muted to the same drab gray of the rain clouds. “You’re a cupid in the fae realm, walking with a ghost whose muck you’re carrying in your quiver, and yet you’re doubting the existence of a seer?”
I don’t like his tone.
“I’ve been to a lot of different realms and seen a lot of different magic, but I’ve never seen someone who could actually see the future. Even angels can’t do that.”
“I suppose we’re about to find out.”
At that moment, we reach the end of the path and come to the house that now looms over us like a jagged shadow. The front of the home is just as ramshackle as the rest of it, with a crooked yellow door surrounded by crooked red bricks. Above the brick is wood paneling painted stark white, above that is cobbled stone, above that is some kind of plaster, above that is another kind of wood… On and on. It’s a mess.
“This thing is breaking so many building and safety codes,” I grumble.
“The flowers are a nice touch,” Belren says, gesturing to the window boxes overflowing with plants—though I wouldn’t call them flowers. They’re more like weeds with some petals that have somehow managed to cling on.
Belren glances over at me. “Ready?”
With a disinclined nod, I start to walk to the front door, which for some reason, he finds hilarious. “Forgetting something?”
I look down. Oh. Right.
Grudgingly, I pop out of the Veil, blinking back into the physical world. I straighten my shoulders, adjusting to the sudden weight of my body, while rain splatters over me, saturating my feathers and making tendrils of my pink hair stick to the back of my neck. Raising my fist, I very lightly rap on the splintered wood, dropping my hand again as quickly as I can.
Belren looks from me to the door and back again. “That was your knock? You barely made a sound.”
I shove water out of my eyes, getting more and more soaked by the second. “Well, excuse me, but I’m afraid to do it any harder!”
A devilish smirk lifts up his lips. “Oh, Pinky. Doing it harder is half the fun.”
My brow furrows. “What? Of course it’s not. One firm knock and this place will keel right over.”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Why is it that whenever I try to flirt with you, you either don’t realize it or your face blushes so red that it nearly matches your wings?”
I blink at him. “When were you flirting with me?”
“You know, as a cupid, you should really be more adept at sexual innuendos. Especially when you’re the one saying them.”
I rewind my brain to remember what I said, and my cheeks flame. “I didn’t…that’s not what I meant.”
His grin widens, and it does something warm and fluttery to my insides. “I know, Pinky.”
See, he’s saying, I know, Pinky, which in itself is innocent. But the way he says it is something else entirely. He soothes it out, like a caress. And not a platonic kind, either. It’s a sensual one. I don’t know how to logically explain that, but it’s true. I even get a shiver when he says it. The male can speak sensual caress. It’s not good.
I turn my attention away from him to stare at the door. I’m not walking into that conversation, because not only am I woefully unprepared, but I’m also confused. Was Belren a flirt to everyone while he was alive? Is this just the pieces of his preserved personality that he’s using like muscle memory? …Or is he actually flirting with me?
Unsure of what to do with myself, I tentatively knock again.
“That was even quieter than the first time,” Belren says. He lifts his fist and tries to knock himself, but his hand goes right through the door.
“Godsdammit,” he curses. “How the hell did Rocky manage it?”
Here we go.
“Still jealous?” I tease.
“Me? Jealous?” he scoffs. Then pauses. “Actually, yeah.”
I let out a snort, and in the exact moment I make that impolite noise, the door suddenly wrenches open. My eyes widen and I instinctively take a step back in surprise. Of course, my foot lands right in a puddle, making mud splash up onto my pretty cream hem.
I lift my foot up, my shoe already soggy, my skirt ruined. “Oh, fudge.”
The fae in front of me makes a grunt. “Well, I don’t have fudge, but I’ve got some sugar cubes that I can dip in cocoa beans. It will cost you, though.” He looks at me like he’s trying to decide how much money he can get out of me for his offer.
The fae is short, only about three feet tall, wearing red button-up footie pajamas, complete with a nightcap on his stringy brown hair that hangs down from beneath it. I have no idea what kind of fae he is, but I know better than to ask. Considering he’s in footies, I’d expect him to either be very young or very old, but in fact, he’s actually somewhere right smack in the middle.
“Hello, I’m so sorry to bother you.”
He grunts again, watching dispassionately as I continue to get rained on.
“I was told you might be able to help me find someone?”
He thinks about it for a moment, scratching at his prickly chin. “That’ll cost you, along with the cocoa sugar cubes.”
I pat the pouch on my belt. “I can pay.”
Turning, he starts striding back through his house and waves for me to follow him. “Come on, then. But wipe your feet. I like to keep a tidy house.”
I hesitate for a moment, looking up at the house to make sure it’s not actually swaying before I head inside. I frown at the crinkling noise that happens as soon as I step onto the floor. Instead of a welcome mat or woven rug, there’s a few layers of paper wrappings laid down.
“Well, go on—wipe your feet, Pinky,” Belren laughs.
Wrinkling my nose, I hastily wipe as much mud off of my shoe as I can, though the paper keeps ripping. I finally give up and decide to take them off entirely and leave them beside the door as I close it behind me.
When I turn back around, I get a good look at the inside for the first time. Just like the outside, it’s a crooked, disheveled, mismatched mess. His idea of a tidy house is very different from mine.
“Goodness,” I whisper, cringing as I look around.
The ceiling is so warped some of the wood panels are bowing. The walls are caked-on slashes of different colored paint bright enough to give me a headache. The staircase just looks like a health and safety issue. None of the steps are even or straight, the banister is missing in some parts, and yet it curves on and on and on, high up enough in its spiral that I can’t see the top.
This place is so disjointed that it’s making me dizzy.
Belren stops by a spot on the wall that’s covered with a portrait of the small fae, his visage smoking a two-pronged pipe. Of course, the painting is hung crookedly. “Fancy fella, eh?” he grins.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I whisper-groan.
Belren glances around, noting the chartreuse paint splatters all over the crooked wood flooring. “Honestly, I don’t think he’d notice.”
“Oy! It’s rude to linger in someone’s house!” I look up in the direction of the fae, who’s glowering at me from the spiral stairwell. “Now come on. I don’t have all day.”
My eyes widen. “You…want me to come up there?” I think my question might end in a terrified squeak, but my ears are ringing with too much adrenaline to know.
He doesn’t deign to answer me and instead rolls his eyes and turns around to disappear into whatever offshoot his slanted staircase leads to.
“Come on, Pinky, I’ll go first,” Belren offers before making his way to the stairs. He travels up the first few steps before turning around with a flourish. “See? It’s fine.”
“It’s not comforting when you don’t actually have a physical body,” I hiss under my breath, eyeing the structure once more.
“Aww, come on. Live a little.”
That’s rich coming from a literal ghost.
Both forlorn and fearful for my life, I follow. When my bare foot lands on the very first step, the wood groans under my weight, making me shoot Belren a dirty look. “If I die on this staircase and the whole disfigured house comes toppling down on me, I’m going to come back and haunt you,” I threaten.
But the male just grins at me over his shoulder before he continues his way up. “There’s that viciously vindictive side I love about you.”
That shouldn’t make my heart skip a beat.
It does anyway.
Each step I take either creaks, groans, or pops. I’m not sure which sound is the most concerning.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I whisper.
“I have a good feeling about this,” he says at the same time.
A huff comes out as I grip the railing, though it’s all different heights, sometimes way too tall for me to reach, and then way too short, and then it’s just…gone.
Luckily, I only have to go up the first flight of stairs before Belren disappears through a doorway. I pause at the landing for a moment before joining him inside.
“Gods, it’s just getting worse,” I mumble.
The walls are covered in plates. Dinner plates, saucer plates, tin plates, glass plates, china plates, painted plates… They’re everywhere, stuck to all four walls with gods know what to make them hang there. And they aren’t hung in nice symmetrical patterns either, because why would they be? No, there’s zero rhyme or reason to any of their placements.
“Nice, huh?” Belren says, rolling back on his heels with glee as he takes it all in.
I spot the fae across the room, sitting at a table, carpets folded haphazardly over the wooden floor. I feel like the Mad Hatter is about to offer me some tea. I don’t care what that server told me, there is no way that this male is a real seer. Surely if he had that kind of magic, he’d be living…better.
“You have lovely plates,” I say, because I think it’s always good to lead with a compliment. “So many.”
“Not nearly enough,” he replies with a grumble. “I need more. Can’t stay in this room longer than twenty-two minutes, or it’ll start to bother me and I’ll have to go straight down to the shops, and I don’t want to walk to the shops while it’s raining. And anyway, they probably won’t have anything new. Do you know how hard it is to get good plates on this island?”
I take a wild guess. “Very?”
He nods so emphatically that his red sleeping cap tips forward over his eyes before he shoves it back up again. “Yup. I need so many more than those ignorant shopkeepers can supply me with.”
Oh goodness. He’s not just untidy. He’s also a hoarder.
“Come. Sit, sit,” he orders as he plops himself down at a small table.
Walking by the plethora of plates, my feet sink into the knotted rug on the floor as I cross the small room. There’s a tilted window just behind him, with a view of the rain still coming down. The closer I get to him, the more the ceiling starts to drop, until I have to bend over almost in half by the time I reach the table. It’s really only meant for one, since there’s only a single chair, and the table itself is tiny. But the fae just glares up at me impatiently, scratching at the buttons on his pajamas.
Looking around, I spot something that resembles an oversized pincushion, so I drag that over to sit on. Even as low down as it puts me, my knees still hit the table. I finally curl my legs beneath me, slightly hunched and wings cramped as I look across the round table to the fae. He doesn’t look happy.
“I said sit.”
Taken aback, I look down at my lap and then back up at him. “Umm…I am?”
He rolls his eyes. “Not you.”
The fae’s attention snags over my shoulder, and my body goes rigid when his gaze lands on Belren.
Oh my good gods. This fae can see him.