Jerrick

My eyes widened. There’d been genuine exasperation in his tone, and his eyes looked tired and sad as he looked at me. I felt ashamed and mortified that he might see me as weak.

“I’m not scared of them, you know,” I said with a soft sniff before wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

He knelt, looking me square in the eyes. “I do know, son. The problem is they have no idea just who you are. I think if they did, they’d never dream of treating you in such a grotesque manner. I know your mother has spoken with you and taught you to control your anger impulses. But as one man to another, while ‘tis good to control our rage, you should never allow anyone to hurt you or those you love. Be proud of who you are, Jerrick. I believe you to be quite brilliant, you know.”

I smiled despite my heavy heart. Centaurs never gave flattery in vain. They valued nothing so much as intelligence. He’d given me the highest form of compliment for his kind. Sniffling, I wiped at my nose once again.

“It’s bleeding,” he aid. “You’ll need to see the nurse. And I’m sorry to say, son, but I’d be no kind of teacher or man if I didn’t tell your parents about this. Hate me if you wish, but I value you too highly to allow those children to torment you any longer.”

I clenched my jaw, balling my hands into fists. He was right. None of them had ever given a damn about me. And even the bit of kindness one or two had shown me hadn’t lasted very long. Not once the rumor mill had told them that to befriend me would spell doom to their future reputation.

Kicking a rock out of my way, I headed toward the nurses’ station. I’d stopped Mr. Cenal every time this sort of thing had happened. I’d known that eventually he wouldn’t allow me to put him off again. But I’d hoped to have at least one year where I wasn’t the social pariah from day one.

Fat chance with this skin, though.

I stared at my arm and trembled at its mint-green tint. They all hated me the second they saw it. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere.

With a cry, I clawed at my forearm, watching as the black blood beaded at the surface of the welt.

I hated my life.

I hated this place.

I hated Kingdom.

But most especially, I hated being me.

~*~

Baba Yaga

Freyr’s strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I gazed down at a finally sleeping Phe. He’d sobbed in my arms for hours, saying things that no mother should have to hear her child ever whisper.

My breath caught on a sob, and suddenly I was flipped around and pulled into the cage of his warmth. He said, “We’ll leave. It’s as simple as that, Baba. Our boy means more than this damned place. This world. These bigoted people. We don’t need them, and they damned well don’t deserve us. But they especially don’t deserve him.”

All of this, I’d known. I’d seen it when I’d divined Phlegm’s future. I’d seen the heartache, the pain he’d experience. And no matter how hard I’d tried to fix things, to change things, fate had caught up to us.

I’d never imagined I’d make friends. I’d been alone for so long, content to remain a bogeyman in the woods, to hang out with my spirit friends, and hex the pitiful mortals who’d annoyed me.

But somehow, I had made friends here. People who I loved and who loved me in return. But there was someone who needed me more now, and he would come above all the rest.

Curling my fingers into Freyr’s cable knit sweater, I nodded. “We go, moya dorogaya. Tonight. Right now. We leave.”

“To New York City, to that boy?”

I shook my head. “It is not yet time for them, but we do go to New York. We leave all these shackles behind us here. We build a new life for ourselves. We help him to see how truly good he is. And then, then, can we set our little prince free.”

He nodded, blue eyes gazing upon me with tenderness and love. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, my witch.”

I grinned even though my heart still felt full of unbearable sadness. “Yes, give me about thirty minutes.”

I started to pull away, but he held my hand, stalling me. “Make them pay, my witch.”

My grin was nothing but teeth. “Oh, I plan on it. I should kill them all and make stew with their bones.”

He thinned his lips. “Little harsh, maybe. Not really fond of stew myself. But a chalice, now that I can get behind.” He held up a finger. Of course, as the Norse god of fertility, he’d love a chalice of bones.

I laughed. I always laughed with Freyr. “You’re stupid, and I love it.”

He struck a fist to his chest. “Truly, the most tender-hearted woman I know.”

Again, I laughed. Rolled my eyes, kissed his cheek, and then left, making good on my word. I cursed each and every one of them who dared to harm my child. I might teach Phe that he should never give into the temptation of darkness, but I never had been good at listening to my own advice.

Their screams were a beautiful melody long into the night.

When I returned, I was at peace with the decision to leave. It was time to turn a chapter in the pages of our lives. It was time to leave Kingdom behind. One door was shutting, but another more glorious one was just opening.

~*~

Min-Joon

1 year later

“Requiem! The latest Animas album to hit the top 100 pop charts! Download your copy today. Right now! And make sure to come back after the break for a round table with all four of our boys!” The perfectly coiffed TV host spoke with an excited chirp meant to grab the attention of the home audience.

The cameras focused on the four of us; we held up peace signs, cheesing wildly for the audience, hugging each other, and generally looking like we’d been brothers born from the same womb.

The studio was cold.

There was no audience, but they’d pumped in a clap track so that it felt like we were surrounded by a sea of fans. My cheeks hurt from holding the pose for so long.

“And cut,” the director yelled. “We have five minutes to ready set. Grab water. Take a piss. And then take your seats.”

Instantly, the guys dropped their smiles. The room was filled with shades of gray and deep-hued purples. Acceptance. Mild irritation.

I dragged my feet along as I walked toward the head of the table. One by one, the other guys sat beside me. We’d only been at the studio for half an hour, but we’d been bussed from one station to another for the past two days. Most of us hadn’t gotten any sleep because we’d been forced to promote our latest album twenty hours a day.

“I need a fucking drink,” the youngest of us, Kim Jin-ho, muttered before plopping into the seat and dropping his chin into his fists. A make-up artist was touching up what had just been dubbed the million-dollar smile. Lately, Jin-ho had caused a minor controversy when he decided to dye his normally brown hair peach. Our label had seriously thrown a fit when he’d done it, threatening to cut him from the band entirely if he ever dared do anything like that again on his own.

But it helped that the look had increased his marketability with the younger demographic: ages thirteen through eighteen. Only one thing could have made our label

back off, and that was cold hard cash. We raked it in. More than, I think, they’d ever even expected or had hoped for. We were practically gods. If we suddenly decided we wanted to market our sweat, someone somewhere would make it happen, and we’d probably sell a crap ton of it too.

Peach tones were now all the rage globally, but especially in South Korea and most especially for men. Jin-ho’s schtick was that he wore eye-catching clothes and bright eyeliner.

He was the rapper of our group.

“Soju later, and I’m buying.” Cheon Kun-woo, the oldest, smirked. He’d just turned twenty-four this past spring. He was also secretly dating another K-pop star from a sister group—FoXX. Which would likely see them embroiled in the type of scandal that could destroy a K-pop group if they were found out.

But considering their dates consisted mostly of FaceTime movie dates, there wasn’t much chance of that happening.

“You coming this time or what, Min-Joon?”

“No,” I said.

“Come on, hyung,” Lee Ye-Jun said to Kun-Woo, “you didn’t really expect Min-Joon to come hang with us.”

The other three chuckled.

My mouth thinned. “You know that’s not why,” I said, taking a sip from a water bottle that had magically appeared beside me. “I have a headache.”

Ye-Jun’s smile slipped. “The colors?”

I clenched my jaw but nodded. I wasn’t sure if any of them believed me that I saw sound as colors, and that when I saw too much of it it left me feeling sick and even nauseated. But I knew that at least Ye-Jun was willing to try to understand.

“Whatever, man.” Jin-ho snorted as he shook his head. “We can’t even get girls when he comes along anyway. Let him lock himself up in his cave for all I care.”

“C’mon, little bro.” Kun-Woo glowered at him. “Play nice.”

“And ready in three. Two—” The director held up a finger, then the red light above the camera went live, and suddenly our fake smiles were plastered back on.