I didn’t think Kiri had any particular destination in mind. She simply led us outside and started strolling, ignoring the cold with ease despite her simple, light clothing.

  I was glad the winds were quiet this evening, rather than stabbing through me like icy knives. Even so, if it weren’t for Alys, I would have been trembling in the chilled air.

  We walked in silence. Neither Alys nor I pushed the Winter fae. My dragoness had admitted to me a long time ago that she didn’t know Kiri as well as many of the other townsfolk. The fae hadn’t been part of the journey out to the frontier. She had joined the town after it was ‘officially’ founded, an event marked by the completion of the Town Hall. Both she and Alys were reclusive enough that they hadn’t met many times at all until I came around.

  Alys considered the fae a friend now, though. She would show Kiri all the patience she thought such a person was owed. I was similarly unwilling to put Kiri on the spot, seeing as I recognized the anxiety and fear radiating from her as emotions I felt often enough when thinking about my own Court.

  “How do you do it?”

  The sudden question caught me off-guard. Kiri turned to look at us, hands clenched tightly together.

  “You know what the Autumn Court would do if they found you, so… how do you do it?”

  Ah. I understand now.

  I was scrambling for an answer when Alys beat me to it.

  “We just do.” My dragoness shrugged. “I take it you’re asking how we’re not bundles of nerves and anxiety?”

  “That, and… how did you decide to start a relationship at all? How could you, with such a threat hanging over your head?”

  Alys spoke bluntly, but not unkindly. “What were we supposed to do? I admit… I’m not sure I understand the threat of the Courts properly, so I’m not as worried as Thorn, but I’ve seen how he looks when he talks about them. Still, we couldn’t just let fear paralyze our lives.”

  I knew my dragoness was braver than she was giving herself credit for. She never showed terror when I spoke about Autumn or my parents. She just looked ready to tear them all apart if they ever tried to take me from her.

  I, meanwhile, had a slightly different answer for Kiri.

  “I would hate myself if I never tried to make things work with Alys. I love her. I am in love with her. Call me foolish and selfish, but in the end, I couldn’t let my fear get in the way of those feelings. I would die before letting anyone harm her, if it came to that. I’ve known all along that it might come to that. But I had to try. And I don’t regret my decision for a moment, especially not now that we have a child on the way.”

  Alys’ fingers tightened on mine. When I looked into her eyes, I found such passion and desire there that I briefly forgot how to breathe.

  “That is just the thing!”

  Kiri suddenly erupted, her whole body tense in a way I recognized. It was the stance of a Winter Courtier just before they delivered a particularly venomous remark, one designed for the verbal evisceration of their opponent. Granted, this was Kiri, so no such lunge was forthcoming, even if she might have considered herself to be crossing some personal line.

  “You should be even more terrified now!” she thundered. “Do you not understand what they would do to you, to your child, if they knew?!”

  Several things flashed through my mind, all of which filled me with the sort of anger that just might be potent enough to burn down the Autumn Court.

  “Trust me, I know,” I snarled. “At the very least, they would treat our child as some kind of pet. A curiosity, or a tool. Or both.”

  A dragon with some kind of notably fae parentage would be a prized possession of the Court, if Autumn decided their existence was tolerable. The thought of our child, broken and tamed in Autumn’s garden like some of the animals I’d cooed over during visits there in my youth, made my blood bubble and ooze like the poison it was.

  “And that’s among the most fortunate scenarios I can imagine if we fell into Autumn’s grasp. Even so… we can’t be too terrified to live, Kiri. Alys taught me that.”

  My dragoness gave me a proud grin, edged with violence at my words about my Court’s potential actions, as she drew me closer to press a kiss against my cheek.

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  Kiri dropped her gaze and stared at the ground with far too much intensity for my liking. Frankly, she looked like she was about to run, and not just from the conversation.

  So, with a sigh, I prepared myself to do something unpleasant: render assistance to an infuriating fox.

  “This is about Ritsu, isn’t it?”

  Kiri recoiled from me like I had struck her, her icy blue eyes snapping up to meet mine.

  “W-What?”

  “Come now, Kiri. He is not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. And neither are you.”

  I hadn’t liked contemplating it, because I liked Kiri and certainly did not extend the same emotions to the fox. But my Winter fae friend hadn’t exactly rejected his advances, had she? For Kiri, with all the fear and doubt I knew for a fact were wound around her throat like a noose, that said enough on its own.

  Besides, she was a Winter fae. They were capable of subtlety, but they mostly preferred not to rely on it. If she found Ritsu’s company unpleasant, she would have told him as much long ago, and then there wouldn’t be a kitsune lingering around my town.

  “I… Yes. He has been courting me, and I have yet to reject him,” she confessed, like she was admitting to a great shame.

  “Because you don’t want to, do you?” I sighed again, noting the sudden stiffness of her stance. “Kiri, it’s fine. I promise you.”

  She answered, dare I say it, coldly. “No, it is not ‘fine.’ He is only staying here because of me. I should have sent him away long ago. If he stays, he will only be miserable with me. Or dead. Or worse.”

  “You don’t know that,” I pressed gently.

  “I do.” Before either of us could protest, she went on, “Why do you care? Has he not hurt you? He admitted as much to me himself. You should want him gone. You should tell me it would be best if I turned him away.”

  I paused at that, because I genuinely hadn’t thought Ritsu would do such a thing.

  “He told you?”

  Kiri nodded woodenly. “When he confessed he knows about my nature as a fae, yes. He claimed he did not wish for there to be any sort of pretenses between us, and that he wanted to be open with his actions and intentions. He told me much about himself, too. Not that I wished to know…”

  She turned away from us as my mind raced.

  The fox… Ritsu… had done something I was fairly sure was unusual for his kind, though I only had stories and academic texts on his species to judge from.

  “Worry not,” Kiri said, making assumptions based on my silence. “He still labors under the delusion that you are a Summer fae, the fool. I would never betray your trust by correcting that.”

  Her voice was edged with a desperate need to be trusted. Alys beat me to a response once again. Releasing my hand, she stepped forward to envelop my Winter fae friend in a hug. I got dragged a bit closer by her tail, not that I didn’t step forward willingly to join in the hug myself.

  Kiri tensed. For a moment, I thought she would try to run. Then she began to tremble, melting into our embrace. The next moment, our bodies were the only thing keeping her upright as she clutched at us desperately.

  A choked sound escaped her, reminding me of something that might come out of a wounded animal. I felt profound pity, knowing that her Court denied her the simple relief of tears spilling down her cheeks. Her eyes were squeezed shut in anguish, but not even the slightest bit of moisture escaped them.

  “I… I don’t know what to do. I was fine with this! I knew what would happen to me if they discovered me, but no one else was supposed to get hurt!” she rasped between those odd, sob-like sounds. “And now there are people who would try to protect me, and… and…”

  “Shhh. It’s alright. It’s alright,” Alys whispered gently, running her claws soothingly down Kiri’s back. “No one is going to hurt you, Kiri. They won’t find you, either.”

  Part of me whispered this was a lie, since Alys could not guarantee such a thing.

  A much larger part of me told the first part to stop talking, curl up, and die in a ditch of its own making.

  “Exactly,” I said, my voice still a bit tense before I forced myself to relax. “Besides, we have a whole family of fire dragons around here nowadays. What are Winter fae going to do in the face of that, hmmm? Melt?”

  Kiri let out a strangled laugh. “I’d pay whatever you ask to see that happen to Winter. She’s haunted me long enough. It would be nice if she got some payback, for once.”

  I was relieved to note the formal, stiff manner of speech slipping away from her, even though I feared this was only a brief reprieve.

  Kiri was… more ‘human’ than I was, for lack of a better word. She felt compassion more deeply and bonded to people more easily, even when trying to keep them at arm’s length. Yet she also felt fear more keenly. Far, far more keenly. I’d had a glimpse of that when we talked about our pasts, but I hadn’t truly understood the depth of the negative emotions ruling her until she was sobbing in our arms.

  Ritsu would, if he succeeded in winning her affection, be… ugh, good for her.

  That didn’t mean I wouldn’t tear the fox apart if he managed to hurt her, of course. I had precious few friends, and even fewer who were set to live as long as Alys and I would. I wanted Kiri to be a happy constant in our lives for a long, long time.

  To that end, I decided to be as blunt as my dragoness.

  “I think you should give Ritsu a chance.”

  Kiri pulled back, her eyes wide with shock. “But… you hate him.”

  “I don’t exactly hate him,” I hedged, trying not to lie. “Besides, this is about you. Does the fox make you happy? Do you think he could make you happy, not just now but in the future?”

  “I… well… I certainly like his food well enough,” Kiri mumbled in embarrassment, making me smirk.

  This was true. If there was one redeeming quality to having Ritsu around, it was his food.

  “Then give him a chance,” I told her. “Don’t worry about our Courts, or about anything else. Just… spend time with him, and see what happens. I promise you, Kiri, that if nothing else, we’ll make sure we can run. Alys’ grandmother wants to set up a whole host of defenses around here, and we were already hoping to include your home in that. Wards crafted by The Molten Expanse would definitely buy us plenty of time to do something.”

  For once, Kiri’s whole face brightened.

  We stayed there for a while, comforting and encouraging her. As Alys and I both worked to reassure this nervous wreck of a Winter fae, I found myself musing about the most unexpected thing: was this what parenting would be like?

  Because if so, then maybe, for the very first time, I could start to believe I wouldn’t be entirely hopeless at it.

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