Forever

Teague appeared and caught the ball midair.



“You know that almost hit me.” He looked at the crumpled straw in his hand.



“Oh no, you were almost impaled by a piece of straw and died,” Mina said. “Too bad.”



“It wouldn’t have killed me.” Teague frowned and discarded the homemade ball.



“Oh, bad sportsmanship, minus two points.” She picked up another straw ball and took aim at the target. She flicked it, and it hit low on the target.



Teague stood off to the side, watching her as she played her game. She didn’t ask him to join in, even though she kinda thought he wanted to. He seemed really interested in just watching her. He even made a chair materialize, so he could sit comfortably. He didn’t speak.



After an hour, he disappeared again.



He appeared again the next afternoon when she was scratching another target on the wall. She turned around, and he was next to her with his own pile of straw balls—his were green. He picked one up and flicked it at her. It bounced off her forehead, and she flinched.



“Two points.” Teague grinned and reached for another ball.



“I’m not the target.” Mina pointed at the second one, higher up the wall. “That is.”



“Could have fooled me. I’m winning, two to zero,” he crowed.



“My game, my rules.” She kneeled in front of her stack. She’d had a feeling he would appear today just as she was setting up the game. “Zero-zero.”



“Fine,” he grumbled. But she could see the challenge light up his eyes.



She didn’t want to admit it, but she was excited at the prospect of beating him.



“And no cheating,” Mina remembered to add at the last minute.



Teague’s shoulders wilted a little at the reminder.



They took turns aiming and flicking their balls at the targets, and since she had never played the game two-player, they had to argue the change in rules extensively and loudly. Teague frequently demanded that he was right, but Mina reminded him she made up the game, so choosing the rules was her prerogative.



“You want to decide the rules, make up your own game.”



His eyes flashed a darker blue.



“Maybe tomorrow will be the day I take your life,” he warned before he disappeared.



He didn’t come back the next day, and Mina didn’t feel like picking up her straw game again. She even broke up all the balls she’d made into smaller pieces of unusable straw.



Sleeping on the straw was getting tiresome. It was itchy, uncomfortable, and it gave her a rash, but she’d never tell Teague that. At least the straw kept her inches away from freezing to death. Still, it poked and prodded and kept getting under her clothes.



Frustrated, she finally decided if she froze to death, she froze to death. She wasn’t going to ask Teague for help. She moved to sleep on the stone. At first, she was fine and fell asleep easily without the poking and prodding of the straw, but sometime during the night, her teeth started to chatter. The Fae light dimmed and relit, but she didn’t stir.



She vaguely remembered the sound of bricks scraping against each other. Someone lifted her and carried her up stairs. She didn’t open her eyes to see the warm person who carried her. Instead, she might have snuggled against his shoulder.



She heard a curse and received a nuzzle in return. He placed her on something soft and laid a blanket over her. Bricks scraped again.



When she awoke, she studied her new prison. It still lacked a door and window, but it had a bed—a real four-poster bed with a sapphire blue coverlet. There was even a pillow. Mina squealed in delight and hugged the satin pillow. The bed was so wonderful that she couldn’t hold back the tears. She looked around the cell and noticed more. There was a small, square table with two chairs and a chess board, another end table with a bowl of water and a glass, and even a few books.



It was so glorious after her weeks in the dungeon, she felt like a princess in a palace. This time, when she needed to use the water closet, the wall opened to reveal a very large bathtub, full with warm soapy water.



Mina happily spent the next few hours soaking in the tub, scrubbing her skin raw. She soaked her wrists under the water, and the iron cuffs clanked against the tub. She tried to rub her skin beneath the enchanted bracelets, and it felt soothing.



The whole thing was soothing. Mina even went so far as to drain the water and refill it with bubbles and soap, so she could soak a second time. She dunked her head under the water and held her breath, imagining what it was like to be a siren. It was hard to imagine something other than the cartoon-mermaid version, but she knew better than to imagine that. She tried to picture her mother as a young mergirl with a tail—desperately in love.



What had it been like for her mother to give up her tail to be with her father? No matter how she imagined it, it didn’t seem real. She couldn’t envision her mom as anything other than the normal, overly petrified mother who worked as a house cleaner. That didn’t suggest powerful siren, and yet she had seen Charlie scream. His call was so powerful, it cracked the magic ward around her. How come she hadn’t gotten that gift?



Suddenly, two hands reached into the water, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her up through the bubbles.



Mina gasped in shock as bubbles ran down her face. She sputtered and splashed in the water when she realized Teague was in the same room as her. Mina quickly checked the bubbles, glad to see the tub was still full of them. They were high enough there was no way he could see anything.



Teague stood there, furious, his shirt and pants soaking wet and covered with bubbles.



“What are you doing in here?” Mina yelled at him. “Get out!”



“Not until I’m sure you’re not drowning yourself in the bathtub!” He flicked the bubbles off of his arms and tried to roll up his wet sleeves. Water dripped from him and puddled all around him on the stone floor. A moment later, his face paled and then turned bright red. He spun his back to her.



“Of course I’m not drowning myself! I was only under for a few seconds.”



“Few seconds! A few seconds. More like a few minutes.”



“That’s impossible,” Mina answered.



“No, it’s not!” he pointed up at the Fae light that bobbed up and down. “You had been under for five minutes. “I’m not sure if a Siren can even stay under that long. The Fae light wouldn’t have alerted me if it didn’t believe you were in danger.”



It was certainly clear she’d upset him. She wanted to get out, but she couldn’t with him in the room. “Can you hand me a towel?”



Teague’s shoulders hunched as he tried to look to the side to find a towel for her, but he realized how undignified it was. In a fit of temper, he blasted through the wall and left her in her warm tub of bubbles alone.



The Fae light bobbed up and down, visibly distressed.



“You’ve been spying on me?” Mina accused it in an annoyed tone, even though she had assumed it was. The light bobbed sadly in affirmation. “Shame on you.”



The light softly dimmed.



Mina couldn’t hold a grudge against her silent light protector, so she quickly added, “It’s fine, just… is there no one else for you to go to for help but him?”



The light dimmed again, and she assumed that meant no.