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There was a honeybee on his hand, crawling up the length of his finger to perch on the rough edge of his bitten nail. He could feel the soft taps of its delicate legs and hear the humming quickness of its wings. Its body was soft with fuzz, shivering against the thin breeze. It turned to him, eyes black and fathomless, and then it flew away.
And Grian was left holding nothing.
“Grian, you are never going to guess what I found two stalls down,” Scar said abruptly, and Grian turned to see him picking his way over through the festival crowd. His cane was hooked over his arm while both hands fiddled with a small wax-paper bag. He glanced up in time to see the expression on Grian’s face. “What are you looking at?”
Grian blinked and dropped his empty hand to his side. “Weird bug.”
“Out here? In nature?” Scar gave a scandalized gesture, fumbled his bag, dropped it, then snatched it back up with a quick glance to see if Grian had seen. Grian had definitely seen.
“I thought you were getting food,” he said pointedly, raising up a brow.
“I did get food,” Scar insisted. “I got candy.”
“That is… definitely not the food we wanted.”
“But it is the food we needed.” Scar shook the bag for emphasis. There was the rattle of hard candies, no doubt soon to be sticky in the lingering heat leftover from summer. “Want one?”
“I’ll pass.”
Scar gave a very judgmental hum and fished around in the bag for a candy to pop in his mouth. His eyes scrunched closed in some unseen and unfathomable bliss at the taste, an expression which Grian stared at a touch too long before-
Crack!
Grian jolted a step back and a shudder spasmed through his body, feeling that sound viscerally in his bones. Scar had bitten down to viciously break the hardened candy between his molars, and looked annoyingly pleased with himself for doing so. Or rather, please at Grian’s reaction.
“Scar,” Grian began, stopped, took a breath. Decided to be civil. “...What flavor?”
“Hho-ney.” The word was sticky through the mouthful of golden carnage.
“Honey?”
“Yes, dear? Hey, no hhi-tting!” Scar swallowed desperately as he danced away from Grian, holding the bag up and out of the way. “You called me honey, I had to answer!”
“I am actually calling you something else in my head right now, would you care to know what?”
“Uh.” Scar blinked like he was trying to make his lashes more big and innocent. “Um. Cutie-patootie?”
Grian opened his mouth. Closed it. “…Yes. Cutie-patootie. That is exactly what I was going to say.”
“Awe, thank you, my honey dearest!” And Scar was already fishing out another candy, holding it up out of Grian’s reach. It was a perfect sphere, unmelted, and practically glowing a soft golden orange. Against the dark sky, it mirrored the amber light of the large harvest moon hanging over the milling crowds.
The festival was in full swing around them, filled with the murmurs of people and rich aromas of roasting meats and fried breads and sugary confections. The steps of many shoes flattened grass that was crunchy with the start of autumn, and a cool breeze was beating back the heat, rustling the lanterns strung throughout. Countless tents were pitched in an array of bright red, orange, and yellow fabric, decorated with fall flowers. At the centre of it all was a large stone fountain with a statue, where musicians played music that could be heard even on the outskirts.
It was nostalgic, being here. Similar enough to the summer festival earlier in the year that Grian’s heart ached a moment. If the two of them walked all the way to the festival centre, where the music was, would Scar…? Grian had meant to ask him, at the summer celebration, to a dance. But he never did. Maybe here, in the autumn evening, it would be different-
Crack!
“Will you stop that?” Grian snapped, and made a lunge to snatch away the bag but Scar just held it up higher.
“I'm just eating candy!”
“You're ruining candy, that’s what you're doing. You're supposed to let those melt in your mouth, not break your teeth on them.”
“This is more satisfying,” Scar insisted. “You should try one.”
“No.”
“Come on, G!”
“Nope, not happening. Oh look over there, what’s that? I think it's a distraction.”
The distraction was a cart with handmade boardgames that Grian ushered them towards. On display were checkers made with polished river stones, horribly ornate chess sets with hand carved pieces in marble, and metal dice that contained flecks of gold and impressions of fire.
“Oh, look at the detail of these,” Grian said with a laugh, picking up figure chiselled from wood. “Scar, behold this horse, it reminds me of you.”
“Grian,” said Scar, so solemnly that Grian nearly dropped the game piece to get to his side. He peered over Scar's shoulder in panic, only to find him shaking a cardboard box filled with the rattle of plastic. “They have monopoly.”
Grian blinked. “That… doesn't really fit with the theme.”
“They have monopoly,” Scar repeated. “We should get monopoly.”
Grian opened his mouth, closed it, made sure to throw his head back into the motion of sighing, just so Scar knew he cared. “Fine. I’ll play monopoly with you,” he acquiesced. “But only if we get real food after this.”
“You are such a tough negotiator, Grian,” Scar said as he pulled out his money. “You’re breaking my heart here, but you’ve got me cornered. I have to accept.”
“You also need to eat,” Grian reminded him. “More than just candy.”
But this was too much for him, and Scar stuck out his tongue to express that, toddering away with his monopoly game. Grian rolled his eyes and went to return the wooden game piece so he could follow, but frowned when his fingers felt sticky. The horse had a fault in the wood along its neck, he realized now. It was leaking a burnt yellow sap, oozing in the early autumn heat. Like a sickly wound. It stared at him with amber gemstone eyes.
Grian put the wooden horse down and followed Scar, and wiped his fingers on his trousers so they wouldn’t shake.
This little area of the festival was filled with food stalls, and Scar took his time moving between the sweet aromas and staring at the open grills and oil fryers and strings of treats hanging for display. “Hey, they have cotton candy-”
“Candy floss,” Grian interrupted. Stared at Scar. “Don’t call it that.”
“Call it what? Oh, look Grian, the cotton candy is being spun over here!” Scar plowed on, peering at the machine that was weaving it. “Looks gold, I think it’s made with honey.”
Grian stopped. Then carefully walked up behind Scar, staring at the golden strands being pulled by the machine.
“Maybe honey is an autumn festival thing,” Scar suggested. “That stand over there is selling honey-buns. And that one has fried honey dough.”
Grian let his head fall back, so he could look up at the night sky, and sighed as performatively as he could. “That’s it. I’ll just eat tomorrow.”
“Not a fan of honey?”
“It’s too sweet for me. Too sticky.” He could feel the sap clinging to his fingers.
“So you don’t want my candy, then? Not even one?”
“I do not want your candy, Scar.”
“One day you will,” Scar promised, already grabbing one out of his wax-paper bag, and holding it between two fingers so Grian could behold it. The one he picked this time was a brighter yellow gold than the first, matching the second moon, slightly smaller, that had crawled into the sky beside the full harvest moon. Both looked down on the festival, avoiding the few scant clouds and adding a golden ambient light to the people that shuffled through the stands.
Then, once Grian had suitably beheld the candy, Scar placed it between his molars, made eye contact, and-
Crack!
“No,” Grian said flatly. “I don’t think I ever will.”
The sad noise that Scar made was hindered by the honey stuck to his teeth.
He was still picking it out of his gums by the time they made it past the food stalls and found themselves in a small section of shops. Some were tents with tapestries and blankets hung up and fluttering in the light breeze, others were a collection of crates acting as tables for homemade swords and daggers, and another shop was a stand that had metal windchimes sharply twinkling and stained glass pinwheels whirling.
Scar stayed close, only wandering for brief moments before catching up at the next stall where Grian waited. It was nearly a maze, with some tents leading directly into others or looping back so Grian was once again assaulted with the sight of honey being spun into candy floss.
But Scar’s voice was always calling him back, and Grian always went.
He found Scar ducked into a cramped stall of random knick-knacks, with shelves that looked a moment away from falling over. As soon as he entered, Scar turned to him with a smile that made Grian suspicious at best, and presented his prize: a small music box. The key was already unwinding as Scar let it go, and the notes that echoed were sorrowful, almost nostalgic. In the centre, a delicate glass sandcastle spun, illuminated from within like there was someone living there. Depictions of suns and moons decorated the outside of the box.
“Does it remind you of anything?”
Grian flicked his gaze up, staring at Scar’s face. But Scar wasn’t looking at him, lost in some unseen thought.
Finally, Grian forced himself to swallow, and say something that wasn’t the truth. “It reminds me of the beach?”
Scar hummed, then nodded, a pleased smile returning. “Exactly. We should go to the beach.”
“It’s autumn.”
“It’s still warm!” Scar protested. “After this festival, first thing tomorrow, I’m getting in the ocean.”
“This festival is going all night,” Grian countered. “You absolutely are not going to be awake enough tomorrow to do anything but drown.”
“Grian,” Scar said, scandalized. “I’ll have you know I have never once been tired in my life!”
“Tomorrow morning,” Grain said. “Say those words to me again.”
Scar returned to the tried and true tactic of sticking out his tongue to win an argument, and did so even over his shoulder as he paid for the music box. Grian returned the gesture, fully intent on not giving ground, but got distracted a moment later when he glanced at the rickety shelves.
Between green glassware and old spoons was another music box, round and made of silver, like a pocketwatch. It was already opened, but was reaching the end of its unwinding, and the last few notes that played were dreary and melancholy. The inside mimicked a clock face with elaborate hands, and while the second hand ticked too quick for every note, the minute hand kept catching, catching, catching on the same minute, and the hour never moved forward. A piece of amber had been placed in its centre.
Grian turned away.
“Hey Grian, I have something for you,” Scar informed him primly. He had stuffed his shopping into a bag and had that bag hooked over the handle of his cane. That left him with a free hand, which he wiggled encouragingly at Grian. “I need you to take it.”
Grian… stared for a moment, before his brain caught up, and he complained about the childishness even as he held Scar’s hand. Overhead, the lantern lights were warm on this already hot night, making Grian's cheeks feel flush. Scar’s fingers squeezed against his, and he took a second before squeezing back.
From there, they made their way out of the maze of shops and towards a more open row of stalls, the festival square and its statue growing closer to them. Music swelled, as a few people milled around and danced. Games had been set up in booths, but Scar paused before they reached them. “Want a candy?”
“No,” Grian said immediately. “No, never.”
“Harsh,” Scar complained, but he still went for the wax-paper bag, shimmying the shopping bag up his wrist, then bending his arm awkwardly to try to reach in, before reluctantly giving up and having to remove his hand from Grian’s so he could get to the bag and grab another candy.
This one, when he held it up to Grian’s raised brow, had a reddish tinge, more like the third moon that was just now rising up from the horizon. Grian braced himself for the harsh crack, but instead there was a sudden zipping buzz and-
“Well hello little guy!” Scar choked on a laugh. A bee had landed on the candy between one blink and the next, and was crawling over the surface, antenna twitching, large and fuzzy. Grian barely heard what Scar said next, eyes fixated on the bee, lips thinned. “That was my candy good sir, and I can’t eat it when you’re crawling on it.”
“You shouldn’t eat it, period,” Grian said, a touch too sharply, and he reigned it in by sighing and trying for an annoyed expression. “It's got insect germs, now.”
“It's just a bee, Grian.”
“Still an insect.”
Scar hummed, apparently no longer listening and instead thinking, as rare as that was. He wandered over to an empty stall, already closed for the night, and set the candy down on the counter. The bee was at work, content on its surface. Scar stepped back, something satisfied on his face. “There, now it has lunch.”
“That’s just going to attract more.”
“Is there a hive around here?” Scar glanced around them. “I’ve seen a few bees out tonight. Do you think the light is confusing them?”
“I don’t think bees are attracted to light.”
“But they are attracted to honey.”
“They make honey, Scar. You are literally feeding them their own food.”
“Oh!” Scar’s expression abruptly changed to one of horror. “Oh no, do you think I should have stopped it from eating the candy? Is this like bee cannibalism?”
Grian blinked. “Yes, Scar. This is exactly like bee cannibalism.”
“Cannibeelism.” Scar stewed on that for a moment. Then got out another candy and popped it in his mouth before Grian could stop him.
Crack!
Grian groaned and threw his hands up at the grating noise, pivoting immediately on his foot to march in the opposite direction. Scar made a wounded noise and rushed to catch up, but he was still chewing obnoxiously, Grian noted. Scar’s hand was now sticky when he held it again.
They approached a booth for a ring-toss game, where the rings were woven flower circlets ranging from bursting sunflowers with amber gemstones at their centre, to plain autumn leaves and dry twigs. Scar was already paying for a round, and he selected a poppy ring for himself and gave Grian lilacs.
“I’m not going to be good at this,” Grian warned. “Because it is getting very late and I am getting very tired.”
“Don’t worry, I’m wide enough awake for the both of us,” Scar assured him. Then said, nonsensically, “Beach time.” And tossed his first ring.
Somehow, it snagged one of the hooks and both of them whooped in celebration, and Grian made his toss before the momentum died. This one deflected off the backboard, but caught a hook on the way down, and Scar picked him up and swung him around, which was dizzying enough that Grian’s cheeks went red, but he couldn’t stop the grin stretched across his face.
The next throws were nearly as many misses for as many hits, but they both still whooped and hollered and bumped their shoulders into each other, which somehow, managed to jostle Scar’s final ring as he threw it, and the circlet of sunflowers snagged on a hook with a harsh tug.
Scar hugged Grian for that one, letting go nearly as quickly to accept the prize being offered to them.
“Oh Grian,” Scar breathed. “Look at this guy. It’s so squishy!” In Scar’s arms was a giant stuffed llama, complete with a blank, aloof expression and a little blanket on its back. It was… stupidly big, Grian decided. And entirely too aloof, actually.
“It looks like it would be rude to me,” Grian informed him.
Scar blinked, and held up the llama, looking at its face, then at Grian’s face, then back again. “Actually it kind of looks like you.”
Grian’s brow twitched, but he desperately tried to keep any expression from his face that would make him look more like the llama. Judging from Scar’s smile, it wasn’t working. “Not a word,” Grian told him, and primly marched off, and Scar laughed as he followed, but had to stop when he realized he couldn’t hold the bag, the llama, his cane, and Grian’s hand all at the same time, and he puzzled over this conundrum.
Grian went to help, but then his eye caught on another booth across from them. It was a dart game with balloons, and someone was throwing, and as he watched a balloon popped in a shower of-
Dye. It had to be, as red splattered thickly across the dartboard, like a body gored open. Another dart, and this balloon exploded into a sticky orange, like honey, like tree sap, like liquid amber. It dripped down, and another dart was thrown.
Grian looked away.
“Give me the llama, Scar,” he said, interrupting whatever plan Scar was coming up with. “This is the price you must pay for my hand.”
“That is so mean of you." And yet Scar was the one who handed Grian the llama so they both had a free hand to hold, and he was the one that swung those hands as they walked.
They were nearly to the end of the row of stalls now, which let out into the festival centre. Musicians were set up near the base of the fountain statue, and figures in the crowd were dancing, voices loud and cheerful. Grian opened his mouth, deciding that this would be the moment he asked Scar to dance, but Scar was letting go of his hand and shuffling with his bags again.
“Okay okay I know what you’re going to say,” Scar began. “But you’ve got to try the candy. And we haven’t had a chance to get any other food, so I know you’re hungry.”
Grian felt like his stomach was shrieking, but that was besides the point. “I’m not going to like it.”
“It’s not about liking things, it’s about the experience,” Scar told him wisely.
Grian wanted to argue more, but this was Scar, and so instead he sighed and reluctantly held out his hand. Into it, Scar placed a perfect honey candy, a deep rich colour like the fourth moon overhead.
The moment it entered his mouth, he was instantly overwhelmed with a thick, cloying sweetness. Quickly, he trapped it under his tongue, and felt it begin to dissolve, sticking to his teeth.
“You should try it,” Scar said then.
“Try what?”
“Cracking it between your teeth. Tastes better that way.”
“It won’t.”
Scar hummed, staring with a considering look, before shrugging. He grabbed his own piece of candy, pale like the fifth moon, and didn’t even bother with theatrics before breaking it between his molars.
Crack!
He strolled forward, lost in a thought Grian couldn’t discern, and this time Grian hesitated to follow. He prodded at the candy in his mouth again with his tongue. Stared after Scar. Then braced himself, moved the hardened honey between his teeth, and bit down.
Crack-!
Grian stopped.
Held a hand up to his mouth.
Spat out the candy.
In his palm were the two halves of the perfect golden sphere, split open down the middle, lined with fractures. And resting in the hollowed out centre of one half of the candy was a curled up honeybee, small body unmoving.
Grian dropped the candy into the grass and followed after Scar.
“Oh Grian,” Scar said distractedly, from where he’d been crouching in front of a small stall. There were soft clothes laid out on crates, so that pieces of jewellery could rest on them. Some pieces were completed, while others were clearly in progress, the gems and metal scattered in pieces and waiting to be put together. Scar was slipping something into his bag as he stood up, leaning more heavily on his cane than he had been all night, and shooting Grian a smile that wasn’t as bright as it had been before. “I just finished up here. Where to next?”
Grian blinked, looking at the stall, but the lantern had been blown out, and it was clearly closing for the night. Other shops were also dark, and the crowds around the statue had waned, although further away there was still lingering light and music. Maybe it was better this way, just him and Scar standing together in the warm autumn night, cooled by the thin breeze.
Finally, Grian curled his empty hand, fought back the hesitance in his throat, and turned to Scar. “Well, this might sound weird, but they're playing music over there, and I thought I might ask you for a dance."
Scar blinked. “Like at the summer festival,” he realized.
“Well, yes, but I was too shy to ask you to dance then, so now… Here, at this festival, would you like to dance?” Grian held out his hand, and ignored the lingering taste of honey between his teeth.
Scar… didn’t respond for a moment, held tilted as he considered, before he sighed and his shoulders sagged and a grin tugged at his face. “Grian, I hope you know that I would be delighted to have this dance with you.”
Oh. Grian was smiling for real now.
“You’ll lead, of course?” Scar asked, setting down his bag and holding out a hand.
“Of course,” Grian agreed, and moved to take Scar’s hand, but stopped when he felt something give beneath his shoe. He stepped back, staring at the crumpled body of a honeybee in the grass. Crushed. Broken. Beaten. Still and unmoving.
He looked up at Scar, crushed, broken, beaten- No. Scar was fine, safe and unharmed and unbloodied and alive, but no longer looking at Grian. Grian struggled to follow his gaze, feeling bile in his throat.
Looming over both of them was that statue in a dry fountain basin. It depicted two figures: one was kneeling and the other was limp in their arms. Their foreheads were pressed tightly together, near desperately, and there were stains where water used to trickle from the eyes.
And honeybees were crawling all over them.
Dozens and dozens, with tiny thin legs and twitched antennae and buzzing wings, that moved and moved and moved in a writhing mass. There was a hive, Grian realized, under the jaw of one of the figures, against their throat. So that was where the bees were coming from.
“Grian?”
He turned. Scar was staring at him. Just. Staring. Head cocked to the side, looking at him with an unreadable expression. Grian licked his lips, and swallowed back the scream. “Sorry, I’m distracted, do you still want to dance?”
Scar hummed. A long, considering sound that he’d been making all evening. His grip was tight on his cane, but his other hand was playing with something between long and nimble fingers. “Can I ask a question first?”
“Of course.”
“Grian, is any of this real?”
Grian froze. Didn’t answer. For a moment, he didn’t even breathe.
The bees were buzzing, a cacophony, as they crawled over the stone figures. It drowned out the music, but not the ticking of a clock. A few more stalls went dark around them.
“The festival is closing,” Scar then noted.
Grian forced his tongue to unstick. “It’s still going on,” he said. Insisted. “There’s still stands open.”
But they both knew that their section of the festival stood empty. There was the murmur of crowds, the impression of people, some distance away, where the lanterns were still glowing between bright tents and strings of flowers. But here it was dark and dim aside from the light of the six bright moons overhead.
“Did I show you what I got from the jeweller?” Scar suddenly said. “While you were eating your candy? They had some spare materials lying around, and they let me buy this just on its own.”
He opened his hand to reveal a small, uncut gemstone. It glowed a red-orange-gold in the dark between them, held in the soft creases of his palm. It looked sticky, like honey. Like tree sap.
“It’s amber, isn’t it?”
Grian didn’t answer.
Scar sounded genuinely curious as he held it up to the sky, looking at it using the light of the seven moons. “I was trying to remember what you’d told me about gemstones and using them for magic. They have different properties, right? Depending on the stone? I was trying to remember what spells amber was used for.”
“It’s not an important one,” Grian said. His voice was flat. “I was mostly telling you about others. You know, rubies are interesting in that-”
“But then I remembered,” Scar interrupted, like he hadn’t noticed Grian talking at all. “Amber is time, right? That’s what you told me once. Time and preservation.”
Grian didn’t answer.
“It must be important,” Scar continued, “For this festival, whatever we’re celebrating. I’ve been seeing it all over, in the crafts, in the decorations. I tried to ask someone about it, but they didn’t answer me. Nobody answers me. In fact, I’m not sure a single other person, besides us, has talked once this whole night.”
Grian didn’t answer.
The eight moons behind him blinked.
Scar stared at him, smiling, with only a hint of strain at the corners. His eyes were unreadable. “This festival is familiar, isn’t it?. Almost exactly like the one we went to in summer. Same food, same shops, same games, just themed for autumn. Like that entire day had been coated in tree sap and preserved.”
Grian didn’t answer.
“Grian, I am going to ask you this again,” Scar said slowly, tasting and savoring each word that cloyed and stuck in his mouth. His eyes flicked down to the crushed honeybee at Grian’s feet, then back up to Grian’s face. “Is any of this real?”
The nine moons looked at Grian. And Grian looked at Scar
The murmur of the crowd, always indistinguishable, was gone. The stalls were dark, but there had to be at least one still lit, somewhere in the distance. No matter how long the night went, there would be no dawn, and there would be no end to the festival.
Finally, Grian answered.
“We’re real.”
“Really?” Scar said a bit too fast, stumbling his last steps to Grian. “Because I think I disagree with you.”
Grian said, “You are real and I am real. The rest doesn’t matter.”
“No no, see, I disagree, because the rest does matter, and because I should not be real,” Scar stammered in a bumbling laugh. He grinned sharply, viciously, desperately.
Grian sucked in a breath, and didn’t look at the crushed honeybee, and didn’t look at Scar’s corpse. His fingers shook as he reached forward to hold Scar’s hand, and Scar let him. “You are real. You are real and here with me and I didn’t lose you. I didn’t let that happen."
“I was broken,” Scar said, amused. “And I was dying.”
“I held you, “Grian countered. “And I didn't let you die. You are alive and real, so long as we are here.”
“Grian.” The name was cherished, said reverently between bitten lips. “You can’t sustain a spell like this forever. It’s falling apart.”
Grian blinked and seventeen moons blinked with him, then closed his eyes entirely and all twenty-nine moons snuffed out. When he opened his eyes again, the sky was dark and empty of all but one moon, and he was shaking badly enough that he fell to his knees next to the fountain statues, gasping. Lanterns were turning on in the stalls around them. The murmur of the crowds rose in volume, just beyond the next row of tents, close enough to be here. The festival was alive and continuing and it was never going to end because Grian would never let it.
“Grian.” Scar was on his knees in front of him, holding Grian’s face in trembling hands. The grass was soft beneath them, damp and cold with dew. “Stop, you have to stop. Let the festival end.”
“I can’t let it end,” Grian whispered shakily. “Or I’ll lose you.”
“You can’t keep me either.” Scar took a breath, thumbs brushing the tears on Grian’s cheeks. “This isn’t real, and it’s hurting you.”
“Scar!” Grian snapped, surging forward, grabbing onto Scar with desperate hands. “You don’t get it! I can take a little pain, I can maintain the spell, but without you? I can’t handle that agony.”
“Grian.”
“Stop saying my name like that.”
“Grian.” Their foreheads were pressed together, as Scar held him, so Scar’s next words were a warm exhale against his face. “You need to let me go.”
Grian shook, trembling violently in Scar’s grip. His breathing was short and ragged, because he still remembered Scar’s body so vividly in his mind. He still remembered the way his fingers cut themselves on the tiny shard of amber, almost too small, almost entirely useless, but as Scar’s heart ceased to beat, the spell still cast. He still caught Scar, in his arms, in this memory, before Scar could leave him.
A perfect little festival, to explore as long as they wanted, suspended and preserved in amber light. A moment that would never have to end.
“I can’t.”
Gently, Grian’s face was tilted up until all he could see was Scar. There was the soft, agonizing press of lips against his own, and the moon overhead closed its eye in grief.
“Please," Scar whispered around the kiss. "End the spell.”
The honeybee's corpse twitched.
“No.” Grian’s eyes flew open. “No, I can’t.” He lashed out, shoving aside Scar, breaking the moment that almost trapped him. “I won’t!”
“Grian!” Scar was sprawled in the grass, reaching out, his face so full of fear that Grian nearly froze entirely. But then Grian was stumbling to his feet and lunging for the gem that had been carelessly dropped. His fingers curled around the amber, and he glanced back stupidly, one final time, eyes wide and pupils blown, to see Scar’s expression and-
Scar stared at him. Breathed. Said, “Please. I love you, please don’t-”
Grian pressed the amber to his lips as softly as the kiss had been. Let it fall into his mouth, let it fall between his teeth. Closed his eyes. And bit down.
Crack-!
The sound echoed, into the resounding silence.
His mouth was flooded with tree sap, gumming up his teeth, cloying and sticking to his throat until he choked. He swallowed. Opened his eyes.
Bright lanterns were strung up in orange and yellow glows. The air was filled with the murmur of the crowds and a cool evening breeze. There was the rich smell of roasting meat and fried breads and spun sweets. At the festival centre was a stone statue of two figures, and musicians were playing at its base where people danced.
Grian was standing at the outskirts. There was a honeybee on his hand, crawling up the length of his finger to perch on the rough edge of his torn and bloody nail. He couldn’t feel the soft taps of its thin legs with how hard he was shaking, nor hear the humming quickness of its wings over his own racing heart. Its body was soft with fuzz, shivering against the thin breeze. It turned to him, eyes amber and leaking treesap tears, accusing him.
“Grian, you are never going to guess what I found two stalls down,” Scar said abruptly from behind him, voice distracted and cheerful, followed by the sound of him rooting through a small wax-paper bag for hardened honey candy. “Uh, Grian? What are you looking at?”
The honeybee flew away.
And Grian was left holding nothing.