Chapter 302: Coalbasters, Confessions, and the King Who Technically Wasn’t There
Chapter 302: Coalbasters, Confessions, and the King Who Technically Wasn’t There
Elyn’s POV
One would think Zorathys would be annoyed by my words.
One would think he would frown, or sigh, or make some lazy comment about how I was being dramatic. One would think he would argue that the outing didn’t have to end, that we could salvage something from the chaos, that surely the children had learned their lesson.
But instead, his eyes lit up.
Not a lot — just a flicker, a tiny spark of something that looked almost like hope. His half-lidded gaze sharpened slightly, and his lips curved into something that was not quite a smile but was definitely not a frown.
"Have the pests finally worn you out?" he asked. "Did they do something to annoy you?"
I did not answer him.
I just stood there, soaking wet, glitter sticking to every inch of my skin, tiny demon creatures still crawling around the snacks, and stared at him.
Zorathys looked down then, his eyes landing on the demons Thalira had summoned by accident.
They had frozen the moment he appeared, their tiny bodies going still, their single eyes fixed on him with what I could only describe as terror.
"What are coalbasters doing here?" he asked.
I blinked.
Coalbasters. So that was what they were called.
"Your pests summoned them," I said, using his words.
Zorathys sighed as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"The pests from the Thalassar territory," he said, his voice carrying that lazy drawl, "always summon the most deadly demons in the realm. Even by accident." He glanced at Thalira and Retheris. "Especially by accident."
Thalira looked down at her feet while Retheris looked at the ceiling.
Zorathys then stretched out his hand toward the coalbasters.
But the demons scrambled backward, leaving the pastries they had been holding behind.
They were terrified of him, that much was obvious.
Zorathys stared at them for a moment, his expression unreadable.
Then his shadows moved.
They moved across the floor like dark water, surrounding the coalbasters, and the little demons let out a shrieking noise — high and sharp and piercing. Every person in the room covered their ears immediately.
Except Zorathys.
He stood there, unaffected, his shadows closing in on the coalbasters. The shrieking grew louder for a moment, and then it stopped.
The shadows retreated.
The coalbasters were gone.
Zorathys turned to the children then, a smile on his face.
"Thanks to you," he said, his voice light and cheerful, "for ruining the outing, I can spend time with my wife."
I removed my hands from my ears. No, this demon was dreaming if he thought since I said the outing was over we could spend time together.
"Stop dreaming," I said. "I’m not spending time with you at all."
He blinked in shock.
"The outing is over," I continued. "If you wanted to spend time with me, then you shouldn’t have just gone to sleep like that. You should have stayed with me. You should have been here, not disappearing the moment your show was over."
He tilted his head, his earrings swaying.
"I was against the pests coming with us from the beginning, Firefly. This is not my fault," he said.
True, but I wasn’t backing down.
"I was against going out with you from the beginning," I shot back. "The outing is over. I’m done. I’m soaking wet and dripping onto the floor."
I gestured at the puddle forming around my feet.
Zorathys looked at it.
Then he snapped his fingers.
The water on my clothes vanished. The puddle on the floor disappeared. The glitter — all that gold, silver, and pink — lifted from my skin and hair and dress, swirling upward like a tiny sparkling cloud before dissipating into nothing.
The room rearranged itself.
The scattered clothes returned to their racks. The overturned cushions righted themselves. The trays of snacks — the ones that had been knocked over, the ones the coalbasters had raided — straightened and refilled themselves, the Cron’s Pops and pastries reappearing as if they had never been touched.
It was like nothing had ever happened.
Zorathys looked at me when he was done.
"Can we send the pests back to their parents," he asked, "and continue the outing now that you’re no longer wet?"
I folded my arms, and then a smile broke out on my face.
"No."
"Why?" he asked. "I’ve already dried you. I’ve fixed the room. I was even the best behaved today."
I gave him a look. Did he really think... well, given who Zorathys was, he was the best behaved today. But still...
"You were sleeping half the time, Zorathys," I said.
"Because I was tired," he said, as if this were obvious. "Using my shadows to put on a show for you was exhausting. So while my shadows put on the show, I slept. And then I slept more after. It takes a lot of energy after all."
I turned to face him fully.
"What do you mean?" I asked slowly. "Are you trying to tell me that every show I watched — every copy of you that walked the Broadway, every outfit I rated — none of them were the real you?"
Zorathys winced at my words.
"Technically, Firefly," he said, his voice careful, "my shadows are an extension of me. So it was the real me. In a way."
Wait, so I was lusting after shadows? I was lusting after copies of this demon, was that it?
I mean, they were perfect copies and it’s not like I hated the show he put on for me or anything, but really?
"Zorathys," I called out.
He swallowed.
"Firefly, what I did was not bad in any way," he said cautiously. "It’s just a way to help move things faster, you know? If I had done it for you by myself, then we wouldn’t even be done because I’d be taking thirty-hour breaks immediately after I finished changing."
I opened my mouth to speak when suddenly there was a commotion, extremely loud — one would think it was happening in the stall, but no. It was happening in the streets.