Free Copper Veins by Jennifer Allis Provost

their picnic at the
brugh
the silverkin had created in the back orchard. After I explained to Micah, Max, and Sadie why they should avoid the orchard for the rest of the day, and watched Sadie turn a most impressive shade of red, my siblings wandered inside the manor, intent on finding snacks. Micah and I followed them inside, but instead of trailing them to the kitchen I let Micah trap me in a corner.
    â€œI missed you,” Micah murmured, nuzzling my neck. “Tell me where my wife was while I was being so rudely hauled off.”
    â€œWhat, was the tea weak?” He nipped my earlobeat that, and I debated if I should continue teasing him. In the end, I decided to behave. “I went to the Mundane realm with Dad and Max.”
    Micah pulled away, suddenly serious. “Weren’t you there just yesterday?”
    â€œYeah, but Dad’s got that plot he’s hatching against the government. He wanted us to walk around Capitol City and show the others that he’s returned.” Micah was silent, his eyes narrowed, and I became painfully aware of the fact that I’d gone behind his back. “Micah, don’t look at me like that. You wouldn’t have let me go, and I
needed
to. This isn’t just my father’s fight and it’s not all about him—this is important to me, too. The Mundane realm, the people in it, they deserve better.”
    â€œ
You
deserve better,” Micah muttered. “You don’t deserve to be in the middle of a war, and you don’t deserve to go in unprepared.” He sighed. “I fear your father’s motives. Vengeance can be blinding—it can lead to rash decisions, and I don’t want you—”
    â€œâ€”to get hurt,” I finished, still as stone, his hands heavy on my shoulders. “You don’t want me to get hurt, Micah, I get it. But this is my
dad
. He has a right to be angry. Gods, I do, too. You can say what you want about vengeance, but what this all comes down to is you don’t trust my father.”
    I had been thinking it, but hearing myself say it made the words hurt more. Micah flinched, his lips tightening into a thin line. “I don’t,” he said finally.“You are right. I do not trust your father. He is being too secretive, with Maeve, with you and Max—”
    â€œHe’s my dad, and he would never put us in needless danger,” I interrupted, standing away from the corner—Micah stepped back, lifting his hands as I shrugged them off. “I trust him. That should be enough for you.”
    â€œIt’s not,” Micah said, so quickly and with such certainty that the words stung. His brow crinkled and he tried to backpedal. “I do not mean to say your trust is meaningless to me—”
    â€œOh? Well, that’s what it seems like,” I snapped. “News flash, I’m not standing by while the Peacekeepers have their way with the Mundane world, whether or not my dad’s involved. And the fact that he is should be a comfort to you, not a reason for you to hold me back.” I thought about Dad’s questioning me about Micah, how concerned he’d been, his comments about Jerome. “My dad cares about me, okay? He’s trying his best to get along with you. I guess he just had it in his head that I’d end up with some…Mundane guy.”
    I didn’t want to bring Jerome up—I knew Micah would be upset. But my husband could read me like an open book. He quirked an eyebrow. “Any ‘Mundane guy’ in particular?” he growled.
    I couldn’t lie to him. “Jerome Polonsky? That Peacekeeper? We ran into him. Turns out he’s on our side.”
    Micah paused, thinking. “That is the man who called me your ‘boy friend’?”
    â€œYeah. Him,” I confirmed. Micah drew back, his brows furrowed even deeper.
    â€œYou seem to find him often,” he said, his voice low and even. “Nearly