Work Text:
Raven Queen was born, just like everyone else, with a soulmark— a phrase written on her skin. Hers was spread across the lower part of her stomach, cradled gently in between her two hips, in messy, chicken-scratch cursive. When she was young, around four years old, the Good King wrote it down for her on a different sheet of paper in his own big, blocky print.
“It looks nothing like it,” she complained, grabbing at the quill. He sat in a chair by her desk, and she was leaning off her bed. “It looks nothing— all of your letters are different.”
“The mark is in cursive,” he chuckled, but let her take it anyway, where she just drew a long line of scribbles underneath where he had written out the mark’s message. “That’s not… Feather, that’s just nonsense.” He called her feather as a nickname, something she tolerated but did not enjoy. (Not at three. But by eight, nine— by twelve, especially, she treasured that little reduction of her name, something softer, something sweeter.)
Raven wrinkled her nose at him, and he ruffled her hair fondly. “Okay, here— how about I just read it out loud?”
“Okay,” she said, and sat down on her bed. She tugged her shirt down from where she had hiked it up before, to crane her head and squint at the marking. It was in an entirely inconvenient place, she thought.
The mark was this:
O’er book, o’er sky, O me, O my!
Here vines up castle wall grow.
Clever match, clever word, sweeter song never heard!
Here a knight tells a black-bird to slow.
“What does that mean?” little Raven demanded. She was somewhat familiar with the language: all fairytales were read like this, all poems and songs, but she had to get her dad to tell her what they meant in a simpler way. She was only three, after all.
The King just laughed. “I don’t know, Feather,” he said. “You’ll figure it out in time.”
<>
Raven Queen was born, not like everyone else, with mitch-matched eyes. One of them was a steady purple, the same color as her mom’s. She didn’t see her mom often, but she was told this, over and over again, by her father, by the cook, by her elementary school teachers, by anyone who knew her mom. You look just like her— well, I mean, except for—
Her other eye— the one to the right— was something so bizarre, they took her to the doctor when she was young to see if she was cursed. She wasn’t. The iris was a pale but vivid pink, and if you looked really, really closely— around the pupil was a thin line of blue. The pupil itself was oddly shaped: it was practically split in two. They did some vision tests and determined that she was mostly fine— didn’t need contacts or glasses— but her field of vision was a little bit off from the average person’s.
Part of Raven was glad for it, this marring thing that made her different enough for that careful addition of, Except for the eyes . That the cheekbones and arching eyebrows and the twist of her mouth was ignored over the bright pink of an unnatural iris twisting around a pupil that, if she didn’t know better, would say looked just like a heart.
“Your eyes are fucking weird,” Faybelle told her in fifth year of elementary, sitting on the edge of her desk. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Yes,” Raven said, gritting her teeth.
“Did you get cursed?”
“No.”
“You sure? Didn’t piss off any evil fairies?” she said with a flutter of her wings. “What if I cursed the other one, too? Wouldn’t look as weird, then. The black hair and the pink eyes would almost match.”
“Fuck off, Faybelle,” Raven said, and Faybelle had leered at her and flew off to go pester someone else.
Raven went home that night and stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. She traced the edges of her jawline, eyes, ears. She curled her lips up at the edges and imagined herself cursing someone. Imagined pissing a fairy off enough to get cursed. “How’d you like that, Mom?” she mumbled to herself, opening the cabinets above the sink, rummaging through the supplies there. The black and the pink would almost match .
She couldn’t put a contact in. She’d gone to the same school, with the same kids, for five years now— they’d make fun of her nonstop, the same way they teased Briar for being the first girl in the grade to start wearing makeup. And at least she was popular. At least people liked Briar.
Raven found the bleach.
Raven got rubber gloves and tentatively, over the sink, worked her fingers through patches of it, unevenly, just trying to get what she could. Then she sat there, her black hair flat and sticky with bleach, the cream vivid against her darker skin. She’d missed entire patches, black still tumbling down to her shoulders, but she honestly didn’t care. It wasn’t the point.
She didn’t know how long she was supposed to keep it in for, but she sat there for about half an hour before getting thoroughly bored and tipping her head over into the sink, scrubbing her hair until it was all soaking wet.
Then she dried it.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was dark, so the bleach didn’t make the streaks white, but they were a pale yellow-orange, and mixed in with the black, it created some sort of highlight effect. She was almost happy with it just like this, but this wasn’t what she wanted.
Raven found the purple dye box that she got a while back when her dad had casually mentioned that she could match her hair with her eyes. She hadn’t given it a thought, but—
But the eyes don’t match, the eyes don’t match, the eyes don’t match.
She wasn’t going to cry over this. She wasn’t going to cry over Faybelle , for Grimm’s sake. Instead, she slipped the gloves back on, and slowly and thoroughly worked the purple through all of the bleached strands of hair.
<>
Between fifth and sixth years, she started wearing the contact. Nobody said anything. Nobody even noticed— almost. When she came in for the first day of school, she passed Faybelle in the hallway, who gave her a long, evaluating look, but Raven just lifted her chin and ran her fingers through her purple-streaked hair, confident in her perfectly even purple eyes.
<>
Maddie was in her class that year.
She arrived ten minutes late, and when the teacher scolded her, she pulled out five different watches and showed the teacher all of them. “See?” she said.
“These… these are all running at different times,” the teacher said, somewhat bewildered.
“Exactly!” Maddie said, though Raven didn’t know she was named Maddie at the time. Some of the kids in the class snickered. “This one says I’m early. This one says I’m late. None of them tell me when my class is supposed to start, silly!” There was more laughter in the class. Some of it was genuine. Some of it was mean. Raven dug her nails into her palm.
The teacher did not appear to like being called silly . His jaw tensed. “Just— go sit down,” he said, irritated. “I need to start class.”
The girl bounced straight to the back of the classroom, mint-and-lavender curls bouncing with her, and plonked down in the last available seat, right by Raven. Without pausing at all, she turned and whispered, “You have a lot of secrets. They keep spilling out of your pockets.”
Raven glanced down at what she was wearing. She had on a long-sleeved shirt. A skirt. Heeled boots. No pockets. “Um,” she said, looking back up at the girl. “Where should I keep the extra? If I have no more room.”
Her eyes sparkled. “In a friend’s pocket, of course.”
<>
Maddie’s markings didn’t look like everyone else’s. Across her dark brown skin spilled so many bright colors and pictures, things no one else had and no one had heard of anyone else having.
There were ink patterns of cat paws running up and down her calves, teeth marks sunk into her forearms, purple-and-gray watercolor spilling down her collarbone; red eyeshadow smeared over her lips like lipstick, dotted lines across her neck like a cut here paper, crowns on her ankles; gray stitches across her stomach, clocks with spinning hands on her upper back, pink flowers blooming on the tips of her toes; maps across her shoulderblades, puzzle pieces on her biceps; an entire sword on the inside of her thigh, red quilt patterns on the back of her neck.
One sleepover, sometime that year, Raven asked, tentatively, “Can I touch them?”
Maddie, usually so bright and energetic in her answers, had chewed her lip and then quietly said, “Yep.”
Raven had trailed her fingers across them. Obviously it was just skin, but there was different feels to them: some of the markings felt like static, some slick, some warm, some soft. She moved her fingers across the lines on her neck, and Maddie had let out a little tickled half-laugh, a sound like something being punched out of her. “Is this what the markings look like? In Wonderland?”
“Yep,” Maddie said, again. “I have more than most people, though, which my dad—” She sucked in a breath. “Which my dad always told me was because I had a bigger heart than most people. I could love more. To the beetle who grows .”
“The kids make fun of you,” Raven murmured.
“They’re all just word-people,” Maddie said. “I don’t mind. Everyone just reads words and numbers here. You know? One of my watches tells time.” She paused, like she was trying to figure out how to explain. “They don’t know what it’s like to feel someone’s soul on your skin.”
Raven pulled back. “Well,” she said. “In that case, neither do I.”
Maddie looked at her for a while. “Your right eye is darker than your left,” she said.
Raven’s hand flew to her right eye. “But that’s…” she hesitated. “This is— it’s just a birth defect.” Guilt churned in her stomach. Of course the shade was off. But Maddie didn’t know why. “It’s not… Wonderland birthmarks don’t color your eyes, do they?”
“I don’t think so,” Maddie said. “But they don’t really follow a rhyme or a reason. That’s the point! What fun would it be to find someone and just know that they’re yours? I love your little riddles— but they’re—” she pouted, stuck her bottom lip out. The lines of it were deep brown and the inside pale pink, closest to her mouth, but the left side of it was smeared with the bright red that Raven had noted looked like eyeshadow, when they first met. “So many people just try to see if the handwriting matches.”
“Well, yeah,” Raven said. “How else are you supposed to be able to tell? The phrases make no sense.”
“Of course they do!” Maddie exclaimed, sitting up. “If that isn’t the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Can I see yours?”
Raven flushed. “I mean— okay, it’s kind of in an odd place. Give me a moment.” She scooted backwards. They were sitting on the floor, both wearing just nightshirts and sweatpants, so she leaned against one of the legs of her bed and tugged the sweatpants down so that the band rested low on her hips, and carefully hiked up the shirt just high enough so that the words were legible. “Here.”
Maddie carefully read the words, as quiet as Raven had ever heard her. “Hm,” she said, at last. “Well, I haven’t a clue.”
Raven dropped her shirt. “Helpful, Maddie,” she said dryly. “Truly.”
Maddie shrugged carelessly, a playful smile creeping across her face. “Well, I know that’s not fun to hear, but these are so individual! But that’s my challenge to you. You have to find your soulmate through your own heart , not just through whoever’s handwriting you see first. Because otherwise, what’s the point? How do you know that you even love them?”
“How does me figuring out the dumb riddle equate to loving someone?” Raven said, leaning back on her hands and crossing her legs.
“Well,” Maddie said. “It’s about them! If you know enough about them to know that they’re the solution, well, to the heart on the skin, bubbles full to the brim, just limn the curtains gold on the hem!”
“Riddlish, Maddie,” Raven said, smiling affectionately. “I don’t speak it. But I get it, I think. You’re supposed to fall in love with them first.”
“That is the most boring way of putting it, yes,” Maddie agreed.
Raven snorted, then hesitated. The guilt hadn’t left her insides, and stuck the bottom of her ribs, pressing her nails into her palm. “Okay, so— my eyes aren’t actually—” she hesitated. “Here.” She slowly sat up, and leaned forward. She carefully took out the contact in her right eye, and then looked up at Maddie, who gasped softly. “I look like this.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Maddie whispered, scooting closer and taking Raven’s face in her hands. “Why don’t you just look like this all of the time?”
“Kids used to tease me for it,” Raven said, tolerating Maddie’s hands poking at her eyelid and cheek as she leaned closer. “And I don’t even know why I look like this. Clearly my soulmate is just someone from Ever After, you just saw my tattoo.”
“I have roughly five different people’s marks, Crow,” Maddie said, somewhat scoldingly, squinting closer. “Oh, there’s blue on the inside! Brilliant. Is the pupil meant to be a heart?”
Maddie’s implication caught up with her. She pulled back, waving away Maddie’s hands. “Wait, are you saying that I have more than one soulmate? Do— wait, okay, do Wonderlandian soulmates work the same as Ever After’s?”
Maddie paused. “I don’t think so,” she said, after a moment. “You guys seem to think that soulmates are all, like— romance, and stuff. Kisses and marriages. Which is great! My dad marries people, you know. But I don’t— do that.”
“Marry people?” Raven joked.
Maddie giggled. “No,” she said, “Just— you know. Loving people like that . In a squish sort of way. I’m more of a squash person. Or maybe a tham person. Or blim . Those are nicer words.”
Raven processed that. “But you have so many marks,” she said. “One of them…?”
Maddie just smiled. “My dad said my heart was big enough to love a lot a lot of people,” she said. “And that’s okay! I can do that. I want to do that. But I don’t want to love people in the way that I think you want to love people.”
“Oh,” Raven said. “Okay then.”
“So I’m not saying that you’re going to love this person like that,” Maddie said, putting her thumb on Raven’s lower eyelid, thumbnail brushing her lower lashes. “But I think— whoever it is— will be very special to you.”
“So you do think it’s a soulmark,” Raven said.
“Your soul dances in the eyes,” Maddie said. “How could it be anything else?”
<>
First year of Ever After High was fun . While elementary was a drag, being able to room with Maddie was legitimately the only thing keeping Raven sane. She still wore the contact during classes and such, but back in the dorm, she took it out and put it in the case on her bedside table. Maddie loved making up all sorts of theories for why the mark was in the eye.
“Maybe,” Maddie said, one evening, when Raven was especially exhausted from dealing with having to take villain classes all day. Maddie laughed, bright and sparkly. “Maybe— your soulmate is from an island. Like— like an eye -land.”
(Raven laughed so hard she rolled off her bed.)
<>
“I don’t want to sign the book,” she whispered one late night. They had watched the Legacy Day of the sophomore class earlier, and the images clung to her bones. The words, said out loud, felt like tender heresy. Maddie was laid out on her bed, and Raven was on the floor, on her knees, her face buried in the crook of Maddie’s neck. A confessional. Her nose was pressed against a particularly purple watercolor stain.
“O’er book,” Maddie whispered back. “O’er sky— O me, O my!”
<>
Raven sat in the cafeteria alone, the first day of her sophomore year, and she wasn’t sure why. Maddie was nowhere to be found, so Raven chose a table all the way in the back, picking at her tray. People were worse. People were always bad, but this year, people were worse. People were: Oh, that’s the daughter of the Evil Queen. She looks the part.
“Hey,” an unfamiliar voice said next to her, male and kind of breathy.
She looked up.
Her voice caught in her throat.
The boy stared back, uncertain.
His left iris was pink, pale but vivid. His left pupil was shaped like a heart, if she didn’t know better. She wasn’t close enough to him, but she bet ten dollars— she bet on her mother’s prison— she bet that there was a thin ring of blue around the inside. “Hi?” he said, when she had been staring for definitely too long.
“Hi,” she said back, and her voice was doing odd things. She either sounded irritated or like she was about to cry, and the boy flinched a little. Definitely irritated.
“I was just wondering— if I could sit here?” he mumbled.
“Yeah!” Raven said, trying to sound more eager, but she definitely sounded like she was about to have a breakdown. “Yeah, I— yeah.” She scooted down and gestured beside her, despite there being an entire open bench. He sat down.
Raven didn’t know how to ask him Has your eye always been like that? without sounding exactly like all of the kids in her elementary school class. She didn’t know how to say Me, me too , because she had her contact in. She didn’t know how to say anything. There was a long moment of awkward silence before she said, “Um. What’s your name?”
“Dexter,” he said quietly. “Charming,” he added, like an afterthought.
“Raven,” she said. She didn’t add Queen .
“I know,” he said.
He knew.
<>
Raven found Maddie after classes ended, in the afternoon. They met on the stairs outside, and Raven said, “Where were you at lunch?” and Maddie said, “Crow, I found one,” and reached out and touched Raven’s forearm, tracing some imaginary line. Raven’s eyes fell to Maddie’s arms, the teeth marks lined in ink all up her arms. The cat paws trailed around her wrist, elbows— and some that Raven couldn’t see but knew were there, on her stomach and the back of her knees.
“Oh,” Raven said. “ Oh .”
And she didn’t want to ruin it, she didn’t want to ruin the way that Maddie’s face was so full of happiness and shine and awe with her own thing— and she didn’t even know what she found — so she just pulled Maddie in for a hug, both of them wrapping their arms around each other firmly, like they’d never let go.
Something churned in Raven’s stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was jealousy, or envy— or if there was a difference— or if it was anything at all.
<>
Raven didn’t know how she had never noticed Dexter in her freshman year, because suddenly he was everywhere. Maybe she had never been paying attention, because despite all of the bright colors, she was now able to pick out that pink in the middle of a crowd. They kept eating lunch together, but they didn’t talk much; besides, Maddie finally started sitting with her, and brought along Kitty Chesire, who activated every single one of Raven’s fight or flight defenses.
Kitty was littered with just as many marks as Maddie was, but they were all different. Roses bloomed across her neck and thorns stabbed into her clavicle; there were teacups on the back of her palms, spilling turquoise paint (oil, acrylic— Raven didn’t know, but it wasn’t watercolor) down her fingers. The rest of the marks were covered by clothing. Kitty smiled at her with heavy eyelids as Raven kept her head down and scowled, and when Maddie went up to go get a fork that she forgot, Kitty whispered, “Down, girl.”
Raven dug her fingernails into the base of her palm.
<>
Raven realized she shared General Villainy with Kitty when she switched seats and sat right next to her. “This seat is taken,” Raven said.
“No it’s not,” Kitty said with amusement. When she smiled, she showed all her teeth. Her canines looked like a feline’s. She grinned further. “Of course my teeth look like a cat’s. It’s in the name.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Raven snapped, and Badwolf had to snap at them to stop talking.
<>
“Why do you hate me?” Kitty asked one day, a quiet period where they were just filling out a worksheet. “Normally I have to do something to get people to hate me, but I actually haven’t done anything to you.”
“I don’t hate you,” Raven lied.
Kitty glanced at the screen.
<>
One night, Raven couldn’t sleep. She normally could. Apple almost never could, but she pretended she did, and Raven never called her out on it. Tonight, she swung her legs out as quietly as possible, and slipped out of bed. Silently, she padded over to the door of the room, and tired to crack it open without making any noise.
“What are you doing?” Apple whispered from the shadowy depths of the other side of the room, pretense abandoned.
“I can’t sleep,” Raven said.
Apple sat up. “You’re not allowed to leave your room during the night.”
“You going to tell on me?” Raven said.
Apple didn’t say anything, so Raven slipped out of the room and shut the door behind her.
<>
Raven circled around the hallways, glancing at all of the roommate assignments on each door that were still up. She slowed down outside Kitty Cheshire & Madeline Hatter , scribbled in some slanted print. She hesitated, coming to a stop outside the door. She could knock. She could knock, and get the fifty fifty of either Kitty or Maddie answering, and she didn’t want to take that risk, so she kept walking.
She found herself climbing the staircase to one of the towers, and she exited out onto the roof of one. The air was still warm, left from summer trailing into the school year. The stone was rough under her bare feet. Vines trailed up and down the castle walls, reaching into the cracks of things and making a thick blanket over the concrete.
Expecting to find herself alone, she was somewhat mortified to find Dexter sitting next to the ledge, back to it, holding some kind of stringed instrument in his lap. A ukulele, maybe. Raven crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey,” she said.
Dexter glanced at her. His hair was messy and undone in the night, the usual circlet gone. It was still pushed back, but tufts of it fell into his face. It looked soft. Raven wanted to run her fingers through it. His glasses were lying by his side, and his phone was propped up, spilling blue light against his side. Chords for the ukulele were pulled up, some song.
He was staring at her. He looked frozen.
At once, Raven realized she wasn’t wearing her contact. She had left it beside her bed. Her hand flew to her right eye. “Shit.” Her stomach dropped so suddenly that she felt temporarily nauseous. Her skin was hot. She took a step back.
“You…” he trailed off, at some loss for words. “Wait, are you— is that—”
“No,” she said. “I mean.” She didn’t know why she was arguing. He was the same: he didn’t bother hiding it. His eye was just as pink, even in the dim light, his other eye a soft, natural brown. She slowly lowered her hand, feeling like a coward. “Yeah,” she said, softly, letting out a slow breath. She was so, so aware of the fact that her eyes were bare, for once. No makeup, no contacts in. Just a pink iris, pale but vivid. A pupil shaped almost like a heart, if she didn’t know better.
“I thought…” he trailed off. His phone shut off, obscuring the finer details of his face, meaning Raven couldn’t tell what he was thinking at the moment. The moon above them was bright enough to illuminate enough of their surroundings that they weren’t in complete darkness, at least. “I thought your eyes were… I thought I was the only one.”
Raven wondered, at once, if this was their soulmate mark. If him and her were soulmates. But the thought of that fit awkwardly— the eyes were something else. “I put in a contact that matches my natural color,” she admitted, quietly. “It’s… easier.”
“Right,” he said. Raven still couldn’t see his face; her eyes hadn’t adjusted enough.
She felt— absurdly— guilty.
Raven cleared her throat, and nodded towards his phone. “What were you… what were you trying to learn?”
“Ah,” Dexter glanced over, and the moonlight glanced off his cheekbones. He looked flushed, or maybe that was the shadow. “Um. A… Tailor Quick song?” He said it like a question. “You know Enchanted?”
“ ’Course,” Raven said, a rush of affection flooding through her. She moved a few steps forward, and sat down a few feet beside him. She leaned her head back against the building, and could feel his stare burning through her. Normally, she hated people looking at her, but maybe that was because she knew they were always just comparing her to her mother. And that wasn’t this. Right now, the only thing that was important was the thing least relevant to any part of her story. “Fantastic song. Can you play it?”
“Yeah,” he said, quickly, “yeah, I can— I can do that.”
There was a pause before a hesitant few notes plucked out on strings that gradually fell into a lovely acoustic version of the song, the warm night swirling the song around until Raven relaxed completely against the ledge, the music melting her.
The song finished after a bit, and they were both quiet. Comfortable.
Dexter asked, “Are you and Maddie soulmates?”
Raven’s heart clenched up. “No,” she said, and she didn’t mean to sound bitter.
“Oh,” Dexter said, and he sounded surprised. Raven turned her head to the side and opened her eyes. He was studying her face, eyebrows creased. “I just thought— because you’re always together—”
Raven curled her fingers into a ball. “Her and Kitty are,” she said. “But it’s not— Maddie doesn’t date, or anything. I don’t know.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re jealous?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth. “Yeah,” she said, finally, because Dexter was safe. Raven felt like she could tell him this. He was so pretty like this, mirroring her position, eyes soft and mouth gentle. Her eyes had finally adjusted, she realized. “I think… I don’t think it’s because I’m in love with Maddie or anything, I think it’s… I think it’s because she’s really the first friend I ever had. First real one, anyway. Some part of me’s possessive.”
“That’s understandable,” he said. He gave her a half-smile. “You should tell her that.”
“Maybe,” she said, meaning No . “You’re really good,” she said, jerking her chin at the ukulele.
“Thanks,” he said, picking up the abrupt topic change easily. “My parents don’t want me to play it at all. It’s unmanly, or something. They wanted me to play the piano, if I had to play an instrument at all.” His eyes flickered to the ground, and he picked at a seam on his flannel pajama pants. There was a meaningful pause. “Daring plays the piano.”
“I like the ukulele,” Raven said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Dexter smiled shyly, and Raven noticed that he had dimples. “Thanks,” he said. He was still messing with the seam, eyes focused firmly not on her. “Um,” he said, shifting topics quickly again, “Do you think—” his shy smile turned into a grin, “Okay. Do you think Daring and Apple are actually soulmates?”
Raven laughed. “Oh, Grimm, hell no. Are you kidding? I think it’s obvious Daring doesn’t think so, at least, he’s dated half the school by now. Including the juniors. He’s not even that hot.”
“Hm?” Dexter glanced up. “He’s not your type?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“What is, then?” he asked.
Raven opened and closed her mouth, and felt some strange surge of confidence in the moonlit-dark. “I don’t know,” she said, playfully, “I’m not really into piano players. More into the strings type.”
“Yeah?” Dexter said, and his eyes met hers.
Raven twisted her mouth into a small, pursed movement to keep from smiling as widely as she wanted to, giddiness rising in her chest. She was sure it shone through in the scrunch of her eyes and nose. “Yeah,” she said.
He laughed, some relieved sound, and ran a hand through his hair, finally leaving the poor hem of his pants alone. “You’re a strange girl, Raven Queen,” he said, at last.
“Just Raven,” Raven murmured. “Dexter Charming .”
“Alright, Just Raven,” Dexter said. “I’ll be Just Dexter, then.”
“Alright,” Raven said. “It appears we have a deal.” She stuck out her hand, which he glanced at for a moment, and then shook. He was really, really warm. “Your hand is warm.”
“Your hand is cold.”
Raven laughed.
<>
Raven said, “I promise I’m not mad at you,” and meant it, this time, and Kitty flashed her a grin and disappeared into thin air.
<>
Raven said, “Hey, Maddie,” leaning in the doorway of the room. She wasn’t mad, she wasn’t, but something did clench in her chest in the way that Maddie and Kitty wrapped themselves around each other in Maddie’s bed. Kitty smiled big and disappeared, reappeared by Raven in the doorway, and immediately dropped her smile.
“I was just heading out,” Kitty said, which was a lie. She shot the screen a nasty look. “By the way,” she said, leaning close to Raven and lowering her volume, “I promise I’m not the jealous type. I’m not stopping you from doing anything.”
“She’s not— I’m not her soulmate,” Raven said, instead of what she meant to say, which was What would I be doing?
Kitty shrugged a shoulder. “You Ever After folk and your soulmates. In Wonderland, the marks are more of suggestions than strict rules.” She brushed past Raven, into the hallway, and glanced back. “We despise rules,” she said, smiling big again, eyes completely flat. She disappeared in an instant.
Raven stuck her thumbs through the belt loops of her jeans. “Hi,” she said.
Maddie turned to her, and reached out her arms. “Come here,” she said, but there was something off. Raven moved forward and laid next to her, encompassing Maddie with her entire body. Maddie was so short, and Raven had frequently been called tall— it was so easy to just pull her in. The thing in her chest settled.
“You know I love you,” Maddie said.
“You don’t love me in the same way,” Raven said, convinced of it. It filled her up like black sludge, making her throat tense and breath catch. “It’s— of course it’s different, she’s your soulmate .”
That’s the fear. She figured it out.
She didn’t want to be replaced.
Maddie’s arms tightened where they were wrapped around her back. Raven ran a hand down the side of Maddie’s ribs. Despite Raven being dark, her skin was still much paler than Maddie’s, and the contrast of their limbs looked like the mix of churned silt and mud of a riverbank. “ Of course the earth is jealous of the fire, for the sky loves the sun so; but deep in the earth, there is a star. Know: it is the same.” It was some combination of Riddlish and English, but Raven got it. This one was easy— a freebie.
Raven sniffed, and buried her face in Maddie’s hair, pushing the poofy mess of it around her face, where it itched her cheeks. “I don’t mean this like— none of this is— it’s not…”
“I know!” Maddie said, quickly. “No, I know, it’s like— you’re just another one of my clocks.”
Raven let out a wet laugh. “Maddie, I don’t know what that means.”
She huffed. “So, love like— like, romance is when the clock runs on time.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t have any clocks that run on time.”
“You told me you had one watch that ran on time?” Raven said, thinking back.
“Oh, I got rid of that one ages ago,” Maddie said conversationally, and Raven laughed bigger this time, pulling Raven close. “Anyway, so— so let’s say, my soulmates are all clocks that run behind the current time; and maybe you run ahead.”
“But we’re all equally useless,” Raven giggled, and Maddie squawked out an indignant “Equally important !”, and Kitty found them like that, holding each other so tight that it was impossible to tell whose limbs were whose.
<>
Two days later, Raven asked Dexter out on a date.
<>
They walked down the grassy hills of the school grounds, which was cut through by a river. Down the river, they could see the Troll Bridge; further than that was the road that led to town. Students were scattered all over the grounds, since it was the weekend, and the only real chance everyone had to go into town. Raven and Dexter were going the opposite way, walking together amiably by the river.
“This may have been a mistake,” Dexter said, grimacing at the sky. It was very hot, and they were both sweating by now. “I’m disgusting. And not nearly physically active enough for this.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be like, a knight in shining armor or something?” Raven joked, and Dexter’s grimace deepened.
“I don’t know how shiny my armor is,” he grumbled. “It’s all secondhand.”
“Damn,” Raven said. “Youngest child syndrome?”
“Sort of,” Dexter said, glancing at her, and then down at his feet. He didn’t really like making eye contact with many people, and Raven idly wondered if it was because of his left eye. If she would’ve developed the same habits if she hadn’t started wearing contacts. “I have an older brother, obviously, but I also— ah, I have a twin? Darling? Have you seen her around?”
Raven frowned. “Describe her?”
“Uh…” Dexter waved his hand around. “Short platinum hair? Like, platinum blonde, the really really pale blonde that only comes from being a newborn baby or being my sister, apparently. It used to be really long but she chopped it all to shoulder length before starting this year? Really pissed my parents off.”
The image was vaguely familiar. “I think I might’ve seen her around,” Raven said.
“She’s kind of forgettable until you know her,” Dexter said, and Raven hit him playfully on the shoulder. “No, I don’t mean— you’re right, that sounded so rude. No, I mean that she tries to be so perfect and stuff? Pass top of her classes and be just this perfect girl. Kinda a wallflower, but, like, on purpose. Actually knowing her? She’s fucking bomb. I love her, but she’s really only actually herself around family.” He paused, and corrected. “Siblings. Not parents.”
“Ah,” Raven said. “Parental issues.”
“Relatable?”
“Mommy issues,” Raven said. “Obviously. Me and my dad are cool though.”
“Ah, well I am very much the opposite,” Dexter said, glancing behind him at the river. “Me and my dad are not cool. Speaking of cool, can we, like— slow down? Take a break for a second? I kinda want to jump in the river.”
“You’ll be soaked all the way back,” Raven warned before plopping down to sit on the grass beside the bank. “But yeah, go ahead.”
“Sick,” Dexter said, taking off his glasses and circlet and dropping them beside Raven. He ran his hand through his hair, and glanced at her awkwardly. “Do you, ah… mind if I take my shirt off? I’m not much to look at.”
Raven laughed, and waved her hand in a go ahead gesture. “Knock yourself out.”
Dexter stripped his shirt off quickly, dropped it next to his other things, and then waded into the river. “Oh, shit, this is a lot colder than I thought it was going to be,” he muttered.
Raven was not paying attention. On his outer bicep was tattooed his marking, and Raven had some sort of instant realization of Oh, because he wears his heart on his sleeve , which was the most tooth-rottingly sweet reason for any marking placement, ever. She wasn’t sure why that was such an innate reaction, until it clicked.
Because the second realization was: That’s my handwriting .
The sharp edges and arcs of the print, jagged and quick were completely familiar. The bones of her wrist ached.
The third realization was: I promised Maddie I wouldn’t find my soulmate through handwriting alone . This third one settled like a stone in her stomach, and then— and then, all at once, she felt completely relieved. She didn’t have to say anything. She swallowed and looked up at him. He was looking at her like he was expecting a reply. “What?” she said, trying to make her voice stable.
“I asked if you wanted to also get in,” he said, and sounded self-conscious. Raven realized she’d just been staring at his arm for a solid minute, and flushed.
“Sure,” she said, because she was not really processing what he was asking, and anything sounded better than just sitting here and processing all of this at once. She stood up and edged closer to the water. “I’m not going to take off my shirt,” she said.
“Obviously,” he said.
She kicked off her shoes and touched her toes to the water. The water was cold, despite how hot the day was, but it felt nice, so she just waded in. It got deep pretty quickly, and then Dexter and her stood there, facing each other. It was awkward. Why was it awkward? It wasn’t awkward before.
“Where’s your mark?” he asked.
Ah.
“Um,” she said, and glanced down. She touched a hand to her lower abdomen. “It’s right here.” She hesitated for a long time. “I can— I can read it to you. I have it memorized.” A pause. “Obviously.” She hadn’t met anyone who hadn’t had theirs memorized.
“Okay,” he said softly.
“ O’er book, o’er sky ,” Raven started, shakily, “ O me, O my! Here vines up castle wall grow .” She swallowed. “ Clever match, clever word, sweeter song never heard! Here a knight …” She hesitated. “ Here a knight tells a black-bird to slow .”
Dexter considered her for a long time. He turned to the side, and craned his neck up to look at the sky, like he was giving her some kind of privacy. “You can… you can just read mine,” he said, extending his arm a bit.
It was bizarre, looking at her own handwriting, seeing something written out that she had never written before. It read:
Fragile girl, poised for flight,
Given so many enemies to fight;
Broken oath and shattered mirror
Serve to bring her closer, nearer.
“Broken oath?” Raven murmured.
He turned. “It’s your goddamn handwriting,” he said, some desperation in his voice. “Are you not— why—” He was upset. The water rushed around their legs, nearly even around their thighs. They were about the same height, she noticed, and for once— for once, he was looking her right in the eyes.
Raven looked at him for a while, and then down at her hands. She flexed out her fingers, and then relaxed them. Curled them into fists. “How’d you know?”
“In Chemistry…” he trailed off, uncertain. “I saw one of your worksheets. Saw your name. Raven Queen .”
Raven felt a bit sick. “Is that why you sat by me in the cafeteria?” she asked.
“No,” he said, quickly. “I sat with you because you looked so alone, and I— I, um.” He hesitated, swallowed. “And you were beautiful, and all by yourself. No one else would go near you. And of course I knew you by reputation, I think everyone does. But I thought— well, no one deserves that. So I sat by you. And then you were… and then you found me on the roof, and you were kind and— and nice, and I thought you might be flirting with me, and I thought… and I thought, okay, maybe— maybe it is her.”
“And it is,” Raven said, reaching out and brushing her fingers against the words. He shivered.
He turned. “And it is.”
When they kissed, it was not explosions, not fireworks; it was nothing gentle, nothing passionate. It was just warm lips against her own, and it felt something like coming home.
<>
They sat on the bank, reluctant to go back to the school, huddled up against each other because the water left them freezing. “What do you think the eyes mean?” Dexter said, glancing at her. “Like, obviously they’re not our signs— we have the normal ones, the phrases. I think. Would it be— would it be weird to ask you to see yours?”
Raven made a considering humming noise. “Maybe. But I’ll show you anyway.”
She pulled back and had to unbutton a singular button of her jean shorts. Dexter blushed, which she ignored, and she hiked up the bottom of her tank top. The mark remained sprawled across her stomach in what she knew now was Dexter’s shitty chicken-scratch cursive. He reached out and then immediately pulled back his hand, which Raven laughed at, but she understood the instinct to touch. “That’s yours?” she asked.
“My handwriting? Yeah.” He glanced at her. “Why didn’t you… why didn’t you say anything?” There was some insecurity in his voice.
“It’s not because I didn’t want it to be you,” Raven said softly, re-buttoning her shorts, leaving the shirt pulled up, which left only two of the lines visible. “I made this… promise, with Maddie, that I would try to find my soulmate based on only the riddle. Not use the handwriting at all.” She criss-crossed her legs and tapped on her knees with her fingers in some sort of pattern. “So I wasn’t going to say anything. Maybe later. I already… I guess I already thought it was you. I guess I knew it was you from the moment I stepped onto that tower and you played me that song. I just… didn’t want to be wrong.”
He nodded. There was a pause. “Why did she make you promise that?” he asked.
“Because she thinks that just trying to find your soulmate by handwriting means that you don’t actually end up knowing anything about your soulmate before committing to a relationship,” Raven said, and she finally pulled her shirt back down. The hem was a bit wet from the river water. Her shorts were pretty much soaked. “Like, in Wonderland, they don’t have that confirmation, so they kind of spend a lot of time with the people before really figuring out the marks, and stuff.”
“Right,” Dexter said, glancing to the side. “I mean… okay, that does make a lot of sense.”
“I think Ever After doesn’t really see a problem with it because we just kinda force the phrases to fit whoever we’re predetermined to be with,” Raven said, propping her elbow on her knee and putting her chin on her hand. “Right? So much of it is wishful thinking. But I don’t really…” She hesitated. “I don’t really care.”
Dexter cast a glance at her from underneath his eyelashes, which Raven had the sudden impulse to kiss. “What about who the book says you end up marrying?”
Raven pressed her fingers to her bottom lip. “Can I tell you something?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“I really don’t want to sign the book,” she said quietly. His eyes flashed. “And I know— it’s in a couple weeks, right? But…” she glanced to the side. “I don’t see the point . I’m not evil, Dex. You know this. Apple knows this. But I still have to poison her. I still get locked up.” She paused, trying to phrase her point. “I end up suffering so that she can preserve her perfect happily ever after, or whatever. So many of us do.”
“Well, yeah,” Dexter said uncertainly. “But you’re not— you’re not locked up forever. Right? Your mom went and married the Good King and had you— and until she went off book, she was fine, right? So… so in the end, you both end up alright.”
“That’s not the point,” she said, frustration boiling in her. “The point is— the point is that you’ll go up to the book and it’ll point at some girl and tell you to marry her after you kill something, and right now, you’re worried that that girl won’t be me. That’s your worry.” He opened his mouth. “No, it is. And you’re not— you’re not at all worried about who you’re going to have to hurt to even get to that girl in the first place.”
Dexter was quiet. “I guess… yeah,” he said, finally. “Yeah, you’re right.” He picked at a thread coming loose on the band of his shorts. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Raven said, shifting and curling up into a ball, putting her head on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I’m not in your story at all. That’s the point.” She glanced at him. “Who knows, maybe the girl in your eyes is your happily ever after.”
“They’re in your eyes, too,” Dexter said, softly. “Why are you so convinced they’re a girl?”
Raven was quiet. “You’re into guys?”
Dexter shrugged. “It’s… whatever. I don’t really know. I could ask you the same thing, though. You’re into girls?”
She smiled, a little thing that tugged at her mouth. “It’s whatever,” she said, teasing, and he snorted. “Yeah. Honestly, I’m kinda more into girls than guys, most of the time. That’s kinda why I assumed, with the eyes. But you’re good. I like you. So.”
“I am so glad that you like me,” he said, dryly.
“You’re so welcome,” she said, and he grinned. She uncurled herself and got to her feet, brushing off her shorts. “Grimm, these are soaked. C’mon, get your shit together. We’re going back to the castle.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said, pulling his shirt back on, and then fixing the circlet into his hair. He settled his glasses back on his nose, and then reached out his hands. “Help me up,” he said.
“What? No.”
“Please?” he asked, with puppy dog eyes.
“You are a grown teenager,” Raven said, putting her hands on her hips.
He made grabby hands.
“You’re ridiculous,” Raven informed him, and then grabbed his hands and helped haul him to his feet. He stumbled right into her and they collapsed into giggles against each other, putting their hands on each other’s shoulders in order to stabilize themselves.
“Wait,” Dexter said, pulling back. “Wait, wait, this is important.”
“Hm?”
“Who,” he said, with a pause. “Is taller?”
They stepped back further and stared at each other. “Wait,” Raven said, slowly. “Wait, I think— I think I’m actually taller.”
“I’m 5’9”,” Dexter said, running a hand over the top of his head, ruffling his hair.
“You’re fucking kidding,” Raven said. “I’m 5’10”.”
“Holy shit,” he said, and threw his head back with a groan. “Why is everyone in my life taller than me. What are you so tall for?”
“My mom was like, six foot,” Raven said, walking back to him and linking arms with him. “C’mon, shortie, we’ve got to head back.”
“Don’t call me that.”
<>
(“There’s a new transfer student,” Kitty told Maddie. “Her name is Cupid.”
Maddie glanced up to the top of the webpage. “That Cupid?”
“That Cupid,” Kitty said. “Don’t worry. They’re not going to notice her for a while.”)
<>
Raven didn’t sign the book.
(We all know how that went.)
<>
“I’m so proud of you,” Maddie murmured into Raven’s hair as she clung desperately to Maddie’s shoulder and cried. “Some people are mad, and I can’t imagine why, but you’ve got it, right? You didn’t go poof! No poof. Just a watch that’s maybe two hours ahead.”
“Right,” Raven said, and then broke into tears again.
<>
There was a new girl in school. She had pink hair— pale but vivid. She had heart-tipped arrows and pretty clothes that dripped and flowed off of her body, swishy togas and sleek silks. Her eyes were blue.
Raven didn’t notice her for about two months.
<>
“That new girl started a radio show,” Dexter said, sitting on the foot of Raven’s bed. They were both trying to do homework, but kept getting distracted, because neither one of them much wanted to do it. “What’s her name. Cupid?”
“Yeah, that sounds right,” Raven said, looking up. “What’s the show?”
“A love advice show, or something,” Dexter said, twirling his pencil. He frowned at the paper. “I hate Rumpelstiltskin.”
“You doing Chem?”
Dexter showed her the paper. In the corner, he’d written, Please help, I’m scared , and has so far done exactly none of the problems correctly. Raven laughed. “You’re laughing,” Dexter said. “I sent you a desperate SOS message and you’re laughing.”
“Is that why you were tapping on your desk and staring at me intently during class today?” Raven asked, going back to her own work.
“ Yes ,” Dexter said. “Humphrey and I need to teach you Morse Code. Anyway, I think we’re on, like, Chapter Three, right? But he keeps assigning us homework for like, Four and Five? This is insane. Even more insane is how Briar keeps passing literally everything . That girl literally sleeps through every single class we have .”
“Oh, it’s because she’s best friends with Apple,” Raven said. “Apple’s, like, valedictorian or something.” She glanced over at the other half of the room. “She’s out right now. She might help you, but she’s still, like, royally pissed at me for the shit I pulled at Legacy Day. So.”
Dexter groaned and dropped the textbook to the bed. “What if,” he said, “We pulled up Cupid’s radio show and watched it instead of doing homework right now.”
“That sounds like a much better plan,” Raven agreed immediately.
<>
“Soulmates are such a fascinating concept, aren’t they? Where I’m from— well, let’s just say they look a little bit different.” [Shuffling paper] “Here, it’s all open to interpretation— though, I guess ours are too.” [Clearing throat] “The placing of all of them is so unique— and I think it’s interesting that they seem to say so much more about the person in question than the soulmate it’s linked to. For example—” [Pause] “Here, someone’s called in and asked what it means that their mark is on the back of their hand. Maybe it’s because you wear your emotions easily! Some people like keeping their marks guarded, and some people don’t. Maybe you’re not ashamed of it. But if you are, ask yourself— why? There shouldn’t be any shame in loving who you love. Familiarize yourself with this, until it’s as natural, as, well— as the back of your hand!”
<>
Cupid was across the room from them in Chemistry, but Raven quickly realized that she had a crush on Dexter. It was small things; Cupid giggling and talking to Dexter in the doorway as they happened to walk in at the same time, coming over to ask for help, casually touching his arm and shoulder and back as they spoke. Raven found she didn’t mind it. It was just kind of funny, really, watching how much Dexter was completely unaware of what was happening.
Sometime after this realization came a shift. It was lunchtime in the cafeteria; Raven was sitting at the end, across from Maddie, as usual; Dexter was next to Raven, and Kitty was next to Maddie. They’d formed their own little quadrant, at this point.
“I’m just saying,” Kitty drawled, examining her nails. “That humans are so weird about what they deem acceptable and not-acceptable to eat. You’ll eat pig and chicken, but not mouse or squirrel?”
“I mean, evolutionarily,” Dexter reasoned, “Mouse and squirrel don’t really have much meat on the bones compared to something like a cow or a deer.”
Kitty’s examination of her nails grew more aggressive. “I disapprove of your argument.”
Dexter spluttered. “What, because I’m right ?”
Raven stifled a laugh, and shared an amused glance with Maddie. “I think,” Maddie said, “That we should just all eat bones, like dogs.”
“Excuse me!” a voice piped up from a few seats down from Raven, before anyone could respond to that. They all turned.
Cupid stood with her tray, shuffling from foot to foot. “Hi,” she said, flustered. “Could I sit here? I don’t really…” she stood there with her tray, looking rather small. “I don’t really have anywhere to sit.”
“ ’Course,” Raven said, and Cupid flashed her a grateful smile and took a seat right next to Dexter. Raven watched her idly as she ate, as Kitty and Maddie picked back up some conversation. Cupid was a small thing— a few inches taller than five foot, maybe— and pretty, too, with long dark eyelashes that framed gorgeous blue eyes, a lovely red mouth and a tiny button nose. “Why’d you transfer here, Cupid?” Raven asked across Dexter, biting down on the tines of her fork.
“Oh,” Cupid said, startled, “Well. I wanted to see more of the world, maybe.” She hesitated, picking at the broccoli on her tray. “And, um. At the high school I went to… well, our soulmarks work differently, yeah? And I wasn’t able to find anyone there that, um. Matched me.” She glanced quickly at Dexter and then back at her plate. “Because I have the normal marks for Ever After, the words and stuff.”
Raven didn’t ask how her world’s marks worked, because she knew. Because she was suddenly, all at once aware of the contact in her eye and the clumsy way Cupid interacted with Dexter. The Oh, I’m sorry, he must’ve mixed up our papers as she left Dexter’s on his desk, after she must’ve been comparing the handwriting. Raven sat up straighter.
No one else seemed to notice anything.
“That’s cool,” Raven said, her voice only shaking a little. “Did you…” she glanced at Cupid, and saw her looking back. “Have you found your soulmate yet?”
“Um,” Cupid said, and she was panicked, and Raven knew that she did.
“Right,” Raven said. She looked at her tray. “You have plenty of time,” she said. “You know what we don’t have time for? That test on Thursday.” She took a long time chewing and swallowing, because suddenly, eating was a lot harder. “You want to meet with me and study in the library tomorrow during lunch?” She glanced up at Cupid.
Cupid was looking at her, and then slowly glanced at Dexter, who was just eating his food, and then back at her. “Oh,” she said, suddenly quiet. “Yeah. I’d love to.”
<>
Raven spent a whole night staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out if she was jealous. And the answer was no , because the reason Cupid was like this was because Dexter didn’t wear any colored contacts, and Raven does, because she was a coward. She wasn’t jealous, because Cupid was theirs , and by the time she sunk into sleep, she was excited .
<>
“Hey,” Raven said, catching up with Dexter in the hallway and catching his elbow. “We’re meeting in the library with Cupid today. That sound good?”
“Sure,” he said. He paused. “Why?”
“Well, first of all,” she said, “We have a Chem test tomorrow.”
“Okay?”
“And second of all,” Raven murmured, slipping her arm properly through his. “Dex, I think— I think she’s ours .”
Dex’s steps stumbled out of rhythm with hers for a second. There was a brief lull in the conversation. The crowds flowed around them— there was about ten minutes until classes started for the day, and everyone was checking in and out of their lockers. “Are you sure?” he asked, but he didn’t sound cautious, or suspicious. He sounded like Raven had just put her finger on something that he’d been trying to figure out for weeks.
“Positive,” she said. “Cupid seems convinced that you’re her soulmate, anyway, which is odd, because I’m not sure why she wouldn’t have two marks.”
“Well,” Dexter breathed, and they stopped outside of his first class. They both had each other’s class schedules memorized. “She might just think she found one of us. She has no reason to believe that you might be her soulmate.”
That punched Raven in the gut. She felt sick, all at once, and became aware of the feeling of the contact in her eye. She couldn’t breathe. She was vaguely aware of Dexter unlinking their arms, his hands on her face, muttered concerns— she was staring at the wall, and her vision was getting blurrier and blurrier.
“Raven,” he said, “Raven, you’re worrying me. Please—”
“I’m okay,” she rasped. “I—” she looked at him. “I left her.”
“You left her? I don’t— Raven?”
Raven reached up and cupped her palm over her eye. “I’m a coward,” she whispered. “I broke it. I broke it.”
Dexter yanked her in for a hug, burying his face in her shoulder, and Raven grabbed at the back of his shirt for some sort of grounding sensation under her fingers, to feel like she wasn’t about to float away. “No, you can fix it,” he whispered. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
<>
They found Cupid walking down the hallway, and with a nod, they fell in on either side of her, Raven on her right, Dexter on her left. “Hey,” Raven said, and her skin felt like it was burning. She didn’t know. She was so perfect and beautiful and in love with Dexter because she didn’t know , and Raven’s right eye burned.
“Oh!” Cupid said, somewhat startled. She glanced on either side of her and flushed, holding her books closer to her chest. “I was just heading to the library.”
“What a coincidence,” Dexter said, sticking his hands in his pocket and laughing. “So was I.”
“What? That’s crazy,” Raven said. “No, that’s such a coincidence— I was also going there.”
Cupid’s laugh was airy and glittery, and Raven wanted to pepper kisses all over her face. She didn’t; she just pressed the tips of her fingers to the center of her palm. “You invited me,” she reminded them, amusement dancing through her blue eyes. At once, Raven realized that— oh . The ring of blue.
“Right,” Raven breathed. She put an elbow on Cupid’s shoulder, who was short enough for this to work. “Forgot. Let’s go together.”
<>
The library was mostly empty. It always was, during lunch, because you weren’t technically allowed to eat in there. Despite Raven’s original intention of just having a conversation with Cupid, they quickly got caught up in actually studying, because she was kind of stressed about the test tomorrow.
“None of this makes any sense,” Raven said, frowning at the page and flicking it over. “ ‘ You need a magical item and non-magical item to neutralize the mixture; ’ okay, that’s fine. But ‘In order to balance out the mixture, you need an equal amounts of neutrality and polarization —’ how can you have neutrality and then the opposite of neutrality?”
“I think neutrality is the measure and balance of magic and non-magic components,” Dexter said, “And then polarization is the measure of… the direction of the magic?”
Raven put her face directly into the book. “What does that mean ?”
“I think it’s the direction that you stir in,” Cupid said, her voice small, like she didn’t mean to be interrupting their conversation. “It’s just in more complicated terms, because you can also have polarization in spell-casting and stuff.”
Raven sat back up and squinted at the study guide, and then at the text book, and then brightened. “Wait, Cupid, you’re a genius! Holy shit.”
Cupid flushed. “It’s pretty simple,” she mumbled.
“Yeah, but Rumpelstiltskin is a shit teacher,” Dexter said, “So it’s a miracle you’re following anything he does at all . But— wait, Raven, shouldn’t you know this? You’re the only one of us that takes spell-casting classes, as far as I’m aware.”
“Well, yeah,” Raven said, “But they’re all evil spells. So I don’t really do any of the homework. Hell if I know what’s going on. They still refuse to change any of my classes or anything. It’s like I’m working towards a degree I just said I didn’t want.”
“What do you want to do?” Cupid asked.
Raven glanced up. Cupid was looking at her, fiddling with a pen. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, because of none of us signing,” Cupid said, “And me being a transfer, anyway, I don’t necessarily have to do what my dad did. Like, make people fall in love, and stuff. Or even matching them.” She focused on the paper in front of her. “So I want to study soulmarks, instead. Figure out the magic and intricacies of the marks, and the bonds. It’s so fascinating to me.”
Raven drummed the table with her fingers. “Cupid,” she said, softly. “Where are your marks?”
Cupid cast a frantic glance at Dexter, but he was still just flipping through the textbook. “Um,” she whispered. “They’re kinda… in an odd place.”
Raven laughed. “Yeah, so’s mine. Well. I guess both of mine, really.”
Dexter, who clearly had just been pretending not to pay attention, cast her a sharp glance. “Mine’s just on my arm,” he said, straightening up in his seat. Cupid’s gaze immediately snapped to him, brow creasing. He extended his arm, pushing up his sleeve and showing Cupid. “Raven and I are soulmates.”
Cupid did not look heartbroken. Instead, she grabbed his arm and stared at it, for a long time. “Wait,” she said, eventually. “Wait, but—” she looked at Raven. “Raven, can I— Raven, give me your homework.”
“Mm,” Raven said. “Maybe this’ll be easier.” She leaned down and worked on carefully taking out her contact. It rested on her finger, the purple ring printed on it an accusation. She glanced up, and Cupid took in a shuddering breath. “Hi,” she whispered.
“You…” Cupid was staring at her, with those big blue eyes. “You’re both—” She clearly didn’t know how to form her words, gaze darting rapidly in between them. “I thought…”
Raven shuffled through her backpack and found her contacts case, putting the lens carefully away, and clicking it shut. “I think a normal soulmate might be a bit more jealous than I was that you’re so head over heels for him,” Raven said with a bit of amusement, and Dexter hit her arm rather violently. “Hey!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dexter hissed, face bright red.
Cupid was also deep crimson, stuttering. “I’m— I’m so sorry, I— if it helps, it was always both of you.” Raven raised an eyebrow. “It was! I just— I thought you were gorgeous, and you were so cool, but— I didn’t think you were my soulmate, so I didn’t—”
“Hey,” Raven said, as gently as she could, “You’re good.” She reached across the table and left her palm up, and after a long pause, Cupid took it. “I don’t blame you, at all. I blame myself, sort of. For still wearing this dumb contact, I just— I guess I worry what other people will say about me. They already have so many opinions.”
Cupid glanced back and forth between them, rapidly, like she couldn’t figure out who to focus on. Raven wasn’t sure what her face was doing, but she tried to look reassuring. Dexter had a kind sort of smile on his face. “Can I still…” she said, eventually, gesturing at Raven’s homework.
“ ’Course,” she said, letting go of Cupid’s hand and sliding it over.
Cupid traced the words on the page with a trembling finger. “I just… you already found each other,” she murmured. “I feel like I’m late. I feel like I’m intruding, or something. Forcing myself somewhere I don’t belong.”
Raven got up and walked all the way around the circular table to sit right next to Cupid, pressing her body up against her side. She wrapped an arm around Cupid’s shoulders, who was trembling. “Yeah, we already found each other,” Raven said, and then pressed a quick kiss to Cupid’s cheek, who blushed. “But— there’s this thing Maddie said to me, once. About having so many soulmates. She said, My heart is big enough to love a lot of people , and I think— there’s no difference.” She hoped, desperately, that that made sense.
Dexter slid closer, too, and swung his legs up on rest on Cupid’s thighs, and his feet on Raven’s. Raven flicked the toes of his shoes affectionately. Cupid let out a wet laugh. “Samesies,” he said, and Raven sighed.
“I said all of that, and you get samesies ?”
“I think it does the job,” Dexter argued, and Cupid was giggling, and they wrapped themselves around her. Their homework, spread out on the table, was temporarily forgotten.
<>
Cupid’s words, they found out, were sitting right over her heart, swirled in some circular fashion. Each mark was only one sentence: Feather, feather, of a feather, how these birds do flock ; and then, Crown enough, cotton stuff, a boy of charming grow . They were high enough that all she had to do was wear a low-cut tank top and tug it down slightly, but it still was strangely intimate, leaning over her as she sprawled out in her bed, craning their necks to read the words as they spiraled. Blondie was out somewhere, so they had the room to themselves.
“My dad used to call me Feather,” Raven said, touching her finger to the arch of her sharp handwriting. Cupid shivered.
“I’m going to be honest,” Cupid said. “I thought that maybe the boy of Charming might’ve been Daring, for a second. When I first came to the school. Because he’s popular, right, so everyone was saying Daring Charming and when you said Hi, I’m Dexter , I didn’t even— it didn’t even cross my mind. But your eye. So I asked.”
“Could you imagine your soulmate being Daring ,” Raven said, and Dexter buried his head in Cupid’s stomach as she laughed. “ Grimm , what an asshole.”
“His soulmate’s already Apple, though,” Cupid said.
“Mm,” Dexter said. “Debatable.”
Cupid’s eyes went wide. “ Debatable? No, wait, tell me more.”
<>
Raven told Maddie first, and Maddie got this big grin on her face, and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m so so happy for you,” Maddie said. “Are you going to stop wearing the contact?”
“Yeah,” Raven breathed. “I think I might.”
<>
They became known as the odd-eye trio: they were easy enough to find, if you knew where to look, tucked into the cracks and crevices of the school. Maybe on towers at midnight, in back tables of the library. A goddess of love, a princess of evil, and a prince with no story to his name; all connected by pink, vivid, but pale.
<>
(“What,” Kitty said, “A cheesy ending.”
Would you like to end this story, Cheshire?
“I think I just did,” she said, with a smile big enough to flicker her out of existence.)