17. Roman Architecture #3
I let the ensuing silence settle. I’d overstepped the frail boundaries that existed between us. I hadn’t meant to, and he’d done the same so many times in so many ways, but I still felt bad. I tried to remove my hand, but his returned to hold mine in place.
“Do you know how to turn it off?” Ciarán’s voice turned gentle, again making me think of Liam.
“The eye thing?” I blinked several times in rapid succession, testing the Skal shield I’d made over my retinas. “No.”
He laughed softly. “Imagine putting a blanket over a fire, but the blanket is a second set of eyelids inside your eyes.” He blinked away the glow of his irises, revealing Liam’s amber eyes. “Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“Like I said, a good Magician is imaginative. Just try it. You willed a spear into existence and then threw it at my head today, so I know you can at least do this.”
I took a deep breath and focused on the stone wall ahead.
“Like a blanket over a fire,” I repeated, remembering the beach bonfire I’d sat side-by-side with Liam at. I tried to imagine standing up from the driftwood log where we’d sat and putting a heavy, wool blanket over dying embers, and then blinked.
When I opened my eyes, Ciarán was harder to see through the steam. The ambient light that had lit the water and fog in hues of blue was gone, and I rubbed my eyes with my free hand.
“Are they better?” I blinked at Ciarán. It may have been darker now, but I could still make out Liam’s eyes staring back at me.
“‘Better’ is relative,” he smiled, “but they’re back to how they were before if that’s what you mean.”
I sighed and sank back against the stone, relieved to not be stuck with black sclera forever.
“Thank you.” I realized I was no longer healing him despite my hand still pressing against his skin, and I went back to work, building the matrix in the cracks of his bones like Sorcha had explained.
He let me work in dark silence for a moment, but then—
“What memory did you see?” he asked. “When you were the real me.”
“Not a good one.”
“Most of them aren’t, so which one was it? I would like to know what part of me you were spying on.”
“It was the morning my mom went to your village and told you about your parents.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t mean to intrude, Wren.” His thumb rubbed against the back of my hand under the water. “It’s okay.”
“I mean I’m sorry about your family.”
“It’s not your fault.” His gentle chuckle only made me feel worse.
“It kind of is. They died because they were sworn to my family. And now you’re stuck with me, but that’s not something you signed up for.”
He pried my hand away from his side to wrap his fingers around my palm.
“Do you think I regret becoming a Grimguard because of you?” he asked.
“Sabrina did.”
“I’m not Sabrina.” His fingers tightened around mine, and he lifted our hands between us so they were half-submerged at the surface of the water.
Something about our bare knuckles entwined there made me feel more exposed than our mental connection ever had.
“And if I weren’t a Grimguard, I’d still be here. With you.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ve spent two months in your head. There’s no one else I’d rather serve.”
I stared back, waiting for the serious set of his brow to give way to the smug grin I knew he had to be holding back. He had to be teasing me.
His face, however, remained fixed.
“You look just like him, you know,” I breathed.
“No, I don’t. I remember that much.”
“You do. Your eyes. They’re exactly the same.”
I didn’t remember leaning in, but somehow I was closer than before, taking in his amber, unlit irises, the cut of his nose and chin, the strands of steam-soaked black hair that hung loose around his face…
I had spent so long putting up walls and barriers. How had Ciarán of all people somehow slipped past every single one? An hour ago, I’d tried to put a javelin through his skull, but now…
My hand may have been wrapped in his rather than pressed against his side, but the quickening of his heartbeat was apparent as it sounded in my ears across our connection, mingling with the rhythm of my own.
He was in my head, I reminded myself, and I didn’t know if it was me or him that so desperately needed to close the shrinking space between us.
Maybe it was both of us, because he was getting closer, leaning in as I did, until I couldn’t tell if the heat between us was from the steam or the heat of Ciarán’s breath, and—
“Wren, honey, are you there?” My head snapped around at the sound of Gams’s voice echoing through the bath house.
“What is it?” Ciarán demanded, already rising out of the bath, ready to fight.
“I heard—” I cut off, straining to listen against the gentle slap of bath water against the sides of the basin.
“Wren, I know you can hear me,” the voice said.
“Gams?” I asked the steam.
“Oh, finally! I’ve been trying to reach you for damn near a day! Get comfy, darling.”
I looked back at Ciarán, realizing too late what was about to happen.
“Oh, crap—”
The steam, stone, and Ciarán disappeared from view as the bath water slipped over my head.