Chapter 18
Pip
My security detail for the day, a fae guard named Dakath, looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but Lyriel’s workroom. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, the picture of boredom—a sentiment I absolutely could not relate to. This place was perfection.
“Come on, Dakath, join us!”
“You can’t be serious. Do I look like a person who enjoys making frilly things?”
“I’m deadly serious,” I said, holding up one of the crochet hooks I’d finished sanding this morning. “It’s called crochet, and I’m teaching a class. It’s a great stress release.”
He sighed and pushed off the wall to get a closer look, his eyes narrowing. “And what is that?” He pointed at my stack of newly crafted crochet hooks.
“They’re called crochet hooks. I made them myself, for the class.”
“Those were perfectly good crossbow bolts. Now they’re all wonky.”
“Oooh, that explains why Aeldryc had so many of them.”
His eyes widened. “You turned the Lord High Commander of the Grey Guard’s weapons into knitting needles?”
“Crochet hooks! Just try it, Dakath. It’s fun.”
The workshop door opened behind me and I spun around in my chair, too fast, nearly knocking over my stack of yarn.
Lyriel beamed at me, as she helped me clean it up. “Ready for your class?”
“Almost. I just need to make sure there’s enough yarn. Dakath has decided to join us, too. He’d like to crochet a scarf for his crush.”
“I didn’t say that I would,” Dakath muttered. “Or that I have a crush.”
Lyriel laughed, picking up one of my hooks. “You figured out how to make them! I can’t wait to see how they’re used.”
“According to Dakath, they’re crossbow bolts,” I explained. “I filed a slot near the ends to make hooks, and then I sanded them smooth so the yarn doesn’t catch. This one’s my favorite. I made fifteen, so there are enough for lots of people to try.”
“So there’s no word from Clovermere?” Lyriel asked, lips twitching.
“How did you guess?”
She chuckled. “I too throw myself into craft when I am worried about something.”
“I’m not that worried. It’s just… what if he hasn’t come back yet because he’s found a way to send me home? Just when I’m starting to find my place—”
“Hey.” Lyriel’s hand was warm on my shoulder as she interrupted me. “You’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling. I’m just... okay, maybe spiraling a little bit.” I paced across the room, frowning at Dakath. “Don’t give me that look!”
“There was no look,” Dakath said, picking up a skein of yarn and turning it over in his hands.
“He’s coming back, Pip,” Lyriel said, giving me a tight hug.
“I know. I just miss him.”
“I understand.” She smiled, a little wistful. “When Grukk travels to the northern villages to trade for wool, I count the days until he returns. But I find my solace here, in this shop. And you can, too.”
The workshop door opened again, and Grukk stepped in, interrupting us.
Lyriel winked at me, grabbed one of the crochet hooks and walked over to show it to him.
The troll was massive; over seven feet tall with shoulders like boulders and hands that could have palmed my entire head, but he moved with the care of someone who’d spent centuries working with delicate materials.
“Good morning, Grukk!” I waved the hook at him. “Are you ready for your crochet lesson?”
He grunted and sat at one of the stools I’d placed around Marta’s cutting table, and Lyriel helped me lay out crochet needles and skeins of yarn for everyone. Dakath took a seat next to Grukk, still pretending not to be interested.
Marta arrived as Grukk was getting settled, accompanied by two fae I’d only seen in passing in the dye room. They were holding hands, their fingers stained deep blue from the indigo they’d been processing.
The taller one had silver hair pulled back in a braid, and the shorter one wore her dark hair loose around her shoulders. They both looked at me with the same expression of polite curiosity that I was getting used to seeing.
“Marta, you brought friends!” I beamed. “Perfect! Thank you!”
Marta nodded. “I told them it would be interesting. Don’t make me a liar, human. This is Erdryll, and her wife, Rydaen.”
“So lovely to meet you both!” I stood up, grabbing the yarn bag from under my desk. “Let’s all sit at the cutting table. More space for everyone.”
When the next person entered, I nearly dropped my yarn.
Lord Frostvael Shimmerlight, the Queen’s personal secretary, the most elegant, intimidating, casually gorgeous person I’d ever seen in real life, stepped into the workshop with the grace of someone walking a runway.
He was dressed in his usual silver and blue, his white-blonde hair gleaming in the morning light, and he looked at the five of us with the slightly pained expression of a man who’d rather be anywhere else.
“You came!” Lyriel exclaimed, rushing over to take his arm. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“I said I would consider it,” Frost said, his voice cool. “And then you sent three notes.”
“I was being thorough.” She grinned at him. “And you know you need a hobby that doesn’t involve paperwork.”
“I have hobbies.”
Lyriel smirked. “Do you, though?”
Frost glanced at me, and something in his ice-blue eyes softened, just a fraction. “Apparently I’m learning something called crochet.”
Lyriel passed me, pausing to whisper. “I thought maybe he’d quit telling the Queen that you were some sort of villain if he got to know you.”
“I can hear you, Lyriel,” Frost said. “And I’m still not convinced that he’s not up to something.”
“Right, well. I suppose you can be suspicious while learning to crochet?” I gestured to the cutting table. “Why don’t you sit by me, since you’re the least experienced with fabric arts.”
“There is a palace guard over there.” He pointed at Dakath. “How am I the least experienced?”
“Dakath claims he’s not going to try it.”
Dakath cleared his throat. “I might try one or two stitches. If I feel the urge.”
The next hour passed in a blur of yarn and laughter.
Lyriel and Marta started a competition to see who could make the longest chain stitch in a minute, and Grukk made a low rumbling sound that Lyriel translated as a very filthy joke about wool tension, which made everyone but Frost dissolve into giggles.
I taught them the chain stitch first, and then the single crochet and double crochet.
Lyriel and Marta picked it up immediately, their hands swift and accustomed to the rhythm of fabric arts.
Erdryll and Rydaen worked side by side, their heads bent close together, occasionally whispering things that made each other blush.
Even Dakath eventually selected a skein of pink yarn that made me wonder if I had been correct about the crush.
Grukk’s hook looked tiny in his huge hands. But he got the hang of it faster than I expected, his thick fingers moving with surprising delicacy.
As for Frost, well, he was a disaster. But quite determined.
“Like this?” he asked, for the eighth time, holding up what was supposed to be a chain of single crochets but looked more like a drunken snake.
“Um.” I leaned in, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. “You’ve... added extra stitches somehow. And also dropped half the ones you started with.”
He sighed, the sound holding no real frustration. “I’m hopeless.” Just the gentle resignation of someone who had accepted that art was not their gift. “Perhaps I should stick to paperwork.”
“Don’t you dare,” Lyriel said, nudging him with her elbow. “Everyone needs to make things with their hands. It’s good for the soul.”
“Is it?” Frost asked. “Because right now, it’s mostly good for making me want to snap this hook in two.”
I laughed and moved closer, shivering as I felt how cold his hands were. Perhaps frost was more than a name.
“Here, let me show you how to fix it. You just missed a step.”
As I guided Frost’s hands, the workshop filled with easy chatter.
“The new apprentice still can’t tell warp from weft,” Marta sighed. “I swear, I’m going to tie a sign around his neck.”
Grukk grunted in sympathy, holding up his yarn, then leaned towards Lyriel and murmured something in her ear.
Lyriel smiled. “Grukk thinks this season’s wool is substandard, but we’re making it work.”
“At least your wool isn’t changing color on its own,” Erdryll said, nudging Rydaen. “We went to check the dye vat this morning and it had turned a perfect royal purple overnight.”
“It was the bond,” Rydaen said, her voice soft. “We were working late, and we got to talking, and then—”
“Then we got distracted,” Erdryll finished, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “And when we went back to the vat, it had changed.”
“The bond?” I asked, looking up from Frost’s crochet. “What’s that?”
Frost and Lyriel exchanged a look.
“It’s...” Lyriel began.
“It’s a form of magical connection,” Frost said, his voice taking on the careful, measured tone of someone explaining something complicated to a child. “Between two fae who are... compatible. Resonantly compatible.”
“Not just fae,” Lyriel said. “Any magical species can experience a resonant bond.”
“So you’re like soulmates?” I asked, the word feeling silly the moment it left my mouth.
“Similar,” Lyriel said. “But a resonant bond is... deeper than that. It’s a connection that forms when two people’s magic recognizes each other.
It’s rare, but when it happens, it’s...” She glanced at Grukk, and blushed.
“It’s like finding the other half of yourself.
Your Well—the magic deep inside you,” she said, placing a hand over her chest, “combines with theirs. Two individual life forces become one.”
Erdryll and Rydaen were holding hands across the table, their fingers intertwined, and I could see it now. They moved in perfect sync, the way they leaned toward each other even when they weren’t touching, like magnets that couldn’t help but attract.
“Our magic responds to each other,” Rydaen explained.
“Mine is water-based, and I work with the dye baths. Erdryll’s is earth.
She works with minerals to create the pigments.
When we’re together, things happen that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
Colors change. Pigments intensify. The water in the vats takes on more vibrant colors. ”
“It’s how we knew,” Erdryll added. “We’d been working together for years, and then one day, we touched, and...” She shrugged, smiling. “Everything made sense.”
“That’s...” I tried to find the right word. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s also incredibly inconvenient,” Frost said dryly. “I’d rather not face the risk.”
“Why a risk?”
“Being separated from your bondmate is… excruciating,” he said.
My heart fell for him. “Oh no! Have you been…”
He shook his head. “Not me. It happened to someone I’m close to. I should not like to suffer the way they have suffered.”
“Well, I still think it’s romantic. Finding someone like that.” I sighed dreamily, wishing I had one of those magical well thingies. Perhaps then, Aeldryc and I could… No. Nope. That was far too much to let myself hope for. After all, he was busy searching the realm for a way to bring me back home.
A loud banging on the workshop door made all of us jump. It swung open to reveal a palace footman, slightly out of breath, a folded piece of paper in his hand.
“Message for Pippin Crane,” he announced, looking around the table until his eyes landed on me. “From the Grey Guard.”
I was on my feet before I’d processed the words, my heart in my throat. “They’re back? They’re here?”
“They’ll arrive by midday,” the footman said, handing me the note. “The commander sent carrier pigeon ahead.”
I took the note with hands that weren’t quite steady, unfolding it to find Aeldryc’s precise, angular handwriting, legible thanks to the translation bracelet, which unscrambled the formal, unfamiliar language for me.
Returning by midday. Will find you. —A.
Six words. That was all. But it was enough to make my chest ache.
“They’re almost back,” I said to the table at large, unable to keep the smile from my face. “Aeldryc’s coming back.”
“That’s wonderful,” Lyriel said, smiling. “Don’t worry about us! You can do part two of your lesson later this week, after we’ve all had some time to practice.”
I looked down at the half-finished projects on the table, the dropped stitches, the tangled yarn.
At Frost’s disastrous chain, which I’d showed him how to reshape into a wobbly square.
At Grukk’s massive hands, moving with surprising delicacy as he added another row to what was shaping up to be a very small blanket.
I hesitated, torn. “I need to…” I gestured vaguely at myself. “You know. Look presentable. For when he gets back.”
“Of course.” Lyriel stood, gathering the hooks I’d set down. “We’ll keep these safe for you. And perhaps you can continue the lesson tomorrow?”
“Definitely.” I was already backing toward the door, my hands doing that thing where they couldn’t decide whether to wave or just hang there “Thank you for coming! You’re all doing great!
Frost, your tension is perfect now! Marta, don’t forget to chain one at the end of the row!
Grukk, that’s looking amazing! Erdryll, Rydaen, it was so nice to meet you properly! ”
I was babbling. I knew I was babbling. But I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out, couldn’t slow my heartbeat or stem the flush spreading across my cheeks. Aeldryc was coming back to me.
I made it to the door before turning back for one last thing.
“Are you all okay to practice without me?”
She laughed. “Go. We’ll make sure Lord Frost gets the hang of it.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I was out the door and halfway down the corridor before my friends had finished saying goodbye.
I needed to get back to the closet in our rooms, where I’d hung the outfit I’d been working on for days.
The one I’d kept hidden because I wanted to see his face when I put it on.
It was a short, pleated skirt made from fabric I’d dyed myself in Nessa’s vats, with a high waist and a flounce at the hem that would give him glimpses of the bare skin underneath. Here, in Qoksmere of all places, I finally had the full freedom to express myself with fashion.
I was already an oddity, after all. Might as well lean into it and let them stare.