Chapter 27 Cassiel #2
It’s easy enough to locate. It’s less easy to imagine her wriggling into it, or hearing her quiet murmurs of pain. I locate another vial in my dresser and offer it to her. She takes it without complaint.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“This is nothing.”
“I meant… thank you for coming back for me.”
“Oh,” I say, “that.”
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“I’m fine, not a scratch—”
Her hand slides against my arm. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”
My throat tightens. I should have been terrified of them. I know better than Wren what they’re capable of. But the terror hadn’t seized me in the moment—or at least, not the terror of them.
Terror over what they could do to her.
“How did you know that they were fey?” I ask her. “They must have been glamoured, right? They’d never be so brazen—”
“Intuition,” she responds.
It’s not really an answer, but perhaps she can’t explain it better than that. Sometimes I just have a feeling, too—like when I know I’m being stared at. “You don’t need to thank me for coming back for you. You would have done the same.”
“I’m paid to.”
I force a laugh. “And yet, probably, not nearly enough.” It may be silly, but somewhere along the line, I’ve started to forget that Wren’s here because she’s been hired to. There are moments when it’s clear, of course—like Dain interrupting us the other night—but others…
“Cass?” Wren’s voice, still painfully soft, dispels my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“I’d have come back for you even if I wasn’t your guard.”
Saints. If my throat constricts any more, I won’t be able to breathe.
“Can you help me rip off the rest of the leg of my breeches?” she asks, when I find myself incapable of speech. “I’m at the wrong angle.”
“Of course.”
She guides my hands to the fabric and gestures where to pull. The rest of the leg falls away.
“Can you… help me to the bathroom?” she asks next. “I’m a bit messy.”
I’m only too happy to oblige. We limp into the bathroom together.
Wren pulls my hands under the tap too, scrubbing away at the blood underneath our fingernails.
She looks me over, saying I seem to be clean, and washes the blood from the other parts of her body.
I’m fairly sure she’s taken off the remains of her breeches.
I don’t want to know if she’s taken off her nightgown, too.
I head into my room and find my dressing gown, holding it out to her.
“Here,” I say. “I didn’t think I’d have much luck finding yours.”
“I don’t own one.”
“You don’t have a robe?”
“I came here with barely a change of clothes and only a satchel of belongings.”
“You should rectify that,” I tell her. “Unless… you plan on moving any time soon?”
Wren goes silent for a moment. “No,” she says. “No immediate plans.”
I don’t like her hesitation, but I decide to ignore it. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you need help with anything else? Do you want to lie down, or…”
“I think I’d prefer to sit back in the chair and get ever-so-slightly drunk, if it’s all the same to you. I’m hoping I’m off duty now. I get injured on the job, I get half a day off, right? That’s a thing?”
I smile. “That’s definitely a thing.”
I ring the bell. A servant arrives shortly afterwards, and I send him to fetch some wine and refreshments. Wren sits in her usual spot as I pour it out for her, keeping my fingers near to the rim in case she forgets to tell me to stop. She takes her generous measure and drinks it awfully quickly.
Hours pass. We drink and eat and pass the time playing chess or ‘what would you prefer?’ The questions start silly— ‘would you prefer to fight a hundred duck-sized wolves, or a hundred wolf-sized ducks?’ but grow more serious and daring as the evening wears on and the wine is consumed.
Wren prefers warm weather over cold, sweet food over savoury.
She would prefer to lose a hand than a leg, because she could still fight that way.
She would rather fight a troll with a spoon than argue with a dryad over tree rights—“I do my best arguing with my fists, anyway”—and would rather sneeze every time someone around her lies than hiccup every time she tells one herself.
I respond in turn.
“Would you prefer…” she begins, “to be turned into a toad for a week or wear royal dress robes made of nettles for a day?”
“Oh a toad, definitely, but only if you’re there to watch out for me. I wouldn’t want to be squished and you’d hate hearing me complaining if I had to wear nettles.”
Wren laughs so hard that she almost falls off her seat, and I steer her towards the bed for both our safety, whisking the goblet away from her.
“All right,” I say, settling down beside her, “would you rather regain something you’ve lost—or forget something painful forever?”
Wren is quiet for a moment. “Regain something,” she says. “Pain is a strange beast. I hate how it haunts me, but I wouldn’t want to forget it. It feels dishonest, somehow. Like chipping away at the roots of who you are.” She falls back against the pillows. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“I don’t need to ask you that question, do I? You’d do anything to regain your sight.”
“Not quite anything,” I say quietly, joining her on the pillows. I angle my body so that it’s facing hers. Pointless, of course. I can’t see her any better this way, but…
But I enjoy being closer to her, even by an inch.
“I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do anything bad.” What would I sacrifice, to get it back? Another sense, maybe. A small animal. Wealth or power. I wouldn’t trade it for anything I would miss more.
I wouldn’t trade it for her.
What a strange thought, to know I’d rather live my life in the dark, than to get my sight back and see everything in the world but her.
“You’re a better person than me,” Wren says. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone I loved, but everyone else? Fair game.”
This doesn’t surprise me, and I don’t mind at all. The idea that she thinks I’m a better person than she is warms me.
“I’d hurt someone else for you,” Wren murmurs. “I mean, yes, that is rather the job description, but… if I could give you your sight back by sacrificing someone I didn’t care for? I’d do it.”
I’m not sure if that’s sweet or terrifying. “I’d never ask you to do that.”
“You wouldn’t have to.”
I’m not sure I have a reply to that admission. “Is it dark yet?” I ask instead.
Wren moves, but I don’t catch any words.
“Wren?”
“Hmm?”
“You can’t just shake or nod. You need to say something.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Yes. It is.”
“Are the stars out?”
“They are.”
“Describe them to me.”
“Um… bright… and sparkly.”
I incline my face towards her and fix her with what I hope is a very condescending glare. “Bright and sparkly?”
“Well, they are!”
I groan. “Sight is wasted on the seeing.”
“I can’t help it! Not all of us are poets—”
“Not a poet,” I remind her. “What about the space between the stars? Describe that to me. What colours shimmer between the shine?”
“Um… blue… and darker blue.”
“Rubbish.” I get out of bed and fumble towards the desk.
Finding the books isn’t hard. Locating the right book of poetry is.
It hardly seems fair to make Wren stand at present.
I bring all the smaller volumes back to the bed and spread them out.
“Find me the poetry book called Stars, Saints and Sunlight.”
Wren plucks it out and starts rifling through the pages.
“There’s a poem called What Lies Between Stars,” I tell her. “It’s in the first half somewhere.”
“How do you remember that?”
“I just do,” I say impatiently.
Wren locates the poem and starts to read.
“What lies between stars—so empty, so wide,
A hush in the dark where lost wishes hide.
A silence that stretches, so vast and unknown,
Like secrets we whisper at night, all alone.
What lies between stars—soft stories we weave,
The light we have kindled, the truths we believe.
But shadows still linger where honesty dies,
And love drifts apart on the weight of our lies.
What lies between stars—cold distance, yet bright,
A void filled with echoes, with longing, with light.
Perhaps in that space, where both meanings entwine,
We’ll find what was hidden—your heart next to mine.”
Wren is quiet after she finishes. “That doesn’t seem like it’s really about stars,” she whispers.
“I suppose not,” I return. “It’s more about—”
“Lies,” she interrupts.
“Love,” I correct. “Longing. The stories we tell ourselves to fill the void inside ourselves.”
“Hmm.” Wren’s voice is quiet, and I wonder if she disagrees with my analysis. “Why don’t you describe the stars to me?”
“I… can’t see them.”
“You don’t need to,” she tells me. “You’ll do a better job than me regardless.”
I lie back against the pillows. Wren, I think, is curled up nearby. Her breathing comes across from me, ghosting my cheek.
I close my eyes, summoning the memory of the night sky as I once knew it.
“The stars,” I begin, my voice low, “are scattered like frozen fractals across black ice, or drops of molten gold on an ocean of black velvet—some bold, some so faint they might vanish if you look too hard, a mere ghost of light.”
I turn my head slightly, listening for Wren’s response, but she’s quiet. So I continue.
“There are constellations that tell stories—warriors frozen in battle, lovers chasing each other through eternity. And then there are stars that stand alone, bright and defiant, burning so fiercely you can’t help but watch.
Some of them have colours, too—cool blue, fiery gold, deep red.
Even the night isn’t truly black, not if you look closely.
There are wisps of silver, deep indigo, even hints of green when the air is just right. ”
I exhale, letting the memory settle. “And then there’s the vastness in between. It’s not empty, not really. It’s heavy, like the weight of unspoken things, like the pause between words that mean too much.”
Still, Wren says nothing.
I tilt my head towards her, frowning slightly. “Wren?”
No answer.
I listen more carefully, settling on the slow, steady rhythm of her breathing.
A softness settles over me.
She’s fallen asleep.
I hesitate, then reach out, brushing my fingers lightly over her cheek. Her skin is warm beneath my touch, and for a moment, I let myself linger. When I pull away, my fingers snag on hers. I’ve held her hand before, of course, but only to find my way. If I take her hand now…
Why do I want to take her hand now?
I shake the thought away. There is no use dwelling on such a thing.
There’s also no use in waking her, or moving her. I don’t want to wake her, to hear her hiss with pain as she hobbles back to her room.
More selfishly, I think I want to keep her here. I like the warmth beside me. I’m not sure I’ve ever shared a bed with a woman where sex hasn’t been at least part of the equation.
You shouldn’t think of Wren that way.
I know I shouldn’t. I know there’s a lot of reasons why it’s a very, very bad idea to pair ‘sex’ and ‘Wren’ in the same thought. She’s employed by the Crown. Her care for me is largely bought. I don’t know her all that well. She could leave any time she wants. I’ve never even seen her face…
It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. If I feel anything for her, it’s likely just because she’s here, and warm, and smells good. A proximity infatuation. I’m mistaking reliance for affection.
Except…
I didn’t gallop back to her side because I relied on her.
I did it because I couldn’t stomach the idea of something happening to her.
It isn’t my reliance on her that makes me crave her company, or see how brave and whip-smart she is.
How lovely she can be. How much she cares, though she tries not to. How much she hurts and tries to hide.
Perhaps I do know her, after all.
So terrible idea or not, I want to keep her close to me.
I find the books at the bottom of the bed, stack them away, and lift the covers around her shoulders, slipping in myself.
The quiet of the night settles between us, and I find I don’t need to see the stars to know what lies between them, or to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is one of the most beautiful nights I’ve ever experienced.