Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“Then we wake up early and find Bastion before the wedding starts,” I say.
I shift back slightly to look into his eyes.
It’s dark, but I can still make out the pallor of his tearstained cheeks.
“We force him to sit still by any means necessary while we explain everything. I tried earlier, but…it didn’t go well. ”
“And Cardamine?”
I don’t know. I don’t understand what Card is thinking, and there’s no way he’ll listen to me now. The trust between us shattered with a few built-up bluntly spoken truths. I slide my hands to the back of Will’s neck and breathe him in to soothe the squirm of discomfort.
It’s fine. Will is safe. We got out of there.
We’re alive and not in the dungeons. Card will get over it.
It’ll be a trivial thing he’ll shake off and laugh about…
right? He thinks I betrayed him by not telling him everything and aligning with Will, but at that time, there were so many reasons not to tell him.
The gray area between the truth and lies, the layers of privacy, they’ve never come between us like this before.
He’s been my only friend, my lifeline, the one who stood by me when everyone else thought I was strange.
But now, our mirrored hurt is shooting aimlessly, hitting hidden targets, and I can’t help feeling like something cracked between us that won’t be so easy to mend.
Will must notice my spiraling thoughts, because he tilts his head and kisses my forehead.
“Okay. We’ll fix it all tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll stop the spell from being used and let the truth be known.”
“About everything?”
“Everything. If we save his fiancé from certain doom, I’m pretty sure I can persuade Bash that he owes me enough to clear my name. Like you said, let’s keep trying,” Will says, and in the darkness, his mouth tugs into a small smile.
My chest lights up. He’s feeling better. No, not better. Hopeful.
My fingers wander to the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck, and I twist the curls around them.
I want to make him feel loved and safe and wanted.
To rid him of the remorse he’s carrying, the burden of all that’s been done to him—that’s all I want right now.
He runs a hand down my side, over my hip, all the way to the back of my knee, blazing a path of fire in the places he touches.
He tugs my knee up so I’m hooked around his thigh and starts trailing a finger in circles on my leg.
Under different circumstances, gods know where I’d want that hand to be heading.
“What will you do,” I ask breathlessly, “when you’re free? When all this is over?”
“This.”
“I was being serious.”
“So am I.”
His finger skims the back of my thigh. With his tears wiped away and the pieces of himself reassembling, I wonder if he finds this as healing as I do.
If lying together acting like the outside world doesn’t exist is the only way he can summon a piece of joy.
If I can make him forget, just for a little while.
I’d stay here forever if it meant I’d never see him broken like that again. I’d let him do whatever he wants to me.
“I meant if you could do anything,” I say. “I want to know.”
Will mulls it over. He leans his head back to peer into nothingness.
“Well, I don’t often let myself think that far ahead, but I do miss the Library.
Going back today made that clear. It’d be cool to join their alchemy department—testing the limits of magic, doing all sorts of wild experiments, being part of the first people to discover new areas of sorcery.
Stuff like that. But only if she isn’t there anymore. ”
“That sounds perfect,” I say, and use my thumb to stroke under his ear, my hand still roped in his hair. “Can I come and visit?”
He laughs, short but full of surprise.
“Felicity, if this is my dream future, then you’d be free too. No curses or obligations. You could make your own choices. So, if you wanted to visit, then I suppose I could live with that….”
“Hey!”
He crinkles his nose.
“Besides, those bookshelves wouldn’t be half as appealing without you pressed against them,” he says, and I scoff. With his hand moving where it is and our bodies pressed together, he’s playing a risky game. We came up here to sleep. He needs to sleep. But if he keeps going—
“How about you, Princess?” Will asks. “After.”
“Aside from finally getting a bigger greenhouse? Hmm…This.”
His chuckle is delightful. “Copycat.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“So was I.”
He returns my stare, and in the silence of the night, without a single sound from the world outside, I know that I’ve abundantly and absolutely fallen for him.
There’s no jolt of awareness, no cheer of applause or resounding realization.
It’s delicate and effortless, like spending a full day lying in a grassy field, only to fall asleep and wake up hours later, drowsy but changed, a glow on my skin and butterflies in my hair, the smell of daisies in the breeze and no tension, no strain to be found.
Falling for Will feels simple. It’s as natural as the sun rising over the citadel walls and glinting off the glass of my greenhouse, as reliable and real as the roses that grow there.
Just as I do in the greenhouse, I lose time to him.
He eclipses everything. And here, in this space we’ve built—in this trust we’ve created—I’m truly myself, and truly his.
Will’s eyes flutter closed. The hand on my leg stills, resting around the curve of my thigh.
“We should probably sleep,” he says, and there’s a tinge of regret to his words, as if dreams wouldn’t bring him half as much pleasure as this right now.
“Willoh Vane being sensible…” I whisper, and I’d love to finish my sentence with something sarcastic, but he knows what I mean.
He smiles and wiggles around to get comfier.
“Good night, Princess.”
“Night, Will.”
“Thank you for saving me. You really are quite the florist.”
“Anytime. Always.”
“Um…and, Fliss?”
“Mm?”
“I…uh…thank you.”
I drift away in Will’s arms, wrapped in the calmness of his slow breaths and reassuring beating of his chest. I’m one foot into sleep when I promise myself to make his dreams of returning to the Library true.
But the future can wait. For now, as the night forges on, I’m sheltered and safe. He’s safe. And we’re together.
Together and alive.