Chapter 2 #2
"That felt wrong," Stellan says when it's over, rubbing at his chest. "Cold. Empty."
"Time," I manage, my voice rougher than I'd like. "You felt time leaving."
"Is that what it always feels like for you?" Jade asks, something in his voice I can't quite identify.
I don't answer because I don't know how to explain that this is nothing compared to what I've paid before.
That losing two months shared among six people is a gift compared to the years I've sacrificed alone.
That I'm fighting back tears not because of what we lost, but because for the first time in my existence, I didn't have to lose it by myself.
All those years at Grimrose, writing contracts in empty classrooms while everyone else slept, paying prices no one ever saw me pay. I thought that was just how it had to be. I thought isolation was the cost of being what I am.
Mira watches us with an odd expression. "Interesting. Perhaps there's more to your revolution than I thought."
She offers us shelter for the night, her people bringing food and blankets with the cautious generosity of those who haven't had guests in years.
The children keep sneaking glances at Rumi's wings.
One of the shadow-touched women asks Harlow questions about the death realm that he answers with more patience than I've seen from him before.
By the time the community settles into their evening routines, it almost feels like we belong here.
The others fall asleep quickly, exhausted from travel and magic.
The contracts took more out of me than I want to admit, even shared, and tomorrow will bring more travel, more negotiations, more enemies tracking us through hostile territory.
My gaze travels over my mates, resting longer on Skye, the first person who ever broke through the shields around my heart. I should join them.
Instead, I move to sit at the edge of our protective circle and start writing smaller contracts, maintenance work that doesn't require significant cost, anything to keep my hands busy and my mind from dwelling on the hollow feeling in my chest where two months of life used to be.
It's an old pattern, one I perfected during my years at Grimrose. Stay busy. Stay useful. Don't give yourself time to feel the emptiness.
"You're still trying to do it alone." Rumi's soft voice hits my ears but it's free of accusation. He settles beside me without waiting for an invitation, close enough that his shoulder brushes against mine.
The contact sends warmth spreading through me, his essence reaching out to soothe edges I didn't realize were raw. At Grimrose, we never really had the time to sit like this, not often enough. Everything is different now.
"Old habits," I say.
"I know." He doesn't push or lecture. He just stays beside me, his wings shifting to block the chill coming off the cave walls. "The others are worried. They felt you pulling at the contracts again."
Of course they did. The shared system means nothing stays hidden anymore. Every small maintenance check, every tiny adjustment to the surveillance web, they all feel it now. The privacy I used to have, the ability to pay costs in secret, that's gone.
I should resent it. Part of me does.
But a larger part remembers standing in the kitchen at Phoenix Sanctuary, tasting sweetness for the first time in years, crying over a bowl of strawberries because my mates gave me back something I'd lost so gradually I'd forgotten it existed.
"I'm not paying anything significant," I say. "Just monitoring. Making sure the loyalists haven't moved."
"I know that too." Rumi's shoulder presses more firmly against mine. "But you're out here alone instead of sleeping with the rest of us. That's the part that worries them."
"I don't know how to stop," I admit quietly. "Watching, planning, preparing for threats. It's what I've always done in some part even before I remembered everything."
"You don't have to stop. You just have to let us watch with you."
He shifts, his arm moving to sit around my shoulders, pulling me against his side. The gesture is so similar to that night after the intervention, when he held me while I cried for the first time in decades, that something in my chest aches with the memory.
"Come to bed," he says. "The contracts will still be there in the morning. The loyalists aren't moving. And you need rest more than you need to prove you're useful."
I should argue and insist that someone needs to keep watch, that the surveillance web requires attention, that I'm fine.
Instead, I let Rumi pull me to my feet and guide me back to where our mates are sleeping.
Letting out a deep breath, I myself settle into the space they've left for me, Skye's hand finding mine in the darkness, Stellan's heat bleeding into my cold fingers, and Jade's tail curling around my ankle in unconscious possession.
Rumi's wings fold over all of us, his golden warmth seeping into my bones.
For once, I don't fight it. For once, I let someone else keep watch while I rest.