23. Letters at Dawn
O ne of the best things about living on the Knight’s Island was access to the training hall at all hours of the day. It was still partially set up from an evening activity: hay bales, buckets and planks marking out an obstacle course, leather punching bags still strung, sack dummies filled with sand and straw. Viola did a quick warm-up, stretching her muscles, and ran the course until she was streaming with sweat.
After taking a moment to refresh herself, she picked up a sword and started attacking the dummies. Some of them were connected to a winch, which, when wound, would have them move around the area to mimic an onslaught during a battle. Viola was in the mood for an onslaught. She was in the mood to surrender thought and be driven purely by instinct.
Stab. No need to think about the glossy look in Nicodemus’ eyes.
Slice. No need to recall the whisper of concern in his voice.
Slash. No need to remember the warmth of his body.
Or how her own rippled at the feel of it, wanting to crawl into him.
Battle was better. Silence and solitude were easier. She was fine. She didn’t need arms to hold her or a warm person in her bed or soft words or friends or a home to come back to. She could do without any of that. All she needed was occasional company and the job and the thrill of the hunt and she’d be fine. She didn’t need anything else. She didn’t.
Perhaps she should go to the Captain and request a leave of absence. She’d say she was frustrated with her inability to capture the Shadowmancer and needed some time off to rehone her skills. Perhaps she could request she go to the Farm. A change of scenery might do her good, and nothing seemed to happen over there. A month there patrolling the wheat fields and inhaling the scent of honeysuckle might clear her mind of any memory of the Shadowhunter… or at least make it easier to kill him when she came back.
If the Captain said no to the Farm, she could travel to Sudaria. She’d always wanted to go there, and the weather would be warm this time of year. She could take Blackberry with her.
Animals were easier than people. They were quieter. They demanded less. They never wanted your secrets.
Perhaps she’d stay in Sudaria. Maybe it was a foolish endeavour to remain in Auro anyway. Lysandra hadn’t been enough of a fresh start after Griffin’s Roost. She’d go somewhere else, anywhere else, away from him and this mess and everything.
Heindrich would be sad, of course, but he’d understand. Everyone would. Nicodemus especially, if she bothered to mention it to him at all.
She imagined scribbling him a note before she left.
I’ve decided to quit Auro and travel abroad. Try not to die, Nightshade. I will not message you again.
The words felt cold and callous even as she imagined them.
She stabbed the hay bale harder.
I can be cold and callous.
Her parents’ faces twinkled in her mind’s eye, shaking their heads, their eyes lined with tears.
Don’t look at me like that. You don’t get to look at me like that! This is who I have to be now. Who else could I be in a world without you in it?
She threw down her weapon with a roar and collapsed by the side of the hay bale, drawing her knees up to her face and pressing her forehead against them. Her fingers brushed against the names on her wrist.
“Help me,” she whispered, knowing no one could hear her.
She wished for tears that wouldn’t fall.
Somehow, Nicodemus slept. He woke at first light, the tips of his fingers pulsing slightly with the whispers of unshed power, his shadows easily slipping from him. Viola—Windbright—still wasn’t back. It would be unwise to wait for her. Already he could hear the sounds of people stirring around him.
He collected his things, borrowing a cloak of hers, and slid his mask back on. His temples twitched with the memory of her fingers grazing against his skin as she slid it off. He could not have felt more naked if she’d undressed him.
And yet… there was a pleasure to that state of being, a wonder to that exposure, like a wound seeking air.
It almost felt wrong to cover it.
Almost.
Not wanting to risk his powers being spotted, he opted to cross to the mainland via the bridge. No one stopped him. Most were still asleep, and there was more than one knight tumbling home in the opposite direction. A couple of them cheered at him as they passed, no doubt assuming he was some noble from the ball who’d just spent a pleasurable night with one of the residents of the island.
He tried to smile back. It seemed like the thing to do.
For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to live amongst other people, to have them smile at him, to treat him like they treated each other. It had been like that once, of course, but too long ago for him to remember the feeling of it. And, truth be told, he’d always been a quiet child, seeking solitude where others sought company.
In many ways, Cordelia was the perfect companion for him. She, too, liked the silence, liked to focus on her own endeavours, didn’t like to chat about nothing and made no demands of him. But Nicodemus realised that sometimes, he wanted to talk. Sometimes, with the right person, he wanted to talk about nothing and everything.
He sighed, running his hands through his hair as he reached the outskirts of the forest. He glanced back at the island, wondering where Windbright was now.
It wasn’t right to feel this way about her. It wasn’t right to feel this way about anyone.
He could stop writing to her. He could start over again with someone he didn’t like as much. Because he did like her. He wasn’t a complete fool. He just wasn’t much accustomed to liking anyone, and he wasn’t sure how deep it went or what it meant or if it was worth risking everything for.
No. Of course it wasn’t. He’d been working on his plan for half his life. He wasn’t giving it up for an acquaintance of a few months.
Acquaintance. What a pitifully small word for it.
He summoned a wyvern, boarded it, and drifted it up through the trees. His leg was still bothering him, the effects of the potion she’d given him long since having worn off, so he fashioned it like a normal dragon and sank into its smoky back. He tried not to think of the way her arms had snaked around him the night before, holding him in place.
He suspected that any concern or care she exhibited was simply due to her heroic nature. It was literally her job to help those in distress, to keep people safe. She’d said as much herself.
That didn’t stop how he felt about her actions though, or make his heart thump any less loudly.
It was a relief to finally arrive back at his castle, setting the wyvern down in the courtyard and heading back inside.
Cordelia appeared in the hallway almost the second he closed the door, her large, doe-like eyes wide and trembling.
“You’re here,” she murmured. “You’re here! Why aren’t you dead?”
Nicodemus frowned. “Am I supposed to be?”
“If you’re not going to come home at night, you have to have a really good excuse!”
She ran straight towards him. For a second, Nicodemus thought she meant to hug him. He opened his arms, welcoming the embrace—
Only to find him welcoming her furious fists instead.
“You didn’t come home!” she wept, beating at his chest. “Do you have any idea what I thought—”
The truth was, Nicodemus hadn’t. He’d been too exhausted and then too wrapped up in Viola to consider what Cordelia would be thinking. But he was thinking now. After all, hadn’t he started worrying about her when she’d been gone merely an hour? It had never occurred to him that Cordelia might feel the same.
“I can take care of myself,” he told her, which he realised subsequently was probably not the most sensible thing to say.
“It was dark! ” Cordelia wailed, her punches getting weaker. “It was dark, and you were tired, and I knew if you met that stupid knight you’d start showing off again—”
“Windbright isn’t stupid,” said Nicodemus, far too quickly. That probably wasn’t the right thing to say, either. He ought to have defended the showing-off comment.
“ You’re stupid,” Cordelia insisted. She’d stopped hitting him now, her fists curled into tiny balls, clenched into his shirt. She trembled as silent tears poured down her face.
Nicodemus swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I am stupid, you’re absolutely right. I should have thought. But I’m fine, I promise.”
“Did you spend the night with her? ”
“Sort of. Not in the way you might think. I just exhausted myself like you warned me and she had to hide me for the night.”
She mumbled something into his middle .
“Can I… pat your hair?”
Cordelia murmured the affirmative.
Nicodemus reached out to touch her curls. This was the third time he’d ever been afforded such a privilege. Each time he found himself amazed by its softness, the voluminous, springiness of it.
“Can I… put my arms around you?”
“Yes.”
Tentatively, he reached out and patted her on the back. He was fairly sure she wouldn’t want the hard squeeze that was bubbling up inside him, so he held it back. Sure enough, Cordelia gave him a few seconds below wriggling away and wiping her nose on the ragged remains of her dress sleeve.
“Enough now.” She kicked his right boot. “Now don’t you ever worry me like that again!”
“Noted.”
She shuffled off back to her usual domain. Nicodemus placed his hand against his middle, the warmth of her already vanishing. His thoughts turned back to Viola, to the phantom weight still pressed beside him. A sensation, he worried, that was doomed to haunt him.
It doesn’t mean anything, he told himself. You’re just unnerved by her because you haven’t been physically close to someone in a long while. Your mind is playing tricks on you.
It was best he put her out of his mind entirely. Perhaps a good heist would take his mind off things.
Perhaps a good heist would have them crossing paths again…
Still smelling faintly of smoke and in need of a distraction, he went to bathe himself before returning to his study, his mind still reeling with thoughts of that damned knight. He shifted through his files and papers, looking for something to steal that presented enough of a challenge. Nothing seemed to be grabbing him.
Frustrated, and feeling that all other avenues of thought were exhausted, he picked up the twinned notebook and flicked through the pages. He didn’t know what he wanted to say. Something casual, certainly.
He was most surprised to see that she’d already written. A simple, short message:
Viola stared at her own words, wondering why she’d written them in the first place. She should never have invited him back to her room. The risk was astronomical. She should just have left him to be found by someone else.
But he saved you, a voice reminded her. Twice now. You can’t abandon someone who saves you.
Things would be much easier without her annoying sense of morality. Things would be a lot easier if she knew Nicodemus didn’t have one, either.
Don’t write back, she prayed to the fates, at the same time hoping that he did.
The answer came sooner than she was expecting.
Viola paused, formulating her answer.
Viola tried to ignore the way his answer heated her chest.
Viola brought the notebook back to her bed, pondering her reply. Her body was heavy from the work out.
Viola wrote without thinking, immediately regretting it.
It seemed to take longer than usual for Nicodemus to reply, as if he were thinking out what to say.
She could imagine him laughing at that, laughing if he was right next to her, his head against the pillows.
That wasn’t all his wit was as sharp as. It was as sharp as his cheekbones, as sharp as his sculpted profile, as sharp as the clean lines of his lithe body…
Viola snapped the book shut.
No. No. She could not be thinking things like that.
And yet… she wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to him.
She opened up the book again.
As if on cue, Viola yawned.