Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Thing with Feathers
The Bliss
The quiet descends on the classroom after the boisterousness of young minds creating and exploring have filled these walls. It’s always a bittersweet sound. I need the rest because they take so much out of me. Yet I feel like I feed off their endless energy when I’m in their presence.
But there’s something else. Something different that I don’t think I can quite name or pin down.
Like the silence that follows is a little louder to me than it is to others.
I don’t know why I think that, but I do.
This weight, this sense of foreboding, presses down on me whenever the space clears.
When I find myself alone in this room, without any of the children present, it feels hauntingly familiar.
The bell sounds, signaling the end of my lessons and the arrival of the new children from Processing. I turn toward the door and recognize the young guide immediately.
Seek.
The dirty blond-haired boy moves with practiced efficiency, his Cockney accent soft as he ushers the new young souls in.
“Beautiful tidings. Welcome to The Bliss. Everything’s gonna be all right.
My name is Seek, and I’m here to welcome you to your new home.
Get yourself settled and find a place to sit. Then we can begin Orientation.”
The children cling to each other, and Seek doesn’t push. He gestures for them to follow him toward the tables, his movements deliberate, his voice carefully measured to be soothing without being condescending.
I watch him work, and something in my chest tightens. He’s so young, yet he carries such weight.
Before I can stop myself, I call out, “Seek?”
He pauses only briefly before turning back. His young face shows genuine surprise that I’ve addressed him directly. Souls in The Bliss don’t deviate from our routine, and my talking to him is definitely against routine.
“Ma’am?” he says, his tone respectful but cautious.
“Might I have a word? Just for a moment?”
Seek exchanges a glance with the new arrivals, then directs them to sit on the empty chairs. “You lot just ’ave a seat, yeah? I’ll be right back. Won’t take but a tick.”
He joins me at the edge of the classroom, his small frame looking impossibly fragile in the light of this place.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?” he asks, studying my face with an intensity that shouldn’t exist in eyes so young.
“Yes, I … I wanted to speak with you,” I say. “You do this every day, don’t you? Bring the children here?”
“Every day, ma’am,” he confirms cautiously. “There’re always new ones. Always will be.”
“That must be difficult.”
“Nah, not difficult. It’s me purpose, innit?” He glances back at the children waiting patiently. “They deserve someone who understands. Someone who don’t scare ’em.”
I study him, this boy who seems far too wise for his years. “Seek, may I ask you something?”
“Course, ma’am.”
“Do you ever feel like you’re … playing a role? Like you’re supposed to be something other than what you are?”
His expression shifts. For just a moment, the cheerfulness dims, and a flicker of sadness sparks across his face.
“That’s a particular kind of question, innit?
” he says quietly while scratching the back of his head.
He glances around, ensuring we’re not being observed, then lowers his voice.
“The truth is, ma’am, I was supposed to go straight to The Bliss.
I’m a kid after all, and being as I was a lost soul found, I was to get my memories softened, be like you.
But someone … someone intervened. Stopped me before I could be processed. Gave me a choice.”
“A choice?”
“I could accept my placement in The Bliss with all the other children, or I could take a job with The Bliss Intake team. I would still be living here, but my memories would remain, no river required,” he says, his young eyes carrying the weight of ancient knowledge.
“I chose the role. Chose to be the one who brings the children. And I chose that because …” He pauses, and I watch vulnerability cross his small face.
“Because I got hopes, ma’am. I got hopes that maybe one day, I’ll see the people who helped me.
My family. And on that day, I gotta make sure I remember.
My memories got power. I ain’t lettin’ those in charge take it from me. ”
“You’re scared they’d take your memories?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m scared they’d take both—the memories and the hope. Hope is dangerous powerful. Can cause a person to act out of sorts.”
“Out of sorts?”
“Well, look at you now, ma’am. Do you know how many encounters you and I have had here?”
I shake my head slowly.
“Hundreds, I’d imagine. Not a once have you stopped to talk to me. What’s different now?”
I blink rapidly while trying to gather myself. Hundreds? Hundreds, and never once have I stopped to question any part of this? How long have I been here precisely?
“W-well, I was hoping—”
“Ah.” Seek gives me a cheeky grin. “And there it is, yeah? Hope.”
“Where are they, Seek? Who are your parents? Are they here?”
Seek gives me a sad smile, the kind that breaks your heart, coming from a child. “Can’t say their names, ma’am. Don’t know who my parents were.”
“Oh, but you said family.”
“Yes, ma’am. I found family, and that’s better than starting with one in many ways.
Can’t risk saying their names here though.
Names have power, ’specially in these worlds, and I won’t endanger the ones I care about.
So, I’m gonna keep doin’ this job, keep playin’ this role, and hold on to my hope.
Because maybe it’ll lead me back to ’em. ”
Something in his words hits me like a stone.
“That’s very noble,” I say, my voice catching slightly.
“Nah, that’s what you do when you love someone, ma’am. You hold ’em in your heart till you can hold ’em in your arms again.” He glances back at his waiting charges. “I gotta get back to it. But … maybe we can talk again sometime? It’s nice, keeping hope alive, innit?”
“Yes, it is,” I say softly. “I should very much like that.”
He nods and returns to the children, his cheerfulness sliding back into place like a mask. But I’ve seen what’s underneath now. I’ve seen the weight he carries.
As he ushers them through the classroom and out the back door, I turn back to clearing the chalkboard, but my mind is elsewhere. I think about the roles we play, about hope, about the people we love and the lengths we go to protect them.
I look down and notice a white handkerchief lying on the corner of my desk.
I don’t recall putting it there. I don’t know how it got here.
But it has a function, and that’s all that matters.
I need to clean this chalkboard, and this piece of cloth is as good a device as any. I reach down to take it.
The second my fingers grasp the garment, my mind rocks with a memory from my mortal days.
England, 1868
The door shuts behind me, and the sound echoes louder than it should.
The forge is dimmer than before, the fire banked low but still warm enough that I feel it through my clothes. The air smells of iron and smoke. Thomas stands a few steps away, watching me with an undeniable hunger.
“You came,” he says quietly.
“I told you I would,” I reply. “For my handkerchief.”
His mouth curves slightly. “It didn’t survive.”
“I suspected it might not.”
Neither of us moves. The space between us feels charged, like one wrong breath might snap it. I shrug off my cloak and lay it aside, deliberately slow, aware of his eyes tracking every motion.
“My hands make a mess of everything they touch,” he says, almost to himself.
I step closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “Those hands shape metal from fire. They’re powerful.”
“They’re dangerous.”
“There’s nothing dangerous about making something new,” I say. “Only about refusing to feel it.”
His jaw tightens. I can see the restraint in him, the way he’s holding himself back. It pulls at something in my chest.
“I don’t want to break you,” he says.
“You won’t,” I answer, my voice steady. “You’re going to make me into something beautiful with the shards. Now show me how to feel, Asher. Forge me in your fire.”
He closes the distance in two strides. His hands frame my waist, but don’t pull me in right away, like he’s waiting for me to change my mind. I don’t. I tip my head and meet his mouth.
The kiss isn’t polite. It isn’t rushed either. It’s searching. Testing. His mouth lingers, learning the shape of mine. I feel it everywhere—down my spine, in my thighs, a tightening low in my body that I’ve never known before.
His hands explore slowly, as if he’s memorizing me. My shoulders. My back. The line of my waist. I realize with a start that no one has ever touched me like this, not with attention or patience.
I make a sound I don’t recognize when his mouth leaves mine and traces along my jaw. He pauses, breath uneven.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs. It’s a near plea.
I shake my head, and his control fractures.
He presses me back against the workbench, not rough, but certain.
I feel the solid wood beneath my hands, the warmth of him braced between my knees and the hardening of his arousal pressing roughly against my hip.
He watches my face as he touches me, like he’s gauging every reaction, like my response matters more than his own.
I’ve known touch before. Obligation. Expectation.
This is different.
Every brush of his fingers sends sensation through me, sharp and immediate. I arch toward him without thinking. He groans softly, like he’s lost something he didn’t know he was holding.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
The orange flecks in his green eyes look like flames, focused entirely on me. Not the idea of me. Not what I represent. Me.
When he kisses me again, I cling to him, fingers digging into his shoulders. My body feels too alive, like I’ve been half asleep until now.
“Turn around,” he growls, but doesn’t wait for me to do so.
Instead, he grabs my hips and spins me. I feel his hands move quickly as he unhooks each fastening of my shirtwaist. I remove the garment before turning back to him. He looks ravenous as he discards my corset, revealing my bare skin under the chemise.
“You’re …” I hear him swallow before he runs the tip of his tongue across his lips. “It should be a crime to have something so painfully beautiful covered so completely.”
The air leaves me, but no words follow. No one has looked at me like Thomas is right now. I have never felt so wanted.
Thomas moves against me again, and I gasp at the feel of his unshaven face brushing over my bare neck. His mouth and tongue explore every part of my exposed flesh while his rough hands make short work of my skirt, followed by my petticoat, and my other petticoat …
“What the fuck?” he growls as he pulls away and looks between us to see my third petticoat. “Is this a joke or something? How many layers do I have to peel back here, my dove?”
I giggle and swat his chest.
“Am I supposed to believe you’ve never undressed a lady before?” I arch my brow as I remove my final layers, leaving me in my undergarments and boots.
Smirking, Thomas presses his body flush with mine as he forces me to lie on the work table. “Certainly not a lady.”
He spreads my thighs, and I watch, frozen by my vulnerability, as he lowers himself toward my center.
“Tommy? What are you—ah!” I release a gasp as I feel his tongue run up the center of me.
“Relax.” He all but laughs while smacking my thigh. “I wish to devour you like a proper gentleman before I ruin you like a brute.”
“Oh!” I cry as I feel warmth growing in my middle. I gasp as his lips suck around my sensitive bud, and I begin to see stars. “D-don’t stop! T-Tommy … please … ah!”
My back arches on the workbench as I feel an explosion of pleasure take over me like nothing I’ve felt before. I continue to scream his name over and over as the feeling hits me in one pleasurable wave after another.
As the stars in my vision begin to disappear and I’m left gasping for air, I look at his smirking face in shock as he hovers over me, his lips glistening in the lower firelight.
“That was … amazing,” I pant in awe.
“That was only the beginning, dove. Now, let’s get you out of the rest of these garments, yeah?”