Chapter 22
Talvie
Aclatter echoes from the front hall. I rush from the kitchen, where I was assembling a simple lunch of cold meats and fresh nut-loaf—my latest baking success—to find Lark sweeping broken glass into a dustpan held by Mikael.
“Hellion, stay away with those bare feet.” I give the girl an urgent warning before she can step on any shards, using her nickname for the first time without thinking. Lark shoots me a grateful glance, accompanied with a wink that hits my chest like a fireball.
Mikael gives me a quick nod, while Juani roots through Lark’s toolbox.
Above them, the window in the cottage door is missing.
During the gremlin incident, the little menace cracked the frame when it launched itself off the coat rack and bounced off the door.
The stormy day must have proved too much for it.
“Everyone okay?” I ask.
Mika only nods again, but Lark spares me a grin. “I was hoping the glass would hold while we fixed the frame. No such luck.”
An icy gust cuts through the gaping hole in the door, followed immediately by a voice carried on the wind. “Oh, hello?”
We all straighten to look out the gap, only to spot a long grey cloak blowing around a wiry man.
My stomach drops. Sentry Niemi is back.
Lark grimaces before opening the door to him.
“What happened?” Niemi asks, narrow gaze narrowing even more. “Is everyone alright?”
“We’re fine,” Lark assures him.
Niemi doesn’t appear convinced. “This isn’t good. Not good at all. Cold air getting in. Snow making everyone wet.”
He’s grasping a thin satchel and looks ready to pull out a form to report the hole in the children’s shelter. Which is when Aili appears with a knife in one hand and a string of paper dolls in the other.
“It’s not Lark’s fault. It was the gremlin.”
Lark groans. Niemi clutches a hand to his cloak. My heart lodges in my throat.
The sentry’s posture is stiff with alarm. “A gremlin?”
“It’s long gone.” Lark jumps in. “Everyone’s fine. Just a little damage…that we’re fixing.”
“But…” Niemi frowns, stepping over the threshold and gazing sharply around. “The changeling.”
I’ve heard enough. “Johannes was well protected, and Lark took care of the creature before anyone could be hurt.”
I won’t tell him about Lark getting bitten. Since Katja healed him, it doesn’t feel important to mention.
The sentry scans my face, then Lark’s, then the kids, who have all lined up in the hallway. They look calm. All orderly and safe.'
After a pause, the sentry exhales and tugs a folded parchment from his satchel.
“Fine. I won’t report this since it appears no harm was done.
” He passes the document to Lark. “The sentry board hearing is scheduled for the day after the Trade Lights festival.
I just need your signature to indicate I've informed you and you'll attend.”
Lark goes tense beside me, taking the form wordlessly. He signs it and hands it back with a curt nod.
Niemi lingers, eyeing the cracked wood trim and empty window frame, Aili’s paper-chain decorations, and the barefoot girl tugging crimson hair across her mouth while Mikael’s large hand holds her shoulder.
The sentry clears his throat. “I’m glad to see you all doing well here. Is the wedding date set?”
“Oh, not…uh, not yet.” I nearly choke as my tongue grows too large for my mouth. I should be ready for the surprise inspection and interrogation. We’ve been practicing for this.
Lark steps in smoothly. “If it were up to me, we’d do it tomorrow,” he says with a wink. “We could go back to that restaurant we both love, right, ihana?”
My pulse stutters. Of all the times to drop a pet name. I was not prepared!
“Yes, the…uh, tavern,” I blurt. My eyes go wide. Do I not know any other places to name in all the Hinterlands? Seriously!
Larks eyes twinkle while he nods in agreement. “Yep, the tavern right here at the Laisi Mula. We do love the cabbage rolls and meatballs here.”
“Oh, charming.” Niemi’s frown has me flustered again, but Lark is a star.
“We’d have the tavern cater a small wedding. I’d gather enough Crystal Skeleton flowers for a bouquet, and Val would bake her incredible apple pie for all of us for dessert. I’d marry her anywhere, on a heartbeat’s notice.”
The look he gives me leaves me breathless.
He really noticed how much I loved the apple pies we made together the other day.
And does he know I keep thinking of those vanishing flowers he showed me?
It’s like he sees right through me, to the part inside screaming, yes!
I’ll marry you tomorrow. Yes! I'm not sure what's wrong with that part of me.
Fortunately, Lark has enough sense to stay in character. “But of course, Val is from the Sundalands, and I promised I’d take her back home to marry her on the beach. She loves the beach.”
“Mm.” I lean in when he wraps an arm around my waist. “I can’t wait.” My eyes are strangely misty. Without thinking, I tilt my head to kiss his lips.
Sentry Niemi gives a fawning sigh. “Well, it’s clear you two really love each other. I do still wish there were a more stable home, but you seem like a good man, Mr Hyveri, and with a fiancée—”
“Now wait just a moment,” I snap. “There is no home more loving than this, no matter where the house happens to be. If you think for a heartbeat that you’ll find anyone who loves these kids more than Lark, or anyone more capable of looking after them, you have another think coming.
And a good man? Open your eyes, Sentry Niemi.
This isn’t just a good man. This is the best man I’ve ever met in any of the fae lands.
Everyone he meets immediately loves him, not because he charms them with illusions, but because of his true heart and generosity.
He helps every person who needs it, regardless of what’s in it for him, and when these kids needed someone to step up when the orphanage closed—due to what I can only see as uncaring and insatiable greed from the upper class mind you—he didn’t hesitate.
“He’s been with them through more hardships than you or I can imagine, and this is a family more stable than any I’ve known.
He does what is right and what is needed, no matter what he has to do to achieve it.
No one works harder. No one loves better.
So don’t tell him he needs a fiancée to win over some board.
I’ll be there beside him because I wouldn’t be anywhere else, but not because he needs me there.
Lark is enough as he is. More than enough. ”
I stare down the sentry like I’m channeling my stepmother’s icy temper, surprised to find myself several paces in front of Lark now, and the man before me backed up to the door.
“Well,” he sniffs, his little nose twitching, “I’m glad to see he has such staunch supporters.”
When I turn to look, all the kids have lined up behind Lark wearing steely expressions. There are hands on hips, arms folded over chests, and ferocity beaming from seven pairs of eyes. I realize how ardent I was in my defence. It was probably too much.
I can’t even look at Lark. It was definitely too much. I totally lost my head! What if I ruined his chances? What if Niemi writes a bad report because of me?
The sentry draws his cloak around him with one last look at the hole in the door and steps out into the cold.
We get the door closed behind him and fasten some burlap over the opening for now.
A long breath escapes me as Mikael and Juani return to the others. We follow more slowly, Lark stopping to pick up Eevi from the mat where she was playing happily with Hugo. In Lark’s arms, she giggles and tugs his hair.
Not until we reach the bedroom to put her down for a nap do either of us speak.
I should have held my tongue before. I shouldn’t have snapped. “Do you think he was upset?” I ask in a shaky whisper.
“No,” Lark says slowly, cradling Eevi close. “But after that gremlin…he’ll be watching us closely.”
“Good. Then he’ll see a loving father. Right, Happy girl? He’ll see how you love your Is?.”
“I’m not her Is?. Not yet.”
“Are you joking?” I hold Lark’s gaze, wishing I could read his thoughts. “Look at her. Has Eevi ever had another father? Anyone who loves her the way you do? You’re her Is? no matter what some hearing says, but they’ll see it too. We won’t give them any other choice.”
I want to kiss the worried frown from his lips and smooth the lines from his brow. Inhale his intoxicating spicy scent that envelops me each night. But the worry that I let him down is eating at me.
I watch him lay Eevi down, worry knotting in my belly. “I’m sorry, Lark.”
“Shh.”
My stomach swoops. Is he mad? “If you want to yell at me, I’d understand.”
Lark's eyes flare, and he strides purposefully toward me. “Do not apologize. Never apologize to me.”
“I—”
“No. My turn to talk. You…” He tosses his hat onto the bed and runs his hands through his gloriously messy hair. His ears twitch. Then he backs me up against the wall. “I don’t want to hear apologies when all I want is to kiss every last word you said out there out of your mouth.”
“Wh—but Niemi is gone. You don’t have to.”
“Oh, ihana, it wouldn't be for anyone but me.” He places one hand on my face, the other beside my head on the wall, surrounding me in his cardamom scent.
“No one has ever, ever stood up for me like that. You have no idea how that made me feel. How I feel now. How badly I want you. Tell me you want me too.”
“Y-yes.”
He captures my lips in a scorching kiss and doesn't stop until I'm gasping for breath.
My toes curl at the way his mouth moves over mine, sending a shiver down my spine like he spun me barefoot into the snow, then pulled me back into fiery heat.
My thoughts scatter, my hands clench in his shirt, and for a breathless moment, nothing feels pretend.
I went from worried I’d messed up to flying high in Lark’s embrace. Despite all the times we’ve kissed or cuddled at night, I feel like I’ll never get enough of him, of his mouth on mine and his body reacting to my touch. It’s over far too soon.
"What—what was that for? And don’t say more practice.”
He brushes a lock of hair from my cheek with a smile.
“A thank you. You unleashed all that fire and ice on muskrat-face like I was worthy, and I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more.
No more practicing. There was nothing pretend about that.
” Then he leans in and kisses a hot line up the side of my throat that has my back arching into him.
“And if there wasn’t a house full of kids around us, I’d want to do a lot more. ”
I’m panting for breath. It’s a good thing we’re done practicing because I’m not sure how much better we can get at that, though I’m willing to keep trying.
Lark smooths my shirt before tending to his own. “I’ll go finish lunch.”
“Lunch! I forgot.” Blushing at his wink, I hurry after him. I may not be the most useful in the kitchen yet, but with Lark, it's okay. I can be myself, shortcomings and all, because he makes it easy to feel like enough.
More than anyone I've ever met, I just plain like him, and I like myself more around him.
Now if I could only do the same for him and get him to see that he's more than enough for these kids, just the way he is.