18. Cassiel
For the first time, I wake before Wren. The fire has burned down to a dull, breathing charcoal, and the air is cool enough that I pull my cloak closer around myself.
For a moment, I lie still, listening to the shifting sounds of the forest; the rustle of leaves and water, the call of a bird I don’t recognise.
The quiet, even rhythm of Wren’s breathing.
I turn my head toward her. The world is mostly dark, like a painting crisped at the corners, but there’s a soft suggestion of shapes and colour.
At the centre of everything is Wren.
She isn’t clear. Not even close. She’s a blur of colour against the ground, warmer than everything else, a smudge of bronze and shadow that the darkness seems reluctant to give back to me.
I stare anyway, afraid that if I don’t, she’ll vanish.
Afraid that if I blink too hard, whatever fragile progress my eyes have made will retreat again.
I try to memorise her like this, just in case.
When she finally stirs, the colour shifts, and I look away quickly, suddenly feeling like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. She sits up, rubs at her eyes, and says my name, still half asleep.
We go through the morning ritual. She brings out the ointment.
“Any change since last night?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing discernable.”
She uncorks the jar. I flinch when I hear the knife, but I don’t reach for her wrist this time. I force myself to stay still.
She applies the ointment carefully. I wait for something—light, clarity, another miracle like yesterday—but it doesn’t come. The world remains what it has been since morning: dark, with only the vaguest impressions of colour and depth.
“It took the man from Caldrin weeks,” she tells me. “Don’t be discouraged.”
I cling to that as we pack up.
“Why did it take him so long, do you think?” I ask her, stroking Robin’s head as we depart.
“I’m not sure,” she tells me. “I couldn’t apply it as often, and I had no idea about the dosage… but even then, this is quick. That’s a good sign.”
I hope so. A part of me is concerned that it might reach its peak soon, but then another part of me is just so grateful to have any measure of sight back, I want to be satisfied.
We walk for a little while, not in complete silence, but not really talking about much, either. Wren offers brief descriptions as we walk.
“We’re only a day away from the Star Gate,” she remarks at one point.
My head lifts instinctively. “A day?”
“If the forest allows it,” she adds. “We might even reach it by tonight. If we’re lucky.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “When is it ever that simple?”
The path bends east. The air thickens. The ground grows uneven beneath my boots. By midday, Wren veers off the trail entirely.
“Where are we going?” I ask her.
“I have some friends that live nearby,” she says. “It would be good to check in on them. Maybe share a decent meal.”
At this point, I’m almost willing to trade my recently regained sight for a comfortable chair, although their home in the forest is likely provincial.
Before long, I catch the scent of smoke. Laughter lifts through the air. A door opens before we even knock, and a small woman’s voice rings out in delight.
“Wren! You came back!”
There’s the thump of her throwing herself at Wren’s legs, and another presence joins her—larger, booming with cheer. Both voices come below my chest. Whoever these folk are, they’re small.
“Come in, come in!” the man says. “You’ll catch a chill out there.”
I barely manage to introduce myself before I’m guided inside, pressed gently but firmly into a chair—a small, but solid chair, with an excellent cushion—and handed a cup of something warm and nutty.
“Drink,” the woman orders kindly. “You look half-starved.”
“They always do,” the man adds. “Travellers have no sense of self-preservation.”
Wren laughs. “Cassiel, this is Marnie and Tob. They’re brownies.”
That explains the short stature. I try to remember what brownies look like, but come up fairly empty. Large eyes, I recall. The rest is a blur. I suppose it hardly matters.
I do remember that they are very hospitable folk, and it’s considered incredibly rude to rebuff their kindness.
I sink down further into the chair and sip the soup. “Thank you,” I tell them, “this is delicious.”
Wren settles down to my left. Robin sits at my feet.
Tob finds him a bone. Within minutes, I’m wrapped in a blanket, given bread still steaming from the oven, and subjected to Tob’s enthusiastic storytelling.
They’ve been in the human lands, he explains—sowing seeds while people slept, fixing plough lines, keeping crows away.
“Secret work,” Marnie adds, her voice beaming with pride. “But it’s time to be home before our little one arrives.”
“Congratulations,” I say, and I mean it.
“Thank you,” she replies, glowing. “Brownie babies don’t wait long. We’re a fertile folk, compared to the rest of the fey. Short pregnancies. No patience.”
I appreciate the extra knowledge. Neither of them seem surprised to see me, or unnerved by my blindness or the fact that I’m human. Has Wren told them about me, I wonder?
“Of course, we won’t stay here long,” Tob says, thumping his mug down with a decisive nod. “Just until Marnie’s recovered and the little one’s sturdy enough for the road.”
“Is this not your home?” I ask.
“It’s anyone’s home,” Wren explains. “A brownie burrow. Where anyone can find shelter for the night.”
It’s a lovely concept. There isn’t much like that in the rest of Erelis.
Shrines and temples might offer rudimentary shelter, a bed at best, but even without my vision I know that this place is more than that.
I’d never considered this side of the fey before, that their customs might welcome travellers in ways that we wouldn’t.
“Where will you go?” I ask, tearing another piece of bread. It steams against my fingers.
“Brindlewick,” Tob says, as if the name itself is a grin. “You’ve heard of it?”
I shake my head. “Can’t say that I have.”
Wren leans closer. “It’s a city,” she murmurs. “Or something like one. Brownies, gnomes, hobgoblins. Fey who prefer roofs and neighbours.”
“A mess, is what it is,” Marnie says fondly. “Everyone underfoot, everyone borrowing your things.”
“And giving them back better than they found them,” Tob counters. “Mostly.”
“It sounds…” I search for the word, listening to the crackle of the fire, the contented hum in their voices. “Lively.”
“Oh, it is,” Marnie says. “Noisy, too. Babies crying, kettles boiling, music all hours. You never go hungry there.”
“Never lonely, either,” Tob adds. “If you are, it’s your own fault.”
Robin thumps his tail against the floor, as if in agreement.
I smile into my cup. “It sounds like a good place to raise a child.”
Marnie’s voice softens. “That’s what we thought.”
Someone gets up and pokes at the hearth.
I sit, warm and content, listening to the quiet domestic sounds of the burrow.
Wren offers me a simple description of its earthen walls (painted terracotta and stenciled with vines) and patchwork furnishings, before her voice trails off. She yawns in her chair.
Another kind of quiet replaces the peaceful one, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.
“You should stay the night,” says Tob, before I can fixate on it.
I frown. “Forgive me for not knowing exactly,” I tell them, “but there are many hours of daylight left, are there not?”
There are a few weak chuckles.
“Yes,” Tob confirms, “there are. But you look like you could do with a real meal and proper rest. We’ve a couple of comfortable beds in the back room. Stay.”
I incline my head towards Wren. “Do we have time?”
“Yes,” she says. “We’ve got time.”
I’m in no mood to leave this comfortable chair, and the promise of a real bed isn’t something I’m eager to turn up, either.
“If we can—” I say.
“Yes,” says Wren. “Please.”
Tob and Marnie both seem happy with this.
The rest of the day slips by. Someone adds more wood to the fire.
Bowls are cleared and replaced. The meal is simple but deeply satisfying—stew thick with root vegetables, bread torn by hand, something sweet and spiced that Marnie insists is “hardly worth mentioning” and is, of course, excellent.
Tob produces a set of pipes from somewhere near the hearth and plays a wandering tune, low and cheerful, full of little trills that make the room feel smaller and safer.
Marnie hums along, sometimes breaking off to tell a story—about Brindlewick, about a gnome neighbour who borrowed their roof for a fortnight, about a winter spent under human floorboards listening to a family argue and reconcile and argue again.
I find myself leaning forward without realising it, cup cooling in my hands, utterly caught by the rhythm of her voice.
She has a gift for detail—the smell of sawdust and honey, the way moonlight looks through cracked stone, the particular stubbornness of hobgoblin children.
I laugh at the right moments. I forget, for a while, everything else, though I think dimly that Ru would love it here.
At some point, the room grows quieter around the edges. Robin is still beside me, Tob and Marnie ahead, but there’s a coldness to my left that’s suddenly palpable.
“Where did Wren go?” I ask.
Marnie sighs softly. “To bed, poor lamb. Let her rest.”
I’m not sure why Marnie, who is pregnant, is calling Wren a poor lamb. Wren is far too strong to be described as any kind of lamb, let alone a poor one, but I nod as if in agreement, schooling my expression into something easy.
Still, the absence settles strangely in my chest.
“Well,” I say, pushing myself upright, “I should probably do the same.”
They bid me goodnight, offering me directions. Robin rises at once, tail swishing. He noses my knee, ready to guide.
The back room is narrow and smells faintly of lavender and clean earth. I trail my fingers along the wall until Robin pauses and my knee brushes a bed. I run my hands along it, searching for the top. It’s very small, but neatly made.
My hand brushes something warm. A hand, curled along the edge of a coverlet.
Wren stirs beneath my fingers, a soft sound leaving her throat before she stills again. I freeze, heart hammering, then draw back at once.
“Sorry,” I whisper, mortified.
She shifts slightly, murmurs something unintelligible, and settles.
Carefully, I find my own bed—just beside hers—and sit down. I remove my boots and excess clothing before lying back. I’m not really tired enough to sleep. We only walked for a few hours.
The burrow breathes around us, quiet and alive.
“Are you all right?” Wren asks, voice thick with sleep.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “But you’re clearly exhausted. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“There didn’t seem any point…”
“You have to tell me what I can’t see for myself. You promised—”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Forgot.”
She shivers, and I immediately take one of the extra blankets from my bed and lay it over her trembling shoulders, not thinking. My hands hover over her for far longer than they should before I finally manage to ball them into fists and sit back down on my own mattress.
“You aren’t sick, are you?” I ask.
“No. No, I’m not. I’m just tired, I promise you.”
I want to believe she’s all right, and that she’s not telling another lie, but it’s not like Wren to be so tired all of the time. She’s used to living rough in the forests. Why is this journey taking so much out of her?
“You aren’t… you aren’t pregnant too, are you?” I ask, because that would explain why she isn’t sick, but Marnie and Tob can tell she needs rest. I’m sure there’s something they can see that I can’t. Pregnancy makes sense, but if she was…
It wouldn’t necessarily be yours, I remind myself, because it’s been months since we were together, and she could easily have been with others since, but—
But…
But, as much as I don’t want her to be pregnant, I want it to be someone else’s even less.
Wren snorts softly. “No,” she says. “I’m not pregnant, Cass. I’ve bled since we were together, and I’ve not been with anyone else.”
“Good,” I say, far too quickly. “I mean—that you’re not pregnant. Because, you know, that doesn’t sound like a fun condition to be in for traversing through the woods.”
“Indeed. I don’t know what Marnie was thinking.”
“I mean, she’s chosen to settle down into what appears to be a rather cosy burrow, so there’s that.”
Wren laughs quietly, then lapses into silence once more.
“Is it your nightmares?” I ask her. “Is that why you’re not sleeping?”
She’s quiet for a moment.
“They’re a contributing factor,” she admits.
“Your mother’s death—” I begin, hardly knowing where I’m going with this, what comfort I can offer, especially now that I know she was responsible. However much I don’t blame her for it, I know she blames herself.
“They’re not about that,” she whispers. “Not most of the time, anyway.”
“No.”
“Whose death keeps you up at night, then?”
“Evander’s,” she states, her voice a ghost’s. “And… everyone else’s. Everyone else who died at my hand. I see their faces every time I close my eyes, telling me I’m not allowed to rest if they can’t…”
I swallow. “Well,” I say, “that’s a bit shit.”
Wren snorts into her pillow, but the sound is muffled. Robin leaves my side to go to hers. She rustles under the covers.
“Get up,” I tell him. “Keep her warm.”
“If you’re sure—” she says, Robin already clambering up.
“I’m sure,” I state. “You can just think of this as me being selfish, if you like. I need you in good condition if you’re going to fix my sight. Or perhaps…”
The bedsheets rustle. “Perhaps?”
My throat closes for a moment. “I don’t hate you,” I whisper.
Wren turns in her bed. “It would be easier if you did, wouldn’t it?”
I nod, my words deserting me. It would be so, so much easier if I hated her. So much easier if none of it was real, if there’d been no point in loving her to begin with. So much easier to fight. So much easier to let go.
“I used to want to hate you, too,” she whispers. “Sometimes, I still want that.”
My chest aches. I sigh, wishing I could sink further into these pillows. “I could try to be more unlikeable, if you’d prefer.”
“No,” says Wren smugly, “you couldn’t.”
I remove one of my pillows and whack the ride of her bed. Wren laughs, Robin whines. I take back my pillow and stuff it under my head. “Well,” I whisper. “Goodnight, Wren.”
“Goodnight, Cassiel.”