29. Cassiel
They usher us through the village, apologies and reassurances flowing freely around us.
Someone presses a cup of warm tea into Wren’s hands.
Someone else promises fresh clothes. As a prince, I’m familiar with this kind of care, but it’s entirely different coming from people that aren’t paid to provide it, and it settles uneasily in my chest when I consider my actions towards the fey these past few months.
I don’t think I killed any of these folk myself, but I’ve surely authorised it, or endangered them with my actions. Yet, no one points that out, or offers me anything but the utmost kindness.
The ‘tall-folk house’ is a beautiful treehouse, carved into the trunk of a massive oak, windows opening out onto the forest canopy. Inside, the room is all polished wood and soft light, the bed wide and inviting, piled with quilts.
One bed.
Wren looks at it, then at me.
I clear my throat. “I can sleep on the floor.”
She raises an eyebrow. “We can share, Cass. I can keep my hands to myself for one night.”
My throat bobs. And if I can’t?
There’s a soft knock at the door before either of us can say anything else. It opens a crack, and a hobgoblin peers in, her ears twitching politely.
“I’ve brought you some healing supplies,” she says, stepping inside.
She sets a folded bundle on the low table, alongside a small wooden box that smells sharply of herbs.
“And some fresh clothes. Nothing fancy.” She gestures at the clothes.
“Someone’s seeing if they can find you something better for the wedding. ”
Wren blinks. “There’s going to be a wedding?”
“Aye,” the hobgoblin says, brightening. “Tonight. You’re invited, of course.”
“We couldn’t possibly—” I begin automatically.
“It would be an honour,” Wren says at exactly the same moment, cutting clean across me. She smiles up at the hobgoblin, all warmth and sincerity. “Thank you.”
The hobgoblin beams, clearly delighted, and backs toward the door. “Rest up, then. Someone will bring food shortly.” She pauses, eyeing us both once more. “And… truly. We’re glad you’re here. We hear you helped our Marnie deliver baby Eva. True friends of the folk, you are.”
The door clicks shut behind her, and my chest twitches once more. I am no friend of folk. One baby delivered doesn’t excuse all I’ve done. Is it possible that they don’t know who I am? If they find out—
I turn to Wren. “Aren’t we imposing?” I ask. “They’re already giving us so much—”
“You can’t refuse brownie hospitality, Cassiel. It’s practically a curse.”
She opens our supplies. Inside are neatly bundled bandages, a salve that smells like pine and honey, and a small vial of something faintly luminescent.
“We should… we should probably change our bandages,” she says.
My throat bobs. I’m very, very glad she’s not bleeding anymore, but changing her bandages when she’s awake and lucid and Wren is an entirely different kind of uncomfortable.
“Let me do yours first,” I say, wanting the torture over and done with.
She hesitates, then nods, stretching out on the bed and lifting up her blood stained shit.
She holds herself still while I snip away the old bandages around her middle, my jaw tightening as the wound is revealed again—angry, ugly, far too close to where it could have been fatal.
I clean it carefully, hands steady despite the knot in my chest. Her skin prickles beneath my fingers.
“Does that hurt?” I ask.
“Only when you breathe like that,” she murmurs.
I snort, despite myself, and reapply the salve, then fresh bandages, wrapping them snug but gentle.
As I do, my gaze flicks upward—just for a second—and I catch a glimpse of ink at the edge of her collarbone.
Dark lines, delicate and unfamiliar, disappearing beneath her skin before I can make sense of them.
She notices, of course.
“Eyes down, healer,” she says lightly.
“Sorry,” I say, meaning several things at once.
I know of at least two of Wren’s tattoos—birds across her shoulder, bellflowers on her forearm—but I don’t remember her mentioning a chest tattoo.
It’s entirely possible she just didn’t want me to know about any tattoos she had in intimate places when she told me, but it’s equally possible it’s new.
I wonder what it’s of. She’s never shied away from me before, but then, I’ve never been able to see her before, either.
“Are you done?” Wren asks.
I nod. “Take some pain relief,” I tell her. “And don’t argue. There’s a wedding tonight. You need to be at your best.”
Wren shoots me a delicious smirk, and downs a tiny vial like it’s liquor.
“That smile,” I say, hardly realising I’m speaking at all.
“What about it?”
“It’s an absolute travesty I was denied it for so long.”
That’s probably the wrong thing to say when we know that it would a terrible idea to reignite anything between us, but Wren merely pouts and says:
“I wouldn’t worry, I rarely ever smiled around you.”
I laugh. “Liar.”
Wren smiles again, a smirk I feel against my bones, and then quickly sobers. “We should change your bandages too.”
“I really am—”
Wren fixes me with a glare that melts all resolve, and I duly sit down on the bed, removing my shredded shirt.
The wound at my side is shallow by comparison, but she cleans it anyway, her fingers warm against my prickling skin. Her fingers touch my side for barely more than a handful of minutes collectively, but it’s like running over knives the whole time. Touching her hurt; having her touch me is agony.
And yet, when she finishes, it’s worse. I want to keep her hands on me forever.
My side rebandaged, Wren reaches for a needle, and starts to apply it to her thumb.
I reach out, grabbing her hand.
“No,” I say immediately.
She looks up at me, unimpressed. “Yes.”
“You’re still weak,” I argue. “You shouldn’t—”
“Cassiel,” she says, “it is a couple of drops. I can handle it.”
I sigh, then do as I’m told. She kneels in front of me, close enough that I can see the fine freckles across her nose, the faint shadows beneath her eyes. She opens the jar, then pricks her thumb with the needle before I can stop her, letting two careful droplets of blood fall into the ointment.
My hands clench. “You really don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” she says, meeting my gaze. “Hold still.”
The salve is cool when she applies it directly to my eyes, the magic stinging sharply as it takes hold. I flinch despite myself.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, though she doesn’t stop.
“I can just get glasses,” I mutter. “If I want to see into the distance. Maybe. I can already see you in front of me, which is really all I want.”
Her hands still.
I realise what I’ve said about half a second too late. “I mean,” I add quickly, “I can see anyone in front of me. Wouldn’t want you to think you’re special.”
She huffs a laugh, half breath, half disbelief. “Of course not.” She shakes her head. “Take it, Cassiel,” she says softly. “I want you to see the stars again.”
It is very hard to say no to Wren at the best of times. It is even harder when she says things like that.
“There are other ways that you could make me see the stars,” I say, then wish I could kick myself.
Wren squeaks. It’s a delightful sound. I rescind all wishes of self-admonishment. “Did you honestly just say that?”
“I believe I just did.”
“Cassiel!”
“Saints, woman, we’re talking about the time you accidentally hit me on the head, not the time that we… you know.”
“Orgasmed together multiple times?”
“Saints!” I swear. “Did you honestly just say that?”
“I believe I just did.”
We laugh together, which is, quite frankly, the greatest sound in the world.
She returns to doctoring me. After she’s done—which is over in no time and too short a time, all at once—we both stare at each other, as if not entirely sure what to do now, before remembering the clean clothes.
We both drop our gazes. Wren disappears into the adjoining bathing room and changes.
When she comes back in, I’m in the new, borrowed clothes too.
She feeds the shredded fabric into the fire.
After a moment, I head over to her side. I remove the totem from our pack.
“Zephyr managed to remove the spell on this—”
Wren’s eyes widen. “How?”
“Something about an obliging sister of Moira’s?”
She smiles. “Resourceful.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. “I want you to burn it,” I add instead.
Wren frowns at me, like she can’t believe what I’ve just said. I know it probably makes no sense to her, when we’re right in front of a fire, but I need it to be her. I want it to be her.
“You’ve already burned me,” I explain. “It seems right.”
Wren takes the totem from me, her fingers skimming mine. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “Please.”
I relinquish all control of my likeness. Wren’s palms fill with fire. The flames engulf the figure in seconds, turning the wood to charcoal.
She keeps it in her palm until it vanishes completely and is nothing but ash.
I stare at her empty palm. Without that awful thing, we might never have met.
Would the stars have rearranged themselves another way, if she’d not been sent deliberately into my service?
Would our paths have crossed another way?
I try to imagine it, meeting Wren in a tavern somewhere, or out in the forests, but I can’t.
I was never the sort to approach strangers in smoky, crowded spaces, and I would have assumed she was my enemy in the forests, most likely.
Even if I hadn’t, with my sight, would I have wanted to speak to her?
Everyone judges by appearances, whether they think they do or not.
She’s stunning, but would I have noticed that if she was mud-streaked and ragged from the road?
Would I have sat with her long enough to be entranced by the smell of her skin, the gold in her eyes, the cadence of her laugh and the sheer and utter brilliance of her shining soul?
“Wren—” I start.
The door opens again without so much as a knock. The brownies are back in force—three of them this time—faces alight.