40. Cassiel
Ilaunch forwards and grab her arms, still not entirely sure that she’s real. The minute I’ve convinced myself that she is, I yank her against my chest, gathering her up, and fold us both onto the bed. I breathe in the scent of her hair, her skin. My face slots against her neck.
Wren, Wren, my Wren.
“Hi,” I manage eventually.
Wren’s hands unfurl around me. I sigh deeply. Saints, how I’ve missed her touch.
“Hi,” she whispers.
Robin lowers his entire body until he’s almost flat, and nudges against us. We laugh weakly, parting just enough to hug him too.
“I didn’t think you’d signal for me so soon,” Wren says, brushing a lock back from my forehead. “I was worried when I saw the sign. Is this just… a social call?”
I swallow, remembering the reason I summoned her in the first place. “I wish it was,” I tell her, sweeping her hair over her shoulder. “Ru can do magic.”
Wren’s dark eyes widen. “That’s… not possible.”
“She used a rune,” I explain. “The protection one. Summoned a shield out of nowhere.”
Wren sits up in bed. My arms grow cold without her.
“Wren?” I prompt. “Have you ever heard of a human who could activate runes?”
“No,” she says. “I haven’t. A half fey could—”
“She isn’t half fey,” I tell her. “She’s my father’s child. My mother would never knowingly—”
“Knowingly being the operative word,” Wren says, cringing like I did when the thought first crossed my mind.
“My grandmother wouldn’t have done this,” she says.
“It’s not her style, cruel as it would be.
She wouldn’t have needed to do this, either.
She had me. But someone else, another group of fey, maybe…
” She wraps a lock of hair around her fingers and twists it into knots.
“A pity there’s no way to tell,” I add. “Since she can lie and touch iron—”
Wren’s expression flickers.
“What?”
“There… there might be a way to tell,” she says. “Fey blood… is distinctive. It has certain properties. It can activate other materials. I’d need some yarrow root, ground amethyst—”
“Edwin likely has all of those.”
“Who’s Edwin?”
“The castle alchemist.”
“That’s… handy,” she says. She glances at the sky. “He’s probably still asleep now, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s he located?”
“His workshop is in the eastern tower.”
Wren smiles. She glances at the window. “Meet you there?”
I barely have any time to reply before she’s transformed into a bird and flown away.
With nothing else to do, I leave Robin in my room and make my way to the eastern tower on foot.
It’s still too early for the servants to be stirring.
I pass by a few guards, but they’re used to me keeping odd hours and say nothing.
Wren is waiting for me at the door to the workshop.
She’s braided back her hair and rolled the sleeves of her shirt to her elbows. The faint grey light of almost-dawn outlines her shoulders.
“You’re late,” she says.
“You turned into a bird and flew away,” I reply. “I had to use the stairs like a normal person.”
She tuts. “Excuses, excuses…”
Despite everything, I laugh quietly and push open the door.
The workshop smells of herbs, metal, and something faintly bitter that prickles the back of my throat. Shelves crowd the walls, stacked with glass jars and stoppered bottles. Mortars, pestles, copper instruments, and delicate glass coils fill every inch of the worktables.
Wren pauses just inside the room, turning slowly as she surveys it.
“Well,” she says softly. “Your castle alchemist is either very competent… or extremely reckless.”
“I think he’s a little bit of both,” I say, closing the door behind us. I glance around at the shelves. “What did you need again?”
“Yarrow root first,” she says. “Look for something pale and fibrous. It’ll probably be dried.”
I move to the shelves while Wren begins gathering the rest of the apparatus—selecting a small brass scale, a narrow-necked flask, and a squat copper pot that looks as though it’s survived several explosions.
“Found it,” I say, holding up a bundle of brittle roots.
“Perfect. Now grind it.”
“With what?”
She gives me a look. “Cass, you are very smart. You can work this out.”
I sigh and reach for the mortar and pestle.
Behind me, Wren begins measuring powders with careful precision. Ground amethyst glitters faintly in the lamplight as she tips it into the pot. A few drops of something dark follow, hissing softly when they hit the metal.
The yarrow root resists at first, splintering beneath the pestle.
“Finer,” Wren says without looking up.
“I am grinding it.”
“You should roll up your sleeves,” Wren demands.
“Will that help?”
“It’ll help me,” she says with a smirk.
Smirking right back, I dutifully—and slowly—roll up my sleeves. Wren smiles at me the whole time.
“Have you often stared at my forearms, Thornvale?”
“Quite often,” she says.
“It’s a crime that I had no idea.”
“Hence my making it obvious now.”
I want to cross the room and kiss her so badly, but there’s a job to do, and Wren’s touch has the dizzying effect of making me forget about everything else.
I return to my task and grind the root as instructed.
Eventually, the root becomes a pale dust. Wren nods in approval and tips it into the mixture.
She adds water, then places the pot over a small spirit flame. The liquid inside begins to heat slowly, turning cloudy as the ingredients dissolve into one another.
“It’ll take a while,” she says, stirring with a thin glass rod. “The yarrow needs time to bind with the amethyst.”
“How long is a while?”
“An hour. Maybe two.”
I lean back against the table and glance toward the narrow window. The sky beyond it is lightening from black to deep indigo.
“Well,” I say after a moment, “we could go somewhere in the meantime. A walk along the battlements, maybe? The grounds are nice this time of year—”
Wren looks up slowly. “Cassiel.”
“What?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“There’s no price on your head anymore,” I insist. “We could just walk through the gardens. No one would bother you.”
“That won’t change people’s perceptions.”
“I’ll dismiss anyone who so much as looks at you—”
“Cass,” she says warningly. “Don’t.”
She lowers her gaze back to the simmering potion.
“I killed their friends,” she says quietly. “My grandmother injured their queen. They have every right to hate me.”
I swallow, because she’s right, and I know it, but sometimes the only way for me to survive the day is to pretend that I don’t, and a future for us exists if I can just wait out this storm.
The potion bubbles softly between us.
Wren stirs it again, her movements steady despite the dark shadows under her eyes.
“We’ll test Ru’s blood against mine,” she says after a moment. “To see if the reaction is the same. If it is… then we’ll have our answer.”
I nod, though my chest feels tight.
“How much blood will you need?” I ask. I’m not overly fond of either of them having to bleed for this experiment.
“A drop will do. Do you think Ru is brave enough?”
“Definitely.”
My eyes drift around the workshop—and land on a ragged chaise shoved awkwardly against the far wall. It’s buried beneath a pile of stained cloths and a book with half its pages curling away from the spine.
“Come here,” I say gently.
Wren glances up. “What?”
I nod toward the chaise. “Sit down for a minute. The potion’s not going anywhere.”
“Cass—”
“You look like you’re about to fall over.”
She huffs faintly, but there’s no real protest in it. I shove a few of the cloths aside and pat the cushion.
“Your castle alchemist has terrible taste in furniture,” she mutters.
“You’re welcome to file a complaint later.”
She sits anyway, easing down with a tired little sigh. I drop beside her and pull her against my side before she can object. It only takes her a moment before she melts fully against me, and my breath leaves my body, warmth washing over me.
It’s like having my sight returned. Being beside Wren is the natural state of being, everything else is tolerable, but it isn’t right. It’s always missing something.
Fate or prophecy aside, I was born to be with her.
Her head rests against my shoulder, her fingers curling loosely in the front of my shirt like she’s done a dozen times before… and not nearly enough.
Saints. I press a quiet kiss into her hair.
“You’re warm,” she murmurs.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She nudges me weakly with her elbow. “Stop fussing.”
“Never, my vastren.”
Her hand slides up my arm until her fingers lace with mine. We sit like that while the potion simmers quietly across the room.
“I missed you,” I whisper.
Wren breathes out softly against my collarbone. “I know,” she says. “I missed you too.”
I close my eyes for a moment, letting the simple weight of her against me settle something restless inside my chest.
Across the room the potion lets out a small hiss.
Wren tilts her head slightly to check it, then relaxes again.
“Just simmering,” she murmurs.
“Good.”
We sit there a little longer, saying nothing important at all. Time slips through our fingers.
Outside, the sky has begun to pale.
“I’ll go and get Ru,” I say. “It’s nearly light. She should be up soon.”
Wren smiles at that. It’s small, but genuine. In the early morning light she looks painfully thin, the sharpness of her cheekbones more pronounced than ever. There’s a weariness about her that makes something twist uncomfortably in my chest.
I hesitate by the door. “Don’t let it boil over,” I say, just wanting to say something.
“It’s my potion,” she replies dryly. “I think I can manage.”
I open the door.
Only to find someone already standing on the other side.
Edwin, the castle alchemist, blinks at me through a pair of crooked spectacles. His grey hair sticks up in several improbable directions, and he’s clutching a brown, pleasant-smelling brew of something to his chest.
For a long moment he simply stares past me into the workshop. His gaze slides from the bubbling pot… to Wren… to the ground amethyst scattered across his worktable.
“…why,” he continues faintly, “is there a formally-wanted criminal brewing things in my laboratory?”