43. Cassiel
When I return to Edwin’s tower, Wren is curled up on the chaise, fast asleep, a half-eaten breakfast beside her. Edwin is busy whipping up another potion.
I crouch down by Wren’s side, moving aside the remains of her breakfast, and pull a nearby blanket around her shoulders.
I brush her hair back from her face and move into a sitting position, savouring the warmth of her cheek.
She murmurs ever so slightly under my touch, moving into my palm. I smile in response.
Edwin turns his back. “Any point in warning you that loving her is only going to hurt?”
“None whatsoever,” I remark, not looking at him. “Was it worth it? For you?”
The ghost of a smile darts across his cheek. “Love usually is.”
“A fey answer.”
“A true one.” He glances back at me. “Did you get the bones?”
I nod, happy to be rid of them. I hand them over, and he begins the rather disturbing task of grinding the bones into a powder. I’m glad he’s taken ownership of the task, but the sound is horrendous. I grind my teeth.
Finally, Edwin is done. He dampens the fires and sets the bone powder aside.
“Potion is ready when you are,” he says, glancing at Wren. “Though there’s no hurry, I suppose.”
I nod. “Could you come back in an hour or two?”
Edwin purses his lips, as if after everything he’s heard today, being asked to leave his workshop is the most outrageous. He tuts a little under his breath.
“If I must,” he mutters.
The door shuts behind him with a soft thud, and the tower settles into a quieter rhythm—just the low crackle of dying embers and Wren’s steady breathing.
I stay where I am beside her, stroking her cheek, her arm, her hair.
I don’t know how much longer we’ll have like this.
When Edwin returns, we’ll test the bones, and that will be that.
Mystery solved. Wren might formulate a plan to try and help Ru discover her powers, but she won’t do it here.
We’ve been lucky with Edwin, but if someone else were to walk into the room, if Captain Fellwood learned she was here…
I don’t want to think about Wren being in danger. I equally don’t want her to leave.
Time passes strangely when you’re watching someone sleep.
It stretches and softens. I trace idle patterns along the edge of the blanket, committing every detail of her face to memory—the faint crease between her brows, the way her lashes rest against her skin, the warmth of her breath against my wrist.
An hour, perhaps more, slips by before she stirs.
Her nose wrinkles first, then her hand twitches against the cushion. Finally, her eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, then sharpening as they land on me.
“Cass?” Her voice is rough with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Almost lunch,” I say quietly.
She blinks before sitting up, scrubbing her face. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You needed the sleep.”
“I needed—” She pushes herself up on her elbows, blanket sliding down her shoulders. She glares at me, but there’s no real heat behind it. Whatever argument she was forming quickly dies. She grumbles and lies back down.
“Sorry,” I say, not really meaning it.
“No, you’re not.”
“No, not remotely.”
Before she can retort, the door creaks open again and Edwin steps back in, carrying a bundle of notes and that ever-present look of mild irritation.
“I assume the world has not ended in my absence?” he says dryly.
“Disappointingly, no,” I reply.
Wren snorts softly, then winces as if remembering something important. “Right! The bones—did you get them?”
I nod. “Two of Queen Vivien’s phalanges are currently sitting in that bowl over there.”
Wren blinks. “I have no idea what those are—”
“Finger bones,” say Edwin and I at the same time.
“Of course.”
Edwin crosses to the workbench, already reaching for the powdered remains. “Let us see if our theory holds any merit. Stand back, lovebirds.”
He erects the screen again, pulls on his gloves, and shoves down his goggles. Safety procedures in place, he sprinkles a careful measure of bone dust into a beaker, then adds a few drops of the prepared potion. We all lean back, expecting another reaction like the explosion Wren’s blood elicited.
The liquid shivers.A faint glow pulses through it, pale and silvery, like moonlight caught in glass. The reaction builds, the glow intensifying, but it never erupts—never spirals into the violent, uncontrollable surge we saw before.
After a few seconds, it fades, settling into a dim, steady shimmer.
Edwin frowns. “Well,” he says slowly, “that is… underwhelming.”
“It reacted,” Wren points out. “And more than Ru and Cassiel’s blood did.”
“Yes, but not like yours.” He moves around the workbench, studying the beaker from every angle. “Not even close.”
I fold my arms, considering. “Bones are older,” I say. “Whatever magic runs through blood… it’s diluted. Faded over the decades.”
Edwin hums. “Aged matter versus living conduit…” He glances at me, interest sparking. “You may not be entirely wrong.”
“Try not to sound so surprised.”
“I am surprised you phrased it coherently.”
Wren huffs a quiet laugh—but it’s fleeting. When I look at her, she’s gone still, her gaze distant.
I step closer. “What is it?”
She doesn’t answer at first, still staring at the faintly-glowing mixture.
“This changes things,” she says finally.
“How so?”
“Your family. Your ancestry. Being fey—”
“What, don’t want to be with a fey man, Wren?” I tease lightly. “Such a hypocrite…”
A small laugh escapes her, but it dies almost as soon as it’s born.
“No,” she says quietly. “That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
She hesitates. “If your family is part fey,” she says slowly. “If your mother is…”
“Then what?”
Wren continues, voice tightening. “Then what happened to her doesn’t make sense.”
A cold thread slips down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“People have always assumed my grandmother did something to her during their scuffle,” she says. “That she put her into that sleep. Some kind of curse, or spell, or—whatever it was.”
“Yes.”
“But if that were true…” Wren swallows. “I should have been able to wake her.”
The room goes very still.
Edwin lowers the vial slightly, his attention snapping fully to her.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
Wren meets my eyes. “What if…” she whispers, “she did this to herself?”
I swallow. “You think my mother placed herself in an enchanted sleep?”
“I’ve heard stories of fey that could retreat into their dreams,” she explains. “Deliberately. They could live inside their heads for years—even decades.”
I suck in a breath. I don’t want to believe that my mother would do that to herself—don’t want to believe that she’d abandon us—but hadn’t I myself said that I wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to wake to a world without Evander in it?
She didn’t know, I tell myself. When she fought with Nubaia, she didn’t know Evander was dead. She couldn’t have, she wouldn’t have—
“Of course, in Alessandra’s case, it might not have been deliberate,” Wren reasons. “She may not have been aware of her powers, she was already injured—”
“Can we wake her?” I ask. “Now that we suspect the cause, is there any way to—”
“Yes,” says Wren.
My chest surges with hope. “Really?”
She nods, although she doesn’t look relieved.
“Wren? What’s wrong?”
“It’s… it could be dangerous,” she tells me. “We’d have to enter her dream and try and wake her up from inside it. There’s a chance that we could—”
“Get stuck in there too?”
Wren grimaces. “Yes.”
“Great.”
“We’d need to decide if it’s worth the risk—”
“Wren,” I whisper, “she’s my mother. She’s always going to be worth the risk.”
Wren swallows. I’m sure there’s very little she wouldn’t do to get either of her parents back, even the one she never had the chance to know.
“It’s not you that bears the risk, Cass,” she says quietly.
“It’s the ones that love you that pay the price.
If you don’t return, Ru will have lost her entire family, and gained a crown we both know she’s not ready for.
And… and there’s me, too. If I make it back, and you don’t…
do you want me to be left in a world without you in it?
Because I think I might go mad, and I might burn the world down with me. ”
I take a deep breath, because I doubt that Wren’s being dramatic when she talks about burning the world down in the event of my death.
If she was unable to control her powers when Evander was injured, my demise could unravel her completely.
I’m prepared to risk my life for my mother’s, but not Wren’s. Not Ru’s.
“Take… take a while to think about it,” she says. “I’ll need to gather some ingredients either way. Perhaps you can do some research on dream-walking? I’m sure your library will have something now that you know what you’re looking for.”
I nod, though I don’t really want to. Wren leans up and kisses my cheek.
“Three days,” she says. “Let’s meet back here at sundown in three days.”
“All… all right.”
“My tower isn’t a meeting room, you know,” Edwin reminds us.
We both ignore him. I squeeze Wren’s fingers, then lift them up to my lips to kiss them. Wren smiles, not giving me the chance to kiss anything else. She transforms into a bird, and disappears out of the open window, leaving me alone once more.