52. Wren
“What are you doing here?” Cassiel whispers into my hair. “I thought you’d left.”
I grin up at him. “Without saying goodbye?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“No,” I say sadly. “I suppose not.”
Cassiel pulls back, holding me at arm’s length. “It’s dangerous for you to be here,” he tells me. “My mother—”
“It’s always been dangerous,” I remind him. “Flying when I’m this exhausted is also dangerous.”
“Right.” His eyes go wide, like this is something he should have considered. He steers me towards the bed, pulling a blanket around my shoulders. “Have you eaten?” he asks. “I can send for some food—”
“Edwin has been a most generous host.”
“I should raise his salary.”
He smiles at me, but it’s a brittle thing. Robin comes forward and puts his head on my knee. I pat him as Cassiel fusses, bringing me water and stroking my hair. It’s nice, I hope he doesn’t stop.
“How long will you stay?” he asks.
“The night, if you’ll let me. I’m too tired to fly anywhere safer.”
I play with the lapels of his waistcoat, tracing the embroidery over his heart. There’s nowhere safer, I want to say.
I lean against his chest, breathing him in.
Cassiel does the same with me, gathering me close, his eyes fanning shut.
We stay like that a moment until he whispers, “Well, in that case…” and then loops his arm under my legs and lifts me off my feet, lying me fully against the bed.
He tugs off my boots, then kicks away his own, leaving them jumbled in a pile that would never have been allowed when he was blind.
He slides under the blanket with me and pulls me into his arms.
The moments tick by. The sky outside darkens. Cassiel plays with my hair until I’m close to drifting off.
Let me die in his man’s arms, I beg the fates. In fifty years from now, a hundred, whenever. Let me live and die with him, only do not make me leave.
“Who would I have been, do you think, if the prophecy didn’t exist?” I ask him, not wanting to sleep, just yet. I want more consciousness with him, more words with him.
More him. Always more of that.
“What’s brought this on?” he asks, breath against my temple.
“It’s something I’ve been thinking of for a while,” I admit.
“There was this barmaid who looked after me a little while ago. She asked me why I helped people, and I told her it was because I had to. I’ve never thought of myself as a helpful person before, and even now, the good I’m trying to do is brought on because I feel so damned guilty…
but who would I have been if I’d just been allowed to be anyone?
If I’d stayed with my mother? If my grandmother hadn’t brought me up to hate humans and be really good at killing people? ”
Cassiel kisses my forehead. “She did a terrible job.”
“I’m really a very efficient assassin—”
“I’m sure you are, in most ways, but your grandmother never taught you to hate us, Wren. She might have tried, but I don’t think you learned.”
“I—”
“Did you hate me, when we first met?”
I pause, because the answer should be yes. He was rude, he was sharp, he was irritating. He was the son of the man who killed my father. The son of the woman who persecuted my kind. I had every reason in the world to hate him. And yet…
“You irritated me,” I tell him.
Cass laughs. “That’s perfectly reasonable,” he tells me.
“But you didn’t hate me. You didn’t hate any of us.
You’re not a hateful person. I don’t know who you would have been if not for your past—and Saints, I wish you hadn’t had to go through all you have—but you are the same person.
Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve been through.
You’re strong, and kind, and brave, and lovely, and I’m so, so glad I met you. ”
Tears start to form, and I fold myself into his arms. “I’m glad I met you, too.”
Cass kisses my tears away, and eventually, his mouth meets mine. I curl my fingers into his clothes, heat rippling through me.
Cassiel must sense it, because he inches back a fraction. “How… how tired are you?” he asks, voice hoarse.
I grin. “Not that tired.”
“Right,” he says, throwing off the blanket. “Jolly good.”
He kisses me like he can fuse us together with touch, like every press of his lips unravels us both, makes us less of ourselves and more of each other.
Reason and logic start to fade—everything fades, all fears, all doubts, all pain, all cares.
Everything fades until it’s just the two of us and the frantic beating of our hearts.
Stars, what is it about him that makes me want to abandon everything else?
All my excuses turn meaningless. I could stay, I tell myself.
I lived half the winter in his rafters. I could do it again.
I would do it, if it meant staying closer to him.
I’d transform myself into a ring around his finger, if it meant we never had to be parted.
“What have you done to me?” I whisper.
His kisses lighten. He smiles against my throat. “Be more specific.”
“You make me think such silly things.”
“It’s love, Wren,” he insists. “It makes fools of us all.”
“We can’t afford to be foolish.”
“Tonight, we can,” he says, sliding my shirt from my shoulder. “Tonight, we can be anything we want.”
I hold his face in my hands. “I just want to be yours,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be anything else.”
His smile broadens. His thumb presses my chin, fingers gliding against my cheek.
“You were mine even when I couldn’t see you,” he tells me.
“You are mine when we can’t touch. We’re stardust, Wren,” he whispers reverently.
“You and I… we came forth together. Somewhere, I think, before we took these forms we hold now, your stardust and mine were the same, and when our lives in this world end, we will be together in the next one, too. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
My throat tightens. “Fey don’t believe in an afterlife,” I remind him, because I want that, one day. I want us to be together forever, but I don’t know if any life contains that for us.
Cassiel smiles. “But you can believe whatever you want,” he tells me. “And I hope you believe that one, because one life with you will never be enough.”
I let out a sound that’s half a moan, half a whimper. I want that. I want him, him in this world, him in the next. I let him kiss me. I kiss him back, with all the force that I can summon. My sweet, beautiful Cassiel. Mine, mine, mine.
His hands circle my back, drawing me closer. I part his waistcoat with deft fingers, sliding it off his shoulders. His shirt comes off next. My fingers splay over his bare chest, making him pant against my next.
I lever off my own shirt next, discarding it on the floor. I place kisses down his throat, chest, stomach—
He hauls me upright, twisting me over, lying me flush against the bed. He yanks off my breeches, yanks off everything. He tangles one hand in mine. The other presses against my centre, exploring the unseen parts of me.
He whispers my name as I unravel, until I’m gasping his back, then he’s silencing me with a kiss, drawing back only to ask me if I’m ready.
“Take off the rest of your clothes,” I beg him, voice husky.
Cassiel grins as he obliges, before sliding back to the bed, and back to me, into me—
I return to the stars we were forged from.