69. Cassiel
Imake plans to leave immediately. There is no time like the present, and, in any case, it isn’t like I’ll be gone forever.
“I’ll just be a few hours away,” I tell Ru, as she sobs into my chest. “I’ll come and visit soon. And, in a little while, you can come and visit me.”
There is a lot more bawling before she finally releases me. Though it has been many months since Evander was returned to us, I don’t think she’s ready to let one of us go, for our family to be divided yet again, however temporarily.
And she misses Wren, too. She has drawn almost as many pictures of her as I have.
Dain takes the news much better.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him, within an hour of talking to my sister.
“I know,” says Dain. “And I’m coming with you.”
I stare at him for what I am sure is a solid minute.
“You did promise me a house in the country,” he adds.
“Does a forest count?”
“I think so.”
“We’ll be living in huts and tents for a while—”
“I know this may shock you, Cass, but I’m used to sleeping rough. Are you?”
I pout. “I could just dismiss you—”
“I’ve already resigned,” he says. “Again.”
“You… what?”
“I resigned this morning, so either I follow you as a friend, or I meet you there as a nemesis.” He lowers his brows. “I’d make a good nemesis, just so you know. I have a little book of ways to torment my enemies—”
“Fine!” I say, holding up my hands in defeat. “I give in.”
Dain grins. “An excellent choice, Your Highness.”
It is the last time he ever uses my title.
A small community of sorts has cropped up next to the Rosy Duckling following the new laws regarding the fey.
Many are hesitant to live openly in the existing towns and cities, still unsure of how the public will react even if the law now protects them.
They want to live within fleeing distance of the forest. Equally, there are humans who seek the skills of the fey, and want to be able to peddle their wares.
Magda’s huts are in permanent occupation. She has been speaking of building more.
“It would look better than all the tents everywhere, wouldn’t it?” she’s mused on more than one occasion.
I think we can do even better.
I start working on a plan with her, local tradespeople, and the fey already occupying the fields around the inn.
We start designing a town, a town that sits right on the edge of the Duskfen, with houses built of stone and others in the trees.
The plan quickly takes root, almost literally, as the Duskfen seems to approve, lifting its roots and vines to help us start the build.
I don’t tell anyone to begin with what my mother and I already know, that this place will be my home too when it is done, but I plan my new residence meticulously.
A house among the trees, with a wide balcony of woven branches and rooms carved out of the wood.
The bedframe will be a living thing, with flowers that bloom in the spring.
I paint the ceiling to look like starbursts, add gold leaves dripping down.
The curtains are translucent silk. Light pours in, all year round.
By the balcony doors sit two chairs. I only ever use one.
The settlement starts small. A handful of structures, rough and functional, followed by more. Wood becomes walls. Walls become homes. Paths form where there have been none before. Voices fill the space—different accents, different rhythms, human and fey braided together into something new.
I work until my hands ache, until my muscles burn, until sleep takes me without dreams.
It helps. Not because it lessens the grief, but because it gives it somewhere to go. Something to shape. Something to become.
Marnie, Tob and Baby Eva join in our endeavours, as do other residents of Brindlewick. I expect most of them to leave once the settlement is more established, but Marnie and Tob have no such plans.
“It’s the least we can do,” they tell me.
“It… it really does go above and beyond,” I return.
Marnie shakes her head, cuddling her baby. “You helped my Eva into the world, I will help put light back in yours.”
There is little I can say to that, but I am grateful beyond words, and I think they understand.
Magda visits often, supplying the workers with various refreshments. One evening in early autumn, after we are celebrating the completion of another house, she presses a tankard of mead into my hand.
“This was your Wren’s favourite,” she says.
Your Wren.
She is mine, and I am hers. Death doesn’t get to take that. Nothing ever will.
Sometimes, I like to think that when I am gone, when my name fades into whatever comes after, people will remember that. Whatever else I accomplish with my time on this plane, I will be remembered for my love for her, and that I leave this world to find her again.
But not yet.
Not yet.
There is still too much to do.
One morning, Zephyr comes to see me. He is a little nomadic these days, drifting between the Moonhollow and the settlement, helping out wherever he can and sometimes staying overnight when he can’t find an elkasha to ferry him back home or Dain happens to be free.
“It’s time,” he says.
I don’t disagree. It is a task we have both been putting off for far too long.
Zephyr cleaned out his grandmother’s room not long after her demise, but he left Wren’s untouched.
I don’t think anyone has been in it since she died.
There is a fine carpet of leaves awaiting us when we venture inside, and her bed is covered in moss.
For a moment, I expect to see her somewhere between the doorways or on the roof, perched somewhere she shouldn’t be, watching us with that look she used to get—
But there is nothing. The room is cold and empty.
We start slowly. Wren’s room is larger than I expected, but then the size of these trees shouldn’t really surprise me. Despite that, it is a cosy space. Her bed is carved into the wall. It’s a nice touch. I wish I had thought of that with my own place.
I run my hands over smooth wood. This is the place where she grew into the person I knew.
I turn my eyes over the rest of it. A small desk scattered with old marks and scratches sits in one corner.
There are shelves lined with things I don’t recognise—little trinkets, bits of the world she must have collected and kept.
There is something strange about it, seeing a version of her life I am not part of.
It feels… sacred, like I am trespassing, even though I know she would have let me, even welcomed me.
My fingers trail lightly over the edge of the desk.
I try to imagine her here, younger and smaller, sitting where I am standing, carving out pieces of herself before she ever knew me.
My chest aches.
There’s a wardrobe in the corner. I cross the room slowly and pull the door open. Inside, there are clothes, beautiful garments of gossamer fabric, a piece that shines like pure sunlight, a feathery cloak… dozens of beautiful things I can see her in so clearly now.
I would give up my sight again in a heartbeat to have her back, but I am grateful for the gift she leaves me with. At least I have her face to keep me company.
At the back of the wardrobe is a single old book. My fingers brush the worn cover, edges softened with use.
I pull it out quickly and open it.
It’s a diary.
My pulse stutters. For a moment, I just stare at it, turning it over in my hands. This is her. Her thoughts. Her voice. Pieces of her I never got to hear.
It feels too intimate.
“She wrote?” I ask, my voice quieter than I intend.
Zephyr nods once. “Sometimes.”
I swallow. My thumb traces the edge of the diary.
I can open it. I can hear her again. Part of me wants it more than anything. Part of me is afraid it will break whatever is left of me.
“I don’t know if I should,” I admit.
Zephyr doesn’t answer immediately. When he does, it’s gentle. “You don’t have to decide now.”
I nod, but I don’t put it back. I hold it a little tighter instead.
“I’ll give you a moment,” Zephyr says, and moves to the next room.
For a moment, I stare down at the diary, imagining her voice in my ear. I’ve been denied it far too long.
I can’t wait any longer. I open the volume again.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Wren kept a terrible diary.
She kept only one in her twelve years here, made only a few dozen entries, and rarely dated anything.
Her penmanship improves little in that time, morphing from a childish scrawl into something more legible, into an adult hand that looks like she has dipped a spider in ink and instructed it to dance across the page.
I don’t care. I inhale every word.
Some entries are only a few sentences. They start shortly after her arrival in the forest.
I miss my mama.
I dreamed of fire again last night. It ate me up like a monster.
It’s all my fault.
Tears prickle at my eyes as I read more, tripping over accounts of how Wren was received by the others when she arrived in the Moonhollow, how they treated her with scorn or hesitation, never trusting anything she said. The young ones teased her over her ineptitude, the elders were wary.
Only a few people offered her any comfort.
Sometimes, after lessons, Zephyr takes me out into the forest, just the two of us. There are no lessons. He takes me down to the lake where we splash and swim. He uses his magic to make whirlpools in the water and lift me up in giant bubbles. Sometimes I laugh like I used to with Mama.
Occasionally, Wren wrote about others with fondness. Her grandmother baked her moonberry cakes, and brushed her hair, and braided it.