#sorry this took me so long to update

[cowboylament]

“Did you respect me?” I faltered, asking because I couldn’t bear the other question, the obvious question with the obvious answer. Even if asking this in its own way revealed my hand, revealed the knowledge to him, of the things I couldn’t say. 

“Yes, of course I did. To me,” he said thinking for a long moment his voice wavering a little so he made to clear his throat. “This has always been a risk, it wouldn’t have been worth it to me if there wasn’t. I respected that our inherent bond, the way you witnessed me, gave you power over me and for some reason you never used it. Knowing or not knowing this about you didn’t take that power away. Especially when I know you can wield your words rather effectively when you want to.”

“What could I’ve done?”

“Plenty. Who knows me better than you?”

Or

Lucien makes wanting bearable Part One, Part Two, Part Four, Part Five, Bonus, Ao3

I’d felt old the first time I shared a bed with someone. Maybe by comparison I was, but I’d not made the decision based on any particular ideal or inner conflict. I wanted to and Gawayn, an Illyrian, did also. So without much ceremony or romance we decided to. When I think about it I get the sense that it happened just as perfectly as it should have, that despite the following events I learned something irreplaceable I couldn’t know without doing it as I had. Which is to say, my mother walked in and found us in my bed and that is why I spent one winter in the cabin at the Illyrian village.

It's funny to me, but perhaps not in the way it is to everyone else, because we forget. We forget the things we swore we’d always know, like how hard it was to be old when really you were young. We forget why we wanted to remember and how much you can know even when you’re inexperienced. Mostly though, we forget the mistakes we made, specifically my mother’s, who despite ensuring no one discovered what we’d done, made the error of telling Rhysand. 

I don’t know why or how but she did. When he asked her who’d done it, she pretended not to have seen him. Rhys was too young at the time to manage whatever it was that sent him into the protective rage. He interrogated half the village before recruiting my long-time friend Gawayn to his cause. 

Naturally, he never discovered who it was.

The ordeal mortified me, because despite having taken the right sort of care to guarantee the moment belonged to me, I lost most of the intimacy anyway. I didn’t leave my room for days, not until Gawayn returned and brought with him a new book for me to read and some sweets. 

My mother took one look at us and shook her head. “Well, I guess you at least put some thought into who you wanted it to be.”

It was the first time I laughed since the mortification began. I don’t know if it was pity or sympathy but she offered me an out. She told Rhys I was to stay, as per my ‘punishment,’ in the cabin until after Starfall. Really, I couldn’t bear to face anyone until then anyway so the choice was easy. 

When they tell the story of my winter away from Velaris they hold a small idea of a much larger story. I laugh, because it's the way it is, some things only we can know. In the end, I took comfort in the fact that I remembered, and what I remembered made everything easier. 

I never dated the Illyrian though we returned to each other again and again. We knew how it would end if it were any more serious. Meaning simply, that it would end. That’s why it worked, because we knew we couldn’t, so we didn’t. I might have found it tragic had it not been so comfortably predictable, so easy. I liked the intimacy it offered us, I liked knowing what we’d do and how we’d do it. I learned as I got older that other males were just as happy to cycle through the tragedy once and wipe their hands of it. Not everything needed intimacy, not everyone deserved it. 

So it went on like that, knowing and knowing and knowing. Never again not knowing, never again making the mistake of not knowing, risking mortification, risking loss. You say what I know you’ll say you’ll do what I know you’ll do and if anyone finds out then nothing was on the table to begin with because we didn’t have anything to gain anyway. We never gave over ourselves. Nothing in the world, not even a mate, could have had me give something like that up. 

Lucien was like this too until recently. 

***

Rhys had gotten to Madja first. 

“No, it's quite important. I said as much to your bother when I saw him.” The healer said, when I inquired over these walks I was supposed to take. “Although I didn’t say two hours, just one will do.”

She upheld his lie, even corrected me, so I knew Rhys had found her. She wasn’t just going along with whatever I said, she knew all the details. My cup clinked against the saucer. The house had resumed its usual noisiness, the wraiths in the kitchen, the world outside seeping in with the light through the windows.  

“With my mate?” I asked.

The healer threw her arms up, “I don’t care who it's with.”

The authority she wielded, even as she lied through her teeth, was applaudable. I might even say as much to Rhys if he hadn’t gotten me so badly. Regardless he was absent and I sucked in my cheeks. She knew I knew she was lying but she held little fear, in fact, she grew taller with each lie. I clasped my hands, attempting the grace of a High Lord’s sister. 

“And you didn’t mention it to me because?”

“Because I knew you’d try to get out of it.”

Outside footsteps pushed passed the house growing and receding without a word from either of us. I couldn’t intimidate her, and the silence wasn’t an attempt to. The moment I saw the old fae I understood the odds were against me. Whatever my brother’s cause was, however much he needed Lucien and I to confront our differences so he could move on with his plans for claiming him,  they were indeed more attractive and much more glamorous than mine. Yet it was one thing to find Madja had taken a side, but another to be so predictable that even she knew how I’d react had Rhysand's lie even been true. 

I asked once more if she was sure she didn’t want some tea and after declining again she checked my stitches and left. The edges had singed from the mistake in the garden. The burning within was no work of glamour or imagination, fire had set under the skin and had wanted to get out. She reprimanded me no matter how much I swore it was an accident. Even as she made her way to the door she didn’t so much as hint at a smile, she only reiterated no magic and that in five days she’d be back.

The door shut behind her and I rested my forehead against the cool wood, just as I’d done last night, after Lucien disappeared, and had since remained hidden in the house. The last I’d seen of him was a blush on his face and a bow at my door before he slipped away across the house. I’d waited there, waited for the same thud of the door carving out the new and growing desire to know precisely where he was. 

When I woke there was no way of knowing for certain if he had not gone back, slipped out the front door, and made to see the city himself. This was an old habit, thinking the very worst of him. I would not bring that idea with me, it had grown obsolete. In this world I was brave. He never scared me before. I let out a breath, listening for something, but nothing shifted or turned, no tinkering of trinkets or creaking of floorboards. But he was there, and I was there, and this was much more comforting than it had been the days previous because I knew him. He was waiting for me.  

When, even by lunch, he had not shown up to the library I surrendered to his waiting. I knew he could hear me. He probably was on the other side, in his room, smirking over just how many minutes had passed with me standing outside his door, tracing the whirls of the wood with my eyes. Through an act of insanity or pure stubbornness he’d sat in that room after last night and let a silence settle between us. Absence, once, had been readable between us. Now though, there was very little comfort. I realized that even understanding could not make up the place where nothing was. 

I raised a hand and knocked.

After the dinner, after the hallway, any mood we might find ourselves seemed just as likely as the last. We’d cycled out of any regularity or predictability. The door opened and he was familiar. So to say, he was indifferent to my being there. The bond was empty. 

I swallowed. “Lunch is ready.” Across the townhouse, pots and pans rattled in their places

“Alright.”

Behind Lucien, his room was just barely visible. A chilling air spilled into the hallway, caressing my arm, despite the glowing embers in the hearth. A draft, maybe. From the windows I could see, none were ajar. It might be too cold now for him to do as he liked to at home. Waiting for me had its consequences, Autumn was falling fast this year. Lucien shifted, blocking my view of his belongings, if any there were, and the origin of such coldness remained a mystery. 

“I came to see if you wanted to join me—would join me.” I corrected recalling his desire, his need to mortify me even now, into asking for him instead of after him. I met his eye and almost smiled but refrained when he showed no small mercy himself. “Then we can go see the city.”

Despite our conversation the night previous, he’d returned to the skepticism of his past self, the one he didn’t want to give up so easily. He studied me carefully. So I just stood there and pulled from the past the self I’d been too or part of it. The piece that didn’t care how or when he looked at me. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” He said and shut the door. 

I don’t know if I wanted to have access to a shield more badly than that moment, knowing the pit of shame was likely traveling through the door toward him, giving me away. All the while I was tormented by no feelings that did not already belong to me. I didn’t wait and let the steady consistent step of my walking away become a kind of shield between us. 

When I sat in my normal spot at the table I placed my feet flat on the ground and straightened my spine. I took long breaths, trying to imagine the calmness pushing up from between the floorboards. The calamity of the days past pushed out of my head, out of the bond, and into the atmosphere, rising up to the rooms above, rising out into the open sky where I hoped they’d disappear and never return. I said I would be brave and so brave I was. There was nothing to be ashamed of, I’d been far braver than him. I risked first. 

I let out another breath.

This is what he told me to do. In the old game, this would have been a loss, but this isn’t the old game anymore. Eventually, I would know the rules. I would not let him mortify me. I would not lose. 

I made my plate, I opened my book, and I waited. 

“Where’s everyone?” Lucien said, appearing in the doorway half an hour later. I didn’t pay him any attention. I compelled myself to care about my book, to keep my eyes on the page, my back to the door, as I had the 30 minutes before. Page after page came into my focus, smothering any contempt from my body and subsequently the bond for his delay. 

“The Illyrian village.”

He walked around the table and sat across from me. I still knew, despite the emptiness between us, that his eyes were on me. They were there the moment he walked in like a brand or a sunbeam. The place between my shoulder blades warmed, my neck, my hands. His steps were slower, contemplative, as he’d rounded the corner and came to a certain finality when he sat. I didn’t know what he’d do anymore, but I got the sense that now some new motive had taken the place of whatever had kept him behind his door so long. 

He piled food onto his plate. “I suppose that's why I’m chaperoning you today. And also why your brother was at my door at dawn.”

“I wouldn’t know. His agenda and my own rarely overlap.”

The tension in the room made it to my eyes. There was a pull now. Not just in this moment but in all of them. I’d noticed it this morning. In the foyer when I walked Madja out my eyes drew to the place the spill of our wine had landed the night before. I stood over it when she’d arrived. Our intimacies became fated themselves with tethers to pull us toward them in some kind of way. It couldn’t be avoided, each time I moved my hands I bumped the place his lips had been. I woke in the morning to my body on the edge of my bed where a chair had once waited all night. There was an almost ineffable weight, dragging me across the world. It was inevitable, like a marble circling a drain. If we’d moved through universes so easily then this one, whether it was the old world or a new one, had hooked into me like a marionette. 

I would mention none of this to him. 

“You can convey to him then that I’m capable of making such decisions.” 

I hummed and kept eating, only turning away from my book to grab my tea and nothing else. Whatever those decisions were I didn’t care to ask and I wouldn’t tell Rhys what he’d said. Whatever had happened between them had given me the upper hand. Lucien was thoroughly annoyed by what had transpired. Too much time in our earnestness had left him with an arrogant streak and Rhys would agree a little annoyance would do him good. I was thankful enough that my brother’s antics didn’t bother me, they couldn’t, or I might go insane. I was busy anyway, trying to learn and remember all at once. I took a sip, then another, then placed the cup down with a clink and swam in Lucien’s attention. I had only just managed to turn the page when the male started again.

“And will you tell him?” He said, voice harsh. Down the bond, a small thread of annoyance wove between a glittering tug of longing. He wanted me to look at him. Despite sitting in his room all morning, waiting behind a door as I ate here alone for lunch, he wanted my attention. He wouldn’t ask for it, no. That was for me to do, he'd said as much himself. It was convenient for him, that in all our mutual waiting, I was the only one who had anything to lose. 

I lifted my gaze at last, “I’m no one’s keeper.” I said.

Surprise wore his face the moment I made to look at him. He wasn’t expecting it, me to give in to his need. He thought I’d make some sly comment too I imagine, but I wasn’t playing into his hand. His mouth, open and at the ready with something cruel, closed and he bowed his head. Then it was I who was surprised, because where I expected an explosive anger, the annoyance, for as light as it had been, disappeared entirely. What was in my chest was replaced. The whole world went soft and he bowed his head. 

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t let my surprise show as he had. “Are you finished?”

He withdrew his gaze, embarrassed. He’d asked the same of me a thousand times and knew what such a question meant. Are you done with your little tantrum? How annoying it had been those years to sit beside him as he became emotionless, impenetrable, when he would not give in to my taunts. I understood now the power it could give to break the illusion between one person and another. A composure required for the task that asks you to put it all down. 

“Yes,” He said and it was true. His whole body visibly seemed to recede at the edges and at once the powerful male seemed smaller and steeped with that new sincerity. When he’d asked the same of me in the past I’d never done it, let it all go. Whatever Rhys and he had talked about must’ve truly shaken him. 

He peered over the dishes at the center of the table, “what are you reading?”

“It's not interesting,” 

“I don’t mind.”

I flipped absently through the many pages I still had left. “It’s legends of forgotten Gods.”

He reached for a roll and began to lather butter over it, “is that something of interest to you? Folktales and myth.” 

It probably seemed that way from the book he’d found on Velaris myths and likely the many more in the library. A collection we’d had forever that I’m not sure we could attribute it to one singular person's interest but the cumulative need of friends and family. Or maybe it was just nice, to some people, owning precious stories that fell out of popular circulation. 

“Not really.” 

He narrowed his eyes at me, but it was true. 

“Have you thought of what you’d like to see today?” I asked.

Lucien shrugged.

“Nothing in your reading has piqued your interest?” 

He shook his head. 

I sighed. There was one place I knew he’d like, but I couldn’t bring him there. Not yet. She would rip me apart and he would help.

“Do you need anything?” My eyes fell to his shirt, flimsy by comparison to what everyone who passed the window wore. “Perhaps some shops so you don’t freeze.”

“I don’t care where we go, anywhere is fine. Your favorite places.” 

His delivery was soft but there was a quiet enthusiasm to him. It wasn’t so large it couldn’t be contained from the bond, but it wasn’t small enough that his face didn’t hide it, his desire to know me and the city itself. A harsh gust struck the windows behind Lucien and the ensuing draft pushed the wafting scent of him to me. Even just the act of it entering my lungs warmed me substantially. I ran a hand across my chest like I could smother it out of me, or else, warm the cold palm that fell flat at my collarbone.

“You’ll need something warmer.”

“This is all I have.”

I shook my head and rose. Instinctively and too quickly he followed. For someone who’d been scowling at me earlier, he had quite the blush. Apparently, this was what it took, a little moonlight and courtly manners. He followed after me, but I didn’t mention it. A small mercy, and anyway I wanted to see something. 

In the hall closet I pulled from an old box and prayed it wasn’t moth-ridden. At the very bottom, a detail that was perhaps its salvation, a sweater was waiting. I handed it to Lucien. His fists balled the wool, as if feeling for each stitch and seam. His fingertips rolled the material a few times before finally, he looked up at me. 

“This is a bit drab.”

My hands flexed, hidden behind my back. “You can buy whatever gaudy clothes you prefer today.”

“The birdlike fashions of the Autumn court as you’ve called it.” There was a lilt to his voice I recognized, playful but not quite as mean as I was used to.

“Do you remember everything I say? A bit obsessive.” 

He smiled in reply. Yes, he did, but the bank of my memory was just as extensive, just as rich. So I teased him no more.

“I won’t forget you called it drab.” 

“I know.” 

But he did not, not really. 

He threw the sweater over his head and the edges of his shirt lifted up barely to reveal him to me. The edge of his stomach, the waist of his pants. The sweater fell perfectly, and my heart thudded against my ribs from deep in my chest. He must have heard it, mistaking the cause for something else. He looked down, assessing the sweater, but said nothing because he couldn’t. It fit perfectly. 

Outside a howling wind whistled. Lucien stared toward the door. “This is all the protection you offer me then.”

“I’ve nothing else, nothing at least that’s warm.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he smirked. “Give me a kiss and I bet I’ll warm right up.”

I scoffed, “I’m beginning to find it hard to believe you’ve pleasured anyone at all.”

“And how often, before now, did you speculate my proficiency in giving pleasure?” He shifted forward with such satisfaction I realized I had been letting him win far too much. It was becoming pathetic, how this languishing had extinguished the fight I’d once had in me. He added, “and if you really want me to love Velaris you might introduce me to some friends at Rita’s.”

I’m sure he waited for the hollow part of his chest to ring with jealousy but after last night it would take a little more than the threat of a pleasure hall I should think. “None would stoop so low.”

He rolled his eyes, “all this new material from living in the same place and you continuously go for the same old joke. You’re boring me.”

“I surprised you just a few minutes ago.”

“It wasn’t the kind of surprise I wanted.”

“I’ve no interest in being entertaining for you.”

“I very much so doubt that.” He took one more step forward and I took a step back. He didn’t follow. He was stuck there. I blushed, and let my eyes drift down where the sweater that had waited stretched across the broad of his chest. It really did fit perfectly despite how little sense it made. I didn’t care if he saw my stare, I couldn’t help but not care. 

I kept my eyes down, “I see your mood has improved.” 

“It might continue too, depending on what we do today.”

“You’ve given me little help.”

“I think I’ve given a lot.” He said, leaning against the table still set with a bottle from the night before. “And you wouldn’t let yourself be so powerless would you?”

My gaze which had remained on his chest flicked up to his which had a little fire behind it. Those words were still a severe thing to say. I flinched at the question and tried to turn my head like I could convince him it was all one seamless move. For the briefest of moments something in his face fell, like he too had flinched from the aftermath of me. I could tell he’d seen the new tension I’d failed to hide. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

He stood upright and smiled. 

“Nothing. Relax,” he seemed to say this with duel meaning. I could feel the sincerity of it, that he wanted me to be at ease with him like we’d done the night before. He wanted a different tension than the life we once had. But I also could hear the humor, so when he followed with his usual taunting I wasn’t surprised. “The spontaneity is good for us. You might learn how to actually surprise me.”

“Maybe,” I cooed, glancing over my shoulder and leaving him in the foyer standing directly over the center of our spill from the night before.

***

The Sidra was unforgiving, just as I liked her to be. The icy winds blew across the water and whipped through the chasm between us. It felt like a chasm, at least. I was keenly aware of the skin across my hand. It was like a wound, my desire and his together. It didn’t hurt but there was no other word. Wanting was a wound. We creased at the cold lashes of the afternoon, folding into ourselves. Lucien wouldn’t say it, but there was a tug of relief and gratitude between us with each pull of the sweater. Fall came that way, in the middle of lasting bits of warmth sudden spells of bitter cold that left little traces of their origin.

“So this is where you truly grew up then?” He asked. 

“We have a cabin in the Illyrian village, but otherwise yes.”

He nodded, “that's good.” He said, looking out on the river as we arced over a hill that inaugurated us into the real thrum and heart of the city. Children laughed and played, people were eating and chatting in restaurants and their hum reverberated off the stone making the whole of the city, not just the people inside it, feel alive. Like the stone itself was pleased, was laughing. 

“It never made sense to me, you growing up in the Hewn City.”

“I think perhaps it made sense, you just didn’t like the idea of it.” I said and Lucien spared a slight glance my way as I skimmed my hand over the icy water of the fountain at the center of the square. Where Prytahin needed a villain, the Night Court always managed to find its step inside their perception. How could it not, what with the Court of Nightmares under our rule. How ruthless we were supposed to be and how ruthless we managed when we needed to. People believed what they wanted, and outside of Velaris we behaved very particularly to expectations. So it did, in fact, make sense that I was from that wretched place. 

“I never liked it, how Beron was your father,” I said. We hadn’t spoken of him since we’d arrived and Lucien stiffened at the sound of his name. “It made sense though, that he was. I saw the traces, but even then, even before, I thought you deserved better. When I saw you and Eris standing there that night I felt betrayed because you’re better than your kin.”

“It's not hard to be.”

“It is, actually.”

He stopped walking and made to look at me, the movement seemed to drag him, like there was a powerful burden resting on his shoulders. At my chest, a growing despair began to climb through the nameless thing between us. From the look on his face, I could tell it was taking great effort not to reveal to me the true intensity of his feelings. “If he saw me, if he suspected anything I’d never have been allowed to participate. The risk—”

“I understand,” I said reaching for him but he backed away, out of my grasp.

“No, you don’t.”

I stood upright, swallowed, and forced myself to see the sadness lining his face. How quickly we moved through an emotion, nomadic, like we couldn’t stand any goodness too long. Perhaps we didn’t deserve it. No, I didn’t, for what I’d done to him. “Alright. I don’t, but I place no fault on you.”

He stared at me for a long time, before he licked his lips and I felt a tug, sharp, on the bond. He didn’t falter from the effect he had on me. “You’re right though, when Eris described the Hewn City I hated the idea that you had to endure that place.”

I smiled, just barely managing it until the weight of his burden shrunk from me. “I’m sorry you wasted your limited sympathies for me on a lie, but I was actually well cared for in Velaris, learning from Cassian how to gamble and causing a general spectacle of myself.”

“I assume that's what they keep referencing, this winter in the cabin was because you made a fool of yourself.” He said, smiling, and it was true again, true enough that something settled. Another piece of worry left my chest, worry for him. What the space would carve out and become I wasn’t sure. He took a step toward me as we began to walk again and our shoulders bumped.

“Something like that.”

“And will you ever tell me or should I ask Cassian?”

“You should wait for me to tell it. Right now I don’t think you’d like my version, or anyone else's for that matter, very much.”

His brow rose, “why?”

I smirked at him but said nothing. It took just a second for him to look away and from the center of my chest, a strong tug of jealousy burned hot and unending. I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh as Lucien cursed under his breath and rubbed the skin above his heart. My steps swayed but he didn’t protest when our shoulders collided and remained touching, even as I kept laughing, and we continued on that way in the world's most intimate and hidden of touches.

Entangling Lucien in the city was a process of pulling loose threads of memory until they unraveled themselves. Each time I passed a restaurant we’d been to or a place we frequented I’d tell him a detail, a funny story, and that would only recall finer points, funnier stories, more important details. He laughed, he listened, and we didn’t bicker for the time. He could likely sense it, my desire to really introduce him to this place. We’d lost time, I’d forgotten what I had not known I needed to remember. He tried though, took what I had, and pieced it together. 

“When we go drinking, we’ll probably start at this restaurant. Amren likes the drinks there best,” I said as we sat on a bench just across from the rainbow, outside a tea shop. We’d ended in the art quarter. Lucien had inquired about the shop just as the full hour had passed between us, his official duty ending and something less clear beginning. I didn’t know if he’d stay or go, but he wanted to make the stop, and get something warm to hold onto. 

“Are they any good?” He asked, the cups in our hands, a thin streak of steam rising before our faces. 

“For her particular palette, yes.”

Lucien didn’t inquire further. Call it survival instincts, when it came to Amren even if she weren't around. He did, however, point toward the long alley with which people came joyously out of, bags in their hands. “What’s this?”

“The rainbow.”

When he’d decided not to shield he’d said we’d both be vulnerable to each other, I don’t know if he realized I already was vulnerable to him in a way he could never be with me. Autumn Court lay unknowable across Prythian. There were friends I’d never meet, stories obscured by memory with no one to correct them. I didn’t know what his laugh sounded like there, in a place that had belonged to him. The balance between us could never be righted perfectly. We wouldn’t ever be true equals. I tapped my fingers along the cup and his eyes fell to my hands, caught by the nervous tick.

“It's the artist's quarter. Our best theater resides in this neighborhood, the building with the gold top. You can’t miss it, if you like that kind of thing.”

“I’ve known you to have many faults but none so severe as a dislike for the arts.”

I scoffed, “what makes you say that?”

“you’ve given me a detailed account of every street we’ve passed but suddenly you’ve nothing to say.”

“So?”

“So I saw you fall asleep during a play once. It's fine, at the very least you’re well-read, but I’d like a female with a little more culture.” 

“I prefer the orchestra and if I recall correctly the play we were watching was actually an opera in another language so I can’t be blamed.” 

I’m sure he could feel my annoyance climbing through my chest and down the bond. I could see it in his face, the dual pleasure he got in thinking he’d pinned me down precisely, and the joy it gave him to annoy me. Wouldn’t it have been nice for him to have given that vice up when we arrived. Instead, he gave a cunning smile and leaned back against the bench, his arm stretching along the length of it behind my back. Wretched.

“It was in the old language and I know you know it,” Lucien said, the bond remained quiet of any real feeling. He seemed perfectly at ease with the conclusion he’d drawn. “What is it about the arts that bothers you so, that you can’t charm any with a few cheap words or is it the patience thing you’ve struggled always with?”

I sat forward and turned to face him more fully. “You’re in Velaris for less than a month and suddenly you know me so well,”  the words were sharper, like that which had passed between us when we’d set off that morning. We were right on the edge of returning to our bickering. 

He narrowed his eyes, “I think all my years before coming here are actually what are aiding my knowledge of you now.”

He was no longer complaining that we’d fallen into our usual game of accusations. Suddenly being shocked or surprised was not on his list of things he wanted from me. If I told him now it certainly would shock him, but then wouldn’t I be giving him exactly what he wanted? The reason for which I said so little, the reason why he believed me to be indifferent. 

I stood, after a long beat of silence.“You need clothes.”

“I’d rather—”

“I’d rather you do as I say.” I interrupted, scowling as I turned to leave him. “I won’t take you anywhere while you look so ridiculous.”

Lucien caught up to me, his arm nearly ghostly, and guided me forward with the lightest push on the small of my back as he leaned close to my ear. “You used to love when I made a fool of myself. Have you warmed up to me at last?”

Inside the shops Lucien took on a much more bearable demeanor, his voice kinder and more considerate than I’d ever heard, discussing at length what he liked, what he might need. He asked the elder male who’d approached us when we walked in of the climate, of the winter coming. Though winter had barely arrived he inquired about spring too, then summer. He listened like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I ran my fingers over the fabrics on display, the shirts ready-made, glad that at the very least he might leave here with something.

“What do you think?”

I turned back to the two males, the elder holding out a bound book of cloth. The colors were rich, deep, almost immersive. It was hard to say which color had dragged my attention first, all of them seemed to pull on me and the more I stared the more I saw, the less sure I was of which to pick. Lucien sat idle, waiting for my answer to the question I hadn’t heard. “He says these colors suit me best.”

The older male was the only person Rhys ever went to. He boasted of his expertise and I could see now what he meant. The colors, even just close to Lucien, brought a brightness to his face. I ran my hand along one of the scraps and nodded.

“You wore this color once, at a party, I think it was the best you’ve ever looked. I would trust his recommendation.”

Lucien half raised a brow. We’d already revealed to each other an acknowledgment of beauty. What did it matter if in the past I had been capable of the same, of looking past the distaste to acknowledge an honest truth.

“Then I trust you,” Lucien said to the male and he nodded.

“Put it on my account,” I said as he began to rummage through his bag for tools. Lucien would go in the back and they’d take his measurements, show him styles I knew the deal. It would take another hour before he emerged. I could certainly entertain myself, if I knew what was good for me.

“No,” Lucien began, placing a hand out toward the male. “Put it on mine.”

My forehead creased with my confusion, “you don’t even have one.”

He barely glanced at me. “I do, actually.”

“I assume that's what my brother spoke with you about this morning.”

“You’re free to assume,” he said his voice taking on a sudden severity again. I let a silence fall between us, averted my eyes, and let him think about the tone before I took a breath. He already seemed to be crumbling, softening around the edges especially when I met his eye again. 

“Please,” was all I said and I wanted it to convey my need to do this. If I could not undo, could not give him what he lost at my hand, his title, his home, his freedom, then I could at least take care of him. A heat rose over my body— that was what I wanted really I realized, just to take care of him. We were here because of me. That night he probably had already known which favor he’d call in, he probably had somewhere he wanted to go for safety from his father. But I brought him here. I was pure ego in my thinking that I was his only hope. I couldn’t even blame him if he wanted to leave. His life here, if there were one, would be so different. 

For the briefest of moments, I saw the way this constraint might look on him, emissary for a court he’d been born hating, a court that had long tormented him. It didn’t have to be this way. I saw that now, I could have married Eris. Why was my freedom more important than his own? We could have ushered a new life without the same violence, saved some trouble. I would’ve, knowing all this now, if it meant he got what he wanted. If it meant he got the life he wanted.

Lucien grabbed a hold of me as I made to turn toward the door like he understood this, like he was just as capable of slipping into my mind. He said nothing, instead his fingers ran down my forearm before grabbing a hold of my hand. He held it there between us like it meant something, like there were words I wasn’t seeing in our palms. Only when I looked at his face I understood precisely what he was saying. 

Enough. 

He nodded his head in confirmation, enough . He brought my hands to his lips as he had the night before, satisfying the hunger I’d had all morning, just as he said, and straightened. The private moment over, fading from us, and I didn’t feel much better, but I at least felt full.

“I’ll find you after.”

I nodded and grabbed for the door before he yelled out, characteristically shifting pace on whim like nothing, “be good, and try and find something to like about the arts for my sake won’t you?”

I didn’t spare him a glance back and walked out the door.

“I was beginning to think you died.”

I had barely shaken my jacket off when I looked up to see Egrette, standing behind the counter, a sour mood written on her face. 

“I almost did.”

“Figures.”

I scoffed, hanging the coat where I always did, and walking toward the tiny female. In her later years, she’d seemed to get smaller every time I saw her, though her strength was out of the question. She wasn’t frail, not in the slightest. I sometimes worried she’d wring my neck if I waited too long between visits, and could scarcely persuade Cassian to walk me there. 

“I see you’d have wept at my funeral.”

“For the loss of the free labor,” She said, but as I stared at her until the crease in her anger appeared and she let out a small smile before opening her arms in welcome. I laughed, hugging her back, trying not to wince as she pressed into my stitches.

“What happened? Do I need to write your brother again telling him to keep you out of that business?”

“I like that business you know. And I’m good at it.”

“You’re avoiding the real question.”

I waved her off before lifting my shirt to reveal to her the wound. “I cut myself training. I was messing around and if Rhys hadn’t been away I’m certain he would have finished the job for my stupidity.” 

The fact was, I could not keep her and Lucien apart for very long. Our lives would intersect and they’d be made aware of each other so the less they knew the better before meeting. I could not, in any way, compromise him with more strikes against the Autumn Court, even if it had been him who’d saved me. Some forgiveness is understood only by the people who give it. 

“Well if it was your own stupidity then I should think I’m allowed a complaint or two until I’ve forgiven you for being gone so long.”

I rolled my eyes, “and how have you been?”

“Oh great,” she said her mood shifting toward joy and pleasantries to an almost extreme degree. “You just missed my nephews. I’m starting to think perhaps you are purposefully avoiding them and the prospect of joining my family, but regardless, we’ve had more business this time of year than at solstice last.” 

I smirked as she told me of the interesting projects she’d seen people starting, and how they’d sold out of this and that, things she’d not sold out of in years. She was going on and on I was surprised she even caught my smile, her newspaper coming down on my hands and startling me. 

I withdrew, disarming her as she swatted me again, and pointing the paper back at her. “I’d hate to say I told you so, but I think the nightly workshops have helped. People like doing things with their hands. And might I add your nephews are afraid of me.”

She rolled her eyes, a familiar disdain on their male cowardice, “who cares if you have a mate is what I say.”

Most males, if they knew, wouldn’t interfere with something of that nature for the risk on their life alone and for that reason, most males didn’t know about Lucien. Egrette’s nephews were not to my taste, and so I’d told them inadvertently in the hopes that it would drive a wedge and I’d have some excuse as to why we avoided each other. 

“So, what have you really been up to, injury aside,” the old fae asked.

I lounged back in a chair and closed my eyes. The shop for now was quiet and you could count on someone coming in just when something exciting or revealing was to be said. It was a nuisance and a safety net. 

“I was in Autumn Court, as a sign of good faith or what have you after denying a marriage proposal.”

The old woman mirrored my ease as if the both of us were merely at home rather than in a store where anyone could see or walk in. “Rhys made you do that?” 

“No, it was my choice.”

“You’re lucky the cauldron hasn’t smitted you down yet. You do an awful lot to test its patience.” 

“The cauldron loves me.” I said exaggerating my enthusiasm and it made us both laugh. 

I smiled, ��I missed you.”

“And I, you.”

“I’ll be in Velaris for a good while. You’ll probably grow sick of me.”

“Good,” she said. “It's the only way I can ever let your brother have you for his little courtly affairs.”

Lucien and Egrette would get on well. They had something in them made the same. They were both sincere when it was needed, both charming and scathing, loved for the latter adored for the previous. And both seemed to take me into account in my entirety. The same way Lucien could look at me, that kind of look that really was understanding and seeing, Egrette missed nothing. 

“He knows as much. When he sends me to represent Night Court it’s only under dire circumstances.”

“Autumn Court was dire?”

I swallowed and nodded wordlessly. It was never good to make the politics and alliances of another court known in this way. It was better to leave pedestrians unaware, better always to keep this life and the representative separate from one another. Egrette though, she had a way of considering things. I’d told Rhys more than a few times it would have been better if he hired her instead of me for these jobs.

She was the one who’d informed me of the earlier years, the manners and respect most older High Lords would desire. Autumn was particular in how they believed things should be done. Over the years I’d come back and discuss small slights or missteps and she’d helped me get a grasp of what was suspect, what was an issue. 

When Rhys said he didn’t care if we offended Autumn via letter of rejection for the marriage proposal I knew by then that we’d be more at risk his way. He was not thinking as a High Lord, but as a brother. Walking that line, figuring out just how to balance the cruelty and respect had been my job. When I said I’d go to Autumn and deliver the news personally, I’d done so under ‘good faith’ that even if we were rejecting them, Beron would have at least respected the fact we’d done so in person. That was the way of his world. It was what he believed they deserved. 

Why the blessing of the Lares I don’t know. I always had the strange impression the High Lord of Autumn, for all his ancient beliefs, respected me for our game. We had our rules and we played by them, something the Night Court wasn’t known for. When the offer was made, the hand of a future high lord no less, I understood that for all Beron didn’t like me, he at least saw the power I wielded and wanted it for himself. I don’t know what he’d have done if he discovered Lucien was my mate. I didn’t like to think about it. 

“Who was the male you were with?” Egrette said suddenly. She didn’t say where she’d seen us but I knew she had. She knew the boys by name. The only new face was Lucien. 

Our eyes met and she looked unsuspecting, even tranquil. 

“A friend,” I managed to say. 

“He’s Autumn.” 

“Yes.” She’d said it more as a statement than a question. 

“Your mate is Autumn yes?”

A cold sweat began to form along my back, “unfortunately.” 

She narrowed her eyes at me, “what really happened when you went to Autumn?” 

The bell overhead rang and I relaxed so visibly I knew that she’d ask me again if I didn’t make myself busy. She stood, welcoming, her peripheral gaze settled on me as I moved past her to take up my spot behind the counter. She had a better understanding of the inventory than I did and when the customer approached looking for a color match she ushered him to the back. I ran my finger over the big book at the front, checking to see if it was balanced. 

Her voice, enthusiastic as ever, asking for the male’s name gravitated toward me and settled between my ribs with a homely familiar warmth. I turned behind me, looking at the various packages labeled for pick up, and ran my hand over the yarn before I found a parcel with my name on it. I already knew what it was for and turned back as another customer came in looking for help. 

The two of us spent a good hour side by side before I felt a tug along the bond, he was looking for me. The store quieted enough that I could make my leave, least before she started questioning me again. I took the small package and grabbed a bag.

“Thanks for your help,” Egrette said before resuming her space behind the counter. 

“I give where I can,” I smiled. 

“That reminds me.” She crouched and pulled out a box hidden beneath the counter. Within its contents was a colorful array of yarn. I ran my hands over the contents. She watched me carefully, waiting for my reaction. There was too much, more than I had ever taken at least for any task.

“It's rare you’re gone so long I’ve been hoarding a bit more than usual for you.”

I huffed a laugh, “what could I possibly do with all this?”

“Look here,” she said grabbing the cuff of my sweater. “This is far too big on you. You can practice learning proper measurements for yourself. Maybe even deign to find time to knit a gauge and then make a fine knit sweater that actually fits.”

In his own way, Lucien was right. I was far too impatient for the arts, but somehow managed on anyway. For years I’d been knitting and for years I had not done so properly, making sweaters too big, too small, wonky in places that you did not want them wonky, but it endeared me almost to the act of making. Proof that it was truly made by me, that some mortal hand had been part of its conception. 

“You know that's not what I do with this.” 

She shrugged, “well some of it is a solstice gift.”

“You’re giving it too early. In your old age you’ll forget you gave it to me and save me more until you’re bankrupt.”

“With all those classes you gloat about I can give more than I used to,” she said crossing her arms before he body relaxed. She sat at the counter, crossing out inventory in her big book, before looking back at me. “I never truly forget I just like seeing what you make.”

I threw my jacket on and managed to find a bag for all she’d gifted. I slipped a small sum for the yarn in the box when she was turned around and distracted. So in the end I got the last laugh. I wished her well and before I got to the door she looked at me with a sudden seriousness. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I knew what she meant. I looked back at her, but as I was leaving a customer was coming in and she just as conveniently avoided me as I had her the hour before. She’d seen Lucien and she knew who he was to me. I backed out of the shop and stared at the massive trove of yarn. I had yet to think of a reason to say I had the bag. I couldn’t quickly winnow home to drop it off. Even if Madja wouldn’t find out, that burning from within gnawed at my memory. I’d have to think of something on the way to the shop.

“What’s that?” 

I turned and, coming up the street, Lucien stood in new clothes. Though they were more to his taste, Velaris already had brought upon a fashion I’d not seen on him. I hesitated to think it was his preference and not the matter of the male who made them. A fine vapor curled from his mouth with each breath. He slowed as he got nearer and neither of us said anything as we took each other in, like we were meeting here by impossible chance. My cheeks were already red and cold from the weather which disguised any reveal of how handsome I found him in his version of Night Court clothes. 

Lucien pointed at the store a silent repetition of his question. I adjusted the bag on my shoulder which tucked the bulk of it behind my back and out of reach or glance from him.

“A yarn store.”

He peered in through the window and I saw Egrette helping the new customer, her eye on the scene unfolding before us. I prayed the business would keep her busy enough so that she would not come out into the street, would not demand an introduction. That was for another day, one for when I finally had answers to the questions I had not yet dared to ask.

“What were you in there for?”

I adjusted the weight of my bag and his gaze made to follow the strap. “I used to work there. I like to visit.”

He gave a breathy laugh, “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He looked toward the store, then back to me, before glancing over my shoulder. His fingers hooked into the small mouth of the bag still exposed and pulled it open before he peered inside. There was indeed yarn inside the bag if looking through the windows had not made it clear to him that I was telling the truth. The cauldron hadn’t given me a chance to make anything up so perhaps it didn’t want me to. I could believe in that, at least for a moment.

A cruel smile overcame his face and I was ready for his next words. “So wifely are we? I was only joking earlier. There’s no need to pretend you spent your youngling years making mittens and scarves, it won’t make me any more eager to mate you.”

“I’m not lying.” I said flatly, nodding toward his full hands. “Where did you think that sweater came from?”

He opened his mouth but I saw the moment the words struck as those words failed and his face paled. He looked down at the drab piece in his hand. I’d been trying to make it for myself, but it was too big and not in the way I liked. It didn’t fit any of the boys so I’d packed it away years ago where it waited, almost on purpose, for the male I’d unintentionally made it for. Like my hands had always somehow been moving in his direction and were aware of his absence so were trying to make him from nothing. 

Lucien pulled the material between his fingertips to look at it, reaching into the back collar for an embroidered logo, something to prove I was lying, and found none. “Maybe if you tell me what colors you like I can make something less drab.”

“Hey,” he said stepping toward me but I continued.

 “or, perhaps, some mittens. I’ve never made any but I’m up to try.” The element of surprise was, indeed, a fine addition to our little duels. I’d have to use it to my advantage if it made him look this stupid. 

“Wait a minute.”

“And don’t worry,” I said, attempting to be just as cruel with my smile as I turned away. “I’ve no intention of persuading you to mate me.” And left him in the middle of the rainbow, as people walked past laughing.

***

Lucien stood by this duty, like he had in the garden. For one hour each afternoon, we went for our walks and while out we explored various shops I'd come to love and new ones I hadn’t known well that had caught his eye. We did not go back to the rainbow. When the hour was up he would take my hand in his, place a gentle kiss, and we’d part ways. Madja was coming though, to take out the stitches that morning. We’d no longer have any duty, imaginary or real, to spend any time together. 

I hadn’t thought much of it, not until yesterday. After returning from the Illyrian village, everyone carried a density to themselves that had started to seep into the rooms of the house. Even the furniture had begun to bloat with the heaviness they couldn’t put down. I didn’t ask about the visit. Lucien, however, upon arriving back at the townhouse seemed to need little instruction. We shared just one look and his hand came gently down between my shoulder blades as he pushed us toward the room where they’d gathered. Their low voices were just barely able to come up over their slumped shoulders. They didn’t tease, didn’t look at the hand of my mate falling away in encouragement, or the immediate gentleness with which Lucien followed behind me as a silent promise passed between us, a vow, to get them on the mend. 

The hour away from the house was our only reprieve from the stilted conversation over the general lethargy of the court. Life happened as Lucien said it would. Suddenly the problems were forgotten and we tried to fix what had been made aware to us. When either of us entered the room after the other, our eyes would meet in the hopes of finding that knowing nod that said all had been repaired. Only each day, a silent shake of the head passed, and we began the routine all over again. 

No, things were not well. 

“I’ve seen Y/N’s side of the city,” Lucien said looking toward Cassian as he swallowed the last of his drink. “I thought you might have some suggestions too.”

Csasian shrugged, “some.”

“I’m open to any recommendations to try,” Lucien said turning the attention away from the male who had perked up ever so slightly once the weight of conversation had been lifted. Rhys was silent, Azriel too.

“I’ll show you. Tomorrow after Madja leaves.” Mor said. Her voice did not have its characteristic lightness, but it was sincere. She managed to give a smile his way. I tried not to get too excited, I had not seen her smile, had not heard such a long sentence leave her lips in days. And even if she could not totally shake from her being the weight of that world, I believed she really would take him up on the offer. The night then wasn’t a bust.

I knew he felt it, the fondness I had for him as he smiled back at her soft and full of hope. I’d seen it, how he changed at the sign of their despair. His steps were slower, his voice quieter, even the topics of conversation stayed light and easy as he tested between them all who would talk, who wanted to, what topics they liked. He took the same tone he’d taken with me, the same kindness that had once reached across a table, and grabbed a clean cloth from soapy water. 

“I should be getting to bed,” Rhys said throwing his napkin on the table. In near unison, everyone followed with quiet goodnights, up the stairs. All but Mor who’d had plans to see Amren. She was not the kind of female who, even with fine excuses, I’d ever skip plans with. It would probably be good for her. I think they all just needed to be around others for a while, even if at times such socializing could be unbearable.

I looked toward Lucien and just shrugged as I had the nights before, he in agreement shrugged back. We’d done our best, eventually I thought that would mean something. I’d told him the first night what the camps could be like for them. He seemed to understand. He stood from his seat came around the table, and offered me his arm. I smiled and he escorted me to the den.

“Something to drink?” 

Lucien mulled it over, but nodded. “We can toast to your stitches coming out tomorrow.”

The prospect of a drink from Rhysand’s personal supply was the only thing that could rouse me again. I grabbed two fine cups, maybe to impress Lucien, maybe they were just the first I saw, and found my brother's brandy. I heard him fall into the sofa and I looked over my shoulder as I poured. 

He looked like a member of the court, looked as though he belonged here. My hands faltered and his eyes fell shut, a small mercy from the Cauldron so I could stare at him longer. For all that cruelty, the severity he’d had those years, his kindness fit him the most profoundly. It was like he was born for it, all that loyalty with nowhere to go. I liked thinking that he’d saved some, that the world had not made him bitter, and for now, he’d extended it to the very people who’d once despised him. A test of faith maybe. I liked to think one day we’d deserve it.

I turned back and found courage to tip the heavy decanter. The sound of his shifting, getting comfortable, like he’d known all along to keep still for me to watch. 

“I feel it you know,” he said from behind me. “I’ve always felt it. When you were looking at me.”

I hummed, “I can feel you too.” 

“Do you think it’s because we’re mates?” He asked.

“I don’t know if I remember noticing before the bond snapped.”

I began to pour the next glass, all my movements now slow, intentional. Lucien’s attention burned into my back, my arms, my neck which had been exposed thanks to the wraith's help. 

“Sometimes,” I began, “I think you see me better than anyone. Even before.”

When I turned around he’d undone the cuffs on his sleeves, rolling them up the way he had before we’d gone to the house of wind. My breath rose and fell in quicker succession. He could hear it probably, the intake, the need, the speed of a heart that is looking upon something which does not belong to her in the way it would like.

“It isn’t mutual then.”

The small of my back bumped to the table at the statement.“Mutual how?”

“You said the other night that you used to know me. You no longer think that's true?”

I licked my lips, crossing one arm over the other as I held the tops of the glasses in my warming hands. “I think…I think there was a time where we had something between us that was easy and it is no longer easy.”

“Easy how?” He asked.

“I always knew what you’d do with it, with what you found when you saw me.”

“What difference is there, between knowing and not knowing?”

His head lulled to the side and he crossed his arms over his chest. He looked pleasant, vulnerable, and to have anyone's attention the way I had him then would have made you want to be known, to say whatever it was you felt before you couldn’t say. He looked at me with a happiness I seldom saw in our world. That careful in-between, content as they call it, where everything has worked out how you wanted it to. It occurred to me, as his eyes moved side to side in wait, a delicate smile just barely legible, that it was Lucien sitting before me. Sometimes I’d forget, but a kind of possessiveness overcame me. Not because he was mine to have, but because he was mine to know. The one person who couldn’t leave Prythian without my knowledge, without feeling as if the entire continent had shifted toward less mischievous, cunning ends. 

 A girlish blush rose to my cheeks, but I wasn’t afraid. “I’d felt old the first time I shared a bed with someone.” 

My gaze took on that far-away look I recognized in Lucien as I began to tell him of the winter I’d spent away from Velaris. I could tell though, even as I crept far from the present moment, almost to a different world, my mate kept his undivided attention on me. The way he had all week when a corner of the city was becoming known to him as I peeled back the layers of history and meaning. 

He showed no signs of male anguish, no jealousy, but I felt something in him warp and change before at last it settled by the very end. Like I was witness to my own personal transformation, a dimension revealed that didn’t give him a fuller picture of me, but insight, contour, to the ideas he’d already figured out just by being near me all this time. I was his to be known too.

“That’s how it used to be with you too, until recently.”

He said nothing and I approached him, cutting through his quiet while the words hung in the air and the ice began to melt in our glasses. I managed to make it across the room before he’d said anything and even then he just looked up at me. I surprised myself then, stepping just once more so that both knees touched his two as I leaned into him, letting him support me as I extended his glass between us.

“I’m actually insulted you thought I wouldn’t be able to handle such a story. I’ve seen you do far worse.”

It didn’t matter then, who was sleeping or who was awake, I tipped my head back and let out the loudest laugh I think he’d ever managed. I could feel Lucien looking at me, and where once the furniture had seemed to carry with it the weight and despair of the outside world, the air cleared just for the intensity of the joy that had happened close by.

He shook his head, laughing as he grabbed the drink, “you’d think I was some sort of miserable brute of a male.”

“Aren’t you?” I laughed as I fell into the couch next to him.

He didn’t reply. His smile broadened as he brought the glass underneath his nose and smelled it. “You don’t drink brandy.”

“I can start at any time.” 

“Give me that,” he said snatching away my drink and taking nearly the whole of it in his mouth. I might have chided him for such a display, but instead I found myself gasping, as I had seen other respectable females do in his presence, and laughing. He swallowed, “if we’re celebrating you should have a drink you like.” 

I don’t know if we’d ever been so playful before. Maybe the week had called for it, maybe it wasn’t that things wouldn’t be the same forever, but that they couldn’t. It wasn’t the way of the universe, we started life one way and ended it another. And at times, what we could hope for, is that there was change that arrived on something as easy to manage as a clink of a glass, as a laugh between friends. 

I took the cup I’d intended for him out of his grasp and in the same quick motion, had a long sip and swallowed it whole. The warmth filled my stomach and ears and the effects felt rather immediate. He smirked and though at one time it would have meant something menacing, tonight it seemed like an invitation. We pressed our glasses together with shared smiles. 

“To the end of your recovery and the return of your mischief,” Lucien said and we didn’t break eye contact until our next sip was taken. An old Autumn Court superstition. 

We sat back and I leaned against the arm of the sofa, pressing the cool glass to my temple to try and ease the heat. Lucien’s legs lulled open and closed, every so often bumping my own, creating a different warmth I could not chase from myself without his help. So I focused on the coolness near my ear, at the sweat of the glass dripping down my cheek onto my neck. I tried not to think of his arms exposed to the world, exposed to me.

“You’re wrong of course,” Lucien said eventually. “You understand me still.”

I smiled at the thought. He was right, but I wouldn’t say. He knew I knew this and knew I wouldn’t. I relieved myself of the burden of holding up my own head and instead turned my body, tucking my legs under me, so I could rest my cheek against the back of the cushion. Lucien’s head fell to the side to look at me.

“You knew what I meant at the tailors with just a look. I saw the thought arrive and leave,” he added as proof. 

“What thought?”

His mouth formed a flat line and he looked at me with skepticism, the skepticism of someone who knew I remembered and didn’t like me playing dumb.

“The one where you were thinking of everything you’d have done so that I didn’t have to be in Velaris.”

I said nothing and Lucien shifted forward like he had a proposition in mind. Perhaps the alcohol was stronger than I realized because our noses were nearly touching and my body and his seemed to be producing such a heat that between us I thought the fabric would scorch. Sweat formed at the back of my neck and fell beneath my collar. 

“Knowledge such as ours is already a burden. Please, don’t consider marrying someone else, not while I’m nearby and can see.” He said and I felt his words brush along the divot over my mouth. The distance so precarious my own voice rose only loud enough to cross what little space we’d given each other. 

“If it bothers you that much I might not be able to help myself.” He narrowed his eyes and I nodded, “Alright.”

He readjusted, put more distance between us, and I could breathe. His face back to that inquisitive need. “Do you truly believe nothing was at risk between us, that knowing something like what I’d say saved you any trouble?”

I licked my lips, and closed my eyes a moment to help gather my thoughts that in so short a time had scattered to the far ends of my mind. “Yes. What could I lose if I didn’t have anything to gain?”

“But wasn't there something to gain?”

“Was there?”

Lucien shifted, less embarrassed, less afraid of what he meant, “love, I suspect. Respect at least.”

“Did you respect me?” I faltered, asking because I couldn’t bear the other question, the obvious question with the obvious answer. Even if asking this in its own way revealed my hand, revealed the knowledge to him, of the things I couldn’t say. 

“Yes, of course I did. To me,” he said thinking for a long moment his voice wavering a little so he made to clear his throat. “This has always been a risk, it wouldn’t have been worth it to me if there wasn’t. I respected that our inherent bond, the way you witnessed me, gave you power over me and for some reason you never used it. Knowing or not knowing this about you didn’t take that power away. Especially when I know you can wield your words rather effectively when you want to.”

“What could I’ve done?”

“Plenty. Who knows me better than you?”

Lucien was right, to really know someone is burdensome. People don't want to admit it, because on words alone, few would desire to be such a thing. But there is a weight that you are aware of when someone is known to you and you to them. 

It’s like this, I could tell when Gawayn fell asleep. After we had finished I’d hear his breathing deepen, his heart slow. For a long time that had been enough, had meant enough, to make it until morning. To last until the next time I needed him. 

The satisfaction I had with males over the years was seldom ever made from mutual knowing. After long stretches of winter or very early on spring mornings, a desire came about. The craving for weight. Where, at once, the layers of understanding reach through the world to pull you close. It is a particular heaviness that is needed, not just the knowing of names, but the intimacy of two hearts who are familiar enough for the purpose. And strangely it is not so mortifying suddenly. All you want is the burden of knowledge, the weight of someone who has known you all this time and chose you. So I’d call and he would arrive and the heaviness of all we carried in familiarity and expectations would press together and only there I found some relief. 

Yes, I think I understand. To be known, is that not also, a kind of love? Are then, love and burden not the same thing?

There was a deep unsettling feeling forming between my bones, leaking out into my body, my being. The moment of realization that what you’d thought had been protected had, in hindsight, been so dangerously close to peril after all. I was saved by, if only by, the respect of someone good enough to know what was unutterable. The intimacy of never using something you had to begin with. My mouth was dry. I took the last lingering sip of my drink.

Lucien didn’t break the stare, his drink finished. I wasn’t even trying to think of something to say, his insight had obliterated any chance of coherency. My heart rattled against my ribs and I heard it in my ears. Its speed picked up so effectively I saw Lucien’s eyes drop to the thin skin that protected it. 

A wisp of something slid along the wall in my peripheral and then, without ceremony, the lights went out. Azriel. 

“Curfew?”

“Bastards.”

Lucien laughed, his voice so obviously tired now that I heard it in the dark, separated from the alertness of his face. The cushion beside me sunk then lifted. As I had, his knees pressed into my own, and silence unlike that I’d ever heard before, as total as the darkness, as private as the room, stuffed itself into my ears and I was more aware of him than I was of myself. And, all the same, being aware of him, made me aware of myself, because through the darkness a warm hand reached laying itself across my cheek.

Then a thumb over the lips, as the steady hand fell. Moving lower, moving until there was an edge, my jawbone, and running along it. Testing, savoring, and suddenly slower, the hand becoming just two fingers lowering across the valley of my neck. 

Feeling me swallow, testing for breath, splaying itself out then gripping where breath might be, almost, but with some hesitation. 

My head shifted up, more room for possession, more space for claiming, he noticed, closing tighter, but releasing. A trail of water down the neck is reborn by fingers. Touches that said I know you, remember you. Lowering with the permission of knowledge, feeling the heartbeat at the side of my neck, feeling it calm, feeling it ready. A pressure relieved on one leg, he leans away and returns with his knee between my thighs. I was unflinching, I wanted to wrap around him but didn’t, in case he went further. 

He does.

The distance closed is not enough, but he moves his hand lower, moves places it has never been but somehow still is remembering. 

Tips along the collarbone, a suggestion between breasts—then nothing.  

Two hands clasped, and the warm one pulled. 

A sturdy chest in my cold hands, my breath pushed back against me, he still leaning in. Teeth, in restraint, along my neck. 

Prodding, light, grazing. My name whispered. 

 Then nothing. 

We exchanged what we could, the sounds of our breath—his caught, mine lost, and it said a thousand things that words did not exist for. I wanted to stay, thighs touching, wanted to let my eyes adjust and be sure, see his teeth, and know it had happened but I couldn’t. I walked away first, toward the den doors. His touching, however, wasn’t over yet. He pulled just barely at my skirt, not enough to say don’t go, but like he was holding onto the moment too by its edges willing it in place. He knew what I knew, that once we got out into the hall where the lights were dim he would go and I would go and that great distance would form between our rooms which each night began to feel further and further from each other. I hated it, to the point of tears, the joy that ceased from my not knowing what to do. I didn’t want to be so powerless. 

The knob of the den doors warmed under my hold and Lucien withdrew his hand from my dress. The tension of the fabric faded only to be replaced by the tug of regret pulling from behind my ribs, from between the vertebrae. Why had I left him there in the dark? That I’d thought myself newly brave and could not, even for a flimsy moment, withstand the intensity of having what I really wanted—to stay with him, and for him to stay with me. My stomach turned in frustration. I wanted to the point of sickness. 

In the hall at last I found him still lingering close by. For the first time, I saw it, the respect he had for me. It occurred to me that no one looked at me as he had looked at me. Not just in the way he desired me, males had looked at me with desire, but for that distinctly mated fact. To him, truly, I was his equal cauldron or no.

It made the wanting bearable. Who knew me better than him?

He took my hand in his and I knew what it meant, he would kiss the smooth skin and rush off like he had somewhere to be as he had most of the week. He kept that stare on me and I did not look away. I could feel what he thought of me and it made me feel brave. He made to pull my hand to his lips but this was not the end. I withdrew it, his face creasing in confusion. I wanted him to ask me something, so I would ask first. That was what I had to do, I had to go first and he would always follow. 

He moved away from me, retreating.

“Are you to be my burden?” 

The quiet of our first days back in Velaris returned. As if the walls had solidified, as if even the townhouse had straightened and the whole world was balanced on the point of a needle, unmoving, without breath.

Lucien’s eyes searched, “so that’s how it is?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed, throat bobbing, and thought only a moment, the answer coming quickly to him. “I’d prefer nothing.”

I waited for him to say nothing more , nothing else , but no word followed the vacant choice before it.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“I’d rather be nothing than that.” 

Whatever heat had formed from our moment in the den had been smothered. A heavy cool blanket had been tossed over me and I couldn’t get it off, could not find the hem and relieve myself. Really I had the sense that something terrible had begun and even though we’d only just started to speak again we were already too far ahead in something for us to go back. I got the sense that no matter what I said I could not fix whatever had been broken by the risk I’d made, by the things I’d revealed.

I huffed an uncomfortable laugh, my words out of habit turned sharp, “you didn’t seem to mind a few minutes ago.”

“A few minutes ago?”

“In the den. I thought you wanted to.”

“Well you thought wrong.”

When I didn’t speak Lucien saw the confusion on my face and anger took hold of his words. “Why should I want any part of that?” The bond was alight with it, all he was feeling that seemed only to grow and carve away at any logic, to break it like a bone so we lost any control. 

“Because,” I faltered, my voice becoming small in a way I didn’t like. However, Lucien’s face seemed to soften when he heard it. He waited. There was something he wanted me to say. For a moment I saw a bridge forming between us where we might meet in the middle, where we could put all of this down, all the fear and vague language, and say what we really meant. I stepped forward, “because it’s me.”

I watched the tenderness die, before it had fully arrived, fading slowly away from me until it was entirely out of reach. “Why would that change anything?” 

In my chest the foreign anger grew exponentially, primally, lashing like an injured beast with an overactive maw. Its teeth pierced into me, injured me, and where once a single rage might have been a second formed in its place. 

I steeled, narrowed my eyes, then shielded our bond. Lucien noticed immediately. Flames ignited and extinguished in an instant at his palms. My side burned, a sweat formed at my lower back as I tried to remain unwavering through the pain. Dull and precise it climbed through my side.

“I forgot how cruel you Autumn males can be,” I said finally, looking him once over. “It’s cowardly.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes back and stepped forward, “cowardly?” 

“I know no other reason for someone to abandon what they’d begun.”

“Self-respect.”

Shadows gathered at our ankles and the pain pierced at my ribs. I shook my head, cast a glance over the male, my mate, who had apparently not changed at all. I was still the female in the garden, the one his brother almost sullied himself with. Waves of disgust seemed to push off him, even without the bond between us. His nostrils flared, his lips pulling back. Like he’d forgotten everything, like I was the female everyone knew from the Hewn City.

“What a disappointment you turned out to be.”

He opened his mouth but closed it, sneering as he pushed past me. 

“Where are you going?” I said, my voice echoing through the house and I regretted it immediately. I’d revealed my hand. I care. I care. I care. I care what you think of me. I’d said so in the face of his uncaring. I want you safe, I want you here. In fact, there was to me, no greater fear than what awaited for him if he left. But he wasn’t listening. He had stopped listening. He turned back and, with a new composure of his acceptance of where we’d landed, his voice did not echo as mine had. 

“I’ve no desire to be where I’m not wanted.”

He waited, watching me. He’d realize it. He knew me, he knew what my words meant. He just had to look at them again. Where are you going , it was easy. In any other world, any other time, he’d have teased me about it. He’d say, I’m starting to think you want me around and if it were any other time I’d say, don’t be delusional . But tonight, tonight I’d say I do . He knows this I don’t need to go first. I stared at him waiting for that realization to settle. 

When nothing was said he stepped forward. “But you’re so brave?” 

With his words a ripple of both our powers moved through the house. If whoever had gone to bed wasn’t awake before I knew they were now. I could feel the pain in my throat turning my voice into something pathetic, almost begging. 

“I gave something,”

“You’re a child if you think a few stories, a glimpse at your handwriting meant anything.” He said, the words loud so everyone might hear. They’d probably been listening all along.

“It’s all I have.”

His eyes searched my face. I was not as stony as he. I never had been. He saw the fraying and he didn’t care. He remained unflinching. Then he did something I didn’t expect. “you disappoint me too, how you let the world make you this powerless.”

He used his power over me. 

The front door slammed. Its sound rattled through the whole house, between my bones, my fingers. He thought me weak. And he left. Lucien had gone and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was trapped, standing in the hall, staring where he had only just been. Staring at the space between us, where a spill had used to be. I was caught looking for meaning where there was none. The bump of a hand, a place on the floor, meaningless.

 I slammed my bedroom door in return. It gave no reprieve. Slowly, through the darkness, I undressed waiting for the feeling to settle. Instead, it grew larger until a great mouth seemed to open up and swallow me whole. Stripped, I dropped my shield and went to stretch as I had in the garden to dispel the leftover burn. I placed my palm to my side and found no stitches. I went to the mirror and searched for them through the dark. They were gone. 

They’d burned away. The only thing left was a hint of ash, a long stretch of skin, and a scar.

All of this replayed again, over and over, as Madja prodded my skin while the too-quiet court waited downstairs. If the Cauldron cared even a little for me we’d have one more hour, one more minute, where we would be forced together. There had to be a seam somewhere I could figure out where I’d been mistaken. 

“How does this feel,” the healer said. She pressed into the raised skin around the injury. Her hands were cold. Maybe they weren’t, but by comparison to Lucien, everyone felt cold. 

He hadn’t come home last night. 

I stayed up waiting for that terrible sound to repeat. The slamming of the front door, then footsteps down a hall to a room that no longer felt so far away. He could be a great deal further than just one floor. With each growing distance, the thought of another further destination came behind it. He could winnow to the Illyrian village, to the Hewn City, he could leave Velaris. He might not even be in Velaris anymore. All night I tried to imagine where he’d go instead and the panic had me so sick I had to run to the bathroom before I decided to think of it no longer. I’d know if he’d left. I’d said that. I’d know. 

“It hurts.”

“Probably tender from using your power, but it shouldn’t cause you much grief. If the pain lingers longer than a week let me know,” she said pulling her hands away and moving toward her bag. 

“Thank you.”

She nodded and muttered with a laugh, “good thing you did your exercises.” 

 I cursed under my breath. I’m sure from the outside our predicament was a riot. No one remembered what the cost was. No one ever remembered. I fixed my shirt and made toward the door. Downstairs everyone was waiting. Just as Lucien and I had dropped all pretenses to aid them in their recovery, so too did their various ailments seem to vanish in the space of a sleep. When I’d found everyone at breakfast that morning, between warm smiles, I saw also weary eyes. No one asked where Lucien was. I knew then they’d heard everything. 

Their murmurs climbed up the stairs the stench of alcohol had lingered in the hall. We’d been celebrating and suddenly all that goodness was over, like it hadn’t even happened. I could do everything again, I could shield and winnow and sneak into minds for private mischief, but I couldn’t do anything I really wanted. I couldn’t tell him to come back, couldn’t even return to our old understandings that might have revealed why he’d really changed his mind, and I couldn’t ask him to stay here with me.

“She’s all set,” Madja said, passing through the doors before me. A mass of faces, wide-eyed, nervous, looked in our direction. 

His eyes the only one turned away, stared into oblivion, stared far away. Lucien was on the couch beside Mor in the same clothes he wore last night. Rhysand watched me, his attention undivided and acute. Though his face remained neutral there was an uncertainty between us. He was waiting for me to react to seeing my mate. Lucien’s whole body slumped like it weighed a thousand pounds and he was trying to hold it up. He reeked of a tavern. The stench had been him, stale beer, wine, and something faintly sweet lingered lightly near. Like perfume. 

Every muscle contracted, straining against a heat that was trying to burst through. Barbaric and uncivilized jealousy slammed into me. I tried desperately to remain in control of my body, feeling for my feet flat against the floor, my clenched fists, my slack jaw. I could not after last night reveal such a weakness for him. But one foot vanished from my focus and was stepping forward, then the other. 

“So happy to hear it,” Rhys said maneuvering toward me, carefully putting himself between us. I still didn’t take my eyes off Lucien. “Cassian could you walk Madja out please.”

 “I feel it's important I stay right here.” He said, his hand coming down to clamp on my shoulder with a friendly restraining hold. I didn’t need to look at my brother, didn’t need to tear my eyes away a moment, to know his mouth had pulled into a thin line. 

“Az?”

The shadow singer moved silently through the room toward the old healer who gave a word of goodbye. Their faint sound of footsteps in the hall was privacy enough by Cassian’s standards and so began his teasing.

“Don’t go scaring Lucien away too. He’s barely recovered from sleeping on Mor’s ancient couch.”

“Cassian,” Rhys said.

At whose expense he joked I couldn’t say. Our cousin avoided our eyes, looking around the room. Rhys moved even closer to me. My brother was serious, deathly so, my name falling from him with that command he could wield. It was a kind of remedy, not enough to forgive Lucien, but a logic momentarily denied took root in my spine and I felt any despair vanish. He wasn’t the type, he wasn’t so cruel as to slink off at the first sign of issue and find another female. And if he had he wouldn’t come back. In the time of our agreement for freedom from one another, at no point had I ever found him to be uncaring or cruel to the females he’d pursued. It was another one of the few qualities he’d had that I never deluded myself in snubbing him. No one would respect me had I attempted such an accusation because everyone knew it to be otherwise.

Cassian tugged me into his side as if it had all been playful. “Maybe we could head up to the house of wind, get a little training in, expel some energy. Lucien, you’re free to join us if you can stomach it.”

“I’m going with Mor today,” Lucien said flatly. 

“Where?” I asked.

Mor stood, “I’m showing him my favorite spots in Velaris, will probably need to get him something to cure his hangover, he tried to outdrink me and Amren last night.”

“Another time then,” Rhys said to Cassian before looking my way. “You and I have work to catch up on together now that you’re out of recovery.”

“ What work?” 

He smiled, and all the normalcy in the world seemed to return with his tendency to relish in my suffering. It was a small suffering, but a welcome one, that I wouldn’t be able to languish all day. A wave of gratitude moved through me. My life had been waiting and it was time for me to get back to it. 

“We need to discuss the solstice and a time to see the priestess about Starfall.” I let out a sigh, recalling just how much there would be for us to do then. Rhysand moved past me and with all the casualty in the world threw his hands in his pockets adding, as if he’d just remembered, “oh—and we need to discuss that trip to the Illyrian camps I mentioned this morning.”

I felt nothing at my chest. Just the idea of me and another male days ago had Lucien wincing. I thought… well you thought wrong. 

From behind Rhys, Azriel was waiting in the hall. It was slight, but a wisp of his shadows crept along his shoulder. He was staring at me but whatever it was he wanted to convey was too slight. It was Cassian who, fighting a laugh had turned away from us all and began to leave the room giving away everything to me. Lucien was truly a member of our court then, through the customary ritual of having everyone participate in a campaign plotted against you. Rhys just looked at me in wait.

“I’ll need three days not two, if what you said is true,” I said wanting to test it.

Claws crept along my mind. Cruel. Does he deserve this level of punishment?

Yes. 

“Three it is then. We’ll have to find a good time, likely just before the holiday at the start of the month.”

“Perfect.” 

Glad to see you back on my team.

Rhysand turned away, always have been. Get dressed, there really is work to do.

Mor followed behind my brother, leaving me and my mate half alone once more. Slowly, I turned to face him truly. Even when we’d had the bond his emotions had usually been small. Yet nothing, not a whisper pressed into me of any jealousy. He just stood there narrow-eyed, watching me the way he watched and knowing the way he knows everything. As if the bond itself had whispered my every thought his way, giving over what little leverage I had. 

“Lucien?” Mor said and he didn’t look away.

“Let me change and we can leave.”

“Take your time,” she said but he was done with me. She might know already, she who had watched him last night and took him home. Would he in all his silence confide in her, confide in anyone but himself? Most of what I knew about him was things noticed not shared. 

In silence, we parted. I looked away as he passed, the air off his hand coiling around my fingers with a certain hold. It was no longer warm. It didn’t even seem to belong to him. My eyes settled on the couch, settling on the faraway point Lucien had been staring at when I came downstairs. 

Two cups, their lips together, like a kiss. Like proof that something good here had actually happened. 

“How refreshing it is to see two mates so dedicated to communicating as you,” Rhys said as I entered his office.

“Bastard.”

“Here I was, lying in bed, happy that all my scheming had managed to get you both working together, laughing,” he said throwing his feet on the desk. “Only to listen to the two most stubborn fae I’ve ever met refuse to acknowledge what’s going on between them.”

“I think actually we rather successfully acknowledge what’s going on.”

I fell into the chair across from him. Lucien and Mor had left a half hour ago. I’d laid across my bed waiting for the closing of the front door, trying to settle and become familiar with the sound of him leaving. It took me 15 minutes after they left to crawl back out of bed and come downstairs. 

“And what’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

He flinched, like my pain was his, and I felt our jokes vanish. He quieted his voice, “all that's nothing to you?”

“It could be nothing or something and as of last night it’s nothing.”

There was such pity in his eyes that I could’ve slapped him. I didn’t need the mortification two-fold that not only had they heard him say what he said about me, what he thought, but also they felt bad for me on top of it. As if I could survive the burn of a blade and not the disinterest of a male who, two weeks ago, didn’t care for me to begin with. 

“I don’t think that's true.”

I shifted, turning to look out the window. Despair sat right on the edge of my vision. If I looked away from my anger, if I stopped being in the present I knew it would close in on me the way those shadows had the night we’d arrived. The way it had last night until I fell asleep.

“You thinking so doesn’t mean that it isn’t.” I swallowed and shook away the nerves. A false smile, one I knew he’d see through, spread across my face. “Sorry you won’t win your bet.”

“There’s still time.”

“Wishful thinking,” I said to my brother, who probably really wanted for me to explain how everything had gotten so bad between his trip to this morning instead of what work we had to do. “You should learn from this experience and stay out of my business.”

“Your business is far more entertaining than mine,” he said gesturing toward the pile of paperwork waiting.

“Shall we get started then?”

Rhys let out a small sigh of disappointment. He handed me a pile of pages and I took it from him, looking over the names and businesses that appeared on it.

“Is there anyone first who comes to mind you’d like to make a donation to?” I asked, flipping through what had already been decided.

“Egrette likely for her priceless contribution of keeping you out of my hair.”

I rolled my eyes and found her name circling it, making note of the sum we’d donate. A list of name after name beneath and above hers was accompanied by their own scrawling notes, taken over the last year by Rhys. Passing words, complaints, compliments, anything that was important to their livelihood so that when we came together before solstice we could figure out what was needed, what we could do. 

“Might as well decide what theater gets what too,” I said.

He hummed and we began to rustle through the pages. To sit there with him, half comfortable, it made the whole thing seem rather banal, normal even. Despite what was going on outside the room I could count on him for this, for a moment of reprieve, to sit together like siblings who had spent so many years talking that they need not say anything from time to time. There would come a place for talking again. But for now, that place was up ahead, maybe 50 years, maybe two weeks, when the memory of perfume didn’t linger in my mind. I knew though that he’d be ready when it arrived. He was already there. 

We managed to get a larger chunk done than I expected. Rhys I think continued on so long just to keep me from leaving his office and spiraling. With a headache forming he said we could wrap up for the day. We’d have to talk to the priestess tomorrow anyway. No one had returned to the townhouse.

I sighed, dropping my pages on his desk and he muttered a thanks.

“You’ll need to pass along a message for me when you get the the camp.”

“To who?” I asked, not in any particular rush to speak to most of the males that dwelled there. 

“Gawayn. Let him know the extra work he has is courtesy of the princess of the Night Court. 

Rhys didn’t look up from his desk, jotting notes down in the margins of something and then opening one of his desk drawers. How loud had I been talking? Not too loud I should think. The alcohol we’d shared had made us careless and the laughter had certainly echoed through the house, but was the rest not just a low murmur? 

Rhys put down his pen before he scowled lightly, “he put on a performance, the prick. He had me running around in circles with ideas of where the male from the cabin would be. I’m sure he roared with laughter once he got home.”

I smiled, truly and smugly, “I’m sure he did.” 

He shook his head and began to fidget in his seat with somewhat graceless movements. “I don’t doubt that was humiliating for you. I wish I handled it differently.”

“It’s been a nice laugh over the years and I’ve no interest in carrying grudges. You were forgiven before the snow had melted on Ramiel.” 

“Yes but,” he said rubbing at his face. “I have a terrible feeling I’m to blame in part for whatever’s going on between you two.” 

“Don’t flatter yourself. About 50 years after the fact you lose any claim to such a title.” 

He huffed a laugh and sat back, eyes tired, “what will you do with the rest of your day?” 

“I have my own charity to finish and some letters to answer.”

“Don’t sit inside.”

“Don’t coddle me.”

“I’m not, but I’d rather not risk my life to step between two feuding jealous mates again.”

“You embellish,” I said and when Rhys gave me a questioning look I shrugged. “I couldn’t feel anything—down our bond. He doesn’t care what I do.”

His brows creased but settled. He looked at the cuff of his jacket, fixing it slightly before asking with the false casualty of someone who wanted desperately to know something. “What does it feel like, your bond?”

I thought for a moment, feeling around for the tether and knowing exactly where it was. And yet it wasn’t concrete, not so real, but it had this pull on us we couldn’t stop. Not at least without a far worse pain. 

“Like knowing something for a very long time.”

“Knowing what?”

I thought, “an answer and a question.” 

My brother was quiet and he seemed to toss this idea around in his head. Whatever he thought he settled on keeping it to himself. I heaved myself up and told him I’d see him at dinner. Whether I left the house or not he’d probably be cooped up in here with whatever it was that needed his attention now. My hand had just brushed the door when Rhysand spoke again.

“The night you came home, once Madja had begun to work, we could hear you crying. I thought it would be unbearable for Lucien, it was for the rest of us. But when I looked at him he was even-tempered, agreeable.”

I thought of all those years his body didn’t betray him. His cool exterior in the face of grief, happiness, longing. What he didn’t show. I wouldn’t have expected him to show it. I couldn’t even imagine it. 

“I asked him,” Rhys continued, “how the one person in all of Prythian who should be half feral at such pain could be so calm and he said because you’re you. Like it were the obvious answer, and he was surprised I didn’t know it. So he said, who else had such power, to survive the heat of Autumn?”

Something inside me tensed, like the bond itself was tugging and tugging at something. Pulling him toward me, it was like the cauldron was thrashing, desperate for us to be together. The darkness and despair at my eyes began to close in. You disappoint me. My mouth was dry but I spoke. 

“That doesn’t mean he likes me.” 

“No,” Rhys said. “It doesn’t.” 

***

The following morning I felt worse than the day before. Lucien, again, had not come home. At breakfast when I joined everyone downstairs all I had to do was look at Rhys and he told me.

“He’s with Cassian.”

 And that was that. Each morning it went on that way. If he wasn’t with Cassian then he was with Mor. I didn’t ask them about what they did together, what he revealed. Despite where we’d left things, despite the growing desire to hear his voice and to know how he was doing, if he didn’t want to tell me then that was his business to keep. The truth was I didn’t want to tell him how I was either. It had been over a week since my stitches had come out and the most I got of Lucien was the sound late at night of him coming home, if he did even that, followed by him leaving early in the morning. At times lying in bed I’d feel around for the bond to make sure it was still there, as if its disappearance would be better than what I found. That it was there, and he just didn’t feel much of anything. He had not been encased in any sadness nor did Velaris offer any joy for him to escape into. There was nothing. No reason to stay and perhaps one reason to go. Sometimes at my most desperate I thought, despite how pitiful it was, that the life in me that had been given back was leaving. I had not gotten used to it yet, the sound of a door shutting. 

***

What might have been an idle threat trying to make Lucien jealous had been made real. Two weeks before I was to leave for the Illyrian village we’d wrapped up the details. I’d go there, give my donations to the female I corresponded with, and then spend some time out of the city in the cabin. Though I enjoyed doing this each year, the lifelessness of the days that had passed seemed neither despaired at having to go or relieved to be away. I felt nothing. 

“It will be good for you,” Rhys said as he checked his watch and he didn’t need to say the rest for me to know what he meant. It would be good for me to get away from Lucien, get some space. Space, I didn’t remind him, was now the only thing we had. Every day had started to blur together. Every time I walked into my brother's office he took one look at me and I could see his disappointment. It was one of three checkpoints I’d begun to use to mark time passing. Lucien leaving, Rhysand’s disappointment, Lucien coming home. I tried not to think of it, of a day when there was only one marker that time had passed. 

“Do you have anything you need to get in order before you go?”

I shrugged, “not really. I finished the last of the work last night.”

“What time.”

I hummed feigning thought, “can’t remember.”

“You’re rotting in this house,” he said finally an air of sternness about him. “Why don’t you get some fresh air, sunlight. Egrette is probably looking for you.”

“I’m not there 10 minutes and she tells me her nephews are coming. I’m running out of excuses as to why I have to leave.”

“It’s a big city.”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

“Get out of my office and go outside. Now.” He said, walking around his desk and grabbing me by the arm. It was playful, light. I tried to find where in his words he had also been trying to be playful and teasing but couldn’t. I could find no difference between one thing from the next anymore. He opened the door and Cassian and Lucien were in the foyer, cheeks red, like they’d been out in the cold and had just walked in.

“Oh good,” Rhys said, his practiced nonchalance rather transparent. A sudden cordialness overcame him, “Please, come in I need to talk to you.”

“Why of course,” Cassian said in a mock bow. He’d been spending too much time with Lucien I could see. The Illyrian gave me a sidelong glance as he passed and I heard him stifle a laugh before the door closed behind me. The air from the force with which they shut it brushed my skirts. The well of pity they’d had for me had run dry. I wanted to slip away, to say nothing to him, but just the sight of Lucien after so long pinned me to the wall. I waited for him to sneer, to see the register of disgust, like that he’d had before in this very hall. Instead, he just stared at me before he shifted and his legs began to move. Not further away, like I expected, but closer. 

“What do you want.”

His brows raised in faint amusement. “You’re in a good mood.”

He wasn’t in on my brother’s little game, but what of his own? He seemed happy, glowing even. The separation had looked good on him. He must have been glad to rid himself of such a drain on his happiness. Maybe he drained mine, and the time away, really away, would reveal that. For now, he looked clever and cunning and happy. He looked like how he had all the time I’d known him. He looked like before. 

“You look well,” he said.

“Don’t lie.”

“Fine, you look terrible.”

A familiar tease. I crossed my arms, “so do you.”

“Don’t lie.”

I scoffed, “don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Why you’ve missed me?” 

At least when he was hungover there was a level of delusion I could employ that our fight had bothered him as it had me, that he suffered from our silence. It seemed that his agonies were absent. He’d recovered almost, if not entirely, to who he’d been before he’d crossed the wards, before the slice had left me powerless. In the face of my own anger his goal, his only desire, seemed to be making it worse. It was so achingly familiar that I had to look away. When I glanced down, however, I realized he was wearing the sweater I made. Something like rage and longing intertwined inside of me. When I met his eye again they didn’t look glad.

“You’re set to leave soon.”

“Two weeks from today.”

He hummed, nodding, “and what will you do there?” 

I raised a brow, “why do you wish to know?”

He shrugged but I could see the thread of tension running through him. A tell of his that would probably always be familiar. Small and delicate, it was a tension easy to miss if you weren’t me. There was something that wasn’t so casual or sincere. In fact, it made him seem even a little sad. Like he was missing something. Nothing between us whispered of that unease. It was as if—

I conceded, “the first day I meet with some women I correspond with. The rest is for me to do as I please. See who I please.”

Nothing. 

Lucien swallowed, his neck tensing, concealed behind his relaxed face. “Anyone you’re planning on meeting?”

A test.

“Gawayn.”

A lick of flames at his hands sputtered but was extinguished. He was shielding from me. The reason it had gone cold and quiet, why he wasn’t feeling anything, why he didn’t seem jealous, was because he was hiding from me. 

I blanched at him, and he at me. In our moment of shock there was enough quiet to hear the door shift behind me. The wood pressed forward slightly like there were two males leaning against it to listen. I sent a sheet of darkness to the other side and the sounds of stumbling coughing bodies moving away could be heard. I grabbed Lucien’s arm and brought him to the library, shutting the doors behind us.

“You’re shielding from me!”

He scoffed but apparently didn’t have much to follow with. “You started it.”

“Are you incapable of doing anything that I don’t do first?” I snapped. 

He moved back half a step, the words pushing him further from me in their delivery. Did he know how he followed? Or was what shocked him that I knew so too?

“While you’re gone I suppose I’m free to go to Rita’s?” He said, changing the subject back, averting any blame. A maneuver we’d played before where one of us got the upper hand and the other tried desperately to take their place. Rising to the occasion, trying to make each other equally angry. A frantic and graceless business, but now that he’d revealed his jealousy he wanted to see mine. I knew though, better than he knew of me, that he wouldn’t do such a thing, an empty threat.

I raised a brow, a sudden calm overcoming me. I wouldn’t wallow any longer in inferiority, not when all that nothing had been something. I sighed, “for someone who rejected me you seem to have quite the possessive streak. Don’t tell me suddenly you like me.”

“Reject—” he began, shaking his head, changing course. “I certainly don’t like you.”

“Then this territorial display is poor form unless you’ve changed your mind. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, I’m still free to do as I wish,” I said flashing him a grin “and who I wish.”

Lucien seethed, breathing heavily, and something happened. Something like only that which I could compare to the way I’d felt the magic retreat into the land of the Autumn Forest. There was a sense of renewal, a clearing of the mind, and for a moment I felt I’d become wiser to something though to articulate what it was seemed still an impossible feat. The bone was set in place, something righted, I could think again. By the time I’d felt the weight of this knowledge Lucien had calmed himself. 

“Then let's change the terms of our arrangement.”

“Oh?” I said with indifference. 

He smiled, it seemed more in relief to him than a taunt, but his words managed to hold their weight. “How many males do you think you’d bed with my claiming mark on your neck?”

I went still. 

Lucien laughed, moving closer, circling me like a prey. He settled without a word, towering over me. I could feel the heat off his body and the seriousness of his words. He’d do it, he’d bite me right now if I agreed to it. He knew I wouldn’t agree to it.

“You’re not the type,” I said.

Shadows pooled around our ankles, he didn’t even look. Instead, he leaned forward and glanced at the place his teeth had narrowly been. “Didn’t have to be until recently.”

“If you brand me like I’m some prized mare there is no agreement I won’t break. Your immortal life will forever be made miserable by me.”

Lucien’s eyes met mine, bright with his arrogance and amusement.“Promise?”

My eyes bulged and I opened my mouth, half tempted to shove him over the low table at his feet. Before I could, however, the library doors flung open characteristically without thought to who was inside or what they’d been doing. Mor walked in aloof. Across the hall, another door shut. Rhysand. I’d known since Lucien arrived, since that wisps of shadow had shaken the chandelier, that we’d need privacy. True privacy, not just the feigned kind found in the closing of the door. This fight, perhaps, a message from the cauldron that the need was dire. 

“Are you ready?” Mor asked looking at me stretching like she’d been lounging for a long while. I’m sure Cassian put her up to this as a dare. I peered out the door to see if I could find the male clutching his stomach laughing. I suppose, now that I was enjoying the renewed pleasure of annoying Lucien, I could let them too have their laugh. 

“Ready for what?”

She groaned, “you always do this. We’re supposed to go shopping today.”

“When did I say I’d do that?”

“Yesterday at dinner.”

I’d said yes and mhm a thousand times and hadn’t paid attention to a single one. I’d pushed my food around, took bites when necessary, and let their voices all blend together. I thought that, much like the week they were half here, it was understood only small bits of what was said was heard and even less of that was meant.

“Go get a jacket,” she said, smiling widely. Everyone was planning something. That much I could tell, but who was working with who I had suspicion was not so clear. I wouldn’t be able to excuse my way out of it, not when apparently everyone had decided I needed to get out of the house. Without a word, I began to walk away. Lucien, with his long stride, pulled ahead and I pushed into his mind with determination to get the final word. 

What happened to that self-respect you spoke of?

Overrated. He said, throwing up a hand, waving the idea away as if it had been flimsy and small. Like it were nothing. 

Though she’d said she wanted to go shopping Mor bought nothing and seemed, rather contentedly, to be focused on wasting my afternoon. A command at the hand of my brother, if I had to guess private allegiances. He’d wanted me out of the house apparently all day not just an hour or two. Of the four hours she’d dragged us around only one thing had been bought and it had been by me. A flimsy dress, the kind you’d wear to bed in summer when the weather was so hot even cotton felt unbearable. I’d been looking at it and she’d said that, if I got it, we could be done shopping and have a drink right then. So I brought it to the counter. 

Even as I’d been suspicious of her intentions she did not ask after Lucien or why we’d been fighting. She mentioned nothing of what they’d discussed in their time together and didn’t even tell me where they went. I assumed that, eventually, we’d find a store they’d gone to, a place she’d taken him on her guided tour of Velaris, and she’d tell me what he’d thought of it or just that he’d seen it. However, no such admissions came. 

I tried not to be suspicious of her, but no questions seemed far more suspect than a few carefully placed ones. I’d learned a long time ago that what we didn’t say said just as much as what we did, and planned my silence in accordance. 

“So you’ll be staying in the cabin?”

“Yeah, I only really need a couple hours to do what I need to do.”

We meandered through the city, Mor leading. I didn’t care where we went. I just wanted to sit somewhere. The sunlight this close to winter seemed to be fading even as I woke these days. With the solstice lingering close, the longest night of the year on the horizon, I’d tried to use the shopping trip for inspiration for gifts. Yet even as I tried to focus on Azriel or Mor my mind turned to my mate. His gift was already ready, tucked away where truly no one would find it.

“And then what?”

“I’ll probably read.”

“Finish that book that you’ve been on for an age.”

I tucked my mouth under my collar as a harsh wind chapped my face.“It's for research, not pleasure.”

“What are you researching?” She said, a little too fast for me not to notice. 

I answered in time, “Summer Court traditions.”

She hummed, “so Tarquin has invited you then?”

I nodded, lying.  

Mor took a quick right and as soon as I rounded the corner after her I saw them. Rhys, Amren, and Azriel were at a table on the corner of the patio she’d brought us to. Even as their scheming was revealed to me I felt a happiness push through me nearly unending until it reached my face, my eyes. The world pushed into clarity, favored goodness and delight. Everyone’s matching smiles waited, the city beyond them cresting up the hills of the busy streets. The faraway laughter and the mingling of bodies even as it got cold took shape. Through it all too, out of windows and shops, a warm orange glow. Like sun or starlight, it made me feel warm. It made me feel glad. 

Up the street, two figures began walking downhill and even without the wings, I’d have known their relaxed, joyous walk. Cassian and Lucien met us at the threshold of the place, the gate swung open. I peered up at the Illyrian, ignoring my mate who watched me as I looked back at the table of participants. There were just enough glasses for all of us, and they would be finished quickly. 

“Who do we think will break first?” Cassian asked.

“Rhysand.” Mor and I said in unison. 

I could feel, after three glasses, the slowness of my blinks and the delay in my eyes when looking around the room. Everything seemed a bit funnier, more relaxed. It was like going into that universe in which Lucien and I had been allowed to say anything, though I knew that unlike before whatever was said would be remembered tomorrow by at least one person, and they’d not let us forget it so easily. Lucien was next to me and our legs were touching and I didn’t pull away, didn’t scold him down our bond. Though it wasn’t my brother’s collection, the wine they’d selected had settled in my stomach with a heavy warmth after only a sip.

“Lucien,” Mor said. “It's our turn to grab the drinks.”

“So,” Cassian said moving into the seat next to me as they went inside. “You and Lucien seem to have made up.”

I looked toward Azriel with a plea, “can you stop him?”

“I’ve learned it's pointless to try.”

I groaned and folded over the table, letting my forehead meet the wood with a loud thud. If I hadn’t had wine it would have hurt more but I couldn’t manage to react. It had looked like a lot of things between Lucien and me, but what was true seemed to evade any recognition or articulation. I lifted my gaze, resting my whole head’s weight on my hand, and looked at the Illyrian who was beaming with delight waiting for his taunts.

“Your dynamic is so interesting I’m not sure if I want you both to admit your feelings or keep at it,” Cassian said.

“I’d like a little more time to embarrass her before they decide they like each other and are no longer at each other’s throats.” Rhysand said, chiming in.

“Who’s winning the bet then? Am I allowed to know?”

The four remaining table mates looked at each other and smiled coming to an unspoken agreement. “No, but we can tell you who’s losing.” Amren said. 

“Cataclysmically,” Azriel added.

Cassian, Amren, and Azriel raised their hands. I let out a loud laugh, a sense of renewed motivation surging through me in having at least knocked three of them out. Though I’d have preferred to have snubbed Rhys over Az. I took the last sip of my wine and began crossing my arms, “I’m surprised you played Amren, I thought better of you.”

“She bet you’d be mated in a week,” Cassian said.

“You’re all terrible.”

“Not terrible,” Azriel said. “Just perceptive.”

Mor and Lucien returned, and Rhys and I passed out the drinks from the tray carefully. Rhys turned to Cassian and Lucien watching them take their next sip, waiting for them to notice, yet neither did. The two continued to talk about something they’d seen a few days ago in the market, a jewel of some kind. I met my brother’s eye again and we smiled, knowingly.

They’re going to kill you. I said thinking of the discreet words we’d shared with the bartender after we’d gone up to get the second round. Being the High Lord had an unfair advantage sure, but after dinner at the House of Wind, we were sure the two males would indeed pay for the words shared weeks before. We did not forget a promise. Not when it was so terribly easy to get a much stronger wine in their cups without them noticing.

And after they’ll kill you when they discover it was your idea.

Lucien fell beside me, as a debate waged over who lost the last time we’d done something like this. It had been me so I remained silent, laughing over the recounted drama of how we raced home on foot that night which culminated in Cassian pushing Mor into the brush outside the townhouse so he could win.

“There’s no rules so there’s no cheating.” 

Rhys raised his glass, “I’ll be sure to remind you of that.”

Lucien’s leg returned to brush against my own and in taking advantage of the spectacle, he managed to place his arm around the back of my chair. Even with the wine I wasn’t sure if we were alright, but I leaned back and let it for a moment be true that we were. Though to be claimed would be wretched, I liked at times to let him have his subtle possessiveness. I liked to pretend I was not just his to know, but his to have. 

“I have a question,” Cassian said finishing his 6th drink, voice noticeably more slurred than before. “Why didn’t you want people to know she was your mate?”

I hoped Rhysand would say something, push in with those manners of his to tell Cassian to stop, but as I eyed him he seemed just as drunk, if not more. Meanwhile, Lucien was laughing, at ease, barely crossed-eyed. I looked at his glass which had been emptied a while ago and tried to recall in our time across Prythian how much he drank those nights he was hungover at breakfast, but I didn’t pay enough attention back then. 

“If I’m not mistaken this feels like a bit of a trap.”

“And who’s to say it wasn’t me who wanted to keep it hushed,” I said at least draw some of the attention off of him.

“It was a mutual decision,” Lucien added casually. “Though I’d love to hear how you all found out.”

Cassian let out a low whistle and Rhys rolled his eyes. It was Mor who leaned over the table as the streets became nosier, more boisterous. The words fell lazily from her purple lips, “we were out like we were now and Rhys was pestering her about Egrette’s nephews,”

I turned toward Lucien who, despite his relatively short time in Velaris, followed along with the story and its inhabitants seamlessly, like he’d always belonged here. Like he’d happened to be away for 50 years and was learning everything that had happened in his absence. 

Mor continued, “Apparently they were smart and successful and not totally useless.”

“Which wasn’t really her type. Not at that time,” Cassian said.

I slapped his arm and though he tried to pull away the alcohol made him slow. Amren shot a hand out between us.

“And, after a thousand excuses,” Mor finished, “she said their discovering she had a mate made them not very eager suitors.”

“Our High Lord could have leveled the world with the lecture he gave,” Amren said.

Azriel huffed, still annoyed, “and it got us banned from our favorite tavern for years.” 

Lucien’s hand fell over his chest as he tipped his head back and a quiet amusement left his lips in laughter. It was again a moment of domesticity, the kind I’d seen of couples all over the city exhibiting in moments of intimacy where something was revealed and the other was displaying such a fondness. A laugh that wouldn’t have been had for anyone else because what was funny only mattered because of who they were to each other. He laughed a little too long, falling into a kind of dream, the only sign that the wine had any effect on him.

“She spent the summer waking up at 5 in the morning to go train with me. Including the morning after our night out,” Cassian said.

“You’re wretched,” Lucien said turning toward Rhysand

“You sound like her.”

I wobbled up to grab the next round and as I was looking over my shoulder to tell Rhys to follow after me, I bumped into a female who was crossing the patio. She spilled a bit of her drink on the leg of her pants and we both gasped.

“Oh I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It happens,” She said cooly, with little distress. She was a pretty female, her hair fell in long strands around her face. It looked almost golden against the warmth of the city's lights. I opened my mouth to speak, to offer anything, but my brother crept through like a breeze with an easy smile to match hers.

“You’ll have to forgive her.  She’s trying to outdrink a table of six.”

The female seemed to straighten and a brightness came to each of their faces that I thought certainly was enough to make it until morning. We moved toward the bar and he watched her as we walked away. Sometimes I think he joked about the dry spells just because he didn’t want to admit he had no interest in pursuing anyone. I sensed that we shared something unserious between us. Perhaps a mate was somewhere for him too.

When we returned to the table with our drinks everyone grabbed for theirs like animals and I could just barely hear the end of the conversation between everyone which sent my stomach lurching.

“—and suddenly so fond of each other?” Said Amren. 

Lucien removed his hand from behind my chair just as I sat and brought it into his lap, shifting with discomfort. I looked toward him, wondering if he’d give a silent plea, if he’d need me but he didn’t meet my eye.  Cassian picked up the line of questioning with his own suspicion.

“You both seemed rather in the middle of this thing by the time you got here and we know you can keep a secret.”

“I don’t know,” Rhys said, “I had to trip her down the stairs at the house of wind that first week when they were alone just to get them close to each other. Quite a bit of scheming has happened just to get to this point I have to think they were sincere in their dislike.”

I barely managed to process the revelation of his interference at the house of wind before I crossed my legs and drunkenly, put Lucien from his misery.

“We were in the middle of something. When Lucien was running through the woods looking for me and I was half dead hiding in the brush I made a bargain. Some forgotten God waiting to pull me under, I told them they could have me once I got Lucien safe, to our court. Then the darkness withdrew and I found out about his and Eris scheming and I brought him here. I’m probably only alive because Rhys choked Lucien long enough for Madja to make it to the townhouse. So, yes, we were in the middle of a bargain when you all arrived.”

Everyone was silent and I didn’t spare Lucien a glance though I felt the intensity of his attention seeping into my skin, like it was running through my blood, all that blood that had been lost and replaced in the last month. I don’t know if they were all uncomfortable but I smiled.

“I do hope I have such an opportunity to ask questions I shouldn’t ask when your unfortunate partners show up to Velaris.” 

We finished two more drinks with Lucien still looking the best of us all and Rhysand glancing over his shoulder every few minutes at the female who I’d bumped into. They stared at each other, not smiling, but something like it that said a lot without much veiling. I wondered, for a moment, if that was the obviousness that Lucien and I displayed giving cause for such questions to be asked.

“Talk to her.” Mor said.

He shrugged.

“As long as you don’t come back to the townhouse it’s fine,” I joked.

“It's already pretty late.” 

“What do you have to do tomorrow besides torment us?” Lucien asked and I couldn’t fathom the lucidity of his words when the rest of us were stumbling. Whatever they drank in Autumn must have been impossibly strong and I was glad not to know much of it. Rhys didn’t fight him on his words, instead he mulled them truly over. If he left it was his tab to pay and I don’t know if it had ever been this high. Not for lack of trying and certainly not just because Lucien was here. My brother looked around the table, then at Cassian who was still red in the face from whatever female had embarrassed him with a rejection, and stood.

“It’s on me.”

Though the world seemed to be teetering left and right I noticed the visible relief everyone had. We didn’t even bother to finish what was in our glasses. We all stood, Lucien holding his hand out to me, and began to pile out of our corner as my brother crossed the small patio. She had a kind face which made me glad, I’m sure a little kindness was deserved. From across the street, we all looked back, watching them, before we saw her nod. She moved away from her friends with him and with all the obnoxiousness we could muster, we screamed loud ridiculous cheers. Our High Lord glared at us, but it didn’t hold that bite. He was terribly pleased.

“Maybe Rhys and I can teach you a bit about females,” Azriel said throwing an arm over his friend. 

“Bastards.”

We walked along the Sidra passing other equally joyous groups who seemed more put together. Cassian challenged a few of us to a race but when no one would join him he dragged his feet. I jumped up onto the wall of the Sidra and began to walk along it as the icy water flowed below. Frozen shards had begun to float down the river though the first day of winter was still a few weeks away.

“Get down from there,” Lucien said not two steps in. He crossed and I could hear the group of them, or what was left after Amren had disappeared, laugh not so silently to themselves.

“I do this all the time.”

“Drunk?”

“Yeah,” Azriel replied for me. “Ask her about the time she fell in.”

Lucien didn’t hesitate and lifted me off the stone himself and the movement sent my stomach in my throat. I held my hand at my mouth, unable to fight him on the maneuver, and tried not to wretch what had only just managed to go down. The trio of them peeled away, down a different thin street, their laughter echoing off the stone.

“Where are you going!” I yelled, as they took a left down a long street.

“Mor’s ancient couch is waiting,” Cassian yelled. “There's no payment in the whole of Prythian that would force me under one roof with two drunk mates.”

Then time moved strangely. Maybe because I was on the edge of oblivion, but each moment seemed like an island. I was in the bathroom peeling off clothes I remembered but couldn’t picture Lucien handing the new ones against the sink. Then I had them on. I was looking in the mirror, I was splashing water on my face, then I was doubled over. I was retching and falling away from that spinning nothingness. I was falling fastly back to my body and Lucien was kneeling beside me. 

“You alright?”

I nodded, but alright was not the word I’d use. He pulled my hair back after I keeled over again. I sat there until my stomach settled just enough. My eyes closed, the world had stopped spinning at last, but I knew I’d need to sleep or it would begin again. Only I didn’t want to leave the place where Lucien was holding onto me gently. I wanted to wake up to a big house with no one in it and a stomach that wasn’t upset, but a mate who, regardless, was still trying to take care of me. My hair fell from his hands. Maybe he could feel all I wanted and didn’t want my hopes to get too high. Or maybe he was tired too. Either way, I crawled toward the cool tile near the tub and laid my body across it. 

“Lift your head,” Lucien said and I did as I was told. He shoved a pillow under me, though I’d not even known that he left the bathroom and before long a blanket came too. He settled against the tub and his hand came to my hair, pushing it back as he had that night we’d arrived. When the blood and water and tears had pushed it slick against my temple.

“You don’t even look drunk.”

“I’m not.”

I opened my eyes and peered up at him as his warm hand fell again to my forehead. He was smiling, very faintly, like he liked me. He’d said so once, that he didn’t, but I was starting to think he had lied. His eyes were bright, clear, like he knew something all-encompassing that I myself had yet to become aware of. 

“I switched to juice after round 3.”

I gasped, “cheat–”

“You think I don’t know the difference between two wines? I don’t think it's a coincidence that you and your brother went up and suddenly Cassian and I have a notch on our glass with a wine inside I’d not tasted before.”

I groaned, and fell back against the pillow. I didn’t fight him, I still couldn’t manage. My mind was already pulling far away to the look he’d given me and a world where it would happen over and over again. I thought it might be enough to make it until tomorrow, to sleep here on the cool tile, the skin of my bare legs rising at the exposure of it. I looked ridiculous, I’m sure, and was glad that the blanket shielded some of the foolishness. Mostly though, I wanted to sleep before Lucien left and pretend that, like that first time he’d been in my room, he’d wait here all night.

“Do you want me to stay?” 

“Yes.”

“Do you need me to?”

If I were sober maybe I’d know he was teasing but instead, I lifted the blanket and he shifted beside me. His warmth seemed to fall off him in waves, like he were the kind of person made to meet cold things and I suppose for now that cold thing was me. His hand returned to my hair and he twisted it through his fingers as the very tip of my nose was pressed against his chest. For whatever reason, even with the excuse of alcohol at our fingertips, we didn’t get any closer.

“I missed you,” I said knowing I was only brave enough to in such a context, where the consequences felt too far away, like they belonged to someone else who for the time was not me and might never become me.

“I know,” Lucien said. There was a long quiet and I wasn’t really waiting for him to miss me back. It didn’t even occur to me that he did until something inside my chest opened up and a powerful wave of yearning, of somberness, of joy, and missing pushed through my body with a warmth that had become familiar, that was lying just beside me. I let out a sigh of relief. I slept until morning. 

[gotchibam]

Espeon, Dusk Lycanroc, and Sylveon ko-fi doodle for Kaitlyn!

I'm accepting pokemon ko-fi doodle requests here! ✨

[choccy-milky]

sebastian when he's in danger: 😒🥱 sebastian when MC's in danger:😱😱❗❗❓😰😱😱 ((from the newest chap of my fic, which you can read here!))

[askchuuyanakahara]

Don't worry chuuya! Sharing food isn't inherently an indirect kiss, such a thing only matters if you want it to! I share food with my family all the time, and I certainly don't and don't want to kiss them on the mouth

Chuuya: "I always use to share food with The Sheep. It was nothing strange, it was just how we survived."

Kouyou: "We've arrived."

Chuuya: "Oh, time to get to work."

Chuuya: "Should I have a type..?"

Kouyou: "I don't believe that is a question I can answer."

Kouyou: "There's no need to ask if you already know the answer."

Chuuya: "A-ah- sorry, Ane-san.."

Kouyou: "It would be a waste of my breath."

[sporeclan]

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First moon(s) of 2024!!! WOOO!!!

[its-hai-time]

WE'RE SO BACK

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archive

[shepscapades]

GUYS. IM FINALLY MAKING THE DBHC MASTERPOST HAPPEN IM FINALLY DOING IT I’M MAKING IT HAPPEN RAAA

I’m making a new one so I can format it better so I’ve had to start from scratch but it’s finally in the works and almost done

[rox-of-iu]

my old blorbos are back in my brain

heart pirates my absolute beloved. shame theyre chillin somewhere in the ocean lol (do not mention the pre-time skip hats of penguin and shachi I'm still attached even tho its already been a million years since then)

anyway every time i remember that Law and Kid are assigned german and Scottish by Oda i gain one hundred years

[lavender-rroses]

//dunmeshi spoilers? eyestrain

desire

timelapse under cut

[oobbbear]

Whenever I set a very high expectation for a project I will guarantee intimidate myself out of it

But if I set the bar in hell I can finish it very quickly and turns out great 90% of the time

[sweetandglovelyart]

Knightfall in Dream Land - Page 13

Meta Knight starts fighting Whispy as his friends watch.

[imeriayapping]

He doesn't know when it starts or even how.

Well if Logan tried to go back to see all the steps that lead him here he should probably start around 2021 when he first opened MotoGP race when there was nothing else to watch.

He was always hungry for more, watching as much different racing as he could, it's just motorcycles are a bit out of his comfort zone so he never gravitated towards opening a stream somewhere to watch.

Of course logan knew about it, about people in it and thought about Rossi the same way he did about Gordon and Hamilton if not for his own experience of watching than at least for how much lando was talking about him. As the Greatest of all.

It takes him a bit to learn all teams, how everything works and some major events but he gets there, fully emerged at that point.

Logan still doesn't watch all that much content of riders bc he's not interested in their personalities besides what they say about bikes but he catches glimpse of how insane it all is anyway and it fascinates him when he compares it to formula scenery where it's so political and everyone is second away from clawing at your throat.

Guys there are wild and don't have pr crafted personalities that they need just to survive. Next season starts, he gets into f2 and watching gets a bit more challenging on some weekends but manageable on most. And nothing would change if not for one bike that his eyes keep going back to and the guy on it that Logan starts watching press conferences forBc firstly bez is amazing and it's interesting to watch him on track. And secondly he's just so..... different, so open and always smiley.

It's fascinating to Logan because it's almost diametrally different from what he himself is. He loves a good hug don't get him wrong but living mostly alone on another continent from your family and all friends doesn't make for a lot of opportunities to express emotions through touches. Sometimes it feels like he can go weeks without meaningful contact. Also Logan can only watch how outgoing and extrovert marco is never even being close to that, sticking with few people that he knew the best.

It somehow transformed into following him on multiple platforms and watching whatever content motogp or his team would put out. It became kinda embarrassing at the point where he could understand a few Italian words from sheer amount of them that he heard before. It was a bit annoying not being able to understand a lot of stuff but he wouldn't prove "dumb American" stereotype by wishing for guy to speak only in English. Plus the way his voice sounded when he actually did talk in English was very cute, so nothing to be sad about.

Logan started wondering if this what admiration for drivers felt like because he never experienced it before always only motivated by his own desire to win not by those he saw on screens. It was pretty tough to rationalize by himself so he went to the most rational person he could think of (and totally not because it was his only friend on the grid,no) - oscar.

It was usual hangout for them only stained by somewhat awkward logan who didn't know how to approach subject until oscar points out his weird behaviour and makes him talk it all out while listening intently. In the end oscar just answered with short but straightforward "sounds more like you catching an internet crush that anything else" which made Logan spat out million protesters a second only stopped by solid hand on his forearm

"Look you should think it all over and if you still not sure I'll go to MotoGP race next month for promo so you can tag along and actually speak to the guy to see how you feel"It took him a while to evaluate everything and actually come to some form of conclusion but looking back oscar wasn't wrong, it's just Logan never catched feelings in similar way so it was confusing. But looking at it now it wasn't even surprising with how mesmerising marco was, resembling the sun whenever he went with his blinding smile and warm attitude. And Logan wanted to reach out to that shine too

But even ignoring all that he asepted Oscar's offer mostly to watch race itself because in person it would be way cooler than through small screen in shitty hotel room. Logan didn't plan on even going close to bez there because mortifying ordeal of confronting a crush that doesn't know you exist is a bit too much for him but it's not like anything ever goes according to his plan.

So this time what gone wrong was bez himself that catched a cute blonde guy laughing with sun rays in corners of his eyes while talking to someone but standing completely on his own otherwise looking a bit uncomfortable in unfamiliar space. And of course marco went to introduce himself because why waste such chance? Especially when his outstretched hand ready for handshake is met with blush and shuttering before he even managed to say anything besides "hi, I'm bez"

[yallemagne]

put more layers on Seward, he's freezing outside :(((

How it's going at the asylum.

[paluding]

Updating... The Tattooer (ver. 3.4)!

Finally! Took me a while, huh. This is the updated version of the Tattooer project. It skips some steps, making the workflow much, much faster! Huge thanks to @applewatersugar for his suggestion on how to bake textures while preserving the transparency. This is kind of a repost of the original Tattooer post, but it actually has some new stuff and a few changes here and there, so please take a look if you want to learn how to use this new version.

This is a series of Blender template files already set up to quickly bake textures from The Sims 4 to The Sims 2. The different Blender files will allow you to: -Bake body textures from TS4 to TS2 (Female) -Bake body textures from TS4 to TS2 (Male) -Bake body textures from TS4 (Female) to TS2 (Male) -Bake body textures from TS2 (Female) to TS2 (Male) [Bonus!] -New! Bake face textures from TS4 to TS2 (Unisex) [Bonus!] -Bake head textures from TS4 to TS2 (Face + Scalp) (Unisex) [Still experimental] Check the file names to see which one is which, and the resolution of the baked texture it will give. Everything you see in the render above was 100% converted using those Blender files.

Download here! SFS / GD

Update: Version 3.4.1 (27/08/2023) Fixed some issues on the shoulders for the AF-body-4t2-1024 and AF-body-4t2-2048 templates. Now the top straps on most converted underwear/swimwear should look right.

Update: Same version (13/12/2023) As requested, added a new spanish version of the included pdf guide!

These templates were made mainly to bake and convert tattoos, but there’s more you can do with them if you get creative. I have to say, these are NOT perfect. Results may vary depending on what you are trying to convert, so! With that in mind, this is all the stuff you will be able to convert almost seamlessly from TS4 to TS2: -Tattoos. -Other body details such as body hair, scars, freckles, supernatural/occult details… -Body painted underwear and swimwear, as well as some other clothing that’s mostly painted on the body. -Socks, stockings and maybe leggings. -Even skintones! In some areas they will look weird, so I recommend editing and blending them with other existing TS2 skins. -Makeup, eyebrows and beards. In the old version this was just a proof of concept, but now I’ve added a new Face file template which gives some pretty decent results! -Hair scalps. Very useful when converting some hairs! Although keep in mind part of that texture might also need to be baked on the face mesh, you know, that hairline makeup stuff.

Got your attention? Nice! Editing some of the textures from TS4 to match the UV mapping in TS2 using a 2D editing program can be incredibly hard. That’s where texture baking in Blender comes to the rescue!

You will need to download Blender, at least version 3.4, but you could always use a newer version. It is only incompatible with versions older than 3.4. -You can download Blender for free here. -You will also need Sims 4 Studio to extract the original Sims 4 CC textures you want. In the first version of these Blender files, there was a necessary step using Photoshop, but that’s no longer needed. However, there’s still a tiny extra step which requires resizing the newly baked texture on some of the high resolution templates, so you might need a 2D editing program like Photoshop. More on that later.

So, before we begin, let’s clear out some questions you might have. What the heck is this texture baking thing and what does it do? Well, let’s imagine you have a video projector and point an image into a blank wall. Then you pick up some brushes and start painting and copying that projected image in that wall. Texture baking is kinda like that when it comes to 3D models. You align two models and match them as closely as you can in shape and form, and once you adjust some parameters and values, Blender does the rest for you: it will give you a new texture for a new model with a different UV map. These files I’m sharing have everything already set up, so it’s a matter of plopping in that Sims 4 texture and you will get that new texture for TS2 in just a few clicks.

This tutorial assumes you know literally nothing about how to use Blender, so if you feel uncomfortable with it, worry no more! This will guide you with pictures showing where you need to click and explaining what is happening. For Sims 4 Studio and Photoshop the process might be a bit less detailed, but still this should be pretty beginner friendly. For this tutorial, I will use some tattoos as an example (properly credited at the end of the post). Alright, enough with the rambling. Let’s get started!

·EXTRACTING TEXTURES IN SIMS 4 STUDIO: First things first, you will need to extract as pngs all the textures you want to convert from TS4 using Sims 4 Studio. It should be pretty straightforward. Just open the packages and export the Diffuse textures. Keep them organized in a folder for easy access.

·BAKING THE TEXTURES IN BLENDER: PRELIMINARY STEP 1: CONFIGURING BLENDER’S GRAPHICS SETTINGS: Open your preferred Blender file depending on what you’re going to bake and the desired resolution (in this example I’m going to use the AF-body-4t2-1024 file). Before we start messing around in Blender, there’s one thing you should set up. It is a onetime step, and once it’s done, you won’t need to do it again. So, does your computer have a dedicated graphics card? If you don’t know or you’re not sure, just skip to the next step. Configuring Blender so it uses your graphics card instead of your CPU will make the baking render much faster, so it is recommended you set it up correctly. If your computer has a dedicated graphics card, click File (1) > Preferences (2) > and on the window that pops up click System (3) > and select CUDA and make sure your graphics card is there and tick it (4). I have an Nvidia Graphics card but your case may vary. Once you’re done, click on the tiny button on the bottom left corner and Save Preferences (5).

PRELIMINARY STEP 2: CHOOSING THE RENDERING DEVICE: Click on the tiny camera button on the right, called Render Properties (1), and on Device (2) select GPU Compute if it’s not already selected. If you’re not sure if you have a graphics card or not, just select CPU. Then select the Material Properties tab (3) and Save your changes, either by pressing Ctrl + S, or clicking File (4) > Save (5). You might need to do this second step with the other Blender files, but once you have it done and saved, you won’t need to do this again. Okay, time to get into the good stuff!

·STEP 1: LOADING YOUR TS4 BASE TEXTURE: In the Material Properties tab, click the folder icon that says Open (1) and on the window that pops up, navigate through your folders and select your first texture. To navigate easily, the 3 buttons on the top right (2) are for the display mode. They will show your files in list mode, vertical and horizontal, and the one on the right will display the file thumbnails, pretty useful if you want to easily preview your textures here. The icons on the left side (3) will let you go one folder back and forward, go to the parent directory, and refresh the folder in case you just dropped something new in there. Double click on the image you need and that will load the texture into the Sims 4 body model, named “ts4 body”.

·STEP 2: SETTING UP YOUR SELECTION AND BAKING THE TEXTURE: On the top right of the screen, you will see the names of the 2 models in the scene. Hold the Ctrl key in your keyboard and left click on the “ts2 body” model (1). If you did it correctly, you should see “ts2 body” in a yellowish orange color, and right down below, “ts4 body” should look more like a red orange. If not, try again by clicking first on ts4 body, and then while holding Ctrl click again on ts2 body. Then switch to the Render Properties tab by clicking the tiny camera icon (2) and click Bake (3). Depending on your screen resolution, you might need to scroll down a bit with your mouse to see the Bake button. Wait a few seconds for it to finish. You will see the progress percentage down on the bottom of your screen. Don’t panic if you notice your computer fans start ramping up, that’s completely normal! As I said in the beginning, using your GPU will bake the textures much faster than the CPU.

·STEP 3: SAVING YOUR NEW TS2 TEXTURE: Once it’s finished, switch to the UV Editing Mode by clicking “UV Editing” on the top of your screen. And there it is: your new texture! You might have to scroll up your mouse wheel a bit to zoom in and see it in all its glory on the left side of the screen. We’re still not done yet though. You need to save it to yet another new folder (always try to keep your stuff organized!).

You can save it by pressing Shift + Alt + S, or clicking on Image* (1) and then Save As… (2). That will pop a window where you’ll need to navigate again and save it somewhere. Give it a proper name (3) and hit Enter to save it… well, Enter doesn’t always work for me for some reason, so if that happens just click Save As Image (4). And that’s it! You’ve successfully converted your baked texture. Congrats!

·STEP 4: GOING BACK TO STEP 1: Alright! If you’re done with your textures, you can close Blender without saving and call it a day. But let’s say you want to keep baking other swatches. In order to go back to step 1 and start the process once again, click Layout (1), go back to the Material Properties tab (2), select “ts4 body” (3) and click on the folder icon (4) to open and load your next swatch.

Then it’s just a matter of repeating the process from step 2. When you’re ready to move on, close Blender without saving. If you see a small check telling you it will save some images, make sure you uncheck it, so you will be able to use it again in the future from the starting point with no issues. I don’t think it really matters if you accidentally save your progress in these files, but I like to keep it clean and fresh so I can do the process where I left it from the beginning next time I open it. And in case you mess up and save somewhere, you can always just delete the .blend file and download the template files again.

In case you’d like a video tutorial on how to use these files, the amazing @platinumaspiration recorded this fantastic video showcasing the process! You can watch it here.

One final note: some of the baking .blend files save the textures with a resolution of 2048x2048 pixels, as clearly stated at the end of their file name. That’s way too overkill, because TS2 only properly supports up to 1024x1024 for most of its textures and you should always resize your final product to that max resolution (or lower if needed). I just made those 2048 versions because there might be some really tiny and slim details on some tattoos that might look a little too blurry when baked into a 1024 resolution texture, so for those cases use that if you want and then resize them using your 2D editing software of choice. In Photoshop, in the Resample mode of the Image Size menu, there are a few options to choose. For the fine details, I like the Nearest Neighbor (hard edges) option, which, even if it looks a bit pixelated, it still preserves most of the texture and quality.

For anything else, I would just directly bake them using the 1024 versions in Blender (512 for the face and scalp).

And for the folks who feel comfortable playing around in Blender, this is just the beginning! Texture baking opens a LOT of possibilities, so feel free to move stuff around and edit the models to your liking! If you notice the baked textures look warped or stretched somewhere, or don’t like where some textures are placed in the S2 body, poke around that area moving stuff and then give it another try. The main objective of the baking process is keeping both overlapping models as close in shape as possible. You may also edit and save new copies of the templates, or make new ones from scratch using mine as a reference (keep a close look on those Baking settings and values, I think they work pretty well) and share them if you want to. Go ham, do whatever you want with them! I still have plans on making templates to convert body textures from Sims 3 to Sims 2, but for now it’s not on my priorities, so we’ll see when that happens.

Whew! Hope none of this was too confusing. Need help or have any issues with these? Please ask/message me here and I’ll be glad to help when I’m able to!

Credits for the CC used in the render demonstration: -Skin by Sims3Melancholic. -Eyes by Northern Siberia Winds. -Eyebrows by PeachyFaerie. -Tattoos by xtc. -Top by SerenityCC. And the Tattoo I used for the tutorial can be found here, by ValhallanSim.

Last but not least, a huge thanks to all the people who somehow contributed to make this project and update possible, either by doing initial testing, finding issues to fix, or teaching me new Blender tricks to make the workflow way faster and easier. So thanks again to @elvisgrace @moyokeansimblr and @applewatersugar on Tumblr! <3

And thank you for reading! Hope you have fun playing with this (not so) new toy hehe.

[pmd-etu]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Exploration Team Ultra [PMD ETU, a PMD fan-comic!] Pages 38-47!

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 758: The senpai's few words

Pag 2

1: Aoyagi-san!!

Pag 3

1: Wha- what happened, Danchiku, you stopped so suddenly

2: Why is he here, in Kyushu!?

What is it, what is it

4: He's probably the person I'd want to see the most right now!!

5: What is it, is there someone in the audience area?

Someone you know? You look so surprised

I wouldn't be so surprised even if someone was there

Pag 4

2: He-hello!! You... you came to... cheer us on!?

3: It's been a while, Danchiku

4: Yes.... yes!!

Thank you so much for coming so far to see us!!

5: You got bigger

Pag 5

2: Thank you so much

3: Uhm, actually

There's something I'd like to talk to you about, is that....

4: Aoyagi-saaaan!!

-okay!?

Pag 6

1: What, for real!?

What, are you really here- amaaazing!!

Oi, Issa, I was....

2: Wait... did you just made Aoyagi-san lose consciousness with your tackle!?

3: Aoyagi-saaan!! Hahahaha!!

You're attacking him when he's already down...!!

4: I'm... o... okay...

No, he keeps pausing while talking!!

Hahaha

5: I'll lead you to our tent!! Carry him, Danchiku!!

'Carry him'....

Pag 7

2: Thank you

2: I wished you had told me you'd come though, Aoyagi!!

You forgot to add “san”, Kabuagi

3: There was something... I wanted to talk to you about but

4: I guess it can't be helped....

(You're ending up yielding again, Danchiku)

5: Ah right

6: Aoyagi-san is

Pag 8

1: A member of last year's team!!

He's the column who supported Sohoku from below last year!!

2: Someone who gained experience through hard work and difficulties and debuted in his third year, ran as a sprinter, pulled the team, and brought back the members so many times

3: Without talking, without refusing, he just did it silently!!

5: Even when he was in a pinch, when he was injured, he moved forward with all his might without ever standing out!!

If he hadn't been there, there's no way Sohoku could have won!!

Pag 9

1: He-he sounds amazing, teh

Right!! I'm really flashy, so his way of running is probably the exact opposite of mine

2: Hearing it again, he really is an amazing person.....

and I also know well what happened with his leg on the third day

4: If I was in the same position and got injured.... would I be able to run the same way?

5: “He'll run away right away”

“He's a chicken”

Pag 10

1: In this Inter High that is about to start

Pag 11

1: Since Aoyagi-san came to see us, I'll smash the starting dash!

There's no need to smash, run calmly

2: Should I get subbed out?

I'm still in time

4: “No one will blame you”

“I can be done in fifteen minutes”

5: I'm at my peak now!!

Save it for the race

6: You're an idiot as usual

I'll forgive everything you say, Aoyagi-san!!

7: What can I do, what......

Nothing....!!

Pag 12

1: The stage event is starting soon

Last year's champions, Sohoku High School, representative of Chiba, please come to the stage

Kakaka, it's our turn!!

2: Teh.... I'm nervous, the

There's gonna be tons of spectators!!

3: Do-do we take a video? I'll do it, Sugimoto-san

I'll leave it to you then. I'll finish up here

4: Su-

Sugimoto-san!!

6: Ao.... yagi-san.....

Pag 13

1: Could you do me one favor?

2: Ah- yes!

Do you want something to eat!! Right away!!

3: The food truck is there... is curry alright?

4: …. no

5: A band-aid!? A nail-clipper!?

Leave it to me, after all I worked a lot behind-the-scene last year

6: Oi, Danchiku, what are you doing. Let's go

8: Ye.... yes

Pag 14

1: Take care of that idiot

Pag 15

3: The Inter High is harsh and long

But he's reckless and can't read the air

5: You, on the other hand

6: You always keep an eye on your surroundings and pay attention to what people say and do

And that means

Pag 16

1: That you can make an accurate judgment of risk in any situation

3: The ability to read small details when you're in a pinch is essential in road racing

4: Earlier in the midst of more than a hundred people in the audience area, you

Pag 17

1: found me at one glance

4: I think you know this too, but he can only look ahead

Please support him, take a step back and, as always

5: be watchful

Pag 18

2: Yessir!! Thank you so much!!

4: “Take a step back”.....!! Taking a step back.... yielding, are my...

5: If this small heart is my ability

Pag 19

2: then I'll be the one running, Issa!!

Together with you!!

At full throttle!!

Pag 20

1: Run, Danchiku

Just like I did last year

2: with Junta

3: I'm sure your feelings will give you strength

These are the members of Sohoku, the Chiba prefecture representative who won the championship last year

Pag 21

1: So far they have won two times in a row

3: What's wrong.... your balloon... shall I get it for you?

Pag 22

2: Thank you, Onii-chan

3: That's surprising, Midosuji-san

You're so kind

4: Puku.... I am kind, though?

To

5: anyone who doesn't wear a number bib, that is!!