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“It’s beautiful,” came a whisper beside him.
Grey jolted and whipped his head around to find Noel leaning against his knees, completely absorbed in his creation. Those green eyes flicked up to meet Grey’s, and his entire body warmed.
“Th-thank you.”
Noel scooted forward a little while Cy scratched her head over the map, completely oblivious to whatever Noel had decided to do. “Do you think you’ll turn to painting when this is over?”
Grey released a quiet, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t see many people wanting something this elaborate on its own.”
“Anyone in the Grand Capital, maybe?” Noel asked with a wry smirk. “Imagine escaping this nightmare and throwing art in their faces as the biggest fuck you of all time.”
Grey ducked his head and bit his lip, trying to suppress a smile. The thought of that felt good though—imagining metaphorically spitting in their faces because he had more worth than a sacrifice. Did he have more worth than that? He stared down at his painted meadow and glanced up at the real thing. So much more depth and charm sprung forth in a way he could never capture in a still landscape.
He shifted, laying the canvas onto the grass to soak up the sun and melt away the still-damp spots. “What about you two? What do you plan to give?”
Noel twisted a few blades of grass in his fingers and leaned back. “Cy and I plotted out a good path to explore some ruins first thing tomorrow.”
Hearing Grey’s name omitted from that trek made him quietly pick at the paint flecks and charcoal on his hands. They’d decided their cabin would be their home base for now, so he supposed it wasn’t out of the question. “Am I staying behind?”
Noel opened his mouth. “O-only if you want to. You can come along, but I didn’t want to assume one way or another since you’ve already exhausted yourself. And we can try our best to ward the shack while we’re gone if you?—”
“I wouldn’t mind going.” The words fell out on their own. Trying to imagine himself sitting in there all by himself while he waited for them both to return was an impossibility. He’d either go mad from Reign’s attempts to find him somewhere beyond the safety of its walls or fret over every passing noise out of fear that the wardens had finally caught up to them. And then there was the possibility that they’d be caught or die in those ruins…
“You’re sure? If you’re not up to it?—”
Grey shook his head. “I’d rather go than be alone right now. I’ll try not to cause any trouble like last time if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Noel sputtered. “No I—No, I’m not worried about that. I just…” He readjusted his sitting position and his hand moved from tugging at the grass to pinching the stem of a flower a little closer to Grey’s knee. His face heated at the stray thought of him plucking it from the ground and sliding it behind his ear—a wishful daydream that popped when Noel’s arm drew back. “I’m just worried about you.”
Grey’s heart crumbled at the sincerity in his voice, and he had to blink away the tears starting to burn his eyes. “I appreciate it,” he whispered. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, even if I kept trying to give up on you.”
“Well, this isn’t the easiest thing to handle on our own, and you’ve certainly kept me on my feet longer than I expected to be. That’s what friends do, right? Look out for each other?”
Grey turned his head to take in that soft, kind expression he’d always longed to see on Noel’s face. It took everything in him not to fall into another hug or try something more daring he knew he shouldn’t do because it’d undoubtedly break his heart. So instead, he made himself put on a small smile in agreement, unable to use that label for what they were, not when he secretly longed for more.
45
NOEL
Caw.
Noel pushed himself from the floor of the shack with sleep still blurring his eyes. “Fucking bird,” he muttered under his breath, careful not to wake Grey or Cy on his way to the foggy glass of the door. Sure enough, the little bastard sat perched in a tree on the edge of the small clearing, its beady red eyes piercing through the dark.
But no fair folk in sight. Nothing creeping around their makeshift campsite. Nothing tampering with the bikes. Nothing but the gentle sway of grass and indents where the iron wards met the soil from various scraps they’d salvaged the night prior when he and Cy had been on high alert and decided to see what they could find under the floorboards.
Noel ran a hand through his hair and stumbled back over to the rolled-out blanket, lying back down next to Grey. The horrible urge to brush away locks of his hair from his sleeping face was quickly overridden by yet another annoying caw, almost like Reign was challenging him to do it so they could bust down the door and restart their battle. He sighed and stared up at the ceiling, counting each beam until he drifted back off to sleep.
When he opened his eyes again, mist clung to the cloudy, thin shack windows. The creak of Cy’s footsteps told him that either something was wrong, or he’d woken up at an acceptable time. He pushed himself up to find her crouched over her bag, rifling through its contents before she glanced back at him. The dark circles under her eyes told him it was about to be a rough day, especially when he noticed Grey still sound asleep.
“Are you oka—” he started in a whisper.
“There’s a bird outside that kept me up, and I wanted to make sure that you two got enough rest.”
Noel grimaced and crawled over to her, careful not to make too much noise in case it might break the spell she’d put on Grey. “Are you sure you’re okay to do this today then? We can?—”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, wincing the second the words fell out. “I’m fine. I got enough strength from you two that we should be able to manage for today. I’m pretty sure this place is burned anyway if there’s something out there watching us, and yes, that fucker is watching us. I know a fair folk spy when I see one.”
Noel bit the inside of his cheek and stole another glance at Grey’s form huddled on the blanket. Hands tucked to his chest, hood up, his face the only piece of him uncovered. A small piece of him was unable to keep himself from imagining Reign’s black-and-blue eyes lighting up when they fixed on Grey. They wanted him. Bile crept up the back of his throat, his stomach clenching at the idea that perhaps not everyone died in the Wild Hunt—at least not right away. Just because they only sent one of them back as an example doesn’t mean that the others hadn’t suffered in whatever way the fair folk deemed fit.
