Rowan’s eyes went bright in the dark before he closed them and leaned in to kiss Briar. Soft and grateful, opening his mouth to drink Briar in. Briar gave in to it, pressing close, crushed in the warm fold of Rowan’s arms. And he wished it didn’t scare him so much, how their kisses filled the empty places inside him. Knowing it couldn’t last.
Nothing like this ever did.
When they pulled apart, he traced the path of the scar where it turned Rowan’s chest hair white. “I wish your dad had given you anything else to go on. Or just been kinder. Did he even say goodbye?”
“In a way. Only, I didn’t know it was goodbye at the time.” While Rowan’s other scars seemed worn smooth with time, this one had jagged edges, roughening his tone. “He told me, ‘I’m sorry, but you won’t always be alone. Have courage.’ That’s all.”
Rowan looked raw, crushed, and Briar thought he knew why.You won’t always be alone.But for ten years, aside from his family, no one had worked past the barrier that scar left. It sounded like Éibhear had known what would become of Rowan after his sacrifice, and he’d gone through with it anyway.
When Briar had been young and learning the ways of men, suppressing feelings and squashing them all into angry shapes, his mother had noticed. It had been his twelfth birthday, and he’d opened a card from his father. Only, it wasn’t actually from his father. He’d seen this card already in the grocery shopping, where his mum had forgotten she’d hidden it. He realized then she’d forged them all. Likely in the hope that if his father ever decided he wanted a part in Briar’s life, they would have some small connection to start.
Briar had tried to hide how angry he was, but she knew. She’d wrung the feelings from him like soiled water from a sponge. She hadn’t triedto tell him that, as his mother, she knew best; she admitted it was a mistake and held him through the wash of emotion he failed to tamp down.
Briar did the same with Rowan now, drawing him close. Rowan rolled willingly into the embrace, snuggled under Briar’s chin, their disparate sizes made inconsequential when lying down. Briar kissed his temple. He wanted to say,You’ll never be alone again.But like his mother’s ill-advised cards, it wasn’t something he could promise. His future, even foretold by a Seer, felt too cloudy.
Words whispered against his neck. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t have to accept.”
A snort. “You haven’t told me what it is yet.”
“Ehm. Christmas. Have you got plans?”
Briar thought about his mother saving up for a turkey and how, for two years, he had missed those turkeys. And her. “Not unless you count sewing and cold sandwiches with my dead flatmate.”
“Then you’re invited to dinner with me and mine.”
Briar said, “I wouldn’t want to impose—”
“Could feed the town with what we cook. It’s no imposition.”
“It wouldn’t be weird?”
Taking his meaning, Rowan said, “I’d tell them we’re only friends.” He tucked a strand of hair behind Briar’s ear. “I’d love for you to come.”
It felt dangerously intimate, sharing a holiday meal with Rowan’s entire family. Especially with the way Briar’s heart fluttered. Especially with the way Rowan looked at him now. He could see the courage it had taken to ask wrought in the deep quotation mark between Rowan’s brows. The hope, too. Open longing thrummed like a thread of tangible magic between them, and Briar knew it was tempting fate to give in to it.
He said, “Yes.”
Ill-advised decisions aside, it gave Briar something to look forward to while the holiday season left him inundated with orders. He scraped hours out of mealtimes and sleep with the most ancient of enchanted potions: coffee. He used up his charmed candles for enhancing mental acuity and began using flesh tithes when desperate, but he oftentimes wondered if this only exchanged one type of exhaustion for another.
Rowan’s visits were his only respite. He came, sometimes only for five minutes, but always bearing food. On one such afternoon, Briar had been working behind the counter on a gift for Rowan and, in a fatigued melt-down, told him he was spoiling Christmas.
“You’re knackered,” Rowan said. “I don’t want you to make me anything.”
“Too late,” said Briar. “You’ve ruined the surprise.”
“I didn’t see a thing.” A lie.
“You’d better act surprised.”
A few days before Christmas Eve, Briar hadn’t slept in two days aside from an hour-long nap when a tremor started in his left hand. He stopped sewing and flexed his fingers. He told himself the trembling was from the coffee, but as he began pushing linen through the machine, his arm gave a sudden jerk. Pencils and a case of beads spilled off the edge of the desk. The motion tugged the fabric askew, the stitch bunching into a messy clog in the machine.
Vatii squawked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m—”
