Saeldian laughed. “You know I can’t tell you what I bargained. I can’t even tell you if you’ve come closest to the truth of anyone I’ve ever known or if you’re so ironically incorrect I want to laugh until I cry.”
Oh, that was clever. “Or both.”
Saeldian remained silent.
That fucking pact, whatever it was. Kell hated it. Not because of his disappointed want but because it was a cage Saeldian couldn’t walk out of. Fey bargains always seemed like they didn’t cost anything, at least at first. But Saeldian had found out what they’d paid, hadn’t they?
Kell’s fury probably heated the air around him, but he didn’t let it show. No talking about it. No reassurances. No heart-to-heart. They would hate all of that. It would ruin whatever they could carry away of the freedom of kissing because they wanted to and not just because it was useful.
“It’s fine,” Kell said. He was still naked, and he lowered himself back down to sprawl where Saeldian had laid him out to feast on with kissing and touching. He didn’t move because Saeldian was staring at him, at his body, and he wanted them to take away everything they could of this memory now that they remembered it was all they could have.
He could find Osalor after all this. He couldn’t sense him in that same directionless place that was knowing where anyone outside of this domain was. But if he was in the Feywild, nothing would stop him from finding Osalor so he could ask. He’d even do it politely, at first.
Saeldian shifted their weight away. He’d let his feelings show through, enough that their gift for knowing the mood reacted.Relax. Be normal. Change the subject.“Is it your turn in the bath? The water’s pure and hot.”
Saeldian nodded. “I need my kit.”
“I need something warmer than this before I head out.”
“You don’t have to go,” Saeldian said. “Just—pretend it didn’t happen.”
Kell could pretend, but he’d never forget. “Pretend what didn’t happen?”
The smile lifted Saeldian’s cheeks before they could stop it. “Grab that rocking chair and sit. We have to figure out how we’re going to replace the Kiss of Enduring Love right where anyone could see us.”
Chapter Sixteen
Taking Squash from a Farmer
Where Saeldian Must Run from the Truth
Saeldian woke up to pale gray light through the window breaking on the hump of Kell’s shoulder as he slept…and their hand resting on it across the bolster border that separated them.
Barely. Kell’s back was pressed up against one side of the roll of blankets, while Saeldian had one knee resting on it, their arm crossing the line until it landed on his skin, warm and vital. His shoulder shifted with his sleep-slowed breaths, and when his chest rose, theirs did too.
In their sleep, they had come as close to each other as they could. In their sleep, they had breathed together. Maybe Saeldian’s dream of swaying in a net bed between two trees in the Village That Chooses Its Own, listening to the music above while idly talking to Kell very seriously about the magical properties of eggs, was something they dreamed together.
“They’re potential the way seeds are potential,” they had said in their dream hammock in their dream village, and Kell had replied, “They’re also a fine breakfast,” and Saeldian huffed in outrage at his teasing. It was exactly what Kell would say, in that dream thathad felt so natural, so ordinary that Saeldian never wondered at it for a moment. They had lain side by side, shoulders and arms touching, his foot gently swiping against theirs. And Saeldian knew, the way people know things in dreams, that they always woke up with him, waiting to find out if what he dreamed was what they had dreamed too.
Now that Saeldian was awake, their tears burned in their throat.
Kell was the only one who could have cracked the wall holding Saeldian together. Kell was the only one who could have accepted Saeldian’s embarrassing loss of control and then agreed to put it away like it never happened. He had rocked in the bent willow rocking chair he’d dragged to the tub, sat facing away from them as they washed and shaved. They talked about replacing the spell gem without anyone noticing. They didn’t talk about Saeldian’s tears. They didn’t talk about Saeldian’s mortifying, desperate, needy behavior. They didn’t talk about being enemies. They didn’t talk about being friends.
And then this morning, which felt like the dream had—not unreal, but seamlessly natural, with the chilly air outside the warm refuge of their blankets, and their hand resting on the strong, perfect curve of his shoulder until he would wake up and turn to face them.
Maybe Saeldian was still dreaming. Half awake, but with dreaming still wrapped around them, warm and drowsy, with cool air on their face and shoulder—
Their shoulder next to the mattress.
The amulet rested there, but it was colder than it should have been. It hadn’t felt like anything since Osalor had protected it. That cold spread across their skin like frost flowering on a windowpane, and they took their hand away.
Fleece. Where was their pouch—
Saeldian landed hard on their knees in front of their pack, digging into it for a pinch of wool. They whispered, “Apparent,” in Draconic, and two small glowing lights winked as they bobbled and swooped in the thin dawn.
It worked. Saeldian nearly yelped. Their cantrip had worked.They were still powerful. Still safe. The firefly illusion winked and swooped, their sparks barely visible in the gloaming, but they had come at their command, and nothing had changed.
Beyond it, Kell watched it all happening.
