“I don’t want you drifting over to my side,” Marin said. “Or stealing the covers. Or snoring, if you can help it. If you can’t help it, then whatever.”
“I’ll endeavor to snore purposefully or not at all,” Dax said gravely.
“Great.” She looked at him for a moment. He looked back. An awkward moment passed, and then Marin scooped up her pouch with her teeth-care supplies and ducked out to find the washroom.
By the time she returned, with thoughts of Iovar neatly smushed back into a tiny box and shoved away in the back corner of her mind again, Dax was already in bed. Ree, in his pot, was chattering about how much he wanted to see a whale or a mermaid or a dragon, while Stowy was curled up at the foot of the bed, his wings folded. His orange fur was dusted lightly with flour—proof that he’d clearly been underfoot in the kitchen—but he didn’t seem to care.
As Dax blew out the candle in the lantern, Marin climbed into the left side of the bed. She immediately sank into the gryphon-feather mattress. It smelled like lilacs, and she felt as if she were swimming in floral-scented sea-foam. She wasn’t sure she liked it. How could anyone sleep on anything this squishy? She squirmed a bit, trying to get comfortable.
“Are you all right?” Dax said.
“It’s soft.”
“Um, yes.”
“I usually sleep on the deck with just a blanket.”
He leaned on his elbow, which sank into the mattress. She saw him silhouetted by the moonlight through the window and was aware again of how close he was—and how kind he’d been. Outside, the tops of the trees shifted in the night breeze, and she could see the darkness that was the sea in the distance, an emptiness beyond the village. He suggested, “You could remove some of the pillows?”
“Or I could sleep on the floor.”
“If it’s me…”
“It’s not you.” She slid off the bed, taking one pillow and one of the blankets with her. She folded the blanket around her and curled up near Ree’s pot.Better. Except…No, just better. It felt more normal. Plus it removed any temptation to see if his skin was as smooth as it looked.
Not that that was why she moved to the floor.
It didn’t have anything to do with Dax.
It didn’t.
Really.
Gently, he said in the darkness, “If you want to return at any point, your side will be there. I won’t cross so much as a finger. It’s yours, whether you use it or not. I would never take what you don’t want to give.”
Marin wondered why she felt like crying.
All of them fell silent after that. The orange cat began to snore, sweetly and softly. Ree’s leaves rustled, which was perhaps his equivalent of a snore? Dax didn’t snore at all. His breathing was light, even, and gentle. Like he was.
Halfway through the night, Marin climbed up into the bed, sank into the pillows and the ridiculous gryphon-feathered mattress, and slept soundly until dawn.
After breakfast, they went to see the cheesemonger.
A cream-colored cottage with blue shutters and a thatched roof, the shop was tucked away from the town square, up a side street, with a field behind it that had a herd of unicorns grazing. Just right there. Grazing. As if unicorns weren’t rare to the point of often being assumed mythical. Marin stopped in the middle of the cobblestone street as she marveled at the five wonders who were nibbling at the grass like sheep, blithely unaware of their near-mythical status.
“I thought unicorns were…” Dax waved his hands at the abundance of impossible in front of them, as if that sufficed for an adjective.
“Uh-huh,” Marin agreed.
“Wow,” he said.
She noticed there was only a fence between the field and the street. Beyond the field—or meadow, given that it was filled with wildflowers, as well as near-mythical miracles—was woods. The unicorns were clearly free to go, yet here they were. Each was moreluminous than the last with white hides that were simultaneously every color at once and the absence of all color. Their spiral horns were purest gold, and when one lifted its head to regard them… Marin saw its eyes, as blue as the sea on a perfect summer day. Her knees buckled, and she reached out to steady herself. Dax caught her arm, and she locked her knees, straightening.
“Nice horses,” Ree said, with a note of confusion.
“They’re unicorns,” Dax told him.
“Ahh,” Ree said. “Fancy horses?”
