Page 34 of Little Witch

A lump formed in my throat listening to that. The man who'd raised Amber, protected her at the cost of his own freedom, had also been the one keeping my brother alive down here the whole time.

"He's a good man," I said, glancing at Yakob across the room. "Glad you had him too."

Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence after that. Eventually Yakob and Amber rejoined us, and we drank tea and kept talking, going over the books, the spells they'd tried, until exhaustion finally caught up with all of us at once.

Yakob offered to show us to a room. Cian promised pancakes in the morning, the kind he swore were perfect.

Amber, Rowan, and I followed Yakob down a long hallway lined with more books, the air cool and quiet in that same watchful way the whole Sanctum carried. At the end of it, he opened a door onto a room that hadn't been there before we arrived, apparently — a bed big enough for three, a window with a false view of mountains that didn't exist anywhere near this town, a small bathroom off to the side.

"It gave us this?" I asked, still not fully used to how the place responded to what we needed.

"It knows," Yakob said. "Every time we've needed something, it's been here." He gave us a tired, sad sort of smile, said goodnight, and left us to it.

The three of us stood there a moment, the day settling heavy over all of us at once.

"I don't even know where to start," Amber said eventually.

"Same," I admitted.

She crossed to the bed, pulled back the quilt, and looked between the two of us. "Come cuddle. I need to not think for a while."

I dropped onto the mattress without hesitation, arm already open for her. Rowan stayed exactly where he was, arms crossed, jaw set, planted in the corner of the room like he'd decided to make himself part of the furniture.

Amber glanced at him. "Are you coming?"

He shrugged. "Do you want me to?"

I grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it at his head without much aim, hitting him square in the shoulder anyway. "Don't do the thing you do where you are annoying."

Amber rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't want you to." She sighed, dragging a hand through her hair. "What's your problem?"

"What?" He frowned.

"We're trapped in a tree. With people we never thought we'd see again. I'm exhausted. You look exhausted. I genuinely cannot deal with whatever weird vibe you've had going. Spit it out."

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Said nothing.

Amber huffed, pushing herself up onto her elbows, some of the exhaustion in her expression giving way to frustration instead. "Why don't you just kiss me and get it over with, then. Might make this less painfully awkward."

"No." Flat. Immediate. He finally crossed the room, but slower than I expected, like every step cost him something. "Not like that."

"Not like what?"

"Like it's a demand. Like it's something to just get over."

She blinked, some of her confidence faltering, nerves creeping in where the frustration had been a second earlier. "Well — how, then?"

He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at her with an intensity that made even me hold still.

"I'd do it like this."

He kissed her.

Not the careful, restrained thing he no doubt wanted to do. He kissed her like something had finally snapped loose after holding on too long, walking her backward until her knees hit the mattress and she went down onto it with him following, his weight settling over her without breaking the kiss once.

"Well," I said, watching them for a second, "that answers that."

Amber's hand fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, and I gave up on words entirely and crossed the room to join them, tugging my own shirt over my head on the way.