Page 51 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Which part?”

“All of it.” His thumb moves along my jaw. “But mostly the last.”

“I fell in love with you long before I opened my eyes.”

He lets out a groan, and the room goes even darker, Nook adjusting again, giving him whatever privacy it thinks we need. He presses his lips to my forehead and holds them there.

“Ním,” he murmurs against my skin.

“I know what that means now.” I smirk.

“Yes… you do.” A purple blush colors his cheeks. “And I am neeth.”

“Yours?” I ask.

He nods his head. “I have always been neeth. You simply took your time noticing.”

Something changes on his face. His eyes stay closed, but his fingers spread wide across my back, holding me a fraction closer than before.

The grip isn’t quite his.

“Your other… companion is awake,” Sage says quietly.

“Is he alright?”

“He’s listening.” He pauses. The corner of his mouth lifts, wry and a little uneven. “He is always listening. He simply doesn’t always—” the pause stretches, “— make it obvious.”

I don’t know what to say to that. It’s a complicated thing, to feel your heart pulled toward two different things. I lay my hand over Sage’s chest, in the space between them.

The room stays cool and dark, the silence stretching.

“Tell me something you’ve noticed about me over the last couple of days,” I whisper. “Something that you couldn’t tell while I was sleeping.”

His thumb traces over the back of my hand, his eyes stay closed.

“You bite your lip when you get stuck in your head,” he whispers back. “And you tilt your head to the left when you want to ask something, but you’re wondering if you should.”

His claws tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“And you look at everything like you feel sorry for it,” he adds. “Even when it’s something terrifying, like that Horseman from last night. You have a heart that looks for the beauty in the weeds, Eden. That’s just who you are.”

He’s right—I think that is who I am. I dreamed of the antlered Horseman last night. I wanted so badly to help him. I could feel his hunger as if it were my own. This… insatiable need to find the person who would finally make the horrible, ravenous hunger stop.

“I was tilting my head, wasn’t I?” I ask softly, trying to push the image of that poor creature’s ribs out of my mind.

He smiles gently. “What is it, Eden? What do you want to ask me?”

“Do you think that we… could help him?”

His smile grows heavier, laced with a trace of sorrow. He pulls me closer, until my cheek is resting against the warmth of his chest.

“I don’t know much about the Horsemen, Eden.” His hand moves in slow circles across my lower back. “But I know that if any of them can be redeemed after last night… it would be him.”

He tilts my chin up, forcing my teary eyes to meet his mismatched gaze.

“I don’t know if we can help him, Saevúra. But I know that your heart is the only thing in this world that would even try. And that makes you the most special thing I’ve ever known.”

He catches the tears finally spilling over with his thumb.