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He flinched. “Yes.”
In a horrible rush, I remembered that night. The cold seeping into my bones, feeling like it was freezing them solid. Then those horrible last minutes of overwhelming heat as my body began to shut down. Lonan sobbing against me, his hand on my chest one of the last things I felt.
Swallowing, I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed his palm. “Thank you.”
He shook his head sharply. “Don’t thank me for it.”
“You helped bring me back. Of course I’m going to thank you for it.” Wanting to wipe the sad memories away, I smiled and said, “So the gold feather is a life you’ve brought back.”
“Yes. I think so.”
When Lonan had told me about killing the Carlin, I hadn’t really considered the full implications of his belsmith abilities. He could bring creatures back to life—true life, not just to a horrible, undead state like he had with the Carlin. Not that I wasn’t viciously pleased that she would spend eternity as a rotting zombie.
My breath caught and my chest tightened unbearably when a thought popped into my head and refused to leave.
Lonan could bring people back to life.
“Can you… bring mortals back?” I whispered unsteadily, still clutching his hand.
Lonan’s dark eyes were sorrowful as he looked at me. Tugging his hand free, he cupped my cheek.
“They’ve been gone too long, Ash. I’ve already asked Sloga if it would be possible. I’m sorry.”
Mouth trembling, I nodded quickly and looked down. “Okay. Yeah, that… that makes sense.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated hoarsely. “I would do anything to bring your parents back—”
“You don’t need to apologise.” I shook my head, scrubbing roughly at my eyes when they began to water. “I just… I had to ask.”
Shifting closer, he wrapped his arms around my neck and hugged me tight, pressing a kiss just beneath my earlobe. I squeezed him back, clutching at him, feeling the rough scars of his childhood under my fingers.
We both had to move on. Our lives were together now, with the people we had left. My dad and Mags would want me to be happy. They wouldn’t want me to wallow in the past, letting myself get angry and bitter again.
Pulling back, I kissed Lonan and slid my hands up his back, over the feathers now decorating his skin. “Maybe there’ll be more gold feathers there one day.”
His mouth curved into a tiny smile as he urged me to lie back down so we were facing each other, our heads resting on the same pillow. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will,” I whispered, reaching over to fiddle with the acorn hanging from his neck. Nervously, I licked my lips, wondering if what I was about to say would make him wary—would remind him of the awful things I’d said before he left seelie. “I know what I want my favour to be.”
Lonan just smiled, gaze dropping to the feather pendant. “Oh?”
“Yes. I just… I want to keep the pendant.”
His gaze lifted to meet mine. “The pendant will vanish when you get your favour.”
“No, I mean that’s the favour I want. I want it to be the pendant. So I can keep it.”
After a pause, Lonan chuckled and palmed my cheek. “You could just keep it if you never asked for the favour.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t want the favour. I don’t… I don’t want you to worry that I might one day use it to make you do something you didn’t want to.”
His eyes softened. “Ash, I know you wouldn’t. We both said ugly things that day. And you weren’t yourself.”
“That’s not an excuse. I’ll never forgive myself for it.” I took a breath and clutched the pendant in my fist. “Please. That’s all I want. The pendant.”
Lonan watched me in silence for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Alright.”
Nothing happened. Warily, I opened my fist and pulled the pendant away from my neck so I could just about see it. “Um, how do we actually do it?”
