“Watch yerself.” Jem frowns at me, and then I move in closer towards him. Without looking back at me and without a word, Jem’s hand reaches for mine and takes it again, and somewhere behind us, a steam vent blows. He holds it tightly in a mindless way, and I remember properly what was in that silver bag—the one about the coat and how he pulled me close in to him, how it felt when he tugged it around me. And something about a breeze? There’s something about a breeze in another bag, but I feel nervous to remember what’s in that one, so I don’t.
Rather a terrible thing to remember if it wasn’t one of my favourite thoughts to wear in the world.
“Have you been here before?” I ask him.
“Many times,” he says. “My mum likes it. There’s magic here, she says.”
“Where are we going?”
He looks back at me. “Ye’ll see.”
We walk deeper and deeper into the cave, and it gets hotter and hotter. The flowers on my dress fold themselves back into buds. He stops for a second, peels off his coat, and throws it over a boulder.
“Don’t you lose that.” I nod my chin at it, some worry in my voice.
A pleased little smile spreads over his face. “Aye, look who’s been doing some remembering.” He flicks me a look as he takes my hand again and keeps walking for a bit. “What did I say to ye at the Bird?” he asks, staring straight again. I peer over at him, and he looks at me. “Or did ye check thon in too?”
“No.” I shake my head carefully. “I kept that.”
He gives me a measured nod. “Orson said it wusnae good.”
I look up at him. “Did you drop it off?”
“Nah,” He shakes his head. “Was just steamin’.”
“Ah.” I nod, and the air feels thicker now, like we’re wading through it.
“Is that why ye dropped off the thoughts? Because I hurt ye?” he asks as he unbuttons his shirt so it falls wide open.
My eyes snag on his chest, and I swallow heavy, nod.
He stops, turns to face me, and tilts his head as he watches me. He pushes some hair behind my ears. “Will ye go collect them now then?”
I stare over at him and feel a new boldness rise up from within myself that I believe comes to you exclusively upon turning eighteen, and then I* reach up and shift some hair from his eyes.
“We shall see.”
He looks at my hand in his, smiles a tiny bit, then nods.
Just when the air is at the consistency of custard and I think I’m about to run out of it, that’s when Jamison says, “Here we are.”
There’s an opening into another chamber off the main one. He pulls me through it, and I gasp.
Ground-to-ceiling crystal, growing out every which way, and at the centre of the room, a natural mantelpiece filled to its brim with every kind of gem and crystal you could imagine.
I look around in disbelief. “What is this?”
“A crystal chamber.” He shrugs as he goes over and picks up some of the crystals. “Do ye no’ hae these on Earth?”
“No, not really.” I shake my head.
“What about these?” He flashes me that dagger of his I’ve seen before. “Ye have these on Earth?”
I gasp again at the sight of it, and he offers it to me. I take it in my hands, roll it around in them. “Oh, it’s beautiful.”
“Golden blade, ruby inlays.”
“It really is so gorgeous.” I can’t take my eyes off it.
“It’s yers,” he says, and I look up at him, surprised.
“What?”
“It’s fer you.” He shrugs and gives me a quick smile. “Happy birthday.”
I shake my head at him. “I can’t take this.”
“Well, a’m giving it t’ ye, so—”
“Jem.”
“Daph.” He lifts his eyebrow as he wraps my hands around it. “Keep it hidden. Use it only when ye need to.”
I nod obediently. “Okay.”
“I hope ye never need to.”
“I hope I do!”
He gives me a look as though he’s tired of me, but I don’t think he is.
He picks up a big selenite, inspecting it, and I take the time to inspect him. How broad he is, how strong he looks, how sweaty he is in this room, and then, regrettably, Jamison catches me staring at his chest for the fortieth time in the last thirty minutes.
My eyes shoot to the roof. “It’s so very hot”—I clear my throat—“in here.”?
He sniffs a laugh and doesn’t say what he could in that moment because he’s a gentleman. Or maybe just because it’s my birthday.
In my defence, it does feel like a steam room—a beautiful steam room, filled with sapphires and emeralds and diamonds and rubies.
“We’re right by a magma vent,” he tells me, and I give him a sharp look that he laughs at. He walks over towards me. “I’m no’ going to let anything happen to ye, Bow.”
He gives me a steadying look, and I match it with folded arms over my chest.
“You can control volcanic eruptions now, can you?”
“Maybe.” He smirks, and I stare at his mouth. That top lip of his looks like trouble, but I’d really like to know that empirically.
It’s foggy all around us now, thick and hazy and dreamy. The crystals catch on lights that aren’t even present, and my head feels spinny. It could be the air or probably it’s just him.
His hand’s on my waist, and I remember the feeling, remember why I must have put it away. There’s a weight to his touch that grounds me, sinks me right where I am, and I’m thrilled to be here, and then…I remember.
“Peter can,” I say quite quietly.*
He looks over at me, brows furrowing deep on his face. He’s considering it, I can tell. Actually, not just considering it but worrying about it.
His eyes hold mine for a second before there’s a deep rumbling from a part of the cave we’re not in. Then a steam vent pops, and he grabs my hand, pulling me out of there before I even suggest that maybe it’s time we leave.
Back the way we came, the air getting easier and easier to breathe in the farther we get from the centre. He grabs his coat with his other hand. Doesn’t have time to put it on.
I can see the mouth out of the cave, but it’s dark out now. The only light we have is the one the moon’s reflections on the ocean are giving us.
I don’t hear him breathe easy till we’re out, and I want to tell him that Peter would never, but I have a feeling that maybe he might?
He breathes out and gives me a long look. “We’re going t’ have t’ wait till the scraigh o’ dawn.”
I nod as though it’s a solemn thing to me, not my very birthday wish. “Okay.”
It’s cold now. Freezing, almost. We’re both soaked through from the steam we were in before. I start shivering so he builds a fire and puts me near it. Finds food, feeds me. I’m waiting for him to do more, but more doesn’t come.
He just sits by me, staring at the fire, holding his hands out to keep himself warm how I’d hold my hands to him for the same reason.
“He did try the other day,” I say, looking at the flames, not him.
Jem looks over at me. “To what?”
I give him a look.
“Oh,” he says, eyes straight ahead. A singular nod. “And ye—”
“I said no.”
Now I have his attention.
“Oh.” He frowns a bit, thinking. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“And what did he say t’ that?”
I consider this. “Not much to it, so much as he lay upon my decline some reasons as to why we in fact…should.”
His eyes pinch. “What were they?”
I sniff. “Primarily that he wanted to.”
Jamison breathes out. “He’s such a fucking prick.”
“Sometimes, yes,” I concede.
“But ye d?dnae?” he asks, looking over at me all earnest.
I shake my head.