I want you to see me, he had once written to her. I want you to know me.
He pressed his face to her legs. He felt her bruises as if they were his own and he traced them with his lips, tasting the water on her skin. His blood was pounding, hot and fast. A summer thunderstorm in his veins, and yet the moment Iris touched his hair, Roman’s mind stilled.
He looked up at her face, rosy and dark-eyed.
“I was so worried,” Iris whispered.
“And what had you worried?”
“That you and I would never have another moment like this again.”
Roman swallowed. He could have said a hundred things, but he realized she was shaking. He realized he was as well.
“You’re trembling,” he said. “Is the water too cold? Do you want me to stop?”
“Gods, no. I was only thinking how strange it is. To think how many people we cross paths with in our lives. How someone like me has found someone like you. And if I had never written that essay and sent it to the Gazette on a whim … would we still be here?”
“Are you getting philosophical on me, Iris?”
“I can’t seem to help it. You bring out the very best and the very worst in me.”
“I certainly bring out the best. But the worst?”
She only held his stare, water dripping from her jaw like tears. But then she caressed his hair again, a soft touch that he felt down to his toes. It wasn’t power or fear or magic that cleaved his heart open but her hand, gentle with adoration.
“And the answer is yes, by the way,” he said, kissing the curve of her knee. “I would have still found you, even if you had never written that essay.”
* * *
The hot water went out three minutes later.
Roman grappled with the lever, shutting off the valve as frigid water sluiced over them. Iris gasped, but he didn’t know if it was from the shock of cold or from the way he stood and took her in his arms, carrying her from the shower.
This wasn’t what he had envisioned for the night, but when Iris wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him, Roman decided that, for the first time in his life, he preferred to live in the moment.
He walked her to the bed and laid her down. His breaths were ragged; water dripped like rain down his back. But the sight of her chased away the lingering cold.
The way Iris gazed up at him, her eyes dark as new moons, drawing him in like the tides. The way she held to him, whispering his name against his throat. How she moved with him, in the light as well as in the darkness. The feel of her skin against his; the sensation of being bare and yet whole. Safe and complete.
She saw him as he saw her. With eyes open, with eyes shut.
As the stars faithfully burned beyond the window, Roman had never been more certain.
He could wake in the deepest region of Dacre’s realm, as far from the moon and sun as divinity could shackle him. He could wake and not know his name, forgetting every word he had ever written. But he would never forget the scent of Iris’s skin, the sound of her voice. The way she had looked at him. The confidence of her hands.
And he thought, There is no magic above or below that will ever steal this from me again.
{36}
Guests, Indefinitely
Iris dreamt of the Revel Diner. She sat at the bar with a book and a glass of lemonade before her, watching as her mother waited on tables. It felt like any other day, a page torn from her past, for she had often visited the diner before the war. Before Aster had started to drink heavily. That was how Iris knew she was dreaming. Her mother looked vibrant and whole again, quick to smile and laugh, her eyes bright as she moved around the café.
“Another lemonade, Iris?” Aster said as she returned behind the bar.
Before Iris could reply, a song crackled over the radio, filling the café with the melancholy tone of a violin. At once, the hair rose on her arms. There it was again. The melody that haunted her dreams when she saw her mother.
“Mum?” Iris whispered, leaning over the bar. “Why do I hear this song every time we meet in a dream?”
Aster set down a steaming coffeepot. “Do you know who Alzane was?”
Iris was startled by the abrupt change in topics, but said, “He was one of the last kings of Cambria, before the monarchy fell and chancellors were appointed.”
“Yes, but there is far more to him than that. He was the monarch who oversaw the divine graves. He buried Dacre, Mir, Alva, Luz, and Enva centuries ago. In a myth that has been cut away from our history, he inspired this lullaby to sing the gods to sleep. Since then, there have been many iterations of it, but the power of the notes remains, even if they have been forgotten by many.”
Iris mulled that over. The world beyond the café windows was beginning to darken. A storm was brewing. Rain slid down the glass, and flickers of lightning illuminated distant buildings.
“I don’t think Enva was ever buried,” Iris dared to say, to which Aster quirked her red-stained lips to the side. “I think she struck a deal with the king, and she sang the other four to sleep while she remained hidden in Oath.”
“A wild theory, sweetheart. But one that may have some truth within it.”
Iris listened to the music, but her breath caught when the radio’s static intensified and the dream began to break. Desperate, she reached out to take hold of Aster, but her mother had already faded into the shadows. The café began to spin, the glass windows cracking beneath the weight of the storm, until the pressure felt unbearable.
Iris startled awake.
A beat later, she realized a cough had woken her; the mattress beneath her shook as Roman rolled away, rising to his feet. With her eyes open to the darkness, she listened as he stifled another cough, then another. They sounded wet and painful, and she quickly sat forward and turned toward him.
A sliver of moonlight that snuck in through the curtains limned his body. His pale shoulders were hunched; she could count the ridges of his spine as he reached for his discarded shirt on the floor and coughed into the fabric, muffling the sound.
“Kitt,” she whispered, moving to the edge of the bed. The floor was icy cold on her bare feet; her hair was still damp from the shower. “Are you all right?”
He straightened, but kept the shirt pressed to his mouth for a moment more. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m fine, Iris. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She stood and walked to him. “Can I get you anything?”
“You plan to sneak down to the kitchen and boil a pot of tea for me?”
He was teasing, but it only made Iris realize how impossible this was. How impossible they were. Mr. Kitt would be outraged to find her in his house, sharing a bed with his son. He would probably throw her out if he caught her wandering the corridors, or have his associate drag her off and drop her somewhere for the Graveyard to punish.