“No! No one else can know!”
Gods, for someone who wanted to keep a secret, she sure was being loud.
“But why?”
“They’ll learn it was my fault,” she cried, so pale her veins were running blue as she trembled in the shallow water. “I’ll be in so much trouble. They’ll call me a witch, and—”
“But you’re not a witch.”
“Aren’t I?” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I caused all of this, I let out another sieve, and I’m just making everything worse! It’s all my fault, and when they find out, they’ll know that I’m no different than Syphon.”
“You’re not like Syphon,” he hissed, but she was hearing none of it.
“Please,pleasedon’t tell them,” she begged, tears streaming down her already drenched face. “They’ll want to lock me up, it’s what always happens, I make mistakes, and I have to run away. You can’t tell them, you can’t explain it away. No one will believe that I didn’t mean it. Even you think I’m evil and want to kill me, and—”
“I donot.” Reeve crushed her to him, holding her tightly with his numbing arms. “I won’t say anything to anyone, Celeste. I swear it to Valcord and to Earlylyte and to Sid and to Plum. Not a word.”
They remained there in the lake’s shallows, and her shaking didn’t stop, but it lessened. Slowly, her arms came around his back, and she sobbed into his shoulder.
“No one will hurt you,” he vowed. “With credence that the sun will rise, the whole of the realm will have to cut through me before it touches you.”
CHAPTER 20
UNTOLD TALES AND OTHER GREAT AGONIES
Syphon was correct about one thing: love didn’t take that long.
Celeste knew that what she so often felt was not truly love. It was longing or loneliness or infatuation, and sometimes it was enough like love to trick her, even afterward, making her heart ache at its loss. But never had those sentiments, hungered after alone in the dark, brought her happiness in earnest.
Yet when Celeste opened her eyes and felt Reeve’s thigh under her cheek, she was happy.
And then she was terrified.
Oh, Crickets, how did I get here?
She remembered being soaking wet. She wasn’t anymore. She also remembered trudging through the forest because she insisted on avoiding the road into town. Reeve had obliged without complaint. Their feet had squished uncomfortably in their boots, and leaves and twigs had stuck to them on their march. Now, her feet were bare but warm beneath a blanket, and fingers moved through her hair without catching on forest debris.
I should say something, but…
Celeste’s hand was resting just above his knee, and heat radiated up into her cheek and under her palm. Beneath the rest of her, the sofa cradled the achiness in her limbs. The temple was dark with early night, but low candlelight flickered nearby, and a page turned somewhere over her head.
She remembered collapsing on the couch, still in her chemise, though her embarrassment at being in it alone was gone. It had long since dried on their return journey through the wooded outskirts of Briarwyke. Reeve brought her a blanket, encouraged her to lie down, told her to close her eyes. Then he had said something…something sweet. What was it?
“You can sleep, Celeste. I’ll be here when you wake up, I swear it.” If there ever was a time to trust a holy knight, it was when they swore.
No, love didn’t take long at all, it just took whenever it wanted to, and it held on, and it refused to relent.
A gentle tapping began somewhere in the temple. It lulled Celeste back into sleepiness, and she let her eyelids fall closed again, curling fingers loosely around Reeve’s knee. An earthy freshness filled her lungs with her next breath, and then the smell of rain.
“The windows,” she murmured, sitting up. Plum yawned, curled up against Reeve’s other side.
“Hmm?” Reeve’s eyes were heavily lidded as he looked down on her. His face was so near, she could have easily leaned up and kissed him. Again.
Instead, she sat back and surveyed the temple. As she expected, water was trickling in near the altar. Pushing up from the sofa, she stumbled toward where she stored the bucket for cleaning. Reeve was following after, trying to convince her to stop, but she evaded him easily without her own excessive injuries this time. Presumably because she was too insistent, Reeve trotted off, found a vase, and lugged it over to place beneath the other broken window. The rain echoed into the vessels, the sound filling up the temple as the water was caught, but mixed with the pattering on the roof, it was far from unpleasant.
Celeste wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly very aware of her body in the chill of the early spring night. “I’m sorry I kept you up. You should go to bed.”
“Oh, actually…” Reeve scratched his head, his wrinkled tunic hanging from him loosely. “I was just looking over those books of yours and wanted to show you something. But if you’re still tired…”
