Reeve winced. “Can we not call it that?”
She picked up the dagger she’d been using to dig, and with an assortment of mumbles and grumbles about terminology and appropriateness, she severed one of the spheres from the vine she’d extracted and put the rest aside. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do with that,”—she gestured to his crotch with her dagger, and he pulled a knee up to shield it—“but I have some tricks that I’m only telling you for Celeste’s sake, not yours.” Kori sliced into the strange fruit and handed over half of it to him.
Reeve nodded, eager to hear them all, and went to take a bite.
“Not like that!”
His gaze darted to the fruit in his hand. “What am I supposed to do with this besides eat it?”
She took one of those breaths, the kind that said a person’s patience was thin yet they were willing. “Just pay attention. It’s weird enough I’m showing you this at all, so I’m only doing it once.”
CHAPTER 23
THE MANY MEANINGS OF BROKEN APART
Another largely unsuccessful day at Fitzroy Manor had passed, and weariness hung about Celeste’s neck like a second, over-filled locket. The days were lengthening and warming, but since meeting with Geezer four days prior, she had almost no new information despite her constant search. Fitz was an open, if substance-less, book, and Ima’riel hadn’t even ever heard of sieves despite being an elf herself, but she was growing a new kind of pole bean that she was very excited about.
Celeste yawned as she fell onto her cot, the stiffness of it against her back making her wince. More carefully, she eased into the blankets and glanced at the apotrope sitting on the small table beside her. Reeve spent the evenings studying it intensely, but she carried it to her chamber every night. Syphon was likely still recuperating from absorbing the second sieve, but she hated to ever be too far from the jar, just in case.
She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. There were no rooms left in the Fitzroy Manor to explore after the first two days, but it had been another two since, and all she could confirm was that the Fitzroys had indeed been in Briarwyke since before the village had its name. The family too was called something different then, Fhiz’rys, one of the many useless kernels of knowledge she’d picked up from Edwin Fitzroy’s boasting. She also knew of Fitz’s great uncle, an herbalist whose potions were purported to be legendary, and his grandmother who had apparently made the entire duchy’s finest wine from the fruits in the garden out back. And of course Celeste also learned that Fitz himself was a terrible homemaker when left to his own devices, the garden, while lush and alive, overgrown, and the house falling into disrepair under his solitary watch. It was quite a lot, but also nothing at the same time.
Maybe tomorrow Celeste would ask Reeve if he would like to stay at home instead.
Home.
Crickets, no, stay atthe temple. The Temple of Valcord, where they kept their things, where Earlylyte and Plum lived comfortably, where they returned each evening and went to sleep. Separately.
It was her favorite part of the day, though, returning. Even when they walked back together empty-handed and no more knowledgeable, it was pleasant and sweet to stroll at Reeve’s side, except that it wasn’t much more than that.
Every time they so much as brushed hands, Reeve would pull away as if saying it really had been a mistake, the kiss, but then he would actually say things like, “I don’t like how Fitz looks at you.” She wasn’t sure how to make him elaborate, afraid that something as simple as, “Why?” would open up an urn of evil sieves she wasn’t quite capable of dealing with.
But it had been three mornings now that had started with him telling her that she lookednice. To that, Celeste had no idea how to reply. No one had ever said such a thing to her, not even the men who had pursued her with ulterior motives. She could only turn scarlet and drop her hair between them like a curtain to hide away, and when she found her voice, insist they were late for whatever they were supposed to be doing that day.
He was strange in other ways too, hurrying ahead to open every door regardless of if she needed to pass through them and pulling out the closest chair whenever he found her standing. Reeve had also taken to regularly flushing as if Gaspard were crooning the sauciest of his tales right into his ears. Instead of giving Celeste the giggles, though, Reeve’s blushing only gave her a racing pulse and an ache between her legs.
And watching him move heavy objects in the manor to explore behind them didnothelp, the task coming with the tensing of muscles beneath his tunic and quiet groans she could only imagine drawing out of him. It was a relief, finally climbing into bed each evening even though she was regretfully alone, immediately easing that ache. It wasn’t that she was insatiable, she told herself, it was just that as soon as she closed her eyes, her mind conjured up a vision of Reeve standing in the caverns, wet and nearly naked. She could feel his hand on her waist again, his lips pressed to hers once more, and ifonlythey’d had more time what might have happened. Because Reeve would take his time, surely. He would probably ask for permission to touch every inch of her, and she was dying to grant it, he just needed to ask.
But he never did, so it was unfortunately all just a fantasy, if quite a good one. So good, in fact, that it took very little indulging in it to come to a gasping, quivering, if not intended-right-that-moment climax.
Rigid at the surprise, she cried out and then sank back into the linens with a drunk-on-bliss grin. For once, she didn’t feel the intense surge of guilt and self loathing that typically followed. It was still there, of course, but quieter, partially drowned out by her own beating heart. And then all of it, the pleasure, the shame, the contentment, was washed away when she opened her eyes.
Celeste was no longer in her little chamber down the temple’s acolyte hall, not as she knew it. The walls were too far away to scurry toward and cower beside, the ceiling too high to see in the new darkness that had filled up the space. Her few things were gone, the wardrobe, the chair, even the blankets, leaving her nothing to hide behind. There was only the cot on which she lay, suddenly cold, exposed, alone.
Celeste tugged down the skirt of her chemise as tightness wound itself around her ankle. She scrambled to drag her free leg to her chest as she sat up, held to the spot by the other. It wasn’t noxscura, but that smoke she had seen now too many times wrapped about her ankle.
“What were you up to, pet?”
“Nothing,” she choked out, the instinct to lie overcoming the fearful scream in her throat.
A face had formed in the shadows at her feet. It was no one she recognized yet was too familiar, an amalgam of features she had known on the faces that had passed through her life before. Bony lineaments with exceedingly smooth skin and eyes that sparkled like cut citrine were haloed by raven hair. A sourceless light fell across the face in odd, red patches and gleamed on something like horns that rose above sharp temples.
“It’s all right, you can tell me,” Syphon said, dragging a toned torso out of the smoke from which his head had emerged. Another set of horns grew from his shoulders, muscles on his chest settling into place convincingly. Syphon’s grip solidified around her ankle, and though there were maybe one or two too many fingers, he used them to press harder into her skin and hold her still as he dragged himself closer.
She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. It was only another dream, just averybad one.
“There is no point in lying,” she heard him say through her own silent insistence she would soon wake up.
When she opened her eyes, he would be gone, she was sure, but she still found herself whispering, “I’m telling the truth. I wasn’t doing anything. Let me—”
