“A little. Down here,” he assured her, pointing to the floor, but it only made her wince again at the thought. “No more dreams, or…”
She shook her head. “Did you say you’re making wards?”
He discreetly pushed the pile of sigils behind his back as if to hide them, turning to face her fully. “I’m attempting to, but I haven’t made one in years—Flint was our tent-protector when we were on the road—so mine are a little…ugly.” When he grinned, only half of his mouth turned up, and the dimple in his cheek deepened. “Wards are usually built into temple walls, but the ones here clearly haven’t been kept up. I should have known. I just hope these can help.”
She sat straighter, gaze darting around for signs of more upset. “Oh, no, did something else happen? How did I sleep through it?”
Reeve stared at her for a long moment, and though he didn’t likely know it, was producing the kind of look he so often received, one that gently asked,Has your brain been replaced with a spatula?Then he closed the distance between them, shuffling up to the bed on his knees.
“No, Celeste, nothingelsehappened, but…” He reached out and took her hand, rubbing a calloused set of fingers over the fading claw marks on her wrist. “These marks are bad enough—I can’t allow anything worse to happen to you. I may not be able to cut through your nightmares, but some wards can defend against unseen attacks. I’ve made enough to line the walls of this chamber. If you’ll agree to continue sleeping here, I can wake you quickly if they fail.” His hands had tightened around hers, warm eyes pleading.
“Oh, you made those…” Her heart pounded as her mind cleared. “You made all of those because of me?”
“Of course he did.” Sid’s voice from the floor made them both start, but it was not quite as brash as normal. “And they’re damn fine wards too, despite what he says.”
Reeve cleared his throat. “Sid helped.”
Celeste watched Reeve’s sooty fingers slide over her wrist with a quality she might call possessive if anyone else had been doing it, but the holy knight’s grip was more of a…a shroud? Or, no, a shield?
Was this what it was to be protected? She had believed Delphine was her protector once, but it hadn’t felt anything like this. Celeste’s messes had always been cleaned up, and she was usually plucked at the last moment from danger, but rescue never came without shouted I-told-you-sos and get-of-my-sights.
Reeve should have been angry about the broken apotrope, he should have left her in the tiny chamber downstairs to wallow alone, he should have been yelling, throwing things, threatening her, hurting her. But instead he was touching her so gently, just like he had the night before and like he had when he kissed her, as if he considered her something worth being gentle with. And his eyes, they weren’t full of pity or disappointment like she expected, but they did burn with a warmth she could feel swelling in her own chest.
“I know you don’t want to involve anyone else, so we won’t if you truly wish not to,” Reeve said with hesitation, his fingers tightening, “but Geezer is already aware of this situation, so I hoped we could visit him, and—”
Celeste slipped from his grip and took Reeve’s face in her hands, leaned over the bed’s edge, and pressed her lips to his. He remained in shocked stillness at first, and she feared she had made a mistake, but then he melted forward and sighed against her mouth, eyes closing.
She slid her palms over his stubble and entwined fingers behind his head, pulling him closer. Reeve was still kneeling on the floor, but she felt the mattress displace as he gripped it on either side of her, following after how she tugged at him. The first kiss he had given her had been so cautious, and this one did not lack the softness of the former, but there was fervor behind it that sparked with the opening of his lips and the passing of his tongue over hers just before he pulled back.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, half out of breath, “I should have asked first.”
“No, no,”—he was shaking his head—“It’s just that I…um, I haven’t properly wooed you yet, have I?”
A laughed choked itself out of her. “What?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out how, but I’ve never…” His gaze trailed down to her lap where the blankets had fallen as he took a steadying breath, then he swallowed as his amber eyes popped back up to meet hers, stalwart. “I have something to give you.”
Celeste was drawn tauter than a bow at how he’d rumbled out those words, heart shooting up into her throat and knees more than prepared to part, but then he slipped right out of her grasp. Reeve hurried to the mantle across the room, and it was all she could do to keep from racing after him. He returned much more slowly, staring down into his hands. Already looking sleepy and disheveled, his worried features made her forget her sudden thrill and stand from the bed to meet him in the chamber’s middle.
“Along the river, it can be windy,” he said, struggling for the words, “and some use cleaned fish bones or narrow sticks to pin up their hair when it’s long like…like yours. On the warmer days, I’ve watched you pick up your hair to get it off your neck, so…”
He extended his hands toward her, and in them lay a spear of wood. It was the grey-brown color of the dried out thorns that covered the town, but it had been whittled smooth and straight at one pointed end. The other end, however, was expertly carved into the shape of a creature’s head with an elongated snout, a set of tiny horns, and the silhouette of a wing.
“Supposed to be Plum,” he said, voice low and cracking.
She took the hairpin carefully, running fingers over every curve and hollow carved into the wood, the piece surprisingly solid and hefty for how delicate it had been crafted. It didn’t glow, and it didn’t burn her skin, but it did thrum with warm arcana, put there intentionally or not, locked away in its core. “Youmadethis? For me?”
He nodded, not looking at her, mumbling about not being an artisan and apologizing for unseen flaws.
“Stop it,” she whispered, calling his attention away from the floor and holding his gaze in earnest. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you.”
Red blotches bloomed from his chestnut curls to his collarbone, and she could have ripped his tunic right off and kissed every blushing inch of his skin, but instead she simply took one of his hands in her own and squeezed.
“Come with me; we have a lot to do today.”
A short time later, Celeste had dressed in something less see-through and bundled her hair into a massive ball, spearing it with her new pin. She met Reeve in the middle of the temple’s worship space after he had papered the bed chamber upstairs in wards.
The Temple of Valcord once had an altar fit for a god. Celeste remembered it despite the years since it had been whole. The flat-topped base was a large white stone with pink veins that glittered when they caught the sun’s rays, and it still remained, but a second much more delicate piece with an intricate relief carved on its face had once been propped up at its back. In Delphine’s redecorating, the stone mural had fallen, breaking into many pieces. Celeste knew where the shards were kept—she was the one ordered to pile them up in a hidden storage chamber.
