“No, no, no!” He leaned forward quickly, grabbing her arms before she could jump up and bolt out of the room. “I don’t want to do that either. Or for you to kill me. I just want you to stay.” He was squeezing her arms so tightly, but then he seemed to notice, grip relenting and hands sliding down to hers. They lingered there for a moment, and then he pulled away, tugging the shard out of her grasp as he went. “I expected to be here with only Sid and Earlylyte, but you…I know it did not begin well, but now you’re like a sister-in-arms. I can’t imagine this place without you.”
Celeste swallowed. Orphan or otherwise, she didnotwant Reeve to think of her as a sister, and yet she did not want Reeve to not think of herat all.
She glanced around the temple, at the rainwater pouring in from the broken windows, at the columns that would need artisans to carve into something recognizable again, at the divot that still sullied the floor that had so recently been filled with corpses. Celeste held no real love for the temple beyond the last half a moon, but the temple did hold Reeve.
She frowned. “I don’t think Valcord would let me be one of his holy knights alongside you, and I don’t think I’d be very good at it anyway.”
“That’s not really what I mean.” Reeve stared hard down at the fragment he’d taken from her, brow furrowed deeply, and mumbled, “Kori didn’t prepare me for this.” Then he looked to the nearly finished mural, and as if it took no thought at all, placed the piece that she had been toiling with for so long exactly where it belonged. “Celeste, what I’m trying to say is that the oaths I’ve spoken mean something different when I’m with you, like they were only training for the one I want to make now. I’m not sure how to tell you—how toaskyou—that I want you to stay here.”
Thunder rumbled, and a lump pushed itself up Celeste’s throat. It was a good thing probably, since she wasn’t sure whether she would laugh or cry or squeal—no one had everwantedher before.
He glanced up from under a lock of hair that had fallen in his eyes, hands grasping at the emptiness left in them. “Do you…do you want to stay here?” he asked. “With me?”
She met his gaze and nodded because that was the truth, whatever it was he meant. Every bit of her wanted to be there, with him, and find out.
“And you mean that?” Reeve’s voice had that hesitant timbre that was so rare for him, the one that said he was afraid. “I’m not a...a whetstone to you, am I?”
Celeste scrunched up her face, the lump in her throat dropping away.A whetstone?Well, she had thought many times about finding the hardest part of him and grinding up against it.
Wind battered at the temple, and then she laughed, inspired by the memory of how upset he had been when she’d told the falsehood so they could find the smithy. “Oh, no, of course you’re not a whetstone, Reeve. I’ve never thought of a place as home before, until that place had you.”
A smile played at his lips even with his face still fraught, though it was an awfully cute fretting that he did. She wanted to lessen it, but that would be difficult, what with all of her casually spoken lies, unless she could find a way to show him. And perhaps, in showing him, she could find some clarity for herself as well.
“I wouldn’t lie to you about this,” she said carefully. “Just like you wouldn’t lie to me about…well, about anything at all, would you?”
He shook his head so earnestly, just sitting there cross-legged, hands in his lap, only a foot away from her after saying he wanted her.But how, holy knight,howdo you want me?
“Reeve, may I ask you a question?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh, something like relief passing over his face at the familiar phrase.
“When you say you want me to stay here, what exactly do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to leave Briarwyke. I want the two of us to be here, together,” came out very quickly, his amber eyes wide. “But you probably don’t want to live in the temple, do you? Most holy knights don’t even stay once they’ve, uh…found…some…one—why-are-you-looking-at-me-like-that?”
Celeste held his gaze. “May I ask you another question?”
“Y-yes?”
She slipped forward onto her knees, hands on the temple floor, and crept closer, careful so she wouldn’t frighten him away. “When you think about ustogether, how do you imagine that?”
“Um.” Reeve swallowed and sat up fully. “Like this?”
She’d been reaching for him but stopped. “Like this?”
He cleared his throat. “I guess it’s a little different than this.”
“Then how?”
Even as Reeve leaned away, his back hitting the slab of the altar, his voice dropped to a rumble. “You’re usually closer.”
“Like this?” she let her hand fall to his knee but kept her touch light, easy to pull back, to say she didn’t mean it, which would, of course, be a lie. Even with the leather between their skin and the chill of the rainy air, he radiated heat under her hand.
“It starts like this.” Reeve’s chest rose and fell quicker, but he didn’t push her away, and he didn’t move to run.
She licked her lips and gave him a gentle squeeze. “And then what?”
“You come…closer.”
