Celeste was sprawled out in his arms, the light of dawn through the stained-glass windows turning her pale skin blue. Her face was covered by that mass of black hair, and he was fairly certain she was snoring beneath, but it was the best sound he’d ever heard. Well, second best after a medley of what she’d conjured up the night before. One of her hands was squished against his cheek, and when he eased the linens down, she had a leg thrown over his hip, gripping like she needed him.
Reeve eased his hand onto her knee, but she didn’t stir. He traced his fingers along the underside of her calf as far as his reach would go, and she only hummed pleasantly, hooking her leg around him tighter. He returned to her thigh, his palm pressed more firmly to her skin, rounding to her backside as he wrapped his other arm beneath her shoulders.
I should tell her, he thought, because the urge to say he loved her hadn’t gone away since the night before when he had spilled everything else into her including those things he never told anyone, those memories and fears he kept to himself, but the words were wobbly in his throat.
Then she was wiggling against him, and every thought left his head as his hands dipped lower and her drowsy morning greetings turned into squeals of delight.
Reeve was only disappointed when they had to get out of the bed, but it was already late, and there was much to do in preparation for the sweetbriar festival. Celeste set to baking and urged Reeve out into the courtyard to, “do those morning things you do. You might be late, but I think Valcord will forgive you.”
He tended to Earlylyte and cleaned off the portico of debris that had fallen in the storm. There were more limbs in the courtyard that he stacked by the shed for future kindling, and a section of fallen fence that he propped back up. Valcord would never be displeased if a follower devoted their time to the care of a place or a person instead of in reverence to him—a thing he’d been told but may not have truly understood until that morning. When the yard was acceptable, he returned to find Celeste had made a massive tray of tea cakes.
“We’ll have to make an appearance at the festival,” she said as she drizzled honey on the crusty edges of the sweets, “but then we can head back for Ima’riel’s when it gets dark. Everyone should be safe in the town center, and with the greenhouses empty, we might have our best shot at finding that last sieve.”
Reeve nodded, listening, but the moment Celeste turned away, he reached for a cake.
“Those aren’t for you,” she said as she pushed a stone into the oven with a mass of herby, risen dough on it.
Reeve pulled his hand back, looking about for a shadow she was using to somehow spy on him. He found nothing.
“But you can have one anyway.” She turned back to him with a grin. “Or two or three or four, if you want, and I think you know why.”
He only took two, not entirely sure what she meant. Reeve could count, of course, but it was hard to keep track when so focused on technique, and in all things, Reeve resolved to not be greedy.
Plum came to land on his shoulder, little talons digging in. Reeve ripped the corner off a tea cake and offered it up, but the wyvern squawked and gestured with its long neck for the rest of it.
“Don’t you know how much smaller you are than I am?” he asked, but there was no arguing with a creature whose brain was also much smaller, so he handed over the second cake and watched the wyvern tear in.
“I need a bath,” Celeste said as she licked at the honey dripping down her fingers. “Do you think you can help me?”
Reeve shoved his cake into his mouth, and got to his feet. In one swift movement, he scooped her up and headed for the bathing chamber with her squealing in his arms.
It was early evening when the two finally made it to the center of town. Celeste balanced the still-large pile of tea cakes as she rode on Earlylyte’s back, and Reeve led the horse. It seemed every family in Briarwyke had brought their dining tables to the circle, and all sorts of delectable dishes had been set out to be shared.
There were lights twinkling from the eaves of the inn and other buildings around the circle, arcane in nature and glittering in every color. More bustling than he’d ever seen the place, and despite the mud and dead thorns everywhere, an air of cheeriness swept through Briarwyke. Finally, the drab murkiness of the village had been washed away, or at least temporarily covered up, and it matched the bliss in his own heart.
Celeste, however, was wary both of the crowds and the impending threat of Syphon. That was what threats did, pend and make one wary, but he whispered in her ear that it would be all right, he would let nothing happen to her, and she looked at him with silvery eyes that said she believed him.
There were villagers he didn’t recognize, and though he couldn’t know them all, one in particular stood out likely because of the bright red hovering so near her. An old woman tottered up from East Road carrying a staff covered in blooming flowers, and atop was perched Geezer’s scarlet bird—a relief to see Zak had found his way back. The woman’s gauzy eyes scanned the festivities, and then she found a quiet place to sit on the porch of the Dew Drop Inn. When Baylen ambled up to her, offering food, Reeve thought no more about her presence.
Geezer himself was running about, accompanied often by Ima’riel, checking on the lights and the thorny Kvesarian sweetbriars, still dry, no spark of magic in them yet. Celeste was relieved to see he had returned from researching in time for the festival, but then he went up to her and told her he had remembered something important. The look on her face said she was both thrilled and horrified to hear.
“All right,” she breathed, “what is it?”
“Oh, I’ve completely forgotten again.”
Celeste looked like she might scream, but she pressed her lips together tightly instead.
“I remembered the important thing while I was in my archives. Treacherous, that place, got so many parchment cuts,”—at this, he showed them his palms, but they appeared unmarred—“but then I realized I would be late for the festival if I didn’t leave, so I hurried back, and in my hurrying, it just popped right out of my head. But I did find this!” Geezer pulled a roll of parchment from one of his scarlet robe’s pockets and waved it about in her face.
Reeve plucked it away before Celeste became too overwhelmed with the whole prospect.
“It’s a ward,” the mage announced, and Reeve could feel before even unraveling it how profoundly powerful it was. “Thought it might come in handy while I try to remember the thing I forgot. I’m sure it will come back when the time is right, though—that’s usually how arcana works. At least, I think so.” Then he left them to again assist Ima’riel.
Geezer was right about arcana’s machinations, an unfortunate if dramatic truth, which is often how these things go.
Gaspard gathered up the children and music broke out into the circle. He’d apparently taught them each an instrument, and though it wasn’t mastery by any means, it was an amusing concert. The cobbles around the boarded-up well were dry enough to dance, and though neither Reeve nor Celeste really knew what they were doing, he convinced her to join him, and together they held hands and laughed and tripped over one another in something like the music’s rhythm.
Celeste was exceptionally beautiful with her hair bundled up and pinned back with the gift he’d given her, every sharp plane of her face drawn into joy as she laughed. It was as easy and wonderful as he hoped it would be, spending time with someone who he knew truly adored his company, and he forgot about the murkiness that stalked the forest until the sun fully dropped away and the moons rose into the sky.
