Instead, I step closer.
"Iris."
"Yes?"
"If the bond dissolves at solstice. IfI have to choose. What happens if I... " I stop, because I don't know how to finish that sentence. What happens if I choose wrong? What happens if I choose right? What happens if I don't know how to choose at all?
"Whatever you choose," she says, and her free hand comes up to rest against my chest, "I'll support it. If you want to stay, we'll figure it out. If you want to go, I'll let you. If you want time to decide, I'll give you that too." Her eyes meet mine. "You're allowed to want things, Cadeon. You're allowed to choose yourself."
"What if I choose you?"
The words escape before I can stop them. Too honest. Too vulnerable. Too much.
But she doesn't look away. Doesn't pull back. Just smiles, small and soft and utterly genuine.
"Then I'd say you have excellent taste," she says, and there's warmth in her voice that has nothing to do with magic.
We stand there in the greenhouse, hands joined, magic flowing between us, and for the first time since our argument, I let myself hope that maybe we can navigate this impossible situation.
That maybe choosing her isn't weakness or conditioning or the bond compelling me.
Maybe it's just choice.
Pure and simple and terrifying and mine.
"Come on," she says finally, gently disengaging. "I promised rage-baking, and I'm thinking something with a lot of kneading. Very therapeutic."
"What are we making?"
"Bread. Obviously. It's always bread." She grins at me over her shoulder. "You can do your knife work on the add-ins. I'm thinking rosemary. Maybe some cheese."
"Rosemary and cheese bread," even I hear the skepticism in my voice.
"Don't say it like that. It'll be delicious."
"If you say so."
"I do say so. And you'll help me make it, and it'll be perfect, and you'll admit that my chaos produces excellent results."
"Your chaos producesedibleresults."
"Excellentresults."
"Adequately delicious results."
"You're impossible."
"I'm accurate."
She laughs, and the sound fills the greenhouse, chases away the last lingering tension from Magnus's visit. We head back to the kitchen, already falling into the easy rhythm of working together, and something in my chest eases.
We're not fixed. We're not solved. We still have to figure out what happens at solstice, what choosing means, whether I'm capable of making choices at all.
But right now, in this moment, with her laughing and planning bread and trusting me to be her partner in this small domestic act...”
Right now is enough.
Maybe it's more than enough.
