Becoming a Treasure had loosened something in him. He did not believe his new power had much to do with his forging magic—his affinities had always rested side by side, like wary neighbors divided by a narrow boundary. Close enough to touch, yet never at ease. Now he had been reforged—cast anew from rising tide and rushing water, his edges smoothed, his marrow bolstered. His uncertainties had been hammered out of him, leaving only his truth—unquestioned, unshaken, undeniable.
He had always been capable of forging. Now he believed it.
He didn’t want to waste any more time worrying he wasn’t good enough for what he’d been born to do. So he began to work.
A tap on the door startled Wayland. He looked up from his project, a tiny glittering fishhook designed to snag daydreams, and wassurprised to find the light behind the narrow window of his workshop had gone deep blue. Evening, then. The fire in the stove had burned low, but the air was almost uncomfortably warm.
“Come in,” he called.
Idris wedged himself through the rounded doorway, ducking his head and curving his spine to fit inside. He carried a corked bottle of wine and two rough-hewn cups; he set them on Wayland’s worktable before settling himself upon a tiny rickety stool beside it.
“I wondered if you were still out here.” He sloshed out a few measures of the wine. “You’ve missed dinner.”
“That’s because I knew Laoise was cooking.” Wayland leaned back, stretching out the kinks in his spine before reaching for one of the cups. He watched Idris glance in interest around the narrow, cramped room, and made a rueful face. “We should go out on the terrace. It’s awful in here.”
“I like you in here.” Idris hid a smile behind the lip of his own cup. “Or maybe I just like you.”
Wayland shifted in his own narrow rickety chair until one of his knees bumped Idris’s. “Tell me more about that.”
“Later.” Idris’s smile grew. “For now, why don’t you tell me about what you’re working on?”
Wayland obliged, showing Idris the forgings he’d been toying with: a quill that, when dipped in blood, spilled an enemy’s secrets; a looking glass that, when spun, connected two disparate locations; a conch shell that echoed your own voice back at you.
“I suppose they’re just for fun,” Wayland admitted, suddenly embarrassed as he watched Idris inspect the inventions. “I’m not sure what use they’d be to anyone.”
“Things don’t have to be useful to be valuable,” Idris said as he held the shell to his ear and listened to Wayland’s voice reverberate within. “They just have to exist.”
Wayland had thought Idris might be more utilitarian. “Do you believe that?”
“I do.” Idris set down the conch and sipped more of his wine.“In the same way that not every life must be meaningful to matter. However short or long, interesting or mundane—existence is its own reward.”
“Hmm.” Wayland draped his arm along the workbench and leaned his weight into Idris’s shadow. “And love? Must love merelyexistto be worthwhile?”
Idris rocked forward on his stool, pushing his knee between Wayland’s thighs and laying slender fingers on his bicep. Heat ignited at his touch and surged through Wayland’s veins, a rising current he had no intention of fighting.
“Perhaps it must do a little more than that,” Idris murmured, his lips an inch from Wayland’s.
“How much more?” Wayland whispered, slowly closing the gap.
Idris curved cool palms around Wayland’s cheeks and kissed him, tender. The sleek angle of his hair glided over Wayland’s jaw; he tasted of mint and salt and lingering alcohol. Wayland growled and pounced, catching the other man around the waist as he hoisted him onto the workbench. Idris gasped; the shelves rattled, and one of the wine cups bounced off the table as the whole structure shook. They laughed against each other’s mouths as Wayland peeled off Idris’s shirt and Idris’s fingers ridged along the muscles of Wayland’s stomach.
And as night fell beyond the narrow window and the workshop grew hotter—and hotter… andhotter—Wayland thought he finally understood.
It only had to exist.
Chapter Forty-Four
Fia
It was dusk when we crossed into the Dúluachair. There was no change in the flora—the towering trees verdant with new leaves and the thick, tangled vines blurring with new flowers. But there was a disruption in the energy—a strange feeling of unease, like a shadow sweeping over us, although the light did not darken nor the air chill.
“Is this place truly the gateway to the underworld?” I asked Irian.
“How should I know?” he said mildly. “Do I look like a god of the dead to you?”
I squinted at his stark beauty, black garb, and towering height. “A little.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.” His lip curled over one sharp canine, and he relented. “Nearby lies a strange cave system they call Oweynagat. There are stories about Folk who ventured in but never came out. And creatures that came out… and refused to go back in.”
