He loved everything about it.
Hehadloved standing on the edge of things, once. He loved the exhilaration of a new project, one that actually had meaning, that gavehimmeaning by extension. He loved the weightless feeling of flying, the uncertainty of knowing how to land, of where to even begin.
Silva’s condo was too small for the three of them. It was barely large enough for her and Aelin alone. He understood her reasoning for choosing it. It was small enough for her to manage when she had been managing the world on her own. It was what she’d been able to afford. It was good enough for the two ofthem, the only things in the world that mattered, to start over again when he’d been gone.
But it wasn’t a space in which Aelin could grow. It wasn’t one that afforded much, if any, privacy, as he and Silva had learned well over the past few months, with too many close calls for comfort. It was designed for goblins and nymphs and other small-statured species, like Silva herself. He spent more than half the week there now, and there was no way to pretend otherwise — he was too big for the space. He ducked his head under doorways, felt outsized in the little living room, and spent showers looking down on the spray of water.
More than that, it distinctively wasn’this, the way Clover was no longer his. It was Silva’s and Silva’s alone, and he hated feeling as though he were invading her space.
“Tate, how does that even make any sense?” She had questioned him in a huff, the night he’d voiced an approximation of exactly that certainty. “It’s not evenmineright now! I have to finish the first year’s lease before I can even buy it!”
She hadn’t changed his mind.
The condo had been perfect for her and Aelin when they had been running away from the life they had left, into the weightless arms of uncertainty, and that was how it remained.
Hers and hers alone.
They needed something to build together, something brand-new, a new beginning for their little family. The word still felt foreign on his tongue. The last time he’d had a family had been the last night he’d seen them alive, that night he’d left in childish anger, not returning from that dark forest for years, until it was too late and the only family who’d loved him were gone.
The fourth time he and Aelin turned the corner to visit their secret little house behind the hedgerow, Tate stopped short, feeling the bottom drop out of the dreams he was already weaving in his head. The hedgerow was being cut down.
The benefit was that Tate could see her now, unencumbered.
She was beautiful. The house was an absolute wreck, but he could tell. She’d been beautiful once, had the bones of something magnificent, and with the proper investment, she could be beautiful once more. Three stories, her paint peeling off in ribbons, her gutters nonexistent. He had been wrong. The porch wasn’t merely sagging, it was half-caved in. The roof was sagging as well, and he had no doubt the plaster walls inside were likely buckled. The rounded corner would be the perfect bedroom for his pixie princess. Bright sunlight in the afternoon while she played, tiny feet echoing down the central staircase, a little gated garden for her strawberries. He would put in a gourmet kitchen, a studio for Silva, a library where Aelin could spend rainy afternoons. He could see it all there, already. She was perfect.
There were years of work here if he did it alone.No. No time for that. We’ve lost enough time already.Tate paused, almost surprised with himself. He liked doing things himself, felt more connected when his own sweat and blood went into something, but he knew his inner voice was right. He had endless contacts, endless connections, and could have a crew on-site immediately. He could have it ready in a year, maybe less. Maybe in time for Silva to vacate her condo.
Tate passed the workman without slowing, continuing until he found the truck and the foreman inside. It was an orc, giving him a swift up-and-down and then a nod, an acknowledgment that they were the same.Close enough. Small favors.
“What’s going on here?” He kept his voice light, hiding the panicked tension he felt.What are you doing to my shrubs? Why are you showing the world my house?
The orc in the truck shrugged. “Guess they’re finally doing something with this one. I think the old lady finally died. It’s been sitting empty since her grandmother had it.”
Tate nodded, understanding he was meant to know who the old lady and her grandmother were. Neighborhoods like this were like that. Everyone knew everyone else, and one’s business was the neighborhood’s business.
“Are they selling it?”
The orc shrugged again, nodding at the lockbox on the front door. “I don’t know what they think that lock is doing; the doors are barely on the hinges. But yeah, lockbox means a realtor, so I guess they’re going to try to trick someone into buying. The property is valuable, though, so it will go quick. Probably won’t take much to tear this eyesore down, a stiff breeze would do it.”
Tate bristled. That washiseyesore being disparaged.
He hidthatas well, and the orc called out to one of his fellows working on the hedges. They brought him a card from the door, featuring a smiling troll couple on the front.
“Oh yeah, I know these two. They’re just around the corner. They’re going to need to put a new door on this thing once this hedge is down, so you could probably catch them in the morning. Might be faster than the phone.”
Tate thanked the orc, once more sharing that nod, Aelin calling up a cheerful bye-bye from her wagon. He grinned down from the window, craning to see her.
“I didn’t even notice you down there, peanut! You all have a good day now.”
He didn’t want to wait that long.
Tate tapped the address on the business card into his phone, finding itwasliterally just around the corner, on the same street as the giant Second Empire edifice with the massive iron gates he and Aelin had already admired, next door to a large Queen Anne with gingerbread trim, which she had liked better. The troll’s driveway was empty and the house was dark, and they had left, taking the trolley back to Silva’s little condo.
Now that summer had arrived, Aelin went to daycare twice a week to play with Lurielle’s children, and Silva would drop her off there on her way to work the following morning.Perfect. That freed him up until mid-afternoon, giving him the opportunity to stake this house out.
The orc had been correct. Tate made sure he was sitting on the street by the time the sun came up, and within a few hours, another work vehicle pulled into the driveway and removed the badly damaged door. The car that pulled in shortly thereafter contained the troll woman from the business card, scurrying up the driveway, keys in hand, ready to remove her lockbox from the detritus and place it on the new door once it was installed. He watched her stop short, huffing that the job wasn’t done yet, returning to her car to wait.
She startled when he approached her.
