It was a question Felix had been contemplating since that night. A question he still had no answer to.
“I can handle it.” He passed back the finding token. “You just focus on tracking him down.”
Marlow held it to her lips and whispered something. Immediately, the engraving glowed like an ember, and she gave a decisive nod. “Well, come on then.”
Summer had settled over Fallowmoor like a heavy blanket, leaving the air thick and damp and uncomfortably warm. August leaned on the marble balustrade of his balcony and picked idly at the loose seam of his linen robe as he watched the sun sink behind the horizon and the city below come alive.
He yearned to be down there, to be part of it. His limbs were restless, his thoughts brimming with all the possibilities that tomorrow could bring.
One more day.
Streetlamps flared to life one by one through the Crestwell District, slowly transforming the main avenue into a river of pink. Beyond that, the market square sat hidden behind buildings, the faint glow rising up to touch the muddy water coloured sky.
For the past two months, August had snuck out at the end of each week to meet Felix at The Raven’s Perch. When his mother questioned his absence, which was rare after he’d embarrassed her so deeply at the banquet, Lottie provided a cover story.
Change was uncomfortable, but this had become a routine, giving him something to look forward to. A gasping breath of fresh air before returning underground. For once, things didn’t feel hopeless. Knowing a night of freedom awaited, August could endure the weeks.
Most nights, they walked the town with Felix playing tour guide, his short attention span preventing them from lingering too long anywhere.
They visited Felix’s favorite building (besides the pub, of course). A temple of Duin, the Goddess of Nature, with ivy carved into the stone walls and a glass ceiling that pooled moonlight across the floor. Felix insisted more than once that he didn’t buy into religion, but the look he’d had walking through that place was something close to worship.
Felix brought him to a tiny bakery pressed against the city wall, where August tasted the best pastries of his life, and August tagged along while Felix ran errands for his mother, picking up orders from the butcher and the glassmaker.
Other nights, they stayed perched at the bar, talking over the pub’s steady buzz.
Those were August’s favourite nights.
He loved The Raven’s Perch, loved the wood-paneled walls and the beautiful paintings and the smell of delicious food and pipe smoke. He loved the warmth that Petra radiated, the way she’d always send Felix off with a kiss on the cheek.
There was a side of Felix that only emerged in the pub. His smiles seemed more authentic, and his Copperhill dialect would occasionally sneak through.
Their last night together, they’d made a game of tossing blueberries across the table, trying to catch them in their mouths. The pub had been crowded, and August missed, bouncing a particularly large berry off the back of a large man’s head.
The man called him a rude name, and August called him one back, and when the brute’s scruffy face went scarlet with anger, Felix threw an arm over his massive shoulders, offering to buy him a drink, and all was forgiven.
When Felix returned to the table, he laughed so hard that his cheeks and nose flushed red.
The thought brought a smile to August’s face.
One more day.
He slipped back inside his dimly lit bedchambers, met by the lingering floral scent from the bath he’d taken earlier.
In the shadows across the room, something moved.
August nearly jumped out of his skin, and the line of profanities that spewed from his mouth was very unbefitting of his surroundings. He ignored the expectant, withered face of the anchored and breathed a sharp exhale as he dropped into the armchair.
Callum had always been soft-spoken and kind, and after his death, he respected August’s request to be left alone. He’d appear occasionally, like at the disaster of a banquet, but he usually kept his distance. Now, however, he hovered in August’s bedchambers, looking like he was deciding whether to speak.
August curled his lip and glowered at the man.
Callum recoiled. “I apologize,Mo Aesling. I don’t mean to disregard your wishes, however I feel this matter necessitates my involvement.”
August didn’t speak to the anchored anymore. Even acknowledging Callum went against everything he’d worked so hard at. But the tone of his voice and the tension in his frame were disconcerting, so August smoothed his expression and forced himself to respond.
“Go on then. Say what you came here to say.” He sank back into the plush cushion, elbow propped and chin resting in his hand.
The man stood up straight, bony shoulders back and hands clasped at his front, mirroring the formal posture he’d worn when he was alive and directing the staff.
