“Thank me by givingactualdetails tomorrow,” she said. “I tell you aboutmyoutings. It’s only fair.”
“There really isn’t much to tell.”
“You could start by admitting that you’re smitten.”
Warmth crept into his cheeks. “I’m not. Shut up.”
She laughed. “Get out. I’m trying to read.”
She was wrong, obviously. It wasn’t like that. Smitten? Hardly. What a stupid word, anyway. He wanted to argue, to tell her how wrong she was, but he didn’t know how much time he had before his mother sent someone to fetch him.
So instead, he turned with a huff and left.
“Be home before sunrise,” Lottie called after him.
He pushed out into the hall, then rushed down the stairs and out the front doors, through the gardens and the cemetery to the temple and its knotted tree and hidden exit. Toward freedom. Toward somewhere safe. Toward Felix.
Thoughts of the ministry and his mother swirled in August’s head as he came to a stop on the narrow street. The boisterous chatter of patrons and the rich scent of stewed meat spilled from the pub’s open front door. He drew in a slow breath, trying to shake the worries loose. They didn’t belong here. The two worlds had to stay separate.
For the few hours he was with Felix, that other life, those other concerns, they were somebody else’s problems. Not his.
A planter with yellow blossoms swayed from a hook beside the door, and vines studded with white blooms climbed the narrow pub’s exterior. Tipping his head back, he studied the sign that jutted out above the entrance:The Raven’s Perchprinted in bold black letters on wood, with the flat silhouette of a raven perched atop its iron bracket.
August may have hated birds, but the name’s origin compensated for it.
“Ma named it after Silas,” Felix had told him one night as they split a piece of blackcurrant pie. “Or I guess afterme, really.” His formality had fallen away, and he sat comfortably in the booth,eyes heavy-lidded, light hair messy from swiping it back as he cooked. “It’s like I’m ingrained in the structure itself. Like I’m part of something, ya know?”
Now, August let his other life fade into the background of his mind, and as he stepped inside, the chatter and the warmth of the packed room enveloped him completely.
He pressed through a group loitering near the door, scanning for Felix on his way to the bar.
Petra looked up from her current conversation, a warm smile illuminating her face.
“Henry! How are ya, love? Has it been a week already?”
“I’m a day early. Is Felix here?”
“He and Mar are upstairs.” She nodded toward the staircase at the back of the room. “Go on up. And tell him I’m not paying him for the last hour, since he just up and left. Gods love him, if he weren’t my son, I’d fire him.” There was no heat in the threat, and her smile never faltered.
“I’ll tell him.”
August weaved through the patrons and started up the rough wooden stairs. He’d never seen Felix’s flat, and it felt like a strange intrusion wandering up here on his own.
The walls were the same mahogany paneling, with paintings that mirrored the ones downstairs; rolling green hills, dense forests, coastal scenes with jagged cliffs. He scanned them as he followed the narrow hallway, pausing at one that stood out from the rest. Like the others, it was a landscape. A sweeping rocky beach, the ocean caught mid-swash. But unlike the rest, this one had people: a man with reddish-brown hair tied at the nape of his neck, and a small, light-haired boy whose smile was unmistakably Felix. Tucked into the corner, written in slanted cursive, were the wordsfor my two loves, together in my dreams.
Did that mean Petra painted these?
He took a step back, examining the art in a new light. She was an artist, and a talented one at that.
Muffled voices spilled from one of the rooms.
“ . . . for two days. Your ma said . . . ”
“ . . . wouldn’t know,” Felix responded. “We’ll go . . . ”
August continued down the hall, straining to hear.
“She knows more than you give her credit for, Felix.”
