Blaine held her close, carefully making a fist with his mechanical prosthetic hand against the curve of her lower back. “I’m here.”
He hadn’t realized he’d miss her so much; a voice on a telephone wasn’t the same as seeing her in person. She’d been his focus for nearly half a decade at this point, ever since he’d learned she was the infant he’d carried out of Amari after the Inferno. Finding her again at the university had sparked so much of this. He was ten years her senior, and some days, that felt like a lifetime.
They held each other for a long moment before Caris finally pulled back, wiping discreetly at her eyes with the back of her hand rather than using a kerchief. Blaine thought about offering her one, but she’d moved on to hug Honovi hello, his husband nearly picking her up off her feet with his embrace. When they finally parted, Caris appeared more settled, and a brightness came to her gray eyes when her attention finally landed on his mechanical prosthetic.
“I hope you’ll let me take a look at that today. I brought clarion crystals home from the laboratory in preparation for your arrival,” she said.
Blaine glanced over at Honovi, raising an eyebrow. “Do you mind if we do some lab work first?”
Honovi snorted. “Nathaniel here can help me find a glass of whiskey.”
Caris laughed, grabbing Blaine by his right hand and leading him into the home. “We’ll be in the back garden.”
The Royal Guards snapped to attention as she passed, but she paid them no mind. Blaine didn’t bother digging in his heels at Caris’ headlong rush, but he did say to those on duty, “Send your captain to me.”
The soldier on his left nodded sharply, and Blaine knew his message would be passed along. While Meleri had handled the reactivation of the Royal Guard, the Westergard bloodline had led that military unit for centuries, ever guarding the Rourke bloodline. Blaine might have left the Westergard bloodline behind at the urging of the star gods, but he still knew his duty. His father had died for it long ago, and Blaine wouldn’t dishonor that sacrifice by walking away from it. His road would always be intertwined with Caris’.
The hallways and rooms they passed were warmly decorated, lived-in, and cozy in a way that instantly made Blaine feel at ease. It reminded him of the shared clan home he and Honovi resided in back in Glencoe, a place filled with memories and people and meant to raise a family in. If this was where Caris had grown up, well loved and well guided, he couldn’t be regretful that he hadn’t tried to fight the Dusk Star to keep her.
Caris’ personal laboratory was thankfully not in a basement but outside in the back garden, the little detached building cluttered and well used. It was a bit warm inside, and Blaine shrugged out of his leather flight jacket, hanging it over the back of a wooden chair. He watched as Caris flitted about, turning on the mechanical fans in the corner and switching on the gas lamps. The little lab had windows, but extra light was always welcomed when working.
When she finally came to a stop on the other side of the worktable, she rested her hands on top of the work mat, meeting Blaine’s gaze. There was a gravitas to her gaze that hadn’t been there even last summer, war and her new position weighing on her. “You look better. Your hair has gotten longer.”
Blaine reached up to tug on the short braid that lacked the metal hair adornments he’d worn in E’ridia. They got in the way during a flight, but they were packed away in the truck for later, along with his formal kilt and plaid. It wouldn’t do to present themselves before the Ashion dignitaries without being properly attired. “I promised Honovi I wouldn’t cut it again.”
E’ridians kept their hair long, braided in various ways to denote age and social status, the hair adornments hinting at clan affiliation and more. One could tell someone’s rank and clan just as much from their hair as the plaid they wore. Cutting his hair several years ago had been excruciatingly difficult, but he’d done it.
Caris smiled, her gray eyes crinkling at the corners. The shadows underneath them were like tiny bruises, and he wondered about the stress she must be under right now. She gathered up her shoulder-length dark curls and tied them back in a queue as best she could. “Let’s have a look at your arm, shall we? I want to check the settings of your clarion crystals.”
“I did incorporate some of your design suggestions into it.”
“Yes, but I didn’t build it with you.”
“Some of the best E’ridian engineers did.”
“Good.”
Caris came around the table to stand beside him and waited until Blaine placed his mechanical prosthetic hand in hers. She explored it with sure fingers, and Blaine tracked the shape of where she touched.
When he’d first woken up in Glencoe after being held prisoner and could think without the potions or drugs keeping the pain at bay, he’d been terrified at not being able to live his life how he once had. No more engineering work, no more flying, not with the loss of his hand and forearm—grounded in a way he never thought he would be. But the absence of part of his limb didn’t define him, and Honovi had reinforced that belief until Blaine actuallybelievedit.
He’d learned he wasn’t the only aeronaut crewing an airship who had a missing limb. Granted, there were certain aspects of his job as a flight engineer that required additional help—fine motor control was still something he was working on—but the loss hadn’t affected his dominant arm, and he didn’t need the mechanical prosthetic to feel whole. As Honovi was always reminding him, Blaine was still himself, with or without two flesh-and-bone hands.
As for the mechanical prosthetic itself, he was proud of the design he’d created with Caris’ input. The engineers who’d helped him build it to his exact specifications had done a fine job, but it wasn’t going to be the final version he wore. Even with magic to ease along the healing, it would be months more until the shape of the stump of his arm settled into its final form. Once the healing was complete, then he could work on the permanent fitting.
“Have you thought about adding a mini Zip gun to it?” Caris asked, tapping at a brass plate on the outside of the metal forearm.
Blaine laughed. “I heard about the weaponry addition you gave that racing carriage when you rescued me from Foxborough. I don’t think Honovi would approve, and it would be a danger on an airship. What if it accidentally discharged?”
Caris wrinkled her nose and let his arm go, nodding at the worktable. “I’m sure a magician could work a spell on the switch so it wouldn’t fire unless you intended it to. Sit, please. The crystals are good, but their song is off. You have a gear that catches sometimes in the elbow joint, don’t you?”
He eyed the metal prosthetic, the shape of it larger around his elbow for stability purposes. “It does sometimes. How did you know?”
“Discordant notes. I can fix it today, if you like.”
Which was how Blaine found himself sitting at the worktable, mechanical prosthetic removed and in Caris’ capable hands. She had a pair of magnifying goggles on as she worked within the casing of the forearm, the gears, springs and clarion crystals on full display beneath her tools.
“The spells in the gears are still learning how I move,” Blaine said.
