He guided my hand to his chest, pressing my palm flat against the linen of his shirt. Beneath it, his heart beat with a steady rhythm.
“I spent thirteen years thinking I was a monster,” he said. “Thinking my lack of control killed them. But I wasn’t a monster. I was justplumbing.”
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Plumbing,” he said again, his eyes dark with a mixture of fury and absurdity. “Municipal infrastructure. That thing, the shadow, was a governor valve. The Law of Arcane Entropy states that waste magic must go somewhere. Kelda didn’t want the bother of managing it, so she built a filter. Me.”
“She turned you into a sewage treatment plant for magic,” I said, the horror of it warring with the ridiculous analogy.
“Precisely.” He leaned forward, his face inches from mine. “And do you know how a governor valve works? It shuts down the system when pressure gets too high. And for that particular construct, ‘pressure’ was human emotion. Joy, grief, rage... desire.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and the air in the room all of a sudden felt hot.
“That’s why I couldn’t...” He trailed off, a faint flush rising on his high cheekbones, conflicting delightfully with his sternexpression. “That’s why I struggled to maintain composure around you. The moment I felt anything genuine, especially regarding you, the valve clamped down.”
“So,” I said, a slow smile tugging at my lips despite the grim context. “You’re telling me that you didn’t nearly shift into a beast and eat me in the study because you hated me, but because your internal safety switch panicked at how much you wanted to kiss me?”
Fenrik groaned, tipping his forehead forward until it rested against mine.
“Panic is a mild word for it,” he muttered against my skin. “The machine was designed to handle maintenance levels of emotion. You, my inconvenient wife, caused a catastrophic system failure. Every time you looked at me with those damn honey-gold eyes, the filtration system went critical.”
“I broke your valve,” I said.
He pulled back enough to look at me, and the hunger in his expression made my breath catch. There was no governor now.
“You obliterated it,” he said. “Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be a grown man, a Lord of the Vale, who literally cannot function because he’s too...” He gestured vaguely between us.
“Horny?” I suggested.
“Overwhelmed,” he said sharply, though his lips quirked upward. “The shadow construct interpreted arousal as a threat to the town’s safety. It suppressed me to keep the ley-line stable.” He squeezed my hand, his thumb brushing the sensitive skinof my wrist. “It appears my capacity for feeling was... volatile. High-yield.”
“Nuclear,” I agreed, remembering the gold and silver fire that had consumed the shadow dragon.
“Quite.” He kissed my knuckles. “And now the safety is off. The valve is gone. I am entirely unregulated.” His eyes darkened, promising trouble once I was healed.
“Good,” I said. “I prefer you messy.”
“Careful, Lysa,” he warned, though he was leaning in again. “Without the governor, I suspect I’m going to be very, very demanding.”
How could the air get any hotter? Was the House playing tricks on me, or was it simply my imagination, running ahead of him and finding him very demanding indeed?
“If Mrs. Crane brings me one more bowl of broth that tastes like dissolved parchment, I am going to set the bed curtains on fire,” I said, tossing the heavy quilt aside. My legs felt like wobbling jelly, but the need for fresh air was a physical ache.
Fenrik was out of his chair before my feet hit the floorboards. “You are supposed to be resting. ‘Resting’ implies horizontal inactivity.”
“I have rested three days already,” I countered, leaning heavily into the solid warmth of his chest when he caught me. “I am now decomposing. Help me outside.”
He sighed, but didn’t argue. He swept me up, carried me to the door, and paused. He listened, checking the corridor.
“Clear,” he said. “No prying eyes.” He navigated the halls with a new, careless grace, ignoring the Sentinel Beast that merely chuffed affectionately as we passed. We made it to the stone terrace overlooking the cliffs, and he set me down on a cushioned lounger, though he kept his arm wrapped around my waist as if he expected a stiff breeze to carry me off.
The air was sharp and cold, stinging my cheeks. Fenrik sat beside me, his long legs stretched out, staring at the horizon where the sea met the sky.
“It wasn’t just the valve,” he said, picking up the thread of our earlier conversation as if we hadn’t stopped. “It was the editing.”
“Editing?”
“My memory.” He turned his hand over, examining his own palm. “For thirteen years, I lived in a fog. Every time I started to question the isolation, or wonder why the curse worsened when she arrived. A friendly visit. A touch on the arm.” His lip curled. “She used Veil magic to burn away the resistance. She edited me, Lysa. Cut out the chapters where I was worth something.”
