Sesto stuttered a sob through his fists. He’d imagined this for years. How he’d react, the first words he’d say to his old friend... who would have the courage to speak first. It all seemed trite in retrospect.
“Jesstin!” Daire dropped the plank with a hollow thud and raced forward to help, doing what Sesto still could not. “Is it... It is. It is! Where?—”
Jesstin hadn’t left the wall. His forearms trembled unsteadily when Daire reached forward and moved them to his sides. He stared into a far corner, half of his body still sagged in the shape of whatever he’d been holding for who knew how long. He was sweating but also shivering and in the throes of losing a battle to pain, exhaustion, or both. “Where is she... Where is she, Sesto... Where...”
It was astounding it had taken Sesto so long to realize what Jesstin had been holding, and what he still should be holding, except...
“Where is she, Sesto? Where is she? She was just here. Why isn’t she here? Where is she? Where IS SHE?!” Jesstin bellowed. His arms tried to rise, and he screamed again when they failed him. “ELLOVENNNNNNN!” He slid further down the wall.
“Sesto... Sesto, come, come,” Daire said urgently. “Now!”
Sesto recovered moments before Jesstin collapsed.
Sesto and Daire had patiently and lovingly fielded Jesstin’s questions from the moment he’d regained consciousness. It was one question, really, no matter how many ways he’d asked it, clearly hoping for absolute confirmation, which they could not give. Not yet.
Daire had run straight from the kitchen to the cold pantry, where Elloven’s body had lain for years, suspended in time, in the peaceful repose they’d given her before placing her gently into the glass vessel. For so long, they’d wondered whether it would become her ultimate resting place or a respite on the way to something better.
All the whoops of joy resounding from the pantry when Daire saw her breath fog the glass were the most beautiful sounds Sesto had ever heard—or ever would.
The answer to Jesstin’s question, in every way he asked it, was the same. She seemed to be alive. She was breathing, her heart was beating, and after they’d taken her to the guest room, to the bed near the hearth, her cold flesh had begun to lose its stiffness. Color was returning to her cheeks, and she’d stirred, just slightly, when they nestled her under the covers.
But she had not, as yet, woken up.
Hoping there might be some key to speeding things up, they plied Jesstin with their own questions, but he had nothing to offer them but the disorientation he’d stepped through the door with.
Sesto figured that was as best of a time as any to explain that Taven had been staying with them for the past two years. His illness kept him from caring for himself anymore. They couldn’t very well boot him from their only guest room, but they assured Jesstin they had two beds in there, and Elloven was in her own. But he didn’t react to the information either way.
He’d wearily accepted the cold stew and a warm mug of Daire’s favorite tea, but he pushed back when they encouraged rest. Sesto had fussed over him with a warm, wet cloth, which Jesstin eventually suffered through with rare grace. All the while, the man, unchanged by time but hardened by experience, stared at them like they were changelings.
When the initial excitement waned, no one seemed to know who should speak first. Sesto had so many things he wanted to ask. He read the same curiosities in his partner’s eyes. Daire had discovered early on, to their massive disappointment, that he couldn’t communicate with Jesstin after all, as he was not actually dead. They waited and waited, and for a long time, they never left the house together, always ensuring someone was home to greet Jesstin when he came through. It took about five years before they loosened up, and another three or four before they stopped watching the east side of the croft any time they were in the kitchen, the wall that might one day be a door for him to come home. Eventually, they’d accepted he’d either chosen to stay or couldn’t leave. They’d have known if he’d died there. Daire could’ve found him then.
Still, they’d remained in Rivenholde and continued to look after Elloven with the reverence she deserved and they’d promised. They lived in the very home Ryquin had claimed was built upon the site of the supposed “door to Infinita Mori,” which Jesstin would exit and Ryquin would enter. After Ryquin was assassinated, they’d stayed because it was home. Rhiain, Asterin, and the rest of the family couldn’t understand why they were shut out from Rivenholde, from their brother, but had eventually accepted Sesto’s choice to stay. He’d had gainful employment teaching language translations, while Daire kept busy looking after the once-enslaved necromancers they’d freed upon Ryquin’s dramatic exit. In the past year, Acheron had gone mad and hurled himself from the cliffside, and his strange consort had followed. That left Lexsea, who had become a stunningly benevolent curatrix and, peculiar to say, their friend. She’d made bondage prohibited in Rivenholde, which had paved the way for Daire’s work.
Taven had made a life too, but that wasn’t Sesto’s tale to tell.
All this they’d described in scattered accounts as they fed and cleaned Jesstin. But it was Jesstin who had left a world he’d known and returned to one he didn’t.
“How many...” Jesstin’s voice was scratchy. He swigged his steaming tea, fast enough to make poor Daire wince. “How long?”
Sesto exchanged a cautious look with his love. Daire merely nodded. Softening the truth had never been a kindness for Jesstin. “Thirty-three years.”
“Years?” Jesstin stared at the empty mug. He ran his tongue against his incisors. “Thirty-three years.”
“Yes.”
“That would make Rhiain sixty-one... Emrys sixty-five... Asterin sixty-seven...”
“Rhiain is sixty-two, Jess. Just had her nameday. We sent some fresh honey from Daire’s hives.”
Jesstin bent over and dry-heaved. Daire was swift on his feet, but Jesstin waved him away. “I’m fine, Daire.” He wiped his face on his sleeve and shook his head, laying it atop his arms on the table, where he fastened a hollow, numb stare. “And the children...”
“Most have children of their own now,” Sesto said. He was glad for something useful to speak on. Recitations were steadying, so he spent the next hour recounting everything he knew about the lives of the Skylark-Edevanes.
Emrys and Finola’s daughter, Nara, had exhibited strong signs of magic when she was young and had asked to be educated at the Sepulchre. She’d loved it so much, she stayed on as a magus to teach the next generation of youth. Her younger brother, Anduin, had married Sennah Rosewood, the eldest daughter of Steward Rosewood of Greenfen. Their thirteen-year-old son, Ossie, would become Steward Skylark when Emrys and Anduin were both gone.
Caterina, Rhiain and Asterin’s eldest, had made a love match in Percy Bircham. Their son, Wyat, was Ossie’s age and would inherit the Edevane stewardship. Her twin, Tyreste, had three children with his wife, Eliana Rosewood, sister of Senna: Clarissant, Rhiain, and Kimbra. Clarissant, freshly turned eighteen, was betrothed to a young steward, Griffath Tyndall, a love match just like her aunt had made, but it was the fact of him hailing from the Westerlands that had caused the most scandal.
Sianha had also done well for herself, marrying the older, widowed Steward Stirling Oakenwell, and had two children of her own, Endeara and Asterin. Young Asterin would be steward of Oak Hill one day, and Endeara would be formally betrothed to Steward Sylvaine’s nephew, Barrington, in three years when she turned sixteen.
