The Moon-Eater sighs. “It’s exciting. You could kill me. Unraveling might not be true death, but a sunderer could find a way. If you can change the fundamental nature of things, if you can cause true transformation, which Never claims sunderers can, then you could kill me. That’s incredible!” He laughs again, his entire face changing into radiant beauty. “I could die, so everything is more precious.”
“That makes you sound crazy.”
“Ha, well, I’m not human,” he says like that’s an answer.
For a long moment Iriset studies him. It’s strange that he’s not human, when every detail about his form says otherwise. Iriset doesn’t think if she were a numen she’d ever bother pretending to be human. What’s the point? “Do you even know what you want?”
“To be happy, of course.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I want to be the foundation of a whole empire,” he says intently. He grabs her knees, leaning in. “I want to know what that is like. I want to feed the pulse of such a massive, elaborate power. It sounds like a dream.”
“The numen thinks it’s a prison.”
The Moon-Eater’s blissful expression falls away. “Never has no roots. That’s how I began this life, you know. Roots. And when I was born into this being, I lost part of that. The simplicity of roots, of nutrients and twisting mushroom electricity and tickling earthworms. What you and Never have described, it feels like going home. Remembering home. And it won’t be forever, right?”
Iriset nods. She can’t say she doesn’t understand a little, even though it’s such an alien way to think about existing.
“Because Never wanted to rescue me,” Shade says with deep self-satisfaction.
“I could kill it, too, if I can kill you.”
The Moon-Eater sucks in a harsh breath. “You could,” he whispers.
“Do you want me to?”
“No! I…” He shakes his head slowly, eyes huge. He puts a hand over his chest. “But you could. Oh my, that… hurts, too.”
Iriset sighs. She covers his hand with hers. “Congratulations on finding the sharp edge of love.”
The Moon-Eater’s mouth ticks sideways with bitterness. “Oh, I know that edge well, Iriset Sunderer. Only, it has never applied to my Never.”
“Why did you lock it away? I knew almost immediately. You aren’t so good at being it,” Iriset says just to be mean.
Shade sulks. “Never didn’t want me to let you do any of this. I thought it would leave again.”
“So you put it inside you,” Iriset murmurs, andthatshe totally understands. The urge to have something beloved inside, not justfor a moment, for sex, but forever. Safe, consumed, whole. Like the marriage seed. “Shade, do you know why Never is so invested in my sundering? It’s the first word it said to me. Sunderer. Back then, I guess it thought I could free you. Is that all? If you’re unraveled, only a sunderer can free you again, remake you again?”
“Ah, I never understand Never,” Shade jokes.
Iriset waits.
With a sigh, Shade shifts nearer to Iriset on the bench. “Never has always been looking for something. Perhaps a sunderer is it, or perhaps a sunderer is a step toward this thing Never longs for. That is my best guess.”
“I’m not sure I could possibly give Never what it wants,” Iriset warns. “I don’t want to see it. Forget I exist for a while, all right?”
Shade kisses her with pouting lips. She lets him, lets him open her mouth and lick into her, and she arches her back and enjoys his sucking at her neck—extremely aware it’s the exact spot where the wound was, the gushing death wound—and welcomes the arousal, considers letting him keep going, fuck her in the shape of a human, not a monster of hands and fleshy tendrils.
But Iriset shoves him back with a halfhearted tsk and the Moon-Eater chuckles, and before he goes he catches her hand. He kisses the fingers and… pauses.
She does her best not to grimace as he notices her crystal fingernails. He says nothing, just gives her a knowing look. It’s intense, and Iriset pushes him away again.
He goes.
Iriset holds on to the feeling of arousal. She gathers it up, the heat and power of it, and she cups her hands as if she can cup the power outside her body.
Iriset blows gently, her inner design so hot her breath becomes vapor in the spring air. She plucks it with both hands, with crystalfingernails, pulling at it like two curving boundaries of a spider’s web. She stretches it out, and suddenly in her hands there is a big array of water droplets.
