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Impatiently, Iris tugged at the string, and the bow came loose in her hands. Blair’s eyes dipped for a moment before rising to meet hers again. “It’s not just that. I can’t risk…” He sighed, running a hand roughly through his hair.

“What is it?” Iris asked gently.

He swallowed. “I can’t risk the possibility of getting you pregnant,” he said in a rush. “I can’t inflict this life on a child.” He gestured to himself, shame settling into the shadows of his face.

Iris ran her fingers softly down his arm. Blair shivered, his eyes falling closed as he let out another wavering breath. “You don’t have to worry,” she promised. “I found out a long time ago that I’m not able to have kids.”

His face registered his surprise. “You’re not?”

Iris shook her head. She expected him to look relieved, but his frown deepened.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“That’s okay. I don’t need a baby,” she assured him with a tremulous smile. “I just need you.”

His eyes searched hers, looking for traces of doubt.

There was a beat of stillness, a string pulled taught, and then Blair bent down and recaptured her lips with his own. Iris trailed her hands down his sides, drawing him closer, and her breath hitched as Blair’s warm fingers slid beneath her shirt. Some distant corner of her mind realized she should have felt embarrassed as he touched the notches in her skin, the scars from her childhood scattered like river stones across her stomach. But she was sure that he would never think less of her for having them, just as she had vowed never to judge him.

Iris’ heart fluttered, her hands slipping into Blair’s hair as he kissed a trail down her throat, her collarbone. He pushed up her shirt, pressing his lips to a scar near her belly button. Slowly, reverently, he trailed his mouth across her skin, lingering on each scar as though his lips could heal the old wounds. Iris’ hands tightened in his hair, and he gazed up at her, his normally light eyes dark, the faint moonlight cradling his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice rough. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

Iris tugged his face to her so she could kiss him. “You do. You’re doing perfect.”

His words were shaky but certain. “You’re everything good in this world, Iris. I don’t deserve you.”

Iris shook her head. It wasn’t the least bit true. “But you love me?” she whispered.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’re the siren that beckoned me away from the ocean,” he exhaled. “You called me home. I will love you for the rest of my life, even if…”

Iris ran her hands down his face urgently, her fear bubbling to the surface again. “You’re not going to forget,” she said, trying to smile. “I won’t allow it.”

Blair nodded, his muscles tightening under her hands.

Despite her assurances, Iris knew she had no power to ensure that he wouldn’t forget her once the spell took effect. There were no guarantees. They had to make the night count.

For ten years of her life, Iris had attended weekly music lessons in mandolin, and later, vocal technique. She’d been taught the scales, how to manipulate her hands so that each note would bleed into the next. She’d practiced plucking a single string so that its note would ring out crisp and clear; she’d learned how to caress soft melodies into existence with precision, with patience.

But she had never known music as decadent as the song she and Blair composed under the starlight, a duet of hands and lips, of whispers in the dark. She had never felt a connection as deep as theirs. She knew in her bones that if what they had were to end, she never would again.

A symphony of blood rushed through her veins as their ballad began to build into a crescendo—before the song cut off abruptly in a sharp intake of breath.

Blair had frozen in her arms. His breath shuddered against her collarbone as he shook violently.

Iris touched his face, guiding it to hers. His eyes were a sea of red, blown wide with pleasure and panic. Iris’ heart seemed to stop for a beat before fluttering back to life in an anxious rhythm. “You’re going to be alright,” she whispered. “Just breathe with me, okay? I’ll get you through this.”

But his eyes were glazed, unfocused, and a second later, a discordant note ripped like a gash through the silence—a snapped string, a violin crashing to stone, the cracking roots of a wind-torn tree.

Blair let out a strangled cry as his skin came apart. Jet-black wings erupted from the center of his spine, the feathers spilling like ink across his skin. They fanned out over the rumpled quilt before sliding under Iris’ back like a cocoon. She gasped in shock. Blair’s breath was rapid against her throat, but she thought she could feel his heartbeat begin to slow as she reached her arms up over his wings.

Iris clutched his trembling body to her, running her hands along his spine, feeling the way the vertebrae stretched into the segments of his wings. His feathers were impossibly soft, like spun silk beneath her fingertips. “Just breathe,” she whispered into his hair as she gently stroked the feathers. “I love you.”

After several minutes, Iris felt Blair’s muscles spasm as the wings began to retract into his backbone, his skin immediately healing over the fissure. She trailed her hand down his human spine, amazed. At last, he raised his head, his eyes no longer red but mist-gray again, and collapsed at her side.

Blair squeezed his eyes shut, raking a shaky hand through his hair as he stared up at the dark ceiling. “Did I hurt you?” he asked at last. Iris could hear the self-loathing in the catch in his voice.

“No.” She reached for his hand, raising it to her lips and pressing a kiss to his palm.

He blinked rapidly as she rested her chin on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m such a freak,” he said contemptuously.