I bite his thumb. “I knew this was unusual. You can’t help yourself, can you?”
Fingertips trace little circles on my cheeks. His voice roughens. “I spent thirteen years hoping that one day I would be able to hold you in my arms. Forever. And every morning since the Queensmoot, when I wake it feels as though I’m still dreaming, because you’re right beside me. I don’t have to send you back to your mother. I don’t have to beg you to remember me. I don’t have to feel that knife to the heart every time she gives you back, when you look at me as if I’m a stranger. You’re mine, Vi. Finally mine.” He places a punishing kiss on my mouth, tension shivering through him before he finally lets me up for air. But the beautiful green of his irises is gone, leaving nothing but chips of polished obsidian in their place. “But sometimes it feels like it’s too good to be true. Am I still dreaming? Is the dream going to shatter if I wake? And I won’t let it. Nothing will take you away from me again. Not your mother. Not Angharad’s fetch. Not the Mother of Fucking Night. I will drown this world in Darkness before I ever let you go again.”
I clasp his wrists, trying to catch my breath.
Around us, shadow dapples over the cobbles as clouds gather above the city.
Fae cry out, pointing to the skies.
“Thiago. Thiago.” I dig my nails into his wrists so he’s forced to look at me. All his attention locks on me, and suddenly we’re the only two souls in the world. “I love this world. And this world needs light.” Heat flares in his eyes, but I press my finger to his lips. “Nothing is going to take me away, but if it does, then I will fight my way back to you. No matter what it takes. No matter who has me. And if the worst should happen, not even death could part us. I would wait for you on the edge of the Bright Lands.”
The god of Death rules over all, eventually. According to ancient myth we were once immortal, but when we fled the origin world and arrived here in Arcaedia, we were cursed by the Old Ones and fall prey to Kato’s judgement in the afterlife. He dictates whether we ascend to the Bright Lands or are doomed to suffer eternally in the Underworld.
His breath exhales with a rush. “And I would wait for you in the Darkness.”
In the Darkness…? I frown, but he captures my hand, brushing my knuckles against his lips. Inch by inch he swallows down the daemons inside him, until his eyes blaze with emerald fire.
“Thank you,” he whispers, as the clouds above the city thin.
I swallow down the hard lump in my throat. All this time he’s been wearing the mantle of charming prince, but I didn’t realize how close to the surface his daemons lurk. Or maybe it’s the curse, sinking its hooks in him. “I’ll go to the bookstore. I won’t look for Finn. And I promise I’ll come back to you.”
“This way,” he says, offering me his arm and vanishing the rose.
There’s no sign of the hint of violence I just caught a glimpse of. He absorbs it all and simply suppresses it.
But now I desperately need to talk to Eris. Or Thalia.
Because my husband lives and breathes control, and if I hadn’t stayed his hand, then he might have let it overwhelm him.
Later.
An enormous oak tree leans against the cliff face ahead of us. Its roots are so thick that doorways and windows have been carved among them, and I’m not sure where the cliff ends and the oak begins. A jaunty little sign with a pair of books on it hangs directly above one of the openings. Another sign features a wine barrel.
“The Wayfarer’s Oak.” Thiago points to the hundreds of fey lanterns that drip from its branches. “Each night the lanterns help guide its people through the old quarter. Nobody knows who lights them—or whether it’s simply an old magic long forgotten—but it’s said that the day the oak falls is the day the city is doomed.”
Image intrudes; A brief flash of laughter and dancing as we dine in a little restaurant not far from the oak. It’s a memory of the pair of us, and I can almost smell the wine and taste his kiss on my mouth.
My head turns, and there it is.
The Wayfarer.
The restaurant is hewn directly into the cliff walls, and wisteria chokes the brass frame of the awning outside the restaurant. A half dozen tables sit scattered beneath it, wearing skirts of white linen tablecloths. Little demi-fey flutter here and there among the wisteria, breathing fire into glass orbs that nestle within its vines. At night it would be breathtaking.
“We’ve been here.” I want to chase down the memory, but it vanishes like a dream upon waking.
“Yes. We’ve dined there sometimes. There were years when the curse broke early and you would remember me and we had more time to enjoy the city.”
“What else did we do?” There’s no point dwelling on all the memories that slip through my fingers. I may as well explore my city again.
“You spent hours in Binder’s,” he says, dragging me through the crowd, toward the little door with the book sign hanging above it.
And now I know another reason why he brought me.
He thinks the more I immerse myself in things I’ve done with him, the more I’ll remember.
A bell tinkles as we enter. A tired little face looks up from the counter, a smile flashing as the hob recognizes rich customers—judging from our clothes, no doubt—and then Thiago offers a polite greeting
