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So I got kidnapped.
Flaming embarrassing, really, and we won’t get into the hows and whys — there was a shapeshifter involved, and some decently clever maneuvering, but it’s still not one of my prouder moments. The important thing is, I got herded onto a ship about to leave Hobart docks, and ended up locked in a cabin in the middle of the ocean; an iron cabin, and more importantly, one that was flaming well wiped of Between. It felt just as uncomfortable as the Palmers’ home, and a lot more threatening, given that this one was being used against me personally.
Well, I still had hopes I could do something. There was more than one kind of Between, after all, and the kind that bridged dreaming and reality could be almost as friendly to me as the kind bridging human and Behind. I reckoned I could at least scout around a bit, see what my people were doing back home — maybe even get some kind of word through while I was at it. JinYeong’s awful good at hearing me, after all.
But I couldn’t get out, even in my dreams. Couldn’t dream anything, when I managed to sleep, but walls and shadows all around me.
“That’s just unfair,” I said after waking back up, scowling into the darkness of the room. “You’re not supposed to be clever about it.”
There was a little bit of fear, too, under my temper — because I knew every hour was taking me farther from home, and none of my people were likely to know how I’d left, let alone where I was going. I mean, I didn’t even know if these galahs had hit somebody else in Hobart after me. What if they’d gone after JinYeong after splitting us up?
If I could get out, I could at least see how they were. It might not do much good, but at least I’d know — and I might learn something about this lot’s plans for me, to help me prepare.
They’d prepared first, though, and somehow this cell was warded against my dream-walking just like it had been swept of ordinary Between.
I turned on my side in the cot they’d given me, still staring into the dark. “Can’t even dream,” I muttered at it. “I’d be lucky to even get a proper nightmare…”
And then I shut my mouth, because I’d had a thought, and it felt too important to let out into the air.
I did have a Nightmare, after all. It was an awfully reliable one, as they went — and it tied me to somebody outside this cell strongly enough that I’d dreamed my way to him, six times over, when he’d been trapped by moonlight and a Sandman both. Somebody who’d come for me in a second, if he knew where I was.
Granted, he’d been in a construct then, but… I could probably build a bit of construct in my own head, couldn’t I? Course I could. And then if I could just… reach out and tug through the connection I knew we had…
That was the problem, of course. I could only think of one sure way to pull on that connection, and it wasn’t gunna be fun.
“Heck,” I said softly. Because I knew I’d do it. I wanted to get home — needed to get home. It’d be stupid to pass up my best chance at contacting my family, and making that happen, just because it’d be unpleasant for me.
So I stared into the dark with a purpose this time, letting the shadows fill my sight and seep into my mind. I pulled out more shadows from my memory — slowing my breath all the time, leaning into my tiredness — and let things mix and mingle until the room was full of a different kind of darkness, half out of my head and half still in it.
When I finally felt my eyelids drop shut, the shadows were still there behind them, and looming in a way that I knew.
Carefully, I let myself sink into that space in my own mind without fighting — let my magic soak into it, giving it more structure and substance, forming it into its own kind of Between that wasn’t quite in my head or in the cabin. It was still my nightmare, or the potential of it, but it was a construct too.
Then, as I kept sinking deeper into that Nightmare-seed of pain and terror and darkness, I found the tie inside it, fluttering away out of my mind and toward its other end. I gave it a good, strong yank.
And that’s when I fell into the depths — into Nightmare and construct and memory, into the one place that had first tied me and Athelas together — and somehow I was still lying in bed, but the bed was different, and my body was frozen in old fear.
For a second, I couldn’t remember anything but that fear: the fear that made me lie there helpless, knowing my world had ended, knowing a murderer was coming for me like he’d come for my parents. It drowned me, swallowed me up —
But that tether I’d caught hold of was still there, being drawn shorter, and a little part of me remembered that the person on the other end was a lot more than just the Nightmare. Remembered I’d called him here on purpose, because of everything else he was. I closed my eyes, and tried to shake free of the fear, just as that familiar-in-too-many-ways presence entered the room.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t stop being afraid, even though I knew the difference between past and present, nightmare and reality. At the front of my mind, I was still that scared, hurt kid who didn’t know anything but pain. And the figure looming over my bed wasn’t the person I’d wanted: it was the thing of shadows that my mind had wrapped him in during four years’ worth of dreaming.
The Nightmare stood over me, and it came to me in a horrible flash that I’d trapped both of us.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t change anything from the patterns I’d put in motion, and that meant Athelas couldn’t either. Couldn’t be anything but the Nightmare — couldn’t think anything but the Nightmare thoughts, just like I couldn’t feel anything but the bone-melting terror that belonged here.
But that couldn’t be true, could it?
I couldn’t have just put us through all this, all over again, with no hope of changing it, and for nothing…
With an effort like lifting a mountain off my chest, I managed to open my lips, and whispered, pleading, “Athelas.”
The shadows in front of me writhed, and then burst apart, evaporating into the dark around us to reveal those gray eyes fixed on me. For a split second I held my breath, half-afraid we were moving into the other nightmares now—
And then Athelas, my Athelas, fell back onto his knees like he’d die if he didn’t get away from me that second. “Pet, ” he gasped with his face bent to the floor, in a voice more broken than he’d sounded at Camellia’s, even. “My light, my life—”
My heart did a funny kind of squeeze in my chest. Heck. This might’ve hurt me, but I’d hurt him too, and bad — I didn’t like that shake in his voice at all.
“Athelas,” I said quickly, scrambling out of the bed to get down next to him. “It’s okay. I’m sorry.” I put my arms around him (as best I could with one-and-a-bit, yeah — but hugging’s something I’ve gotten practice in), pushing my head into his shoulder, trying to let him know this bit was real. “This one’s my fault.”
He laughed, shaky and bitter and pained. Stiff in my arms, he said disbelievingly, “Your fault, oh best beloved?”
That made my heart squeeze again, strong and surprised and only partly painful. Athelas didn’t toss around words like that with me when he was himself — or not ever, really. Hearing them all of a sudden, even in his most tired, self-hating voice, felt like finding a door opening somewhere I thought there’d just been a wall.
But that wasn’t important, right now.
“Yes,” I said, digging my chin harder into his shoulder. “I pulled on the Nightmare on purpose, to bring it out — and I pulled on you through it, on purpose, to bring you to me. So it’s on me. I couldn’t think of a better way, but I’m still the one that did it, so—”
“Oh,” Athelas breathed, and I could hear him understanding. His body loosened, a little, and I felt his head lift. In a much steadier voice, he said, “How resourceful of you, my dear!”
And we were back to my dear. That was all right, though, if it meant Athelas was back on an even footing. I pulled away a little, just enough to meet his eyes, and found them bright and alert with interest.
There was a gleam of pride in them, too, as he looked at me, that I couldn’t help grinning back at. “I knew you’d see it pretty quick,” I told him. This was why I’d missed him — well, one of the reasons. He was so flaming quick to see what I was thinking.
He smiled at me, fully pulled together now. “If your need is so urgent as to use your nightmares for a message, we’d best waste no time,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”
I took a deep breath, and explained.
By the end of that talk, we’d moved to sitting on the bed. Even in a dream, it was more comfortable than the floor.
“I slept for a bit,” I explained eventually, “hoping I could at least check in on everyone else, but my dreams weren’t goin’ anywhere.” I exhaled. I wished I could skip this part, but Athelas deserved a full explanation, or as close as I had to one.
“Then I woke up again, and I thought — who’s the one person I could reach, even when one of us was trapped? So I sort of…”
Even though I’d just told myself I needed to get through it, I hesitated, and Athelas filled in the gap. “Summoned a nightmare?” he suggested, his voice gentle.
My shoulders hunched a bit at the memory. “Best I could,” I agreed. “When I felt it comin’ on, I tried to pull you through it. I didn’t — didn’t realize that part would be so strong, though. Didn’t really think that through, either.”
I looked up at Athelas, and caught a flash of sorrow in his eyes. But he only said, “It’s no matter, my dear,” as if he relived his worst moments every day. “We passed through it, did we not?” Which was true, but an awfully low bar for something to not matter.
“As for the exit…” His gaze flicked around the room, tranquil and thoughtful again. “If this is a spontaneously created construct, I believe I need only wait until you fall back into natural sleep. It will dissolve, then, and the lack of a container will return me to myself as well.”
“Good,” I said, because that was a relief. “Still, though, if I’d realized…” I looked back at the floor. “Well, I reckon I can’t say I wouldn’t have done it.” It was a hard thing to apologize for properly, because I did think it was necessary — and because I knew Athelas would’ve told me to do it, given the choice. “But I’d have thought harder about it. Hurting myself to escape would be one thing, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I looked back up at him. “I’m sorry I did that.”
“Forgiven, of course,” Athelas said after a moment. His voice was very gentle, and just a bit hesitant, in a way that made me think he still struggled with apologies as a general thing. “It was the right thing to do.”
And there it was.
“I know,” I said, shrugging a bit, “but…”
This time, when he spoke, I could hear the smile in his voice. “It was a somewhat ruthless stratagem, I suppose.”
Stupid twisty fae and his stupid puns… I sagged against his shoulder, grinning a bit in relief. “Think you’re so flamin’ funny,” I muttered.
He hummed in an amused sort of way.
“Jokes aside,” he said after a moment, “you do have a peculiarly apt name, my dear.”
Well, a little voice in my head said grumpily, taking me by surprise, then why don’t you ever use it?
The little voice sounded like a bit of a sook even to me, though, so I didn’t repeat it. See? I can keep some of my thoughts inside, when I want to. Out loud I just said, “That’s what they tell me,” because I had heard it before (even if I thought it was a bit overblown).
My voice might still have been a bit sulkier than I realized, though — or maybe I’d just forgotten who I was talking to. There were a few seconds of silence, and then Athelas said more slowly, “Have I offended you, my dear? I should like to know, if I have. It wasn’t my intent.”
I straightened up in surprise to look at him, and found him already looking right at me, a worried light in his eyes.
“No — no, it’s fine,” I said quickly. But that worried light didn’t die down, and somehow that made me beam a bit — because I thought only Athelas would’ve caught onto my mood quite so quick, flaming perceptive old fae that he was. “I can’t get anything past you, can I? Should’ve remembered that.”
His worried look softened and lightened into a smile, but it still didn’t leave completely. “Then there is something,” he said gently, promptingly.
“I… Sort of?” I looked down again. “It’s nothing you’ve done wrong.” And it was silly to be bothered by it now, of all times, when I was in a dream-space inside a cell that was who-knows-where at sea, and Athelas was only here at my dragging to rescue me.
But… I realized part of me was still stuck in that minute, such a short time ago, when he’d said things like my light and my life and best beloved like they were easy. Like they’d been in there all along, waiting to be said.
Weren't we supposed to be past things that couldn't be said?
So I bit my lip and plunged in. “It’s only… Y’don’t use my name. Or Pet. Or anything else. Just my dear.”
There was a moment of somehow startled silence.
“I thought you disliked Pet,” Athelas said, sounding a bit unmoored. “Certainly you caught up Zero when he called you by it, that night with Harrow.”
I found myself grinning up at him again. “Really can’t get anything past you,” I repeated. Of course Athelas would’ve heard that and remembered it, even with everything else going on in those few hectic minutes. “But — no, I don’t mind it, really. Lotta people Between and Behind still know me that way. And Pet as a name is fine from…” You and Zero. “From people who called me that first, at least now and again. ‘S’just when it gets a little too close to ‘the pet’ with Zero, sometimes, that I have to catch him up sharpish.”
“Ah.” Athelas’ tone and expression told me he saw it without needing any more explanation.
Which was fantastic, as far as it went, but I still wanted a little more explanation of what he was thinking.
So I said again, pointedly, “But I don’t mind it,” and this time he was the one looking down and away.
“I… suppose,” he said softly, after a moment, “that to address you by either your old title or your given name seemed… presumptuous.” He was gazing at his hands, clasped together in his lap. His face was quietly, distantly rueful. “To be allowed to call you my dear is a very great boon by itself, I promise you.”
Oh.
I should’ve thought of that, probably. I’d tried to cut off my dear once, after all, and I hadn’t been wrong to do it. Not that he’d listened, then. He’d kept calling me Pet and my dear and… well, there was nothing he could’ve called me that wouldn’t have hurt, so it hadn’t mattered in a way, had it?
But that was then. Now… well, I reckoned I could see Pet being messy from his perspective — he’d learned a fair few lessons about claiming people this last year — and Ruth could be taken as a power play in another way, but…
All of that only made sense if you were still casting Athelas as the villain of the piece.
He’d been forgiven, since. He was allowed to look at me and see Pet, or Ruth, or whoever I was to him. He didn’t need to be thinking about presumption — about cutting himself off or holding himself back or any of that. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he know—
Athelas looked up, expression puzzled and then distressed as his eyes met mine, and I realized that he didn’t.
“You idiot,” I huffed, my vision blurring. Fine, then. I’d just have to tell him.
But first I swung myself over sideways, legs over his lap and arms fastened around his neck, and dropped my head on his shoulder. If he was gunna be this dense about it, he needed evidence.
He stilled completely, like he thought any move would hurt me somehow. Stupid old fae.
“You’re not here on — on sufferance,” I told him, around the lump that had got into my throat. “It’s not that you’re sorry, and I forgave you, and so you’re allowed back. You’re here ‘cause I love you, and I missed you, and you’re my family.” And I hadn’t thought to tell him, because it’d seemed too obvious to me — too obvious that under all the hurt and wounds and grief and betrayal, the love hadn’t ever been killed. But apparently he still needed to know.
I turned my face into his shoulder, burning eyes pressed shut against the familiar wool. “So you’re allowed to flamin’ act like it!”
There was another moment of total stillness from Athelas — a moment where he wasn’t even breathing.
And then he inhaled, long and deep and ragged, and came to life. Suddenly his arms were lifted and folding around me, huddling me tight against his chest. One hand was in my hair, pressing my head to rest just under his chin, and the other was wrapped around my back. His whole self, still as stone just a second ago, seemed folded around me now like I was something precious and fragile.
I made a little choked noise. I couldn’t help it. Zero’s hugs were massive and all-encompassing and safe, and JinYeong’s were soft and steady and more homelike than anything I knew, but Athelas’… well, it was Athelas, who’d never hugged me before. It wasn’t that those other hugs didn’t make me feel loved. It was that this one made me feel Athelas loved me.
I’d known he did, of course. But maybe I understood him a little better now — I hadn’t known how much difference it would make to feel it.
“My darling,” he said into my hair. His voice was breaking, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Forgive me this, then, too, my dearest. For not seeing.”
That was easy. My head against his heart, held safe in his arms, it wasn’t even like Before — it was what Before should’ve been, if all the horrors hadn’t been lurking in the background. It was knowing he was my twisty, soft, clever old tea-drinker, for good. That I belonged here — that I was wanted, treasured, right here, and always would be.
It’d taken me five years to be strong enough to ask for that knowledge, and it’d taken him five years to learn how to give it. I knew now, though, that not a second of it had been wasted time.
“Didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him aloud, and hoped he could hear the rest from my arm around his neck and my weight against his chest. “Can we just… stay here, for a bit?”
He exhaled a low, shaky laugh. “Forever,” he murmured, “if we were to go by my wishes.”
“Good,” I said into his jacket, my heart squeezing again for a second. Couldn't ask for a better answer than that. I wriggled a bit to make sure I was in a comfortable position, and then relaxed with a sigh.
Athelas laughed again, but his breath hitched partway through, and then he was crying — properly crying, not trying to smother it. I reckoned that was a good change, too, and I just held on closer till it was over.
At some point after that, I realized my mind was going soft and fuzzy, and pulled it together just enough to warn him, “Think I’m driftin’ off.”
“Do then, my darling,” he said, voice soft and reassuring now. I felt a hand on my cheek, lifting it just a bit, and then a pair of cool lips pressed against my forehead. “Stay safe,” he murmured. “Stay clever. I will pass the word on to Zero and JinYeong, and we shall be with you very soon.”
I couldn’t help smiling, opening my eyes a crack to meet his. They were looking down at me with nothing hidden in them, now, for maybe the first time ever — everything on display.
“Soft,” I told him drowsily. “Soft Athelas is good. Glad y’can be now.”
Those moonlight eyes lit with sudden, delighted laughter. “Ridiculous treasure,” he said, and the warmth of his voice followed me into true sleep and out of it again, into the waking world.
The next day was long and dull and lonesome — worrying too, a little, but only a little, because if there was one thing I knew it was that Athelas didn’t break his promises. Not if he was willing to make them.
There was a bit of my brain trying to convince me I’d imagined the whole thing. I didn’t have any physical evidence, after all — the drawback of dream-communicating — and what if I’d just wanted to talk to someone so bad I’d made it up? Had a dream and convinced myself it was real?
It was silly. I had a lot of reasons I could point to, even it they weren’t solid: I knew what my regular dreams and my dreamwalking felt like, and how I remembered them after, and this wasn’t quite like either; it’d left me tired, the way dreaming myself into Athelas’ prison had years ago; and I’d never slid from the Nightmare into a different dream before, normal or abnormal.
More than all of that, though, I didn’t think I could’ve dreamed up the exact way Athelas’ voice had broken on those other names for me, or the tightness of his arms around me, or the look in his eyes as I’d fallen asleep.
That was what’d stayed with me, just as much as the promise of safety — bound up in it, really, because they all came from the same place. I was going to be safe because Athelas knew where I was, and Athelas wanted me safe.
So I told the scared, paranoid bit of my brain it was being an idiot, and tried to nap my way through the day’s dullness and tiredness and lack of coffee. I still didn’t like being helpless and shut away from the action, but… well, it was probably good for me to have to delegate a bit.
Finally, the sound and feel of the engines changed, and — after another, tenser interval of waiting — died away entirely. I didn’t really know what to expect after that, but I stood by the side of the door anyway, bouncing a bit on the balls of my feet, and trying to be ready for whatever might come through.
Then, gradually, I started hearing muffled yells. They got a little less muffled, I thought, as I listened — but they did keep getting cut off, and then starting up again a bit closer and more frantic.
Someone causing a bit of a fuss out there, I thought, and found myself grinning. As the sounds kept getting closer, I positioned myself to theside of the door, so I’d be ready for whatever came through, good or bad—
And then the door did swing open with a gust of cologne, and I dived forward not to fight, but to land in my husband’s arms.
He caught me, after a startled half-second, quick and sure, burying his face in my neck. “Ruth,” he breathed. I felt the tears spring to my eyes, just a little, and hid them in the collar of his suit.
“Oi,” I said. “Missed you.”
JinYeong laughed breathlessly and drew back to look at my face. “I missed you, too,” he said, ridiculously happy. I probably looked about the same, though, to be fair. “You are not hurt?”
“Nah.” I pulled my arm free from his waist to put it round his neck instead. His hair was already a bit mussed — he must’ve been fighting hard, then — but I rumpled it a bit more, just because I could. “Just bored. Embarrassed, a bit.”
He huffed. “I did not see the trap either, my Ruth. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Oh, ‘cause you’re perfect?” I said, grinning now.
“You are rude,” he said in return, his eyes bright and warm and dancing with joy, “and I do not know why I bother to rescue you.”
“Well, since you did, I suppose we oughta get out of here,” I told him seriously. I didn’t let go of him, though, and he didn’t loosen his hold either.
“First,” he said, “if I have permission, I would like to kiss my wife.”
I laughed, bright and bubbling and joyful. “Galah,” I told him, and kissed him first, till my veins were fizzing and my heart was racing and I had to come up for air.
JinYeong rested his forehead against mine, dark liquid eyes looking straight at me, and then gave me another kiss: a quick, soft peck, like he was just making sure I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Now we can go,” he said, with one of the slow, soft smiles that still flustered me, even though you’d think after five years I’d have a little immunity. Terrible news: dating a vampire — at least, the right vampire — doesn’t make him any less attractive, and marrying him definitely doesn’t.
Frankly, the vampire spit was a lot easier to get used to.
But he pulled me close once more, quick and tight, and then let go, pulling out a familiar knife instead. “There may be fighting,” he said, holding it out for me.
I took it, flicking it out from its human-world size into the light, strong sword it was Between, just suited to my hand. “Reckoned you wouldn’t have got all of them,” I agreed. “Big rescue party, or just an exclusive thing?”
JinYeong grinned, sharp and pleased in a way I couldn’t quite read. “Very exclusive,” he assured me. “Only three of us.” He lifted his nose in the air. “I could have come alone, of course, but they came all the way from Seoul and are both verrry annoying about being left behind.”
“Wait,” I said, stopping my movement toward the door at his last words. There was a sudden added lightness in my heart, mixing and mingling with the effects of JinYeong’s presence. “Really?”
He looked at me and laughed, and now I could tell what he was so pleased about. “Really,” he said, "and if we do not hurry they will finish their fighting and come looking for us. And then they will be annoying about that.”
“Well, we can’t have that!” I agreed, the lightness bubbling up inside me.
So we went out into the corridors, fighting through a route he seemed to have memorized — most of the opposition looked like it'd been taken out on his way in, but there were a few latecomers to keep us both busy. After a bit it all began to blur together into a rush of running, and blood, and JinYeong’s warm presence at my side pulling me on—
Then suddenly we were in the open air and sun, out on deck, and JinYeong took a sniff of the air and then grinned fiercely.
“Ah!” he said. “They have not finished yet!”
He tugged me closer to his side, and I looked down even as we ran for the side. There they were, against a swarm of fighters: a big, blindingly white figure with his sword sweeping out and through the waves of enemies, and a slender, whirling figure beside him that flicked silver and magic into anything that looked like a gap.
I was already grinning, from the rush of the vampire spit and the glee of the escape, but at that sight I found my own relief and gladness and exhilaration spilling over into laughter.
Jumping down onto the dock beside them, I asked through that laughter, “What’re we hanging around for?”
“Nothing now,” Zero said briefly, but I saw his shoulders had relaxed a little at my voice. “Go, we’ll follow!”
Didn’t have to tell me twice. “Absolutely,” I agreed, looking around for any twisty little bit of Between that looked like it’d lead far away from here, and I saw a shadow on the water that, if I squinted at it just right, looked like a cave opening. Not the friendliest place, maybe, but it was more shadowy than dark, and beggars can’t be choosers, can they?
Besides, I already had Athelas with me. Not like the two of us were going to have any trouble dealing with anybody else’s shadows.
So I slipped in sideways, between one wave and the next, pulling at Between just enough to hold it open for JinYeong, and Athelas, and finally Zero, who I felt take it over from me and let it close behind us. Knowing I could leave our trail to him, I darted ahead through the cave — a cool, slippery place, something like stone and something like ice but definitely water if I’d stepped wrong — until I found an opening into somewhere different, and then from there to someplace different again, climbing up and away and sideways from the fight at the docks until I could feel several layers of Between and Behind separating us from it.
When I finally stopped for breath, we were on a bright, glassy cliff that might’ve blended in with the sky if I weren’t keeping an eye on it, over a bluish sort of forest that might’ve been waves or might’ve been island in the human world. I caught my breath, and then turned, looking around.
There they were behind me, the three of them — not my psychos anymore, not for a long time, but my family. JinYeong close by me and Zero guarding the rear and Athelas there in the middle, all safe, all well, all on the same side.
Zero kept going, passing the other two in about three steps, and grabbed me up in one of his bear hugs that squished my face against his chest. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice rumbling through me.
I pushed my head up to meet his eyes, finding them anxious and relieved and glad all at once, and beamed at him. I’d missed my uncle. “Fantastic!” I told him, laughing again just for the joy of it.
He grinned back at me, his eyes lightening, and let go after another crushing squeeze. I kept my arm around his broad back for another second, then pulled back and looked at the other two.
JinYeong I’d already said my hellos to — Athelas I’d barely gotten a look at, though, in the real world. Now he was just standing there, watching us with a far-off look that was only a little too contented to be wistful.
“You good?” I asked, moving a few steps over to him. He blinked at me, looking a little startled. I saw him lift a hand up in my direction… and then hesitate, leaving it hanging in the air with its fingers curling in on themselves.
“Oi,” I said sharply, seeing the doubt in his eyes. The last thing I wanted was him deciding the rules were different between dreams and reality, or that permissions in the one didn’t apply to the other. “No takebacks.”
The doubts were swept away by instant, overflowing laughter, lighting up his face and spilling out of his throat like he couldn’t stop it. Still laughing, and without waiting for any more permission, Athelas reached out and pulled me into a hug.
I went along willingly, my nose pressed into his shoulder, wrapping my arm around him as tight as I could to make up for only having one to his two.
“As you wish, my darling,” he said in my ear, his voice bright and merry and so, so fond.
I had to laugh again myself, partly from the still-bubbling joy inside me, partly from his choice of words. Did he mean just what he said, I wondered? Or did he mean what those words would mean if a human said them (at least, a certain type of human)?
I pulled back just a little to look at him properly, but his face was too bright and full of affection for me to read anything else there.
If any fae would know what he was doing with that phrase, though, it’d be Athelas.
“Twisty old fae,” I said, smiling up at him, and saw his own smile soften a little more. I didn’t elaborate any more than that. It didn’t really matter this time, after all — wasn’t like I needed to ask.
Either way, reference or no reference in his words, I knew they meant the same thing.