Page 102 of The Duke and the Disciple

“It’s more of a sack,” Aesylt groused, making room for him. Her heart raced at his nearness, but it wasn’t born of desire. What she most wanted was to collapse in his arms, her head on his heart, and drift off to the sound of his gentle breathing. “Did you find what you were looking for in the library?”

“No,” he said as he rotated, facing her. “I hate to even ask, but has there been any further news on Marek?”

Aesylt shook her head. She prayed she’d stuck the letter far enough under the mattress.

He turned his hand over and ran the back of it against her forehead. “You really do seem warm. Feeling all right?”

She made herself smile. “Just tired, Scholar.”

“How tired are you, Squish?”

Aesylt cocked her head.

“We never got our astronomy night.” He tilted his head toward the ceiling. “And I seem to recall we have a talented little witch in this room capable of clearing clouds at will.”

Her smile reappeared slowly. “You want to work, Scholar?”

“I pulled all our notes out the day you suggested it.”

Aesylt sat up with a glance out the window, at the darkness beyond. Some healthy astronomy felt like exactly what she needed, even if she was hesitant about starwalking. She screwed her mouth into happy mischief. “Well, better go get them then.”

Rahn saton one side of the windowsill, Aesylt the other. They’d started their adventure bundled, but she’d not only cleared the obstructions; she’d also eased the cold. A light rain fell, another sign she couldn’t control everythingin the celestial realm, a reminder they really knew next to nothing about the place, no matter how often they escaped there.

Both of their notebooks were balanced on their knees as they independently counted the constellations they recognized, and recorded their brightness and clarity. They were limited without their telescope, but just sitting there with her, working on something healthy and innocuous, wrapped him in so much warmth. For all he looked forward to during their starwalking trysts, he’d missed the simplicity of justbeingwith her—learning alongside her, volleying excitement between them as more and more of their research came to life.

“Ah, our friend the bowman. How I’d missed him,” she said softly, her quill whistling on the vellum.

“I imagine he’s even more elusive here, with all the smoke from the Wulfsgate commerce,” Rahn replied.

“How fortuitous we’re not bound to the real world’s limitations.” She squinted at the sky before making another note. “Everything happening in the Cross makes me so sad. And though it’s nowhere near the top of our priorities, I’m mourning the observatory. It might never be finished now.”

“All terrible things have a beginning and an end.” He lifted his spectacles and let them fall to his chest. “The madness there won’t last forever, and life will continue. Everything in our history points to these same cycles.”

“If I’d just married Val...” Aesylt sighed with a pained look at the sky. “Oh, and there’s the siren. You see her?”

Rahn pressed his notebook to his chest in alarm and leaned forward. “You’re just going to drop that sensational suggestion and move on?”

“What? Oh... only thinking out loud. You can’t deny I’m right though.”

“Do you love him?” Rahn nearly choked on the words. “Is marrying him whatyouwant?”

“No one seems to trouble themselves over what I want.” Her quill made furious swirls.

“That was a crafty way around the answer.”

Aesylt looked up but not at him. “Could I be his wife? Of course I could. He’s my dearest friend, and I trust him with my life... with everything. Does he make my soul...” She shuddered inward. “Light with the stars and sky itself? Do I feel like I’ve finally come home when I’m in his arms?” Her head shook. “But not everyone can be Draz and Imryll, can they?”

Rahn grew solemn. He tilted his head back against the window frame and set aside his notebook. “You wear the burden of this civil war, but I will remind you that you’ve done nothing wrong. You love Val and tried to make his final moments as pleasant as possible. You then tried to help him when he came back and were...” He could hardly say it, even now. “Strangled by his brother for your kindness. You may be the focus of this conflict, but you are not the cause. If there was ever a wrong reason to marry anyone, it would be this. You would do both of you a great disservice.”

“Perhaps the problem is me,” she breathed. “For how could I not love a man as devoted as he is to me?”

“Love doesn’t work in such terms.”

“Have you ever been in love, Scholar?”

Rahn shook his head, though there was a shade of untruth he left withering in the unsaid.

“Then how can you know?” She crossed her notebook over her chest, fully invested in his answer.

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