Page 59 of Fate

And she nudged at him because her father’s workshop was certainly more than ashed,and she was not ready to be teased at the disparity in their family resources. Not tonight. “I offer us a comfortable place to be alone. Where I plan on being tonight.Where I hopeyoumight be tonight, if you decide that I’m worth following.”

He sighed deeply, and his hold on her tightened. “It is not about worth,” Lucian disagreed. “I do not want it said that I abandoned my birthright. If he wants to push me out, that is one thing. It is another to simply walk away from it.” His hand moved up her back, his thumb brushing against the sensitive skin of her neck. “Can you appreciate the difference?”

Yes. No.

She rested her forehead against his chest and sighed. “I don’t think I’m ever going to understand your family’s ways. I’m not even sure I want to.” She took a breath and looked at him again. “But I do want to understand you.”

He smiled. It was just the slightest upturn to the corners of his mouth, but it was a smile, and his eyes were gentle. “And I would like to stop frightening you into running off. Perhaps someday we will both get what we want.”

It was her turn to smile, although she ducked her head, feeling a little bashful for reasons she could not name. “Will you come with me?” she asked, heart beating too quickly, bracing herself for his resounding no. “We needn’t think of it as moving. As anything permanent. Just... time. That’s all I am asking. I won’t even be greedy and ask for a season.” She could feel his retreat, and she squeezed her arms more tightly about him. “Or even a half-season.”

“If I keep quiet long enough, will we enter more reasonable amounts of time?” His words might have been a brusque dismissal if not for the way his fingers curled about the fine hairs at her nape, toying and smoothing. Comforting. Because they were alone, and that made it permissible.

There was a tug, a niggle. That his kindness toward her should not be relegated to hidden moments, stolen in between bouts of stiff formality.

She took a breath. Leaned into him more fully. Felt the resentment calm because they were learning. And things could only get better, as long as they were both willing to try.

“A week, then,” Firen murmured. “Just say you’ll come with me. Please.” It wasn’t begging. But it was an entreaty, heartfelt and full of need. To be home and safe and to pluck him away from all the wretchedness. To see if she liked him all the better when they might benormal.“I’ll not go any lower, so you can give your answer now.”

A chuckle without sound, but enough that his chest moved beneath her ear as she leaned into his embrace. As she prayed and braced herself for more rejection. “A week,” Lucian answered, not sounding pleased, not exactly. But he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and he let her stay as long as she needed within his arms, so that had to count for something.

???

Two trunks, this time. And while he eyed her dubiously when she insisted she could carry hers on her own, she managed well enough. Well. She walked some of the way because her flight was stunted and too low and he hovered and told her to drop it and he would make two drips back for it, but she didn’t mind the walk. Didn’t mind that people would see her trunk making its way back and forth, nearly as homeless as she felt.

Then finery had to be exchanged, not for a nightdress and a quiet night in a slim cot, her mate stationed in her sister’s old bed.

Instead, it was a grubby tunic and leggings and her oldest boots, while Mama put on the kettle and did her best not to ask too many questions. Then Da came, rubbing at the back of his neck as he took in the sight of his daughter and her new mate inthe kitchen, long after they should have been situated back in the tower.

“Supper went that well, then?” Da asked, coming over to kiss the top of Firen’s head.

“It sure did,” Firen answered brightly. “Mind if we stay in my playroom?”

He rolled his shoulders and gave Mama a look. “It’s yours, you know that. Need any help cleaning it up?”

Lucian stood, grim-faced and too stiff for a simple kitchen and family that was his, even if he did not recognise them yet. “Thank you, but we will manage.”

Firen turned her head, genuinely curious. “You mean to help?”

Lucian glowered. “I told you that no one came to my room for an age. Did you see it overwhelmed by dust?”

Firen’s cheeks flushed, and she smiled at him, trying to soothe the insult she hadn’t meant to give. “I thought you meant friends. Your parents even.”

He picked off a bit of lint from his sleeve. “Well. Now you know.”

Which meant a change to his clothes—although she could not have sworn she saw much of a difference between them. They were of the same cut, the same colour, although perhaps if she squinted just right, the cuff of one sleeve was ever so slightly worn?

But then he was rolling up that sleeve, and her heart beat a little faster because she hadn’t known that she could find such an act... attractive.

But she did.

Because it meant he was about to go to work. With her. So they’d have a safe place to sleep tonight. Because she’d asked it of him.

Which made it cheerful work to fetch the buckets. To fill them with water and watch as Lucian took each of them from her and made his way up into the loft. She cut generous chunks of soap from the blocks, then cloths and towels and lanterns—mustn’t forget those, because they needed to see as they worked.

He did not tease her about having to use flame instead of the far more expensive moonstones that his tower employed. He simply situated them about the room, eyeing what furniture remained with an eye that suggested he saw little hope in her plan.

That was all right. She had enough for the both of them.

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