Page 51 of The Mask Falling

“You believed it.”

“I kept the faith of my sovereigns.”

“And now?”

“I have seen too much for blind devotion. If higher beings do exist, I wonder that they did not intervene to stop the war. To avert the foundation of Scion. To prevent all of this.”

When he spoke about the war, he sounded as ageless as he was. It was too easy to forget.

“I saw your home in your memory,” I said. “It was beautiful.”

The barest nod answered me.

“It is a cruel thing,” he said, “to find oneself rootless.”

Fields walled by sweet yellow furze that lured the bees in spring. Hills where castles were enthroned beneath a wide-flung sky. A windfall of golden apples in our orchard. Frost on the kissing gate. The mountains—white in winter, green elsewhen. Green as far as the horizon. I sometimes thought I must have misremembered Ireland—that it could never have sung with such beauty—but still I yearned for it.

“I would like to have seen your home,” Arcturus said.

“I would have liked that, too.”

It still existed in my memory. I could show him. He could reach into the annals of time and resurrect the place I remembered. I wished I had the courage to let him take me back.

“If the Netherworld is never restored,” I said, “could you ever think of this world as home?”

It took Arcturus a very long time to answer.

“Yes,” he said. “For a time, at least.”

Silence thickened between us. The parlor swayed like a pendulum.

“Why are we connected?” I could barely hear myself. “The æther pulled us together for a reason. Why us, and why now?”

“Would that I knew.”

The ache started low in my stomach. It fought against the restraints I had put on it. Before I knew it, I had reached out and gently turned his face toward me, and his gaze was on mine.

“Do you mind it?” I asked softly. “Being linked to me?”

The silence rang with something I recognized.

“No.” His voice was a shadow. “It roots me again. You remind me what it is to have a home.”

A laugh escaped me. “Dreamwalkers are rootless. Scion wants me dead because I have no anchor.” I traced his stone-cut features. “If you make me your home, you’ll wander forever.”

“I am not known for my wise choices, Paige Mahoney.”

His sarx was warm under my fingertips. I could feel the strong bone of his jaw, its solidity, so at odds with his nature as a being of the in-between. He felt human. Present. Real.

For once, I didn’t want to be reserved with him. I wanted to solve the puzzle of his features. I wanted to glide into his dreamscape again and slow dance with his most intimate self. I wanted to embrace his dream-form, and to know it—know him—like no one else ever could. His gaze was a world I had yet to discover, an open door to the infinite.

And I understood what else I wanted. I wanted him to take me in his arms. I wanted to kiss him, as I had before.

I wanted him to want me.

The realization warmed my blood. My touch drifted from his face to his nape, and I drew him close.

“Paige.”

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