Page 52 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
I tug my hands back, still scratched and bruised, some nails torn down to the quick. I hadn’t because it hadn’t occurred to me to do so. Sila had needed it.
I’m fine.
“My Dark Lady save us if we ever learn what you think it looks like when you are not fine,” says Sila. She rests her hand on my neck, sliding back my collar where bruises line my skin. Magic or no, there isn’t enough fae blood in me to hasten my recovery. The fingerprints of the Heart’s phantoms still linger, purple and angry. Her eyes are as dark and fathomless as always. Her face is as still and furious as the time she had found the curse mark. Her fingers run over my skin so gently, and I am reminded of the labyrinth. How easy it would be to lose one's mind.
“I’d like these better,” Sila murmurs, lowering her mouth to my skin. “If I had put them there myself.” She presses her lips to the marks and they are cool against the flush of my skin. And mercy, what would it be like to give in? To go and bathe with her, the steam billowing and inviting, the sound of the water promising. Sila’s eyes dark, just a breath away, and wanting nothing more than to possess all of me. What would it be like to behers?
Tearing myself away makes me want to weep, to scream, to cry out— but I must. I cannot be hers. I will lose myself. I will lose Sila. I will damn us both. And of all the things Librarians can do with scribes, this thing I want with her is not one of them.
“Lorel?” Sila frowns at me. Confused, I think, more than anything else.
Enjoy your bath.
I can’t look her in the eye as I sign it, and then, just like a mouse, I turn and scurry from the room.
The washroom door clicks shut not too long after. I hear it from where I am curled in one armchair, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees. My glasses press into the bridge of my nose, threatening to give under the pressure. I was lucky, really, that I still had them with me.
I groan silently. Sila is going to want to talk about it. There is no getting around that. Maybe I should leave now. Find Lune and just go. Run.
I take a deep breath, and the silence around me holds. The overwhelming truth of it all is that I don’t want to run. I don’t want to leave without her. But I am afraid. Terrified that I might cause her death. Terrified that I might never see her again. Terrified that she might never touch me. Terrified that she might, and that I wouldn’t know what to do in return to please her.
It doesn't matter how far I have come, I am still as full of fear as I had been the night I had locked up my voice and thrown away the key.
A sudden sharp knock at the door crashes into my thoughts, and I have only a moment to wipe my eyes on my sleeve before Mercias strides through the door without any further invitation. He clicks the door shut behind him.
“Scribe Lorel,” he says, turning. There is the tiniest hint of a frown touching his features and a sharp look of alarm in his eyes. “Are you well?”
I think I have misunderstood him.
Sila is recovering. Recovered, even.
The frown deepens. “Has this caused you some distress? I asked if you are well, scribe.”
Oh, I hadn’t misunderstood at all.
No. I’m glad of it.
“You look it,” he says, dry. “Where is Librarian Sila?”
In the bath. I can take a message for you.
Mercias snorts and it’s such an undignified sound I can barely reconcile it with the man. I can barely reconcile his sudden kindness with his usual preference for being an arrogant prick. The silence stretches out.
“Perhaps Sila has tea, somewhere under all this mess?” he suggests.
I stare at him. He stares back.
“Right, well. I’ll see if I can find it myself.” He disappears into the little kitchenette, and after a moment I follow him like a curious ghost. He’s giving the teapot a quizzical look, one eyebrow arched at its state of disarray. “Interrupted, were you?”
Sila—
“Mm, Librarian Sila indeed,” he says, throwing extra herbs carelessly into the pot. He fills it with water, scenting the room with a bright, grassy scent.
“I’d ask why you haven’t returned to the scriptorium,” Mercias says, staring at the wall. “But I rather wonder that the healer didn’t drag you back to the infirmary.” I tug at my collar nervously and he looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Still not speaking then? Curious.”
I can’t even say it’s the working hours, because I have no idea what the hour is.
I can’t go back yet.
