Page 111 of Hemlock & Silver
The cheer that all four of us let out was as hoarse and croaking as toad song. Aaron jerked upright from where he leaned against the doorframe. “Is she…?”
I peeled back one of Snow’s eyelids, and her pupil contracted. She moaned again, and one hand came up a little way off the bed.
“She’s alive,” I said.
Aaron let out a whoop, charged into the room, picked Eloise up, and spun her around. She laughed delightedly and flung her arms around his neck.
“Blessed Saint Adder—” I began, and then Javier kissed me.
It was a good kiss. It was warm and solid, and then I think he realized what he was doing and started to pull away, so I opened my mouth and wedged a foot between his, fully intending to trip him and follow him down to the floor if needed. At that point, he got the message and slid his hand up the back of my neck, under my braid, and things proceeded quite nicely until the sound of Aaron braying like a hyena intruded into our awareness and we pulled apart.
“Ah,” I said, wiping my mouth.
“Uh,” Javier said.
Aaron slapped us both on the back, which staggered me a bit.
“We shouldn’t celebrate too soon,” I said, in a fine case of closing the door after the horses had burned down the rest of the barn. “This might not last.”
Rinald gave me wry look. Aaron tried to look sheepish and failed. Javier grunted.
“You lot should go to bed,” Rinald said. “It’s late.”
“It’s just as late for you as for me,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I didn’t drag Snow back from hell by the heel. Or wherever you found her.” He gave me another look, this one much too thoughtful. I had a suspicion that Rinald and I would have to have a long talk in the near future.
I started to protest, but a jaw-cracking yawn stole most of it. “Right,” I said. “You’ll wake me if anything changes?”
“You’ll know as soon as I do.”
If I was a good healer, I’d probably refuse to leave my patient. But I’m not a good healer, I’m a good problem solver, and the problem with Snow attached was as close to being solved as I could get. I left Rinald to it.
Javier followed me into my room without either of us eventhinking about it. We’d spent the last week in such close quarters that it was almost a reflex now. Except that when I turned around and looked at him, he looked back, and there was something in his eyes like a distant flame, and suddenly it didn’t seem like reflex anymore.
I was suddenly intensely aware of the bed. That it existed. That it was right there, behind me. That it was big enough for two people.
That I was so goddamn tired that if the Saint of Rabbits had appeared and blessed us both with libido beyond human comprehension, I still couldn’t have done a damn thing about it.
I opened my mouth to say something and lost it to another massive yawn. Javier grunted.
“Hold on,” I demanded. “Was that apreemptivegrunt?”
He grunted again, but there was a definite smile lurking at the edges of his mouth.
“So,” I said. “Nowwhat do we do?”
“Oh Saints, not that again!”
I snickered.
Javier ran a hand over the top of his head. “I… uh. That is…” He glanced toward the bed, then quickly away, as if the sight had burned him. “I don’t want to go back to the barracks,” he said. “In case something changes with Snow. Or the Mirror Queen isn’t really dead. Or those mirror-gelds come pouring through the mirror, demanding payment. Or something I haven’t thought of goes wrong.” He squared his shoulders. “I should. Uh. Go bed down in another room, maybe.”
“You could stay here,” I said.
He met my eyes and held them. “I could.”
I thought long and hard about Isobel telling me to be tactful. But Isobel was what she was, and I was what I was, and if thirty-odd years and a lot of poison hadn’t changed that, I might as well embrace it.Tact is overrated anyway. And if I started being tactful now, he’d probably die of shock.
