Page 81 of Aïdes the Unseen
“That’s the deal.”
He tilted his head, considering me like I was both a puzzle and match-flame. “Then we make it fair,” he said. “One for one. If I tell you another truth, you have to give me one of yours. Not a small one. Not something practiced. Somethinghonest.”
His invitation, a match for the one I’d already made, curled in my chest like heat. I hesitated, just long enough for him to notice, and then nodded. “Deal.”
Glancing up toward the trees, he looked thoughtful. His voice, when it came, was lower. Like a thread pulled from a place most people don’t look anymore. “There was a time,” he said, “when I thought maybe I’d write books.”
I blinked. That… was not the answer I’d expected. “Stories?” I asked, cautiously.
He nodded. “Not for the world. Just for… someone. A few people. To pass the time. To remember. I used to write in margins, on scraps, when no one was watching. Little myths. Alternate endings. Stories where choices mattered more than fate. It felt like cheating, at first. Later, it felt like… dreaming.”
He didn’t look away from the sunlight.
“But I stopped,” he said quietly. “I told myself I didn’t have the time, or the right. That the hours were better spent elsewhere. The stories stayed in my head. They always do.”
I stared at him, unsure why my throat felt tight. Maybe because I could picture it so vividly. Him, alone in some forgotten hour, spinning worlds no one else would see. Holding his own stories like breath in his lungs.
“I think you should still write them,” I said before I could stop myself. “Even if it’s just for you.”
His gaze returned to mine. Something about the way he looked at me then, like I’d touched a place inside him even he didn’t visit often, made it suddenlyveryhard to hold eye contact.
“I gave you mine,” he said softly. “Now yours.”
Right. My truth. I took a deep breath. Let it out slow.
“When I was a kid, I used to sneak into the gardens behind the museums,” I said. “Not just for the plants. For the quiet. For the way it made me feel like I belonged somewhere, even if I didn’t fit with the people around me.” I smiled, a little lopsided. “I used to imagine I was the guardian of all of it. That if I sat still long enough, the trees would talk to me. That I could feel the earth breathe.”
Graven’s expression didn’t change, yet something softened in him.
“I guess I never really stopped doing that,” I added, almost shyly. “Trying to make sense of the world by listening to things that don’t talk back.”
“They do,” he said, voice reverent. “You’ve just never needed translation.”
A beat passed.
Then another.
The space between us bloomed—dense, golden, alive with things unspoken.
And I didn’t pull away.
I smiled into my coffee, feeling the heat of it warm my palms as I watched him.
“I have another one,” I said, letting the moment stretch just long enough to feel deliberate.
Graven arched an eyebrow, the faintest suggestion of curiosity playing along the corners of his mouth. “Another truth?”
I nodded. “You said you used to want to write stories. But do you actually…likethem? Reading them? Watching them? Do you enjoy stories that aren’t yours?”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Something nearly boyish. Almost private. “I do,” he said, and the honesty was so immediate, sopure, it disarmed me. Then he added, “The quiet ones. The ones about memory. About things that don’t shout to matter. Not just epics. Not just endings.”
I tilted my head. “So, what? Indie films and literary fiction?”
The smile that ghosted across his mouth was surprisingly real. “Sometimes,” he said. “But I’m not above a good fantasy series either. There’s something… comforting about seeing magic treated as ordinary. As a truth the world just accepts.”
My chest ached a little. Maybe because he said it like he missed that world. Or maybe because I did too, and didn’t know it until now.
“I like that,” I said quietly. “The idea of magic being accepted.”
