Page 66 of The Toymaker's Son

He sounded so much like Adair that I tugged my sleeve down and retreated several backward steps to my workbench, turning away. “You sound likehim.”

“Oh God, no,” he said. “That’s not… No, that man—fae—is horrible. I just meant you’re… beautiful, like you’ve always been.” I sensed him close at my back, sensed his warmth, his softness, the marvel that was Valentine Anzio.

I glanced over my shoulder, searching for the lie on his face, but he looked back at me with the same raw acceptance he’d had when we’d been boys. “Wouldn’t handsome be a better word?”

“Handsomeis too dull a word for you. You are the most beautiful thing in all the world, Devere.”

“Beautifulthing? I see.”

“No, gods, I meant—not athing. That’s not—I’m sorry. I’m making this worse.” He backed away too, and we were trapped in this strange, awkward dance, coming together only to be torn apart again.

I folded my arms, guarding my heart, and pushed the onslaught of feelings aside. “I’m sorry, Val. Truly. I did not want this for you. Adair has latched on to you as a means of hurting me. If we push back too hard, he’ll make me forget and keep it so you remember. He will drive you insane. He revels in insanity. You already know too much. I fear it will affect you—”

“Affect me?” He laughed and threw a hand at my workshop, the pieces of broken toys, pieces ofmestrewn around us. “It’s the truth! Finally, it’s the truth. I’ve known my whole life I wasn’t mad. I’m not wrong or broken. I knew the voiceswere real, that the people I saw in my dreams were real. I knew it. But I could never get to them. They were always out of reach, in the corner of my eye, a glimmer I had no hope of focusing on. And now you’re standing there. An impossible man—” He flew forward, grasped my arms, stood on his toes, and kissed me quickly on the lips. “You’ve set me free, Devere.”

His sudden, tiny kiss shocked me, like a slap to the face, but a pleasant one. My lips tingled and something bright and sharp surged in my chest. “I have?”

“You brilliant, beautiful man.” His eyes held so much warmth that it had always been easy to fall into them, like the warmth from an open fire or the feeling of coming home.

This time, when I kissed him, he didn’t pull away. How easily my arms slipped around him, drawing him close, and how perfectly he and I fit together, as though this was always meant to be. He leaned into the kiss, into me, opening up and teasing my lips. Soft and hard, sweet and volatile. His kiss was filled with desperation and regret, and it grew hungrier with every beat of our hearts. I’d been hollow for so long that I’d forgotten what it meant to feel alive.

He pulled away, grinning like a fool, and touched my chest over my heart. “It’s real. I feel it.”

I didn’t know what this was, what he’d done to me. My thoughts spun, light and free, my breaths came too fast, and my heart raced. “My heart beats the same as yours, but it’s made from metal and magic instead of flesh and blood.”

“Like Hush? She’s alive too.”

“Yes.” The way he looked at me made my metal heart soar. I hadn’t expected him to like me this way.

He laughed, but it was a good sound this time, not as thin. “Gods, I wish I’d known all of it. I never should have left. I just, I just ran, Devere. Because of fear.”

Fifteen years, he’d been gone. Fifteen years, I’d thought he’d run from me. My heart had been so much colder for the hole he’d left within it. “I thought you hated me,” I admitted.

His grin faded. “I never hated you. I was afraid of us, of everything.” His hands came to my face, then his fingers skimmed my lips. He didn’t look at me as though I were an ornament to be admired, as though I were a reminder of a curse. He looked at me the same now as he had when we’d knelt in the long, wet grass, and I’d kissed him because it had seemed too perfect a thing to do in that moment. He looked at me as though I were just a silly boy, like him.

“Can two broken things fix each other?” I asked.

Valentine’s smile stoked the blaze burning within me. “We were never broken.”

His warm hands spread over my chest, fingers splayed. It felt good, his touch on me without my fearing he’d discover the truth beneath my skin. He freed a few shirt buttons and skimmed his fingertips across my chest, over my heart. Skitters danced low inside, tightening my breath.

He heard my gasp, looked up, and deliberately swept his hand higher over my pectoral, teasing my nipple.

“Is this all right?” he asked, that fear back in his eyes.

I caught his free hand and placed it on the bulge in my trousers, where he’d find his answer. “You have nothing to fear from me, Val. You never did.”

His eyes widened, then turned sly, along with his smirk. His fingers tightened, scattering more lustful sparks down my spine. “Jacapo was very thorough, then, in his creation? You have all the er… necessary parts.” I narrowed my eyes and he laughed. “I’m just admiring his masterpiece”—he adjusted his hold, grinding tighter, and grinned mischievously—“up close.”

I’d forgotten how much of a wicked tease he could be. “Yet not close enough.”

I scooped him into my arms, twisted, and propped him onto the sideboard, then plunged into a breathless kiss, rocking him backward while holding him close. I kissed him like I’d dreamed of a thousand times—as though we were boys again, without a care and with abandon.

Valentine’s hands scrunched in my hair, then clutched at my clothes, gripping on, and when his legs wrapped around my waist, locking us tighter than ever, the trembling thrill of having him plastered close spilled the inferno from within me, pouring it under my skin, where all at once I needed his touch.

He hauled us apart, panting, his face flushed, lips swollen. “If this is a dream, I don’t ever wish to wake.”

I threaded my fingers through his hair and pressed my forehead to his. We breathed together, burned together in the moment. Adair could do many things—weave illusions, reset the clock—but he could not change my clockwork heart, or Valentine’s very real human one. He could not changeus.

---