Page 111

“One. . .”

“Two. . .”

“Three!” they said in unison. Gibbs removed the lid and pumped it forward until the faerie tumbled out, spasming on the bottom of the cage, and Emmy slammed the door shut, locking the latch.

“Ah!” she screamed, giving a little hop. “We did it!”

Atta laughed as she hugged her and Gibbs. “You’ll be just fine. Only remember that some might have moved to Stage 3 by the time you arrive, and you’ll need to be prepared to cover your ears or look away from the faerie if need be.”

“Got it, boss.” Emmy saluted.

“Whew. I need a drink,” Gibbs sagged.

“I second that.”

Atta couldn’t argue.

Sonder was on Imogen duty until midnight, so she went and checked on the grump before going out on the all-season porch with Emmy and Gibbs with two bottles of wine. They sat talking and laughing, looking out over the damp Hawthorn Grove until it was Gibbs’s turn to be with Imogen, and Sonder carried Atta upstairs.

“Would you lie with me?” she asked him sleepily when he tucked her into his bed.

He smiled at her, her favourite sight in all the worlds. “Of course.”

Sonder removed his trousers and shirt, climbing in bed with her, and Atta nestled into the place between his shoulder and chest where her head fit perfectly. After a moment of him silently stroking her hair, she sat up and kissed him. He was intoxicating, more than the wine, more than anything. Not only his mouth but everything about him. His grumpiness, his stoicism with everyone but her, his mind, his dreams, the way he could command a room, the way being a professor was in his very bones, his soul.

His hands were on the small of her back and she could feel her arousal rising low in her belly. She loved those hands, too. What they could do to her, the way they sketched every stray thought he had, the way he used them as he spoke, the way he flipped the pages of a book.

She reached for the dip of his pelvis and Sonder chuckled against her lips, but he gently grabbed her wrist and moved her hand to his chest. “You’re too drunk for that,astór.”

Atta sighed and relaxed her cheek against his chest. “You know I’m in love with you too, right?” she said quietly, drawing small symbols on his abdomen. Wards, she realised drunkenly.

Sonder kissed the top of her head. “I hoped so.”

Silence enveloped them, sweet and thick. The kind when you know the second the moment ends, the world will be waiting to devour you once more.

“I’m not going back to Trinity.”

Sonder shifted her so he could look down into her eyes, his features hard to make out in the dark. “No, darling. You’re not. But I do believe you’re saving the world.”

Atta closed her eyes, breathing in deeply the scent of Sonder, the beauty of their love. If he were to die, she’d envy the soil that cradled him in its arms, the flora that sprouted from his bones.

He swooped the pad of his finger down the bridge of her nose tenderly until she fell fast asleep to dreams of faeries calling her name.

Atta

18 Janury 1994

The days passed in a blur of success. Even Imogen had begun to help them sort research, fit as a fiddle. Safe.

Emmy slid yet another Fae jar onto the shelf in the cellar, pulling down a bottle of absinthe. She turned around, holding it by the neck, and grinned.

“I think we’ve all earned a little celebration.”

Atta’s smile was weak. Everything about her was weak. She’d been forgetting things—full conversations replaced with stanzas of Fae poems she’d never read, fairytale songs she couldn’t recall a second after they left her.

“I’m sure Sonder has a delightful antique spoon and sugar cubes.” Emmy’s eyebrows lifted and lowered rapidly. This drew a genuine smile from Atta.

“If the vote is unanimous, we drink.” She took the bottle from Emmy. It was the same bottle Sonder had placed their first faerie next to. The one Atta had let get away.