Page 112 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

“Says the woman who threw a boot at my head last week.”

“You ducked. Plus, you deserved it. You reorganized my closet.”

“I improved your closet. Now you can actually find things.”

“I knew exactly where everything was before. Huntress, remember?”

“In piles on the floor?”

“Strategic piles. With a system.”

“Chaos is not a system.”

“Agree to disagree.”

We continued our bickering as we made our way through the halls of what had once been the Syndicate house and was now simply home.

The building had expanded over the years to accommodate our growing family—not just us and Quill, but Tuck’s extensive library, Minerva’s mysterious workroom that no one was allowed to enter, Thea’s constantly evolving workshop filled with half-finished inventions, and rooms always ready for Elowen’s frequent visitors.

We had the castle too, of course. But this was our escape. Our happy place.

The dining room hummed with familiar chaos as we entered.

Quill, tall and elegant now at nineteen, was engaged in an animated debate with Tuck about some obscure historical text.

Minerva watched them, occasionally interjecting a comment that sent them both sputtering.

Thea was showing Elowen her latest creation, something with gears that whirred alarmingly.

“You’re late,” Quill announced without looking up from her argument.

“Blame her,” I said, pulling out Paesha’s chair. “She stole my quill and then decided to have a philosophical discussion about the nature of personal property.”

“I did no such thing. I was explaining the concept of communal ownership to someone who still struggles with sharing. What’s his is also mine.”

“I share. When asked. Politely. In advance. After mulling.”

Tuck snorted into his wine. “You once threatened to remove my memories because I borrowed your favorite cloak.”

“It was raining, and you returned it with mud stains.”

“It was a black cloak! You couldn’t even see the mud!”

“I could sense the mud.”

The table erupted into laughter, a sound that still, after all these years, caused something in my chest to tighten with gratitude.

As we ate, I found my gaze repeatedly drawn to Paesha.

She was in her element here, surrounded by those she loved, her face animated as she recounted her latest project to rebuild something in Stirling that’d been lost to a storm.

The candlelight caught in her hair, turning the dark strands to burnished copper.

Her hands moved as she spoke, painting pictures with the same grace she’d once used to dance across stages.

She must have felt my attention because she paused mid-sentence. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, though we both knew it was everything.

Later, when the meal was finished and our family had dispersed, we found ourselves in the garden. The air smelled like night-blooming jasmine, and stars scattered across the sky like diamonds on black velvet.

Paesha leaned against the stone balustrade, her face tilted up to catch the moonlight. “You were staring at me all through dinner.”

“Was I?” I moved to stand beside her, close enough that our shoulders touched.

“You know you were.” She bumped her hip against mine. “So distracting, Husband.”

“My deepest apologies for appreciating my wife’s beauty,” I replied dryly. “How terribly inconsiderate of me.”

She laughed, the sound still the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. “Flattery won’t get you out of cleaning the kitchen with Tuck tomorrow.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m stating a fact.” I caught a lock of her hair between my fingers, tucking it behind her ear. “You’re beautiful. You always have been. But especially now, when you’re not running or hiding or fighting. When you’re simply Paesha.”

She turned to face me, her expression softening in the way it did only when we were alone. “And who exactly is that? Paesha the queen? Paesha the goddess? Paesha the immortal?”

“Paesha the thief,” I corrected, drawing her into my arms. “Who stole my quill, my teacup, and most significantly, my heart. Repeatedly. Across lifetimes.”

“So sentimental,” she murmured, though she leaned into me, her arms sliding around my waist. “What happened to the fearsome god who terrorized realms?”

“He met a dancer who showed him a better way to exist.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “And he’s been hopelessly devoted to her ever since.”

“Even when she moves his things just to watch him twitch?”

“Especially then.” I kissed her lightly, savoring the feel of her smile against my lips. “Though I will be reclaiming my quill.”

“Good luck finding it,” she whispered against my mouth. “I’ve hidden it very well this time.”

I pulled back and raised an eyebrow at her. “In the hollowed-out book on the third shelf of the east bookcase? The one you think I don’t know about?”

Her eyes widened. “How did you?—”

“I know all your hiding places, darling.” I traced the curve of her lower lip with my thumb. “Just as you know all of mine.”

“Not all of them,” she countered, recovering quickly. “You’re still secretive about some things.”

“Am I?”

She nodded, serious now. “You hid the teacup.”

Her teacup now, though I’d never formally relinquished ownership.

After she’d stolen it from me, I’d stolen it back exactly once.

Not to keep, but to modify. She knew where it was.

Her power whispered that to her. But she’d never chased it.

Instead, she’d trusted me, though it probably killed her to do so.

“I suppose I could show you. If you’re truly curious.”

Her eyes lit with interest. “Now?”

“If you wish.”

She stepped back, gesturing for me to lead the way. “After you, then. Since we’re pretending I have no idea where it is.”

I took her hand, guiding her back into the house and up the stairs to my study. Unlike most rooms in our home, this space remained meticulously organized, my last bastion of perfect order.

I crossed to the far wall, where a painting hung, a landscape of Etherium as it had once been, golden and glorious in its prime. Behind it was a small safe, its lock responding only to my touch.

“You’re lucky I haven’t broken into that yet, you know?”

“Funny, I found it open the other day.”

She faked a gasp. “Tuck!”

I opened it with a chuckle, revealing a collection of small items, mementos from different lives, different times. A river stone from the first place I’d found her. A ribbon she’d worn in her hair in a life she couldn’t remember. A pressed flower from a garden long turned to dust.

And the teacup, nestled among them like the treasure it was.

I lifted it carefully, this small, chipped piece of porcelain that had somehow become a symbol of everything between us. But when I handed it to her, she frowned in confusion.

“It’s… different,” she said, turning it in her hands.

The chip in the rim was still there, I wouldn’t have dreamed of repairing the imperfection that had drawn her to it in the first place.

But the interior, once plain white, now bore an inscription in gold.

Words written in my precise handwriting, curving around the inside of the cup where she would only see them when it was empty:

For my Paesha, in this life and every one before. Ever yours, T

Her fingers traced the words, her expression softening in a way that still, after all this time, made my heart ache with love.

“Why are you giving it to me now?”

“Ten years of peace. Ten years of waking up beside you without fear of prophecies or fates or vengeful gods. Ten years of building something I never dared hope for. It seemed appropriate.”

She cradled the cup in her hands like it was made of starlight rather than porcelain. “You know I’m going to display this prominently on my chaotic vanity now.”

“I would expect nothing less.” I closed the safe, returning the painting to its place. “Consider it a formal surrender in at least one battle of our ongoing war.”

“The great Reverius Hawthorne Noctus, surrendering?” She pressed a hand to her heart in mock astonishment. “I should document this historic moment.”

“Only this one battle. I still intend to organize your shoes by height and color tomorrow.”

“Touch my shoes and you’ll find thorns in your pillowcase,” she threatened without heat.

“How terribly juvenile.”

“You love it.”

“I love you,” I corrected, pulling her into my arms. “Chaos and all.”

She rose on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Even when I steal your quills?”

“Even then.”

“And move your books?”

“Testing my limits, but yes.”

“And hide your favorite cufflinks just to watch you search for them?”

I sighed dramatically. “You are, without question, the most infuriating woman I have ever known. Across galaxies, across centuries, across every realm in existence.”

Her smile was pure sunshine. “That wasn’t a no.”

“It wasn’t,” I conceded, capturing her lips in a kiss that said everything words could not, about love, about peace finally found, about the joy of building a life together after so many torn apart.

“You know, for an immortal with diminished powers, you’re not terrible to have around.”

I laughed. “Calm down with your compliments. I can’t take the praise.”

“We should probably go downstairs. Tuck was threatening to read aloud from his latest historical research.”

“A fate worse than death.” As we made our way back to the others, Paesha’s hand in mine and the teacup held carefully in her other hand, I found myself marveling yet again at the path that had led us here.

From a god and a dancer to simply Thorne and Paesha, building a life together day by day, argument by argument, kiss by kiss.

Vesalia held all the cards now. A torrent of power she likely didn’t know how to handle.

But that was her problem. Not ours. After all, we still held the key to Noctus Gate.

Our one fail-safe. Though, it had mysteriously gone missing.

Paesha, no doubt. It wasn’t the eternity I’d once envisioned, filled with power and purpose and the endless dance of finding and losing her.

It was better. Messier. More beautiful in its imperfection.

Like a teacup with a chipped rim, made more precious by the flaws that should have diminished it.

Like us.

THE END