Page 27

CHAPTER 27

Sybil

“ Y e hungry, Roe? There’s some of Kazie’s stew left,” James said.

So that’s what this was.

I frowned into the moaning fridge. “I think it’s gone off.” But when I lifted my head, James’s eyes narrowed on a spot below me. With a curse, he marched across the kitchen, swiped a magnet from the fridge door, and held it at arm’s length. “If this is another…” He slid his glasses down a fraction. “ May the wind always be at your back, may the sun … Ah jayzus!”

Disgusted, he tossed Kazie’s latest tourist knickknack on the table under the calendar, then scrubbed his lenses as if to remove the poem burned into them. “What am I going to do with all this shite?”

I wiped my boots on the Céad Míle Fáilte mat below the sink. “At least she hasn’t replaced the clock yet,” I offered with amusement. The kitchen’s boring, sliced-apple clock tick-tocked a hearty agreement.

“Me mum would be rollin’ in her bloody grave,” James warned, nicking the whiskey. If that were true, his mom would be turning faster than a cement truck by this point.

He adjusted the volume on the radio before sinking onto a kitchen chair, whiskey in one hand, his calendar in the other. “I forgot to tell ye, Tye left a message with the post office this morning from L’Ardoise and passed something on to ye I’ve no intention of repeating, though I’m sure it’ll keep Capolinn entertained for many o’ night. We’ll just assume ye got the gist.”

I winced. God, hopefully this was just his usual flirting. I couldn’t juggle him and the Azekiel even if I wanted to. “Sorry, James. We’re not…”

He waved me off. “Ah, I know like,” he said, “but actually, ye know, I’ve been meaning to talk to ye about that, about Ruhaven, I mean.” James shut his calendar with a deliberate flip and interlaced his thumbs over its twelve naked priests.

“Did something happen?”

He scratched one flaring nostril, a dad about to explain how periods worked. Or worse. “It’s just I didn’t think ye’d been dancing before.”

Jesus, it was worse. I would have stuck my head back in the fridge if Kazie’s stew hadn’t permeated the thing.

“Yizmithou?” I tried for casual and landed on its distant cousin, twice-removed. “Yeah. Dancing. Fun.” The Azekiel and I, naked and tangled in the purple vines, his fangs piercing my skin, pumping into Nereida.

I plucked my shirt from my sticky ribs and, cracking the tack room door, inhaled the soapy air.

“Listen like, it must be a bit strange to be with the Azekiel,” James persisted like it was his sworn duty to have my face catch fire, “especially after ye thought he’d eat ye. But ‘tis nothin’ to be ashamed of. That’s why I gave ye the book. Well, ye know how Essie and I are. But sure, if ye need to talk about it—maybe ye’d rather Kazie. Still, thought I’d offer, all the same.”

Mortified, I turned my back to him, waving my sweaty shirt like a flag. Let some Ruhaven god strike me down now. “James, you wouldn’t be trying to give me the birds and the bees talk about Ruhaven would you? Because that book was more than enough.”

He swallowed an ice-rattling gulp of whiskey. “Sure, ‘tis more like the dragons and the druids, but ye know yerself.”

I certainly did, and glared at him until I could light the woodstove with my cheeks. “James, let’s never—”

Kazie burst into the kitchen, the door no more than an inconvenient obstacle and one whose hinges I’d have to replace later. But I’d never been happier to see her.

Except then the other cause of my heated cheeks limped in on her heels. He dwarfed her in height, made Kazie seem like a tiny pixie in his shadow, but all I could think of was how he’d looked in my dream—nuzzling my breasts, leaning over me, not the unemotional marble he usually wore but with the fire I’d briefly seen.

When he turned those darkening eyes on me, and something flickered over his face, I wasn’t sure my dream of him wasn’t seared on my flushed forehead. Did he care that Sahn and I were having sex in the Gate? Of course he didn’t.

I glanced at Kazie when she snipped the air with scissors, then tossed her mane of curls, spiraled a chair into a pirouette, and gestured at Bryn. “We’re having a little salon day.”

This was even weirder than Ruhaven.

His gaze cut to her. “We are absolutely not. Kazie descended upon me while I was searching for mailing addresses for James.” His voice tightened slightly, but he lowered reluctantly into a chair. “Kazie is quite terrified I shall let my hair grow long again.”

“Well, it looks good now. Short, I mean. I like it. Not like, just—it’s fine. It’s hair.” Why was my mouth still moving? One kiss on my hand and I was stuttering like a schoolgirl—Willow would be mortified for me.

Bryn tilted his head at me, faint amusement playing on his lips. “By all means then, I shall keep it short. Actually, Rowan, would you assist in this? I wish to discuss with you my recent findings in the library.”

Assist? That could only mean he wanted to avoid the mohawk Kazie would give him.

Yes, but I also have things to discuss with you. If Nereida can wield daggers, I am certain you shall manage scissors.

I huffed a resigned breath. I could almost hear his answer.

Without waiting, Kazie tossed the scissors at me, and only through sheer luck did I avoid them landing in my shoe. As she hustled out of the kitchen, calling out plans of the bar she’d chosen tonight, she dragged James with her.

Bang .

The door rattled behind them, leaving Bryn and I alone.

While I positioned myself with the scissors behind Bryn, he carefully removed an envelope from his wool jacket and set it on the placemat. A colorful stamp adorned the right corner and the writing on the front was blocky and familiar, written with all capitals.

“I discovered this letter in the closet of the room Carmen uses when she stays here,” he explained, sliding the contents from the torn edge of the envelope. “This was addressed to her.” When he unfolded the letter, I leaned over his shoulder to read, then dropped my hand when his muscles tensed. “In Spanish, the letter describes meeting a man named ‘Parth’, though I do not know who that may be, and a cantina that he, Parth, and Carmen visited.” Bryn flipped the envelope. “The letter was postmarked in 1986.”

“Who sent it?” I measured the ends of his hair and didn’t think at all about his warm lips on my knuckles. Of the way he’d looked hovering over me in my dreams. Of how much I liked touching him, liked the goosebumps on his neck, the pale dusting of beard along his jaw.

Mate. He had a mate.

Bryn brushed a curling lock off the letter. “I do not know as he went only by his Ruhaven name, which is unfamiliar to me.” Bryn tapped the return address. “Puerto Escondido, a town approximately six hours from Oaxaca, Mexico.”

I paused and studied the writing again. “ Levi ,” I realized. I hadn’t found anything on him besides the one journal. But this was him. His letter to Carmen from abroad, but Puerto Escondido wasn’t the address he’d left us with.

Bryn’s ear twitched. “I believe so, yes.”

“What year did you say?”

“1986.”

Six years ago. But if James had marked him missing since 1986, then he’d been alive for at least some of that period and writing to Carmen, of all people.

I mulled it over. “So he leaves Naruka after a few months of visiting the Gate, giving James an address that was always a dead end. Maybe, like Lana, he wanted to break all ties with Naruka.”

Another hair fluttered over Bryn’s ear and down his shoulder. He brushed it off. “It may be the case. Yet he wrote three times to Carmen over the following years, the last being this one in 1986.”

My blood hummed, and not just from Bryn this time. I came around to his front, measured the locks where they ended on each side of his temple. “So,” I said as his eyelashes fluttered. “Levi leaves a fake address and cuts off all contact except with Carmen. Because she was his recruiter?”

“Possibly. But Carmen went to some effort to hide these letters. I suspect there were more.”

“So she wanted to keep their connection private,” I mused. “And he must want the same if he gave a fake address and continued writing. Why?”

Finished with the haircut, I briskly dusted Bryn’s shoulders, sending strays fluttering over his neck. I bent to blow them away. No, too intimate .

“I think you’re good,” I said, sliding onto a stool. And if he wasn’t, he’d have to be, because I couldn’t keep touching him.

“Thanks,” Bryn said roughly. “It is possible that Levi moved without notifying James of the updated address.”

“It may be nothing,” I said as Bryn slid a sketchbook from his bag. “Tye said Carmen wanted space. If Levi felt the same way—and it seems like he did—then it would make sense for them to bond over that. But his journal is sort of odd as well.”

“How so?” Bryn sharpened a pencil. “Will you hold that pose for a few minutes?”

Pose? I started to pull my propped fist away from my jaw, stopped. “Oh, sure. I guess his journal just sounded off, but it might be the translation. I’ll show you later.”

Bryn nodded, and as I settled into the oven’s lingering warmth, the light scratching of paper filled the kitchen. “How did you get into art after working on a ship?”

“Oddly enough, I was inspired by the illustrations on Norwegian sardine cans.”

A quick laugh escaped me before I could reel it in. “Really?”

He grinned. “I know, it sounds quite silly. While I intended to pursue illustration, I eventually found I enjoyed trying to capture things as they are. With all the subtle nuances of light.” His eyes traced my mouth with an intensity that tingled my lips. “To paint something is to really look at it for the first time.”

“But your paintings are so abstract,” I murmured.

He lifted a brow. “Do you think? Perhaps you should stand further back. My instructor used to say, ‘Be able to draw the invisible ear.’ It was not until many years later that I understood what she meant.” Before I could ask, he switched subjects. “Do you still wish for me to anchor you, or are you more comfortable now?”

Was Bryn worried about being sick again? “Um, if you’re okay to keep anchoring me. I mean, if it’s not making you ill.”

His eyebrows knitted. “Ill?”

I shouldn’t have said anything. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me.”

He moved on to my eyes so that there was no looking away now, and I was suddenly intensely aware of every eyebrow I had never plucked. “The night you were sick, after the movie,” I said cautiously. “Tye said you were in the Gate too much. Because of me.”

His face didn’t change, but his voice was equally careful when he said, “No, Rowan, my being ill was not due to anchoring you.”

“Oh.” The word hung awkwardly between us.

Then Bryn lowered his eyes, releasing me from their hold. The left side of his mouth pulled up, nearly hidden in the shadows of the overhead light. “I only wondered,” he murmured into his page, “about anchoring, as you did appear to awake a bit more…flushed, recently. Perhaps you are adjusting after all?”

Bryn was not doing this to me. Heat tumbled through me until even my toes were on fire. He wasn’t supposed to see, even if he knew .

“Well, I— It’s just that. I mean, I am, but not—”

“I do so enjoy rattling you, Rowan,” Bryn interrupted with a grin. “Though you must not make it so easy. No, do not look away, else you shall end up with your nose in your forehead.” And judging by the amount of time he lingered on it, either it was hard to draw or crooked.

“What do you look like in Ruhaven?” I asked. “You’ve never explained— Are you just a ball of light? Or do you have other features…” I mimed curling antlers.

“Ears? Antennas? Ah, horns. I must disappoint you, I do not. Though I only saw myself for the first time three years ago. As you know, reflective surfaces are fairly uncommon.” Bryn peeked over the notebook, eyes alight. “What would you wish me to look like, Rowan?”

He wasn’t so bad right now. “I’d take two arms and legs. But not one of those meaty dwarfs.” I scrunched up my nose in imitation.

“So shallow?” Bryn teased, his tone light, playful.

I waved that away. “Don’t worry, I look like a bug.”

He bit his cheek. “Will I add an antenna to this drawing then?”

God, I hoped not. I shook my head vigorously.

“Six legs?”

“Two.” I frowned and lifted out of my chair. “Can I see?”

He scribbled something. “Only if you are happy to be ear-less.”

“I thought they were invisible,” I joked, and tilted the sketch toward me.

Bryn had captured my freckles with a delicacy they didn’t deserve, but given me the bug eyes I’d lamented—a pretty close approximation to the ones I’d seen distorted in the lens.

“You’re very good,” I murmured.

“Do you think?” He flipped back a page, then another, skimming the silky paper under my fingertips. “Perhaps you’d like to see my nudes?”

Heat crept up my neck. “Uh, no.” Yes . “You’re just trying to rile me.”

But god, he should be able to say “nudes” without my heart stuttering like an overheated engine.

A smile played over his lips. “Is that what I am doing, Rowan? Riling you?”

The sound of slicing paper cut through the kitchen. “No, I mean, you know what—Wait, is that me?”

I stared, mortified, at the two page spread. At what was undoubtedly me—sprawled belly down on the couch in shaded charcoal, my braid hanging over the edge.

Bryn ran a finger over the drawing. “I believe I did remind you not to work all day in the damp cellar. You were rather exhausted, and if I recall correctly, developed a chest cold shortly thereafter.”

That’d been months ago, weeks after Bryn arrived. “It wasn’t from the cellar,” I corrected.

“If you say so.” He grinned and dragged another page over, then another.

A spread of quick-drawn sketches saw me in numerous unflattering poses. On a ladder attaching the eavestrough to the gate lodge, reading the Ford’s manual in the kitchen, studying journals in the library, drinking a coffee in Capolinn.

“ Bryn .”

He looked up, eyes a warm honey-blue. “Yes, my Rowan?”

I tried to grab the book.

Without so much as blinking, he caught my hand in his, flattened it palm down into the page. “Would you like to keep these?” he asked softly, thumb skimming my wrist.

My heart thumped audibly. “I—well, it practically seems like my property anyway.”

His eyelashes lowered, gaze latching on to the pulse stuttering at my throat before gliding back up. The low-hanging bulb swung shadows into his face, highlighting his slim nose, his golden eyelashes. “I shall trade you, if you like.”

“For what?” I flipped our hold, gripped the edge of the book.

“Come find out,” he suggested, holding on to the spine.

I pulled.

Bryn smiled crookedly, blindingly, then tugged—hard.

I tumbled forward, my knee knocking between his as I shot out an arm for balance. Ended up gripping his shoulder. “Sorry, I…”

His hand snaked out, wrapped around the braid dangling over my shoulder. Tugged lightly. But enough that I fell into him another inch, knee sliding over his lap. His thighs flexed in response.

Everything in me started to hum at the nearness of him . At the faint taste of sea and wind. At the minty tingles at the base of my scalp from where he kept my braid taut.

Then Bryn lifted his chin from the sketchbook still between us.

And when his eyes met mine, they were a burning, molten gold.