Without the stability that Hyacinth had provided, Saphienne immediately felt the tumultuous emotions within herself growing in passion and volume — anger and fear and fathomless grief surging through her veins. She cried quiet tears, though they were not unnoticed by her friends, and Faylar took her arm and rubbed her upper back as he led her away from the bloodied mud where she had almost died.

  She went tamely. There was no fight left in her, not that day. The spirit had dispassionately and deftly broken her self-control in service to a higher purpose, and then compounded the injury by teaching her more about herself than she was able to fully contemplate. Echoes of Kylantha’s cries were in her ears as she went with the others to the pond that Hyacinth had suggested, and she let Celaena and Laewyn undress her to her underclothes and do their best to clean her blood from her skin while the boys went down the hill to scout the way.

  There was no way to make her clothes look right. Saphienne had bled out all over them, and her robes were obviously torn where she had been skewered by branches.

  “We can mend these at home,” Celaena promised. “We just need to get back there without drawing attention.”

  Once Saphienne was redressed in her crusted inner robes, Celaena loaned the outer robes from her own shoulders to cover up the bloodstains. Laewyn fetched Iolas and Faylar, and while the pair did their best to wash up she wrapped Saphienne’s outerwear in Iolas’ — better to pass off the bundle as merely soiled by mud and flowers.

  When they were done, they were all still filthy, but only Faylar had visible blood on his clothes; there was no covering up the signs that he had tried and failed to staunch Saphienne’s wounds. Iolas proposed that the rest of them crowd around him, and they left the hilltop with Saphienne at the back of the group, docile as she held Faylar’s hand and followed after.

  * * *

  Whether the spirit intervened or because luck was on their side, they went unnoticed by the Wardens of the Wilds as they headed northwest and circled around the village. The return took much longer than their journey out, and the sun had begun its descent as they scrambled over the rear wall to the terraced gardens surrounding Celaena’s home.

  A bell was ringing in the grand foyer when they entered; Celaena muttered something about an alarm they had set off by climbing the wall, and promised to meet them in the guest bathroom on the second floor.

  Iolas managed a sardonic smile as she hurried off. “Guest bathroom? Really?”

  Laewyn rolled her eyes as she led the way. “Just wait until you see it…”

  Though subdued by her inner struggles, Saphienne was just as stunned as Iolas when they reached the bathroom.

  Gleaming white tiles, inlaid with silvery swirls, decorated the lower walls and floor in a honeycomb pattern. Not only the floor — one corner of the room was given over to a huge bathtub that was liplessly recessed below the level on which they stood, the floor subtly angled so that any spilled water would drain into it. The mirror above the sink was matched to another, full-length mirror on the back of the door, both broadly oval and yet with edges that implied they were constructed from small hexagons, the six-sided pattern repeated in the creamy fabric mats laid out beside the bath and before the sink. Pale gold fixtures accented the otherwise stark lower half of the bathroom.

  But this opulence was nothing, compared to what they saw above the tiles.

  The upper portion of the room was clearly enchanted, for it appeared as though there was no room there at all: a hallucination showed the woodland around the wizard’s home, as if his home were entirely absent. Sound accompanied the visuals, creating the false impression that one had passed into the open air. As they watched, a sparrow darted from one tree to another, passing overhead.

  Faylar grinned at their expressions. “That’s how I felt.”

  Saphienne blinked, her feelings momentarily overawed. “Why would… why…”

  Iolas snorted. “Guest bathroom! It’s to make an impression on visitors.”

  Shrugging, Laewyn crossed to the bath and reached over to tilt down the enchanted pitcher that conjured hot water. “There’s a few rooms like this. They’re all quite beautiful… and not all of them are rooms that guests would use.”

  Faylar nodded as he eyed himself in the long mirror. “My aunt’s home is decorated with illusions, too. Not on this scale. She’s much more…” He paused, smirking. “…Eccentric, in her tastes. Papered walls and furnishings, changing style on command.”

  His description puzzled Iolas. “Papered walls?”

  “A human decoration. The important among them decorate the walls of their rooms with patterned paper.” He threw off his coat, letting it lie where it fell. “She exchanges fashions with them — she likes to tinker with their ideas, and sometimes trades what she makes back to them. But I think she mostly does it to amuse herself.”

  Laewyn had crossed to an ivory cabinet opposite the bath, and was lifting out towels as she spoke. “Pick your coat up: Saphienne is going first.”

  He feigned offense as he retrieved it. “Perhaps my best friend will let me use her bathroom–”

  “Faylar,” Iolas sighed, “I think Celaena heard you earlier. If you want to make sure she knows you mean it, you can always just tell her that she’s your best friend, too. There’s nothing wrong with being sincere to your friends.”

  Faylar paused, caught out. “…Well, she didn’t tell me herself…”

  “Probably because she was worried you’d make fun of her.”

  Laewyn smiled as she set the towels by the bath. “She’s just defensive about the people she cares for…”

  Saphienne barely listened to them gently bickering, her eyes on the hallucinated trees swaying all around the bathroom. When she regarded the vista with even the barest suspicion it became transparent, revealing the white wood that comprised the real walls and ceiling; but the Hallucination spell refused to collapse entirely despite her disbelief, and resumed its deception the moment she stopped focusing. She idly supposed that the enchantment was not like a wizard believing in the lie, which was perhaps why the hallucination was trivial to see through, and also why it persisted. Was it transparent to anyone else, when she disbelieved? Or was it partly a fascination, showing them each what they expected to–

  “Saphienne?”

  She blinked. Laewyn was beside her; Iolas and Faylar had left.

  Very gently, the older girl touched Saphienne’s forehead with the back of her hand, feigned feeling her temperature as she studied her eyes. “Are you going to be alright alone? Do you need someone here?”

  Saphienne shook her head. “It’s just the magic. I’m trying to understand it.”

  Laewyn found it just as easy to see through her lie — but she pretended otherwise as she departed for the hall. “Alright. I’ll wait outside. Um, just call if you need anything?”

  The door clicked shut, and Saphienne was left alone in the lengthening shadows of the waving boughs.

  * * *

  Safety is not physical.

  Physically, Saphienne was beyond harm. Physically, Saphienne was protected by the myriad enchantments that warded the home of a powerful wizard. Saphienne knew that there was no danger that could threaten her as she soaked in the bath, not physically.

  But safety, Saphienne realised, was not merely the absence of peril. She could not feel safe while she was surrounded by reminders of the agony that had been visited upon her. Even when she closed her eyes and leant back into the hot water, she could not trust that she was safe within herself — that she was sane. She felt far from secure, knowing how she had been so utterly untethered by the memory of failing Kylantha.

  Her eyes opened, dark as they reflected the false sky.

  Filaurel had rearranged the library for her. She could accept that, now. The sight of that place – as it was when Kylantha had been taken – would have been too great a torment for a child of eleven years. Even at fourteen, to see the library as it once had been — Saphienne knew she would be overcome.

  But the library – that library, as she had first seen it in her early years – was how she understood her own mind…

  …And were she to climb those overlarge steps, she knew how it would look within, and what scene she would discover, playing out over, and over, and over again.

  Filaurel had said she couldn’t have stopped what had happened. She had told Saphienne that neither of them could have prevented it — had stressed that to her, with absolute certainty. And she had said Saphienne wouldn’t believe her, perhaps would never believe her.

  And yet, that wasn’t the problem. Saphienne did believe her. On some level she had always believed her: there was no way that any single elf could stand against the consensus of the woodlands, let alone a child. For cruel reasons, reasons that she had been trying very hard not to contemplate, the elves of her village and beyond had decided that no aging, dying person would be permitted to live among them.

  No… the problem was that it didn’t matter. So what, that Saphienne could never have stopped it? She was still responsible. She had let it happen. She was still letting it happen, accepting that it would be done to countless other children, children whose only flaw was to be born condemned to death.

  No one had helped. No one was helping. No one would help.

  She sank under the surface, holding her breath.

  …The matron of the woodlands had been furious. Without Hyacinth’s intervention, Saphienne would have died — and horribly. The burrowing tips of the branches had slowly tortured her, even after she had been dealt a killing blow. There was no need for such cruelty, not that Saphienne could understand…

  …But then, she still couldn’t comprehend the heartlessness that drove the decision to exile Kylantha. They were two halves of the same coin…

  …And as she contemplated the mystery, Saphienne brushed against a deeper truth, an insight that that had waited for her patiently in the oblivion beyond where her heart had stopped, that had whispered into her ear before Hyacinth pulled her back, that now crept toward her as she felt her chest tighten for want of breath–

  She surfaced with a gasp, and kept gasping, staring down at the steaming water.

  Saphienne had felt she deserved it.

  She had welcomed it; she had been at peace with her own death.

  Then her panting stilled, and calm descended upon her as she fully embraced that terrible insight — an insight so taboo that every elf she had ever met would have been aghast to hear it uttered, let alone to imagine it occurring to a child.

  Saphienne accepted she was dying.

  They all were. Everyone was. No matter how ageless, no matter how seemingly limitless their years, death still awaited each elf in the fullness of time. Whether by violence, or illness, or accident… or by their own hand…

  None of them were to be spared. They would, all of them, go into the ground and rot.

  She had learned that, from Kylantha. And that learning was what the elves around her tried so monstrously hard to avoid.

  Saphienne tipped down the enchanted pitcher and settled back under the warmth as it poured, letting water run through her spring-brown hair as she stared out at the hallucinated woodland. Evening was encroaching, shown in the dimming clouds and the silhouettes of branches and leaves that quivered before them. The room around her remained well-lit, temperate, comforting, insulated from the subtle darkness that slowly gathered outside. What she beheld was just a semblance, a playful imitation of the true end of days.

  She decided then that she would not be disturbed by trees, or by spirits. They were not what she feared. Nor was her mortality what truly unnerved her — quite the opposite, as she found herself relieved by the knowledge that one day she, too, would die.

  Hyacinth had told Saphienne that she was afraid of what had happened to Kylantha… that she feared its eternal recurrence. There was some truth in that. Yet it was not the whole truth, and not even her profound realisation of her own demise was enough to bring her ultimate fear into focus. There was something about her own accountability in it, and about the implications of why Kylantha had been driven away. Whatever it was, Saphienne knew she was terrified to face it, and that thinking about Kylantha intensified the nameless dread she–

  “Saphienne?” Laewyn cracked open the door, her voice less muffled. “You’ve been in the bath a while… are you alright?”

  The question crowded out the misty room as Saphienne repeated it to herself.

  Finally, her lips formed a precarious smile. “I’m alive.”

  * * *

  Once she had dried off and wrapped herself with the towels, Saphienne let Laewyn come into the bathroom to collect her clothes and shoes. She waited by the draining water – which was faintly pink from diluted blood – until the older girl returned, accepting the oversized, cotton night gown and slippers that Celaena had loaned her.

  “Celaena said your clothes won’t take long,” Laewyn told her. “If you need to lie down for a while–”

  “I’m fine.” Saphienne wasn’t sure if she meant it, which she supposed was progress. “I’m not tired… could we go see her?”

  Celaena and Iolas were in another tiled room, this one on the ground floor, though the tiles were soft green and covered all of the walls and floor. Iolas was standing before a rack that held Faylar’s bloodstained coat, intense concentration on his face as he slowly waved a glowing emerald wand over one of the sleeves — which caused Saphienne’s dried blood to run from the fabric like fine red sand. Celaena was a little distance away, facing another rack, hands clasped around a stone that shone with a deeper green light as she directed its magic to mend the holes and tears in Saphienne’s robes. Threads stitched themselves back together beneath its radiance, crimson flares rippling through its verdant aura wherever broken fabric regrew. Judged by the slightly bored expression on her face, the wizard’s daughter was well accustomed to using a wholestone.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Pausing, Iolas noticed that Saphienne and Laewyn were in the doorway. He brightened as he told Saphienne, “You look better.”

  “Cleaner,” she replied, managing a smile. “What’s that you’re holding?”

  Celaena answered for him, without looking, absorbed in her repairs. “It’s called a Rod of Cleansing, and Iolas is using it the wrong way.”

  Irritated, he gestured to the coat. “The blood is slow to come out. If you want to show me–”

  “It’s slow because you’re moving it slowly,” Celaena replied, lowering the wholestone as she finished work on Saphienne’s inner robes. “I told you to move it back and forth–”

  “I tried that, and nothing happened–”

  “The first pass only loosens it.” Celaena shook her head at him. “Wave it three times quickly: see how it goes.”

  Aware that he was about to prove himself wrong, Iolas pursed his lips as he raised the rod, pressing the solitary symbol just above the handle as he moved its faceted half closer to the coat and did as instructed. He sighed as the blood and dirt promptly slid away, making Laewyn laugh.

  He offered the rod to Saphienne. “Do you want to try?”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you. I just want my clothes back.”

  Her reply made Celaena and Iolas share a worried look; Celaena gestured to her rack with the wholestone. “I’m halfway finished. If Iolas hurries up with Faylar’s coat, your things will only take a few minutes to clean.”

  “Saphienne,” Iolas delicately asked, “do you need some rest? Maybe some tea?”

  She couldn’t explain why she felt like she did: they wouldn’t understand. Instead, she simply shrugged as she answered, “I’m going home.”

  * * *

  The library was definitely smaller in reality than in her mind. She found herself reluctant to climb the steps, irrationally frightened by what she imagined was inside; for the second time in her life, the copper coin gave her the courage to enter.

  Filaurel was standing beside her desk, sorting through the pile of returned books and marking them in the appropriate ledger. She didn’t hear Saphienne approach, and jumped when the girl threw her arms around her from behind.

  “…Saphienne?” Filaurel asked the question as though she wasn’t sure. The librarian was very surprised by the hug — and was pale as she turned around to face her, though she didn’t break away. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just wanted to see you.” Saphienne shut her eyes, and held Filaurel all the more tightly.

  Looking down at her, bewildered at first, and then less so as the moment stretched, Filaurel eased her arms around Saphienne’s shoulders, returning the embrace as she lay her cheek against the top of her head. She was silent for a moment. “Have you been studying Invocation?”

  Against her shoulder, Saphienne smiled sadly. She contented herself with a half truth, and nodded.

  “I saw Iolas here earlier,” Filaurel said. “He said you were with him, and that you were looking for Faylar. Since Faylar isn’t upstairs, I assumed he left to spend time with you.” She squeezed her closer. “You must have had a difficult day.”

  Saphienne said nothing.

  “You’ll have questions. If you want to ask me–”

  “No.”

  “…No?”

  She clung to her more firmly. “Not today.”

  Filaurel was silent for a time. Saphienne could feel her tension, concern at war with her desire to be present in their embrace… and with another reluctance, one that the younger elf didn’t understand at the time, but that Filaurel set aside anyway as she rubbed her hand across the girl’s back. “You can talk to me. When you’re ready.”

  Saphienne doubted she ever would be. But it was enough, to be held.

  * * *

  In her family home, Saphienne lingered outside her mother’s bedroom, eyes on the beguiling light that shone almost perpetually around the door.

  She had a premonition of why her mother was the way she was. Saphienne couldn’t form it into words, nor was she consciously aware of her feelings as she hovered near the threshold. By morning the sentiment would be gone — but just then, in the shadow of the hall, she almost understood what attracted her mother to the fantasies of the fascinator, and why they so absorbed her, to the detriment of her real life.

  The moment was fleeting, ephemeral. Saphienne turned away. The two of them were simply too different.

  * * *

  That night, her dreams were unremarkable. Alone, Saphienne walked the twilight woodland, the landmarks known to her and yet unfamiliar. She was neither lost nor at home. Nor was she in danger, and yet she didn’t feel as though she were–

  A rattling upon her windowsill woke her.

  She lay there, staring at the darkened wall; her hand held the coin purse under her pillow. The surreal experience of her dream lingered, and at first she wasn’t sure whether she had imagined the sound.

  Then the window rattled again, and she sat up, slipping out of bed to cautiously walk over–

  A small stone bounced off the pane.

  Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she unlatched the window and leant out into the night air, instinctually ducking the pebble that soared toward her. She needed a moment to discern the figure standing in the grove below, and when she recognised him, her eyebrows rose. “Faylar? Is that you?”

  He tucked his short hair back behind his ear as he waved.

  More quietly, she told him to wait, then shut the window.

  Borrowing the silk robe from the back of her mother’s door, Saphienne crept down the stairs and over to the front entrance, unlatching it to peer outside. “What are you doing here? It’s very late.”

  “Early, actually,” Faylar whispered with easy humour, though his eyes were pained. “I’m sorry to stop in on you… I just…”

  She held up her hand, pausing him as she opened wide the door and ushered him inside. “You might as well come in.”

  He hesitated… and then sagged, joining Saphienne in her family home. His voice remained low. “I won’t stay long: I don’t want to wake your mother.”

  “She won’t wake up.” Saphienne spoke at normal volume as she shut the door and walked through to the kitchen. “She drinks wine before she sleeps, and she never rises during the night. It’ll be late morning before she surfaces. Would you like some tea?”

  Faylar was out of his element. “…Why not?”

  “Well, if you aren’t thirsty–” She caught herself being too literal, then yawned. “…Never mind. I’ll make the tea.”

  When she turned up the lamp light, she saw that Faylar’s eyes were red, very much like the first day they had properly met. He awkwardly sat at the kitchen table while she filled the kettle and looked out cups for them both, his hands thrust in his pockets such that his arms pressed tightly against his sides. His feigned confidence did little to hide the fact that he felt lost.

  Saphienne forwent small talk. When the tea was steeped and poured, she handed him his cup and gestured to the sitting room. “Come and talk with me.”

  He sat on the couch opposite her, then blushed as she sighed at him; he shifted over to make room for her as she walked around the small table. They sat side-by-side, sipping their tea — Saphienne trying to wake up, Faylar seeking words to explain himself.

  “What couldn’t wait until morning?”

  His flush deepened. “…I had a bad dream.”

  Though she was tired, Saphienne could still read him. “About me?”

  He nodded, both shaken and embarrassed.

  She thought it over. “I left while you were bathing. Was that thoughtless of me?”

  “No,” he reassured her. “I mean… I would have liked to have walked you home, but Celaena said you didn’t want company.”

  “I didn’t.” She read his sudden guilt. “I didn’t then. I was… I had a lot to think about, after everything that happened.”

  “You nearly died.” His eyes watered, and he looked down at his cup.

  Saphienne didn’t need to ask about the content of his nightmare.

  “Sorry; you don’t need to be reminded–”

  Setting her tea on the table, Saphienne slid across to Faylar and slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him into a hug. He resisted for a moment, then gave up any pretence that he was composed, setting his cup beside hers as he folded his arms around her and quietly, but heavily, wept upon her shoulder.

  She studied the far wall as she held him, her own eyes burning with shame.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed, sitting back as he smeared away his tears. “I’m being a child–”

  “You saved my life.” She held herself as she held his gaze. “I wouldn’t have lived.”

  “The spirit saved–”

  “Your translation saved me.” The memory seized her, the recollection of her vulnerability making her shiver. “I was helpless. I couldn’t do anything. Without you and Iolas… and Celaena… and Laewyn…”

  “It was mostly Iolas. He knew what to say.” Faylar coughed. “You know, he told me he was lying? He never saw you touch the tree. I don’t know why I didn’t think of saying something like that.”

  Saphienne looked away. “I was very selfish.”

  “It wasn’t your fault–”

  “No, I don’t mean…” She couldn’t lay the weight of what she now knew on him, but she yearned to be understood. “…I’ve been caught up in things. Not seeing everything clearly. Not seeing how I affect people, and reacting to things that aren’t really there.”

  He managed a rueful smile. “Being prickly?”

  “More than that.” She wondered how much could be explained by what she had endured, and how much was her natural disposition. “You were right, when you said I’d lost my mind. I don’t think I… what I was seeing wasn’t what was there. Or, feeling what wasn’t there.” Her vision blurred. “I was… there was someone else–”

  “You saw Kylantha, didn’t you?”

  She blinked, and a second time, and then a third, her heart hammering in her chest.

  “Saphienne?”

  She felt him take hold of her hand.

  “Saphienne? Can you hear me?”

  Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “How do you know her name?”

  “I knew her. Well, not really. Celaena knew her; I only knew her from a distance.” He moved closer on the couch. “We talked about you. Before today, I mean. When we were walking home together, that day after you brought her to the library. I was telling her that you were awkward because you didn’t have many friends, and she said that the only person she ever saw you spend time with was Kylantha.”

  Memories of the puppet show at the solstice festival flickered behind her eyes: Celaena and Faylar had both been there, before she knew them.

  “She left, didn’t she? Or at least, that’s what people said.” Though Saphienne couldn’t see his face, she could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “One day, she wasn’t around any more. I never really noticed, but Celaena asked Madris, and she told her that Kylantha had left to be with her own kind, and not to dwell on it. I wondered about that… what it meant for you, if the two of you were close…”

  “She didn’t leave.” Kylantha’s screams were deafening. “They took her away.”

  “…Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.” She swallowed. “I can’t. Please.”

  He leant forward and held her, and she froze against him, tears pouring from her eyes as she again felt her first friend holding onto her for dear life. Eventually, she drew in a great, shuddering breath, and looked around herself, dazed and appalled by the normalcy of the sitting room in the dead of the night.

  “I don’t know what the spirit did to you,” Faylar whispered, “but it was worse than whatever happened to Celaena. I’m sorry, Saphienne.” His hold on her tightened. “I’m glad you’re still here. Very glad.”

  Reluctantly, fighting through her urge to withdraw, she returned his hug, just as grateful as he was not to be alone.

  * * *

  They leaned together on the couch as they drank their lukewarm tea. They had little else meaningful to say, and neither of them had any great desire for conversation. Without saying anything more about what troubled them, they both accepted that they were in need of company, bonded more deeply by their shared trauma.

  Eventually, Faylar stretched. “I should go home.”

  “Stay.” She lay her hand on his arm, and pulled him back. “Just sleep here.”

  “…Your mother might disapprove.”

  “Why? And why would I care?”

  Faylar looked at her, and his eyes flicked meaningfully down to the silken robe swaddling Saphienne.

  She caught his meaning, and rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Faylar. Not like that.”

  He blushed, and and took a moment to compose himself. “I wasn’t suggesting… I mean that people assume things…”

  “I don’t care if anyone thinks we’re sleeping together.” She closed her eyes. “People can think whatever they like about me. I’m used to it.”

  He breathed out slowly, and she felt his cheek press back against her scalp. “That elder was teasing me about leading you astray. Tolduin, I think his name was.”

  Saphienne’s eyes flicked open, and she frowned. “That’s what all that was about? He thought you were trying to bed me?”

  “More like, he was warning me off. I think.” Faylar’s skin felt hot. “I think Filaurel worries about the same thing.”

  Saphienne slowly smiled. “…Fuck, that’s why she stays late…”

  “I’m not. I’m really not.”

  “I know.” Saphienne looked at him from the corner of her eye. “You have a thing for Celaena.”

  Faylar choked.

  She smiled deviously to herself. “…So, you do…”

  “Not like that.” He squirmed away. “I’m happy for her and Laewyn. And even if she was single, I don’t think we’d make a good couple. I’m just fond of her…”

  Sitting up, Saphienne drained her cup and set it aside, lying back against the arm of the couch as she scrutinised him. “You care about her. Do you find her attractive?”

  “Saphienne…”

  “So that’s another yes.” She grinned to herself. “But you don’t want a relationship with her.”

  Tormented by the topic, Faylar stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t. But I don’t know… I don’t know about anything else. And you’re too young for me to be talking to you about this.”

  “Fuck off.” She said it casually, and then closed her eyes again. “I’m just curious. I don’t feel that way about anyone. I’m not interested in… well, the things in those books you read.”

  “Oh, gods, I knew this would come up–”

  “I’ve looked at them.” She kept her eyes closed, blushing. “When I was younger. The contents made me feel… I didn’t like them.”

  Faylar exhaled in a small laugh. “You too?”

  That got her attention; she opened her eyes as she sat up. “…Wait, then why were you–”

  “Trying to figure things out.” He smiled through his blush. “I mean, I understand… you know. And I’ll admit to being curious. But I’m not sure how I feel about rest of it all. Relationships, being close to someone, how to navigate… all of that. Intimacy, I suppose.”

  “How to handle being attracted to your best friend?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want a relationship with her. I’m not jealous of Laewyn. And I really don’t want to fuck up our friendship by seeing her… like that.”

  Saphienne thought it over. “Does she like boys as well as girls?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know she liked anyone, until Laewyn.”

  “Do you like anyone else?”

  He raised his hands. “Saphienne, these sorts of feelings are private–”

  “I won’t tell anyone.” She clasped her hands together. “I don’t even want to know names… I’m just trying to understand you.”

  He stared at her as he argued with himself; the vulnerability of the night won out. “There are several people I’ve… thought about. Girls. And you’re not one of them.”

  “I know.” She nudged him with her foot. “I’m too prickly for you. Or maybe too…” She tried to think of the word. “Underdeveloped? Celaena has–”

  “Stop.” He shook his head. “You’re just too young for me. And apart from that…” He bit his lip. “I don’t know what it is that I… find attractive about girls. It’s not simple.”

  Seeing him flustered made Saphienne giggle. “But you’ve felt lust, then?”

  He turned away from her as he flushed. “…Do I have to answer that?”

  “You just did.” She settled back again, yawning. “I haven’t. Not for a person. I worry that I won’t… connect with people, like that. I’ve been avoiding thinking about it.”

  Sympathy calmed Faylar, and he fell back on the far cushions. “I didn’t feel this way until last year. There was a girl who… well, she caught my attention, and it felt like being struck by lightning on a clear day. I couldn’t even say my own name to her.” He let his eyes fall shut. “You’ll figure it out. You don’t need to rush. We have as long as we want.”

  Fear gripped her: she knew that wasn’t true. But then… Saphienne forced herself to relax, told herself that she probably had enough time to figure out the finer points of romance, especially if Faylar was still struggling. She chose to believe that at least some things could unfold at their leisure.

  Rising, she padded over to where Faylar reclined, and lay on the couch with her back to him. “Let’s get some sleep.”

  “…I can sleep here. You should go to your bed–”

  “Faylar.” She didn’t turn around. “I’ll go up later. This isn’t romance, or lust; no one else is here to misjudge you. Just be my friend.”

  Timidly, he turned toward her, and lay his hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist, wrapping his arm around her so that her back nestled against his chest.

  He was slow to relax, but his breath rolled through her hair as he settled down. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought it was my fault.”

  Saphienne’s breath caught. When she spoke, it wasn’t just to Faylar. “You weren’t to blame for what happened… not alone. We’re all to blame…”

  They dozed. An hour or so later, Saphienne slipped from the couch, laying her mother’s robe across Faylar for warmth as he slept, then returned to the comfort of her own bed, feeling far less solitary than she had in some time.

  Were it not for what happened the next morning, she would have slept until afternoon.

  End of Chapter 38

  Chapter 39 expected on 13th May 2025.

  Two new chapters every week, Tuesdays and Thursdays... though, my cat is seriously unwell, so disruptions are possible while I give her palliative care.

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