Page 87 of Bane Bloom

Grouped their dark hues with every stain

The weather-beaten crags retain.

. . . and drifted off.

The creak of the door roused me, and I sat straight up, straining to see in the low light.

Still night. Candles flickering. Fire burned low. A man standing in the doorway.

He closed the door quietly, and as he turned, the candlelight rendered to diamonds the drops of water beading his chest and belly. He wore his trousers and boots but carried his shirt and waistcoat. He combed his fingers through his hair and shook more droplets from his hand onto the floor.

“Thomas,” I breathed, stoking the fire in my belly.

“Aye, lass.”

He went to the stove and tossed in more wood, blowing on the embers. After a moment, flames licked around a log, catching the dry bark.

He stood up, and I stopped breathing as he used his shirt to dry himself before hanging it over a chairback.

Then at last his eyes met mine. My poor heart raced and my limbs went weak.

“I know it’s late,” he said, “but we must speak.”

Threshold

He picked up a chair and brought it close to the bed.

The room brightened as the fire woke, filling the silence with popping and crackling.

He sat down, crossing an ankle over one knee, bending and resting his elbows on his leg. All the muscles in his arms and shoulders tightened and rounded, and again I lost the rhythm of my breath. My heart remembered its job well enough.

He reached then to the end of the bed and tugged a blanket free, wrapping it around his shoulders, and at last my chest loosened enough to admit a full breath.

“What can you have meant by striking a bargain with Nyv?” he said at last. “Have you heeded nothing I’ve said?”

This felt unjust, and was hardly the discussion I’d been hoping to have with him. My reply was prickly. “I had to give her a reason not to kill me, didn’t I?”

“No. You didn’t. I would have protected you.”

I glowered. “Well, I didn’t know that, did I? It seems there was a great deal I didn’t know. I imagine there’s still a great deal I don’t know.”

“Catherine, you must—”

“Was I right that it’s the house she’s after?” I interrupted. Having just sat through a proposal I never wanted, I wasn’t about to be given a lecture I didn’t deserve.

His lips curved down, and he nodded. “She has never given up the idea of reclaiming it. She won’t rest until she does. Even should you find a way to fulfill your end of the bargain you’ve made, she’ll never stop. Fair folk don’t forgive trespassers. They don’t forgive those who take what belongs to them. Not ever.”

“But it wasn’t you who trespassed. And you’re like her, or half like her, and surely that counts for something?”

“She’ll never trust the Bane half of me. But if we were joined, I would be in her power.”

“So I was right about that.”

“Aye.”

I ran a finger over the gilded lettering on the cover of the book I’d been reading, avoiding his probing gaze. “I know about your father,” I said softly. “Your mother left me a page from her diary that describes . . .” I took a breath. “It describes the night you were conceived. I didn’t really understand what it meant until last night.”

He let go of one edge of the blanket and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why is my dead mother communicating with you, Catherine?”