Archive of Our Own ^beta

There is a storm raging outside her window and a cloud of darkness settles upon the city. Most have been called inside, blocking off their windows and doors, while the wind whips and rages its whirring music. Residents pray to their gods, the priestesses pray to the Mother, and Nesta sits by the window reading a book about storms. She hums a violent nursery rhyme as it rains.    

It’s the only thing she can do since she’s not unused to being inside. She’s already combed through the rooms the House reveals for her today.   

Mere hours ago, it opens a door to a room filled with plants. The walls are glassy, the air’s strangely wet and Nesta needs only a moment to decide it’s not her favorite room she’s seen.   

When she closes the door, the House eagerly opens another.    

The floor, in this room, is colored like a chess board. Nesta spends hours here entertained, where massive pieces move to counter her pawn to e4. The House is a skilled player, she finds, and it doesn’t let her win easily. Nesta must think about each move before she makes them. She begins to picture battlefields where the ash squares meet the cherry oak. Her queen moves across the board as if she conquered the land and Nesta imagines herself as that queen triumphant. A crown on her head, an army at her back, but the pure strength of her intellect winning against her foe.    

Even so, Nesta spends the rest of the day winning as equally as she loses.  

There is no rain to contend to, then. No aching limbs from thundering storms. In fact, the sky in the morning looks as if birds sing somewhere in the trees below even if Nesta can’t hear their sweet song.    

But in the evening, when Nesta can neither remember what time it is nor how many games they’ve played, when the House says enough is enough, the door opens wide when she insists on another game and Nesta can see shadows blooming in the hall.    

The door moves back and forth as if the House wants to wave her forward. Fine, she thinks, even as she crosses her arms.   

She can hear distant rumbling and wonders if the mountain’s purring. Some lazy cat that has decided to lounge as much as it listens. But Nesta knows the House to be more of a nursemaid than a cat, and she thinks on the book the House leaves her in the private library this morning. The tea might have gone cold, but the book is just getting good and so Nesta weaves through the halls to the only other place that offers dreams beyond her wildest imagination.  

She’s always liked this place. The expansive shelves that reach to the ceiling in a dark, smoky wood. The windows that peak through, overlooking Velaris.    

It’s one of the only rooms that hasn’t changed, say for a few more armchairs in a warm cream, big enough that when they first appeared Cassian and her could both sit in one without a fuss and still be tucked between the arms. He’d read as she read, and occasionally she would catch him looking at her, feel his hand tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Nesta would lean into him and all the while, the window let them know that there was a city out there—dazzling lights and quite possibly music—but all Nesta wanted was him.    

All Nesta ever wants is him.    

Now the city drips, the color bleeding into beads of rain that race down the window. The chair seems too large for her alone, and so she lies across it, her knees bending off the arm. The quiet thrumming rain that hits the window reminds her of a rhyme she’d heard as a child. Something about floods and starvation if she really thinks about it. Nesta can barely remember the words now, but the tune sits in her mouth like a canary caught in her throat. It’s not the only bird that flutters in her lungs—her stomach.    

Sometimes Nesta thinks she almost has too much to say and one day she’ll open her mouth only to hear tittering bird calls because she can’t say it in words. Not that she has anyone around her now to whistle to.    

But she has the House at least...  

And Nesta remembers that as a steaming cup of tea appears on the table to her side—to replace the one that disappears as if it has never been there at all. Nesta sinks into the chair with lullabies and bird calls in her ears.  She flicks at the pages of her book, where a strong male with wings meets a woman without.   

Nesta can only sigh.    

But before she can get too lost in her text, a heavy voice calls out her name. “Nesta!”   

At the sound, she feels herself ready to fling herself out of the room, run to him as he bursts through the door. She isn’t expecting him home this early. He must have flown all this way.   

Nesta can hear her name again and she tells herself to calm down. Even now she can hear her grandmother’s voice. That's no way a lady should behave . But her grandmother didn’t know love... or mating bonds... or how to be a comfort to someone else’s existence, and Nesta doesn’t care what that old witch would think.    

She feels herself moving at the thought, the anticipation clinging to her skin like his sopping wet clothes. They’ll drip on her pretty blue rug.   

Nesta frowns at the pool that begins to puddle around him because it’s not Cassian who bursts in beams, but Azriel whose hair and clothes are soaked.  

A towel appears on the table beside him, in what Nesta assumes is the House reaching out a huffing hand, saying here... stop leaking all over my floors. She watches as the House stacks up another one. Two and then three, still Azriel doesn’t reach out for one.  

A fourth appears on the table.    

Nesta sinks into the pale cream chair.    

“Where have you been?” He implores, his voice raging and light. She almost feels like a child being scolded for the way he looks at her, all anger in those hazel eyes. Not the ones she wants to see.   

She wonders briefly if they’re actually friends for the discomfort settles in her stomach at the look. It angers her enough that she merely flips a page of her book, reading the first line.   

He grasped her neck, pulling her closer as he tugged her mouth to his lips.    

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”    

Nesta glances back to him as nonchalant as she can make herself. His voice, however, makes her want to stand up straight, lift her chin, and glare. “Where else would I be?”   

Azriel’s frown deepens, irritation filling the lines between his brows. “You were here?”  

Nesta gives him a look that must say obviously, but Azriel tilts his head as if he doesn’t understand.    

“I sent my shadows searching for you. I went around this mountain. I was afraid you were climbing down the stairs. I almost sent out a search party!” Azriel huffs, winded. His face is a blooming red—an unnatural color that makes her wonder if she’s ever seen him so irate. Nesta supposes she hasn’t seen him at all. He’s been gone for three weeks.    

She doesn’t have the heart to ask if it’s because of her.    

“Why would you do that?” Nesta asks.  

“Why? Because I couldn’t find you!” Azriel places his hand between his brows, taking a breath. “There’s a storm coming in. The entire city has spent all day boarding up their windows, gathering food—”  

“Is everyone okay?” Nesta interrupts. She feels her chest start to thrum with worry. For her sisters. For the residents... For Cassian who’s miles away. “Feyre? Elain?”  

“They’re fine. Worried about you, but that’s to be—  

“And Cassian?”  

Nesta can feel her heart beating fast as she says his name.    

“The storm is going to barely miss him.”    

Nesta lets out a breath, nodding as she takes inventory of names. If Cassian is okay, Emerie is okay. If Feyre is okay, Nyx is okay. Elain is fine. If Nesta is safe in the mountain, so is Gwyn, so are the priestess. Everyone accounted for. Everyone safe.    

Azriel takes a step towards her chair, his wings flapping away the water. Nesta looks to the carpet. He’s going to leave mud on the wool if he keeps at it. His boots are caked in it. The carpet already notes dark stains.    

“Where were you? Feyre says she’s been trying to reach you. Rhys tried—I barely made it back before they were screaming in my ear. Rhys tried to come... The House wouldn’t let him in.”    

Nesta wants to ask why Rhys of all people would go to such lengths, but she knows the answer to that already. Perhaps that’s why Azriel stands here now. Not for her sake, but for her sisters—whichever one. Both, maybe. She has seldom heard about them inquiring about her before. In fact, when Cassian is gone, the house is silent.    

Maybe they do it for Cassian, too, so they can tell him she’s fine when he asks. Out of all powers she’s gained and lost, Nesta’s most bitter about that one—that she can’t speak to him whenever she wants. That she can’t hear his voice interrupting her thoughts, her dreams.    

“I was exploring,” she says simply and Azriel takes a step closer. She thinks he might sit at the table at the center of the room that makes the library seem like one of those colleges Nesta read about when she was young. A foreboding place reserved for the studious and the elite to study under the dim lamps as the voices of a thousand books whispered their secrets. Azriel looks like a scholar in this room, and he will fit even more in the shadowed corners of each bookshelf, roaming through the stacks.    

Nesta may be a reader, but she’s never been so studious, and she never sits at that table aiming to uncover all the enigmas of the universe that are twisted in riddles. She hasn’t deemed any subject important enough to sit there--none that fascinates her to do more than just collect knowledge in dust.    

“I went to the library, too,” Nesta adds as an afterthought. Not this one of course, but the one below. The one that gives her purpose. “Your shadows couldn’t find me?”    

Azriel shrugs, an act that should look casual, but almost looks concerned. Nesta wonders what about her is so concerning.    

“It's been a long week,” he dismisses.    

“Where did you go?” She asks.   

Azriel doesn’t answer, instead he offers up his own question.  Nesta pauses at the words—the tone. “Have you been here by yourself?”  

Nesta doesn’t answer that either.    

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” she remarks.    

“You didn’t want to go with him?” He inquires. His shadows stand at attention, swarming around her and Nesta pokes at one absentmindedly. They don’t scare her. In fact, they remind her of shadowed pups, and she gently weaves her hand through the tendrils as if it were soft fur. The shadows dance at her feet.    

Azriel taps his foot from her lack of answer and Nesta wants to scoff at his impatience.    

It’s not like she hasn’t been alone before, though maybe he knows well enough what happened before that he assumes she’ll show up one day inebriated, hurtling headfirst towards the city because she never could keep her balance on the stairs.  

Yes, Cassian is away, but she’s fine .    

She’s fine with the fact that there is no one to winnow him back as per usual. She's fine with the fact that half a month has gone by and she’s not even sure when he’ll appear. She’s fine that Mor is gone to Vallahan, and he is gone to who-knows-where, and Feyre and Rhys are busy with the baby. She’s fine that even when Cassian returns, he will inevitably leave as he has done eight times before.    

It is his job of course.    

Azriel’s shadows pool on the ground like a puddle of water, and bubble back up to her hand. They wish to entertain and distract her. Like the house, she supposes.    

“Where do your shadows come from?” she asks curiously.    

Azriel pauses at that, frowning at her question. Nesta just pokes another as they weave in and out of her fingers. They’re like the House’s heart, she thinks. Alive, but in a way that they shouldn’t be... at least to those who’ve not found comfort in their shadows.    

“You’re evasive.”  

Nesta huffs. “I don’t hear you answering my questions.”    

“And tricky.”    

Nesta rolls her eyes and watches Azriel move towards the door. She’s almost ashamed to say that her stomach twists at the image of him leaving. He just got back...   

Maybe she’s not entertaining enough for him.  

Screw him then.    

But Azriel turns at the last moment towards a bookcase and Nesta cranes her neck to see. He meanders behind the dark wood, sticking his hand behind until he hums his satisfaction, and like a work of magic, he pulls a bottle out of the shadows. “You won’t believe how many bottles I’ve hidden throughout the years.”  

“Of wine?” Nesta eyes the sloshing liquid.    

Azriel nods, smirking. “When you live with enough people who take your things, you learn to be creative about hiding places.”    

Unconsciously, Nesta thinks of Elain.    

When they had nothing but a few dresses and some boots, she would always find her little sister stealing them. Why do you get all the good things, she’d say. Good things? Nesta would screech. These are the only things I own.    

“Do you want some?” he asks, grasping at a glass that appears on that studious table. He pours the deep burgundy and Nesta can imagine the smell already. Her stomach twists and guilt bubbles up her chest.    

“I think the house will just take it away from me.”    

“Then tell the House to look somewhere else.”    

He nods towards the chair at the table, and Nesta never imagines the table for wine tasting. It almost seems blasphemous to be drunk in a library. Still, she goes to it, grasps the glass in her hands and swirls the sweet red.    

“It’s old,” Azriel remarks, as if it might offer some explanation.    

“Human old? Or Fae old?”    

“Amren old.”  

Nesta hums her satisfaction, but she doesn’t take a sip. She only smells the fragrant bouquet. Azriel takes a swish of his own until the entire glass is empty.    

“I won it in a card game. The male nearly cried when I took it.”    

“And you decided today you’d open it?”    

“It’s tradition,” he shrugs. “When there’s a storm you drink.”    

Azriel refills his glass and Nesta sets her own on the table. It doesn’t switch to water and Nesta wonders if the House is indeed turning a blind eye. “Sounds made-up.”    

“It is.” Azriel raises his glass. “How about a new tradition Nesta?”    

It takes a moment for her to reach out her own, and when she does Azriel clinks it against his. He nods his head towards the drink, and she does drink, though she only takes a tiny sip.    

“Where did you go?” She asks again, “You were gone before Cassian left this time.”    

“Here and there.”    

“You didn't...” Nesta can’t help her cheeks warming and Azriel gives her a curious look. She supposes it isn’t like her to be bashful. “You didn’t leave because of us, did you?”    

He chuckles and Nesta nearly races to cover her flushed cheeks with her hand. She is not a shy person by any means, and heaven knows they’re not secretive about their affection. Still, she’s horrified of the thought of being loud enough that Azriel is forced to move out.    

“No. It’s not because of you and Cassian.” Azriel rolls his eyes and Nesta grimacing, wishing the floor would split below her and swallow her mortification. “You’ll be happy to know that I don’t hear anything. No whispers, no conversations, no noise… of any kind.”    

His eyes are bright with humor and Nesta scoffs the embarrassment away, anger roaring up her chest at the feeling.  “Not good for Cassian then,” She dismisses with a shake of her head. “If he screams bloody murder one day, no one will be able to hear him.”    

“You’d never hurt him.”    

Azriel says it like he knows, but Nesta’s not so convinced. She tilts her head, like a sloshing red in a bottle. “How are you so sure?”  

“Because I know you.”    

He thinks he does anyways. Nesta has her doubts. She’s not even sure they’re really friends and Azriel thinks he knows her?    

She takes a big gulp of her wine, and Azriel watches as she sets the glass down. He passes no judgmental looks her way as he refills her glass. Some part of her, the most rational, fearful part of her, thinks he must want her drunk... or loose lipped where wine slips past her defenses. Why should she ever trust a spy?   

“It’s quiet here,” Azriel remarks, looking to those studiously tall bookshelves standing about the room like giants. “Do you ever get lonely?”    

Yes.    

“No,” Nesta answers casually. She takes a sip of her drink as Azriel squints. A slight movement that she tracks like a hunter.  

She feels more like the prey—has always felt a little too easily caught.   

But Nesta has never been hunted for long without snapping her teeth and Azriel should know that by now. She taps her nails against the glass as if she’s summoning storms and Azriel looks to the Velaris skyline where it rains and rains and rains.   

“There’s an old saying that a day that storms is a good day for gambling.”   

Nesta huffs a laugh. “Do they now? And what do you have that I want, Shadow Singer?”  

Azriel raises a brow, and he pulls out a deck of cards seemingly out of thin air. “The real question you should be asking, Nesta Archeron, is what do you have to lose?”  

~  

She has lost count on how many books she’s read this month, but she is only a quarter through the A’s. A for subject, she finds, not title or author and Nesta wades her way through alphabet soup for it is a chaotic system. No wonder Gwyn is always running around this place.  

A book labeled The History of Monsterre , for example, is not housed in a section for History or a section dedicated to the countries of the continent. It is not even organized alphabetically in T, H, or M. It is placed where the rest of A’s live. A for Ancient History , because the kingdom had been founded during the rule of the Ancient fae or at least that’s what Clotho tells her when she asks what exactly is considered ancient when fae live into their thousands.   

“Isn’t ancient a subjective term?”  

She watches as the priestess’s pen swishes swirling letters. The High Lords have deemed it ancient, so it is ancient history.  

“But doesn’t ancient imply that it is not relevant to today? Montessere is a country that still exists.”   

Clotho sighs and crosses her arms as she so often does to Nesta’s protests. The history contained in that book does not.  

“It does not exist ?” Nesta loudly implores. “Then is every book that has some reference of ancient fae going to be housed in ancient history? Five thousand years will pass and soon everyone is ancient fae and the library only has one section? I mean how does anyone find anything if they are looking for abstract concepts?”    

The priestess merely raises an impatient brow and points to the large book that turns a swift page when another priestess asks where to find The Literary Works of Dio Djembe.    

Probably not in the D’s, Nesta grumbles. Maybe not even under a category for subjects pertaining to literature, because Nesta knows there is no such thing.   

It is all categorized there and if you need help locating a book, please consult the Table of Contents.   

Nesta rolls her eyes as she sees that the “Table of Contents” is merely a table with a book titled Contents , clearly not shelved with the C’s… maybe the O’s for organizational systems, she thinks. L for lists.    

She’ll just have to guess her way through, never mind that her goal to finish all the books in the first section means that she can learn anything from architecture to abandonment issues. Abstracts and abnormalities. Accessorizing wool during the winter. Acronym accommodations in library systems.   

She supposes she can forget the goal altogether and spend some time with Gwyn instead, but when Nesta searches for her friend, the priestess is flushed with anxiety. Another subject she can look forward to in the A’s.   

“Do you want to eat lunch together?” She asks, even so.   

“Cassian’s still not back?” Gwyn grabs a book on the shelf as she asks, crossing out something on the paper she carries. The fine script looks almost as neat as Clotho’s and Nesta can tell it has Merrill written all over it.  

Nesta swallows down the annoyed remark, ignoring the mention of her mate. “I thought Merrill might have let you off early since her project ended last week?”   

Gwyn groans, “She’s decided that she’s now going to research the unexplainable disappearances of the creatures on the island.”   

Nesta leans against a shelf as Gwyn shuffles through the stacks. How she can remember where every book is Nesta will never know. “What for?”  

“Why does Merrill research anything?” Gwyn shrugs, “I personally think she has a fetish for seeing me run across this library—gets a sweet thrill out of it.”   

“ Fetish? ” Nesta can’t help the sweet upturn of her lips. “That’s a new word.”   

Gwyn rolls her eyes, sighing as she says, “Don’t laugh. You and Emerie gave me that book.”   

Nesta snorts at her friend’s face turns a pretty shade of pink. “It’s the book that keeps on giving.”  

“Yeah, well it’s giving me nightmares.”   

“Liar, you like that book.”  

Gwyn raises her chin, shrugging dismissively. “It’s… funny I guess.”   

Nesta laughs outright at that, and the blooming shade of red on Gwyn's face almost matches her hair.   

“Okay, fine it’s not the worst book I’ve ever read. It’s got… some substance.”   

“Substance coming out of certain somethings. Sure.”   

“Aren’t you supposed to be shelving?” Gwyn asks, giving her a sidelong glance.   

Nesta tries to hold her laugh, raising a brow at the change of subject. “I was asking about lunch.”   

She’s already instructed the House on what she’d like it to prepare today. For lunch, she suggests a couple of sandwiches and a few cakes. Chocolate for her and a cheesecake for Gwyn, which she knows is her favorite.   

But Gwyn shakes her head, grasping a book from the shelf as she sighs. One more off the list. “How about tomorrow maybe? Or the next day? I’m not sure.” The look she gives her friend is a somber one, and Nesta resists the feel of that heavy weight. Her shoulders already feel like sinking and her body seems to shake from how forcibly she tries to keep it from moving. “I want to, I’m just...”   

Busy.   

Nesta understands even if Gwyn doesn’t say the word. Gwyn is busy with duties and Nesta shelves books that she doesn’t really have to shelve.   

“I have to get back” the priestess says cautiously and Nesta gives her a reassuring smile. The one that says no hard feelings. “ See you later?”   

“Of course,” Nesta agrees, raising a hand in farewell.   

With the absence of her friend, her sweet swishing robes no longer gliding across the floor, the level is quiet once more. Only the books keep her company. They might ramble printed words on their pages, but Nesta can seldom hear them speak or joke or laugh... A pity, she thinks.   

Nesta sighs her dismay, but when she looks over to the table, a feast fit for a picnic is spread out before her.   

Nesta smiles somberly, thanking the house for coming once more to her aid, hoping that the contents are enough to fill that burdening hunger that’s made a home in the pit of her stomach.  

~  

One card. Two Card. Three Card. Four. Nesta sets the fifth where it lays gently as the floor of two others. Triangles are the strongest structure for building she reads, and this tower already houses two levels.   

She stares at a half-finished pyramid of playing cards with all the focus of a person building the tallest structure in the world. At the height of 233 feet, she knows, the tallest structure is a statue of the Mother carved out in sandstone located in Lakovash, a city outside of Rask. It takes two hundred years to carve out the rock, but Nesta is not so ambitious, and she does not wield the cards like clay, instead she eyes the structure. Do not fall.     

To lay them right is to complete her task. A solid structure that resists tension on all sides.   

What she wouldn’t give to be so unyielding. To push but never crash. To bear the heavy weight of its structure without fault.   

But playing cards are not so easy to wield, and when the lightning flashes Nesta jumps at the sound. The two cards she holds bend in her hands, and Nesta closes her eyes, trying to breathe through that frustration.   

She could yell. No one would hear her, and the sound would get captured with the wet, clapping thunder, but Nesta only looks down at the table, scoffing at the strength of triangles.   

All the cards have fallen, scattered along the wood in hearts and spades.   

Nesta curses the rain, the sky, stupid Velaris weather that keeps changing in temperamental tides. The window is large, and she sees the glittering fae lights get lost in the waterfall downpour, the view blurring until she can’t see a thing.   

She is tired of being stuck in this place.   

It’s a thought that strikes her like a flash of lightning.   

She is tired of being stuck in this place, but it’s raining hard . Nesta sighs, collecting the deck until she can feel their weight in her hand.   

She misses Cassian. He’s gone and all the sky has done is rain.   

She will wait for him until it stops.   

Nesta will build the cards again.   

She will build it again and this time it will resist collapse as triangles should.   

And when it stops raining, Nesta will go outside, and she’ll look for triangles in structures. In all those buildings drowning in a city below, she’ll look for strength.   

~  

The House is a mothering hen, and her wounds don’t seem to heal quick enough as she stares at the blistering rouge that tells her she shouldn’t be climbing stairs when the rain is pouring. Her ankle is swollen, and no amount of ice has taken the sharp pain away. It throbs a sweet reminder.   

Dumb , it says. You’re dumb for leaving during a storm.   

Nesta pays no mind. She simply sighs as she eyes her book on the dining room table. She wonders if the House might move it for her or punish her for leaving when she decided she wouldn’t.   

But the House is not cruel even if it’s pushy and perturbed, and it knows her far too well. It knows that she’ll slump in her chair, until she gets irritated enough to reach out for the book. What trouble might she get into, if it doesn’t move it for her? How much pain will it cause?    

Rain would have never stopped her anyways .    

So, when Nesta begins to shift, her lips already set in a fine wince, the book vanishes from the table and appears in her lap.   

“Thank you, House,” she says when Nesta can’t help the satisfied grin. “I always knew you took my side on things.”   

“Are you talking to yourself again?”   

Nesta jumps at the sound of his voice, as she always does because she can never hear him sneaking through the House. She mutters her complaints, flipping to the page in her book where’d she’d set a torn piece of paper.   

She spares a glance to Azriel, answering haughtily, “I thought you’d be at the estate.”   

But Azriel never answers her queries or her questions, and Nesta watches as he sits at the expansive dining table. He doesn’t ask why she has a reading chair here, but it should be obvious... Nesta has a reading chair everywhere, and there’s no one here to tell her it isn’t proper décor. If she had it her way, every wall would be filled to the brim with books and every room would be a library of itself.   

A roast chicken appears on a plate for him. The House takes care of its guests, of course, but Azriel waves it away with a cautious thanks to the walls.   

He pulls up a chair right beside her instead. “What happened to your ankle?”   

“I tripped,” she said without a thought, shrugging as if that might play off the pain. Trust Azriel to zero in on her stupidity.   

“On the stairs?”   

“Running through the halls,” Nesta lies. Azriel’s gaze shifts to her wet hair, and Nesta wrinkles her nose in distaste. “No one likes a busybody.”   

Azriel doesn’t even give her a hint of a smile. Instead, he puffs up like she’s seen Cassian do on occasion, when she’s particularly stubborn and he won’t give into her whims.   

“You need to ice it,” he says. “Stay off it. At least until morning. Can you move it? Did you have someone check to see if it’s broken?”   

Nesta snorts. “Unless the House is also a doctor—which would not be surprising in the least—no. No one has checked on it.” Nesta looks to her foot and silently chastises the bitter thing for slipping across a step and putting her in this predicament in the first place. “Doubt it’s broken.”  

“Have you ever broken anything?”   

“Have you ever fallen down the stairs?” Nesta raises a brow, at his uncompromising will. “ Exactly. ”   

Azriel, though despite her words, is already moving towards the door. Nesta frowns at his retreating steps. “I’m getting a healer,” he calls.   

“I don’t need a healer.”  

“And you didn’t need to be doing whatever you were doing to hurt your ankle.”   

Nesta huffs, rolling her eyes as the tone of his voice and once more she thinks back on how Azriel’s become utterly irritating ever since her and Cassian's bond became official. Maybe even before then when he first started helping them train.   

It’s that orderly tone of his voice, that I’m older and know better tone of his voice.   

“You don’t have to care for me, just because Cassian’s not here!”   

Azriel stops in his way, giving her a look filled with audacity. “Are you going to get Madja, yourself?”   

Nesta wrinkles her nose in disgust at that female’s name and that must be enough of an answer, since Azriel marches towards the door in the way of his.   

“You’d think you were going to war,” Nesta grumbles under her breath, but she calls out before he can reach the door.   

“It will heal by itself,” she calls to him, “besides the House doesn’t like visitors.” Nesta shrugs, smirking lightly at the grumpy lines that creased his forehead. “I can’t guarantee you’ll be let back in.”    

As if by a summoning, a great chime rings. Nesta’s only just discovered means that there’s someone at the door. She’s tested it with Gwyn one day—it doesn’t matter if they knock or if they twist the knob. If a presence is there, a great bell rings.   

Nesta has yet to find where the sound comes from.   

“I’ll get it,” Azriel says in a rush.   

“It’s my house,” Nesta scoffs. “I’ll get it.”   

In truth, she can already feel the excitement building. Maybe Cassian has come home early, she thinks. Nesta stands in a rush intent on running to him. Who cares about a twisted ankle? Who cares if Azriel will see? Her mate has been gone for far too long and her heart lurches out of her chest at just the thought of him.   

“Nesta,” Azriel warns. “You stand on that ankle and you're going to make it worse. Didn’t we teach you this in training?”   

“Who cares about training? We haven’t trained in weeks!” Nesta doesn’t look back at him as she moves past him, and through the halls. Her ankle does hurt, but it means little to her. Her body is filled with glee. She can barely suppress her grin.   

That is...   

Until she races up the stairs to the upper most level, and the door swings open for her view.   

It’s only Feyre and the babe.   

Nesta tries to hold back her sigh.   

“What are you doing here?” She asks.   

Feyre raises a brow, “well hello to you too.”   

She shifts to one foot, posing in that I’m tired of you way. That motherly disappointed look of someone much older and wiser. As if , Feyre is wiser. “You’ve been ignoring me. I’ve been trying to reach you for days, Nesta.”  

Nesta rolls her eyes at the tone. She can’t help it. Being lectured in her own home. “I’m here,” she shrugs, a little too much aggravation in her voice. “Where else would I be?”  

“Are you going to invite me inside?”  

Nesta wants to say no, but instead the door opens widely.  

~  

The midnight red velvet reminds her of playing cards. The utter calamity of a spilled deck. She runs her hand down the front and even if it’s one of the prettiest dresses she owns, Nesta hates the feel of it. The soft velvet scratches against her skin.   

The thunder shouts but Nesta doesn’t flinch. It only aggravates her. The others jump and look to the windows, because it’s not just four of them now, it’s six. The yellow begins to bloom in the sky, cracks like broken glass leaking out light. How temperamental the sky seems to be today.    

“Elain stayed behind… well, she’s with Nuala and Cerridwen if you want to know.” Nesta doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop Feyre from speaking. “She says she wants to save whatever plant she can. The storms have wiped out so many.”   

Velaris has had an unusual amount of storms this season. The people are calling it strange, she hears. Amren calls it an omen.  

She sits at the head of the table, a knife in her hands that cuts through the steak as easy as butter. The tender meat leaks out blood. Cassian always jokes that she might as well be eating it raw, that perhaps she has developed a blood drinking habit. Nesta tells him that if she wanted it tough, she would sooner eat rocks. Cassian, as different as he is from her, likes his steak like cement. Gods forbid, it even has a little pink.   

She cuts it into tiny pieces. Another thing that Cassian notes. He cuts and eats a piece, cuts and eats a piece. Nesta cuts the entire thing before she takes even one bite. It’s strange how much she remembers when he’s gone.   

Nesta looks around the table, but her sister opts for a stew instead and the House obliges. Nyx has a bowl of smashed peas. A green so putrid she almost feels sorry for the babe, but as Rhys spoons the food into his mouth, Nyx eats without a fuss.   

“Are your dinners always like this?” Mor remarks, taking in the grand centerpieces and the candles that float in clear water. The linens that are pressed into crisp triangles. The napkins in the shape of swans.   

“Like what?”   

Mor looks to Azriel and Nesta catches the look as Mor grimaces to her friend. Nesta has the sudden urge to spill her water in her lap, the glass knocked over by accident …   

But she’d never be so petty.   

“It’s just so formal .”  

“The House likes to entertain,” Nesta answers, taking a sip from her glass and once more she wishes it was wine. Wishes for wine or… Cassian. But neither are here.   

“And yet you never invite anyone over,” voices Amren, who picks at her lamb as if it might bleat back at her.   

Seemingly by the words, the thunder crashes, the mountain shaking the chandelier. Nesta pays no mind as the lights begin to flicker, the clinking of crystals reminding her of rain. Nyx cries and the others reach for their glasses that shake with the sound.   

Nesta only continues cutting her steak.   

~  

After dinner, the bulk of them stand around the table as if waiting for her word, but Nesta doesn’t care what they do, she only wants them to leave her alone. She misses the quiet solitude, the House bringing her a cup of tea as she reads another book. She’s still working on the A section of the library, but the House gifts her a new book. One of its favorites, she assumes at how excited the House seems. It makes her a reading corner out of pillows and brings her a cup of steaming milk sweetened with honey. It’s been too good to set down, but she’s only made it to the middle.   

Nesta grabs the book again and makes her way to the library. She’ll let them decide what they want to do in her house. She doesn’t care.   

But her sister seems to take her action as a cue to follow her.   

Nesta grits her teeth.   

“How have you been?” Feyre asks, making chittering small talk. Her voice is bright in a way that scratches at her skin and she can feel a twinge in her head from an ache beginning to form.   

Will this night never end?   

“I mean with Cassian being away and all.”   

“Same as always.”   

“What do you while he’s away?”  

Nesta shrugs, “what I always do.”   

She knows Feyre won’t be happy with that response and Nesta debates whether she should give a more definitive answer, if only to save herself the trouble later.   

Feyre blinks at that, hiking up Nyx who falls slightly at her waist. He’s gotten bigger. Nearly in his seventh month. His eyes are the same blue as theirs, but his hair is as dark as his father’s. As dark as Cassian’s. An Illyrian trait, maybe, because most of the Illyrians she knows have pitch black hair. Nesta wonders if her children will also have their father’s hair, the rich golden hue of his skin, maybe his eyes too. She wonders how much of them will seem like her at all.   

“He’s been gone a lot lately,” Feyre says, her voice light.   

It sounds like casual chit-chat, but the more Feyre stammers for another sentence, her feet shuffling through the halls, Nesta thinks the words sound increasingly different. He’s been gone a lot lately reads like what have you done? Did you have a fight? Is he tired of you?   

Nesta wonders the same often enough; she can’t hold it against her sister for thinking it, too. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Nesta thinks that absence makes the stomach grow sick.   

He’s sick of her.   

Cassian goes back to Illyria—to Windhaven—stays without a thought, because she is too much for more than a few days. There is nothing about her that can be stomached for that long.   

“He’s been—what—gone for two weeks now? And he was gone before that.”   

And before that. And before that. On and off.   

It’s his job of course. She can’t expect to give it up when he commands a legion. She can’t expect him to train her when he also must train the Illyrians. Warriors already prepared for wars that Nesta doesn’t even want to think of, even though she knows one is lurking outside her door—an unwelcomed guest prepared to knock, to move in, to stay.   

“He’ll be back soon,” she says, walking into the brightly lit library. The sight of the books is a sigh of relief.   

“How soon?”   

“Soon enough,” Nesta says, eyeing what the House has done. The House already prepares her space. There’s a corner waiting for her. A blanket of wool dyed in burgundy. A steaming cup of what smells like tea. Her book already opened to her page.   

“Why don’t you go with him?” Feyre asks as the others settle in the room. Nesta wishes her sister wouldn’t ask these questions in front of them. They avoid her gaze, but they look like they want to know also why she stays.   

Nesta ignores them.   

“There are games in the closet,” she answers, pointing to a corner, where a door suddenly appears in the wall. “The kitchen is now on the fourth floor, but if you need anything, just ask the House. It will show you to your rooms when you’re ready.”   

Feyre opens her mouth to speak, but Nesta goes to her reading corner and picks up that book. Her back is rigid and there is nothing comfortable about the way she sinks in the chair. She wishes the back was taller, so they couldn’t see her from behind—wishes it was sturdier, so she didn’t have to try to sit straight.   

She grips the bindings as if it might keep her still. Nesta can feel them resume behind her, their voices hushed as if courteous of the fact that they’re in a library. She can hear Nyx’s baby babbles and Nesta holds onto that sound, holds onto it too, to keep her grounded.   

But the words float in the blank spaces in her book and no amount of reading will make them disappear from her mind.   

Why don’t you go with him?   

Because I can’t leave.   

“Why don’t you want to go then?” Feyre asks, sidling up to the chair across from her. Her sister makes a great show of moving the chair closer as if their conversation can remain intimate between the two of them—as if to show Nesta will be having this conversation whether she likes it or not.   

It comes as no surprise that Feyre doesn’t leave her alone. It seems that saving one’s life and a proclamation of love is all it takes for her little sister to hold on tightly to her leg no matter how much she tries to shake her off.   

Nesta purses her lips as she turns a page. “It’s rude to interrupt someone while they’re reading.”   

Feyre only stares, waiting for her answer. When Nesta doesn’t even glance her way, Feyre sighs. That deep sigh Nesta knows well. “I don’t understand; I thought things were going good with you two. Are you two... well?”   

Are we well?   

“We’re fine,” she grits out.   

“Are you fighting?”   

“Not that I’m aware of.”   

 “Then, what is it? You two were inseparable and now...”   

Now, he works, Nesta thinks. Now he works and she’s fine, and no one cares about the girl in the tower who causes no problems. Who cares about a person who’s healed? What type of warrior cares about a princess already saved?   

“I thought you wanted me in this house.” She says spitefully, hoping that it will hit that part of her sister that always seems to feel guilty about something. Leave me alone, she thinks. “You wanted me in this house and now you’re complaining that I’m not leaving.”   

“That is not why we put you in this House.”  

Feyre crosses her arms as stubborn as her, and Nesta thinks she might get up and leave, go to the other part of the House where she doesn’t have to see her any longer, but Feyre doesn’t leave. Nesta again can’t shake her off, so she waves a dismissive hand.   

“Regardless,” she remarks, her own guilt welling up in her chest, “I’m here now. What are you complaining about?”   

“It’s quiet here,” Feyre says, “That’s why I ask.”   

Nesta tries not to remark that it was quiet until her and her gaggle of family showed up at her door.     

But it is quiet. She can hear her thoughts run circles in her head. Even the symphonia doesn’t drown it out.   

“I was thinking that I might… visit you more often… if you’re free. If you will have me.”   

Nesta only keeps her expression straight, her limbs aching and tired from standing so still.     

“Do whatever you’d like.”   

~  

Nesta can’t sleep. She shifts in her bed, moving to Cassian’s side that doesn’t smell like him anymore. She’s begun to wonder if it ever did at all.   

Perhaps, she’s being dramatic, but that’s what a lack of sleep does. She can barely rest with all those thoughts racing in her mind.   

So Nesta paces, and she moves, and she thinks on a harp and it’s notorious first string. Light movements and leaping. What of its final string? What of eons and space and time?   

But where would she go, who would she be, why would she leave when everything she has is right here? What stories would they tell about her, she wonders. The girl who made the mountain come to life disappears without a trace. What would Cassian say?   

It’s seems inconsequential to think of those things, but she wonders... what would Cassian feel? Somehow, she can imagine him relieved, but most times, in her dreams, he doesn’t even notice she’s gone and Nesta’s left pondering why she ever waits for a male who doesn’t care.  

But Cassian does care, he’s just away.   

He’s just away and the sky still weeps and Nesta tries to listen to voices that are still awake and rumbling, but the House is silent.   

It’s only her that hasn’t learned to sleep through things. Try as she might.   

She thinks of Feyre’s words.  

Why don’t you want to go?  

“Who’s going to take care of the house?” she says to the night.  

But the house hasn’t felt like a house when he's gone, and guilt racks her stomach at the thought. This place... leave the place that has loved her better than often she could love herself—loved her better than anyone, really.   

But Nesta doesn’t want to speak of it. Let them think what they must and she will continue climbing those stairs. She can already taste the sweat on her skin like wine on her lips.   

Take it from me. Take it from me. Take it from me.   

Take one more thing away from me, I dare you.   

Nesta can’t help but imagine her house of cards falling, decorating the table with ruby, onyx, and quartz. Lovely shades of catastrophe that will inevitably fall once more when she starts again.  

She doesn’t even realize she has left the room, but she walks through the house in her white slip of a dress.  

The door opens and the House reveals another room.   

It is made up of walls. White, bright walls.   

There is padding on the floor and along the walls and that is all. When the door closes all that is left is a blinding lack of color. She wades to the center, plopping into cotton as if she is floating through clouds.   

Clouds or... something else. The shade of white reminds her of teeth. Blinding and bighting where she sits at the center.   

But it’s better than sleeping out there.   

~  

“Have you seen Nesta?”  

A rumble of commotion disturbs her from sleep, and yet when she wakes there is nothing but a peak of sunshine. Here, in this room, there is nothing but sunshine.   

There are no white walls, no suffocating brightness that cushions the dark parts of her soul that claw and rip. Underneath her there is only hardwood and her hands smooth over the surface as if willing the room to look as it did, where all her straight jacket dreams dreamed no more.   

A voice drips in concern, “She’s not in her room. I’ve looked everywhere.”  

But evidently not here, Nesta thinks. Thought may not be fair. She is unsure what the house makes this door look like. If it blends into the wall as sure as any paint or picture.    

She supposes she must make herself known. “I’m here,” she speaks with an open door.    

“You slept on the floor?” Feyre asks as she peers into her space.  

“No, I slept—” But she turns and the room is empty and there’s no way to explain what the house has conjured. Hardwood on the floor and walls of cream. A simple empty room that was something else if they managed to leave her alone.   

Her head aches and she clenches her eyes shut, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach.   

Why can’t they leave her alone?   

“Are you okay? Do you want to get you some medicine? Nesta, stop walking.”   

“Stop asking questions!” She says, irritation leaking from her voice.    

“It feels like someone died in here,” Amren notes, rubbing at her arms at the chill in the house.  

“Nesta?”   

And it’s his voice.  

Sweet familiarity.  

Cassian looks at her and she breaths a sigh of relief.    

He goes to her quickly, his hands going to her face, but she reaches for his torso. Nesta wants to be engulfed by him and his scent. The only one who truly belongs to her.   

He tucks her in his arms, kissing her on the forehead. “You, okay?”  

“I’m fine.”   

“What is everyone doing here?”  

Nesta shakes her head, “There was a storm yesterday.” As an afterthought, she looks him over, his wings, “Did you fly through the storm?”  

He grins at her perusal and settles his arm around her and her head is tucked to his chest.   

“I am honestly better than the last two weeks.”   

“Were the camps bad?”  

She hopes he says yes.   

Nesta almost wants to hear it, so she can say that he should stay home.   

“How was your weeks without me?”  

“They were—”  

“Cassian! You’re back.” Rhys calls, sleepiness settling on his frame.  

“Cassian, it’s good to see you!” Mor announces excitedly. “Did you fly through the rain?”  

“It already seems to be letting up,” He says going to the window and flicking at the curtains. Indeed, the clouds part and sun begins peaking thorugh the clouds.   

The others look to her, but Nesta doesn’t care about what they’re thinking.   

“I don’t remember it raining this much last year,” Mor notes.   

“Almost like someone’s unhappy with us,” Amren remarks, blinking up at her and raising a brow, but Nesta only looks to Cassian. There’s very little that can irritate her now that he’s home. Her mate. Her love.   

Still, she can hear whispered words in the back of her mind replay itself like her favorite song.   

He’s only obligated to love you. He’s not obligated to stay.  

~  

“The others invited us to Sevenda’s for dinner,” Cassian calls from their bedroom. Nesta doesn’t say a thing. Instead, she sits in the bathtub and sinks into the water as it comes up to her chin. “I know you don’t like going out to the city, but I thought it might be a good idea. To get it over with, you know?”   

Nesta doesn’t know, and she refuses to focus on the words. Instead, she breathes deeply, and contemplates the bath. She hated it once, and now it offers her solace. Rose petals and lavender float in the water—light green from the herbs the House puts in. It smells like a concoction of tea, but it does nothing to dim the roaring in her chest as Nesta folds her knees up, picking off the flowers that stick to her wet skin.   

Why are they hogging you, she wants to ask. You just got back .   

“I figure if we get it out of the way now, we’ll have the next week all to ourselves.”  

Nesta mulls that phrase over.   

The next week?  

She knows the bath is supposed to relax her when the House draws it in the morning, but the calm heat only reminds her that there’s irritation thrumming through her chest. It feels good against her ankle though, that’s still red and swollen. Nesta tries to hide it from them—Cassian… and Feyre, but both find out soon enough when the House offers her ice and salve.   

It seems that the House only sometimes listens to her wants.   

It hasn’t gone away—the wound. Her family, yes, but not before her youngest sister makes a great fuss about calling the healer. Nothing about that female brings Nesta relief, though, and so she puts up a great fight about having Madja visit. Cassian, too, argues and Azriel, helpfully, chimes in that it has been three days and the wound should already be gone.    

It’s better, she says, pretending as she’s done days prior that it brings her no pain. Good as new .   

But it’s not good or new, and this news from Cassian is not good or new. She should expect it by now. The inevitability of his absence.   

You’re never there when I need you.   

“What do you think?” He speaks. His voice is louder as he makes his way, and she can feel the plop of a kiss on her head. He unclips her hair, taking great care to comb his fingers through her scalp. Nesta leans her head back, but she doesn’t relax as he picks up a comb and starts brushing her hair. He wants to take care of her, it seems, for he has not stopped touching her.   

If he really cared... he’d stay.    

“Are you leaving again?” She asks.   

Cassian doesn’t answer, instead he looks at her from above where she tilts her head back. He kisses her lips, and it’s an odd feeling, being kissed upside down. It’s not unwelcomed… just odd. But as he pulls away, Nesta wants to tug him into the bath with her, soak him in like the scent of lavender.   

“You missed me?”  

“Why do you say?”   

“Because I missed you,” he says, leaning into her and kissing her neck, biting at the soft skin there. “Every day, I missed you.”   

“But not enough to stay.”   

Her voice drips with bitterness… she can hear that plain as day and she clenches her fist, holding out for his biting remark.   

It never comes, instead she hears that bell like whisper.  

“Come with me.”   

Nesta is surprised by the words. He’s never really suggested it and the idea almost seems too late. She thinks of one thousand and one replies. Of course, I will. Why haven’t you asked sooner? I’ve only ever wanted to be near you. But Nesta thinks they sound like someone else, so she refrains.   

“What time are we meeting the others?” She says instead, distracting herself by picking up the soap at her side. It’s white as milk and makes her skin luxuriously soft. Cassian always runs his hands down her arms, her legs, her face after she uses it. He tells her that if the House ever runs out of it, he’ll go searching the whole of Prythrian for more.   

It’s strange... The memory of him seems more comforting now.   

Cassian pulls his hands away, and the warmth of his body grows cold as does the water of the bath. Maybe he’ll leave her this time for good, she thinks, decide it’s not worth the pain it takes to keep her. But Nesta feels something soft wrap around her shoulders, and she turns just as he gestures for her to stand.   

When the warm towel is fully wrapped around her, Cassian lifts her into his arms to pull her from the tub. He cradles her to him as he walks to their bed, and she doesn’t care that she’s still not dry and she’ll probably get their sheets wet. Nesta can’t care about anything but that he’s holding her.   

Cassian kisses the side of her head as he sits on the heavy cushion, and Nesta listens to his heartbeat. She hears that expression as clearly as music. I love you. I love you. Beat after beat.   

Don’t let go, she wants to tell him.   

Don’t let go, the canary sings.   

“You’re leaving again,” Nesta mumbles into his chest. A confirmation. An inevitable truth.   

“It’s my job,” he replies simply, and she sinks further into his arms.    

He smells of fresh air and Nesta wonders how he can keep that scent even after flying. He smells of fresh air and pine. All things that reach towards the sky—space—the stars. All things that are free and unencumbered. Nesta wonders if she smells like the house. All the walls and empty spaces waiting to be filled.   

“You can come with me,” Cassian encourages once more, and his voice seems to reach for her, yearns to pull her out of depths.  

Nesta shakes her head. “You know I can’t.”   

Cassian doesn’t ask her why. Maybe he thinks it’s a lost cause… she’s a lost cause.   

But he holds her. He holds her until she’s dry, holds her as his stomach rumbles, holds her even when the shadows crawl up the walls and blend into evening. Still Cassian holds her and all the while she can hear twittering bird calls from a window that is open to a city below.    

Whistles instead of words.   

~   

The other half of the battle is deciding if her house is a prison or a home.   

It’s hard to tell when she awakens and there’s tea on her bedside table. Steaming and hot. Cassian is no longer at her side, no longer pressing himself closer where she can wrap her arms around his torso and tuck her head to his chest... but there’s tea and Nesta wraps her hands around the base of the cup and sniffs the heady scent of mint instead of pine and snow. She lets the tea comfort her as she drinks, ignoring the bite of pain on her tongue. She will drink until she is filled with it, until she is warm to her toes.   

He will be gone for three days this time, and the thought comforts her, because when Cassian returns, he will stay for a week. A week of him to chase away the days without.   

Still, three days seem endless and Nesta fills the time rifling through each room. The House likes to entertain her, she finds, and it opens more doors for her to discover. There is a drawing room that holds only the bluest of things. Blue walls. Blue sofas. Blue pillows. Nesta makes a note to store the few Rhys has gifted her in this room where the ultramarine hides the tedium of these days in its shade.   

The House opens another when she had flitted through each closet, each cabinet, each drawer. Nesta wonders how the house never runs out of ideas. Surely, she’s never been this creative. But sure enough, behind the next door the floor lowers into a pool of crystal-clear water, the floors speckled in opal hues.   

Her mother always dreamt she’d live in a castle and Nesta imagines the kind built from sand. She is not on the beach, the shore crashing and going, but soon enough the pool starts bubbling and kicking up waves. She can smell the sea as she dips in a toe.   

She is alone, Nesta knows, so she can strip off her clothes and enter the water or swim in the cotton fabric—a nice summer dress that she feels pretty in when she slips it on this morning. Nesta opts for keeping the clothes on because she wants to know what it feels like on her skin. It floats in the water, ballooning around her and Nesta pats it down to see what it might do. It only floats back around her like she imagines one of those fish might—one she’s read about in a book about the Summer Court.   

These creatures move by beating their combs rhythmically to push themselves forward. Though many species can be hard to find, they can be easily seen during the eleventh through the third month when the warm tropical waters of the Summer Court shores have cooled. Residents are often seen paddling on the shores of the Lagoona, where the night allows onlookers to see pulsating light in rainbow colors.   

As the words form in her mind, light begins to pool at the bottom, fae lights or another, changing its hues. Red to green to blue. Blue to green to red and back again until Nesta feels as though she is in Summer too.   

But Nesta remembers the cushioned room, the one that disappears back to hardwood.   

Like the others, this room doesn’t have windows and she is glad for that because she doesn’t know how she might feel if she could hear the tittering sound of birds or the city alight with song. She sighs as the pool begins to sink into hickory.    

Nesta is not in Summer.   

Nesta has never been to the sea.   

~  

It takes her nearly three hours to make it down the mountain by stairs and it must be the most inconvenient part of living in the House. Never mind that its height used to make her want to puke, her thoughts running wild about how she could fall at any moment. It’s not even that her legs will inevitably hurt when she reaches the bottom, and more so when she climbs back up again. No, it’s the amount time it takes to walk down each step as she holds onto the twisted railing. She hopes that she won’t slide all the way down, but who really knows—who will really find her if she does?   

All Nesta knows is that she won’t twist her ankle again and that she promises as she carefully takes a step lower. It’s not raining today or at least not yet. The storm clouds gather in the sky, but they have yet to release their racking sobs that might drown the city in its sorrow and wash her out to sea.   

The last time, the stairs were painted in waterfall rains and this time there is no rain. There is no lightning followed by its angry roars. She will not crash and fall like a tumbling tree, with its bitter bruises and its twisted, gnarled limbs.   

For now, the sky only waits and watches as she climbs down and down.   

But she can hear the thunder rumbling in the distance, anticipates the sound. Six seconds and she think she’ll see the flash of something cosmic in the sky. Six seconds more and she’ll hear the crash like symbols.   

Nesta urges her feet to move faster, grips the rail and slides her hand down the metal, until she is practically leaping. The city is below, with all its lights and grandeur. The city will catch her, she thinks. So, Nesta runs faster, fumbling down as she reaches the bottom.   

The last step feels like a reckoning, and a rumble of thunder sounds from above. Her feet pound against the cement, and she doesn’t know where she goes, but her body knows the way. She feels the tug of something pull her to it. A knot tied to her heart and squeezing.   

She rounds the corners, taking up the city streets that wind around and around like those twisting, tumbling stairs, taking the backstreets where the familiar fae lights illuminate her path. She feels her chest pound to the chaotic symphony of the heavens and the houses turn to brick and mortar. Burnished apartment buildings stand tall over closing shops, but they’re not the ones she’s looking for. And when Nesta turns the corner, she’s there.   

The apartment is there, too.   

Its horrid yellow awnings and its chipped white paint. Nesta smiles—laughs as she sees it. Something maniacal and loud.   

It stands.   

It has not fallen. It is not newly rebuilt or closed for construction. It looks the same. Untouchably similar to the apartment she once knew. Nesta barely breathes as she takes it all in.   

The lightning rips through the sky, multiple strikes. One for every wound. One for every lie. The light weaves together and Nesta imagines roots. Nesta imagines the apartment falling then, split in the middle or cut off at the trunk, but it does not fall. It does not burn. It does not make honest people out of them.   

Nesta hears a crash and the buildings rattle with the sound. The apartment looms over her as the light flashes, and the rain begins to pour. It is a wide mouth. The windows are teeth. The door is a bottomless stomach. The porch is a flickering tongue and Nesta swears she sees it smiling as if she had Made that house, too. She can almost hear its voice.  

I still stand , it speaks, and so do you .   

Nesta runs.   

The building laughs. She can hear it in the thunder, in the swallowing rain.   

So do you.   

Nesta sprints.   

So do you.   

Nesta climbs stairs of waterfall rains.   

So. Do. You.     

~  

Later when Nesta is up on the mountain, safely ensconced in walls and rock, happily drying by the fire, she remembers that place.   

Cassian gets home late, and she hears him opening the door, but it’s harder to make herself excited to see him. She pretends to be busily reading a book, engrossed in words that pass her by like heavy brick houses and winding streets as she runs.   

She thinks of the apartment standing erect in the city. Not like a fallen deck of cards that splay pretty reds and whites and blacks. That tower has already been torn apart and the cards lay softly on the table because they can't make it past the first rumble and strike.   

He walks to her, methodically, by routine, and he kisses her temple like usual.   

But Cassian must notice how quiet she seems, because he picks her up from her cream-colored couch, and he sets her on top of him in a way she’s familiar with—how she likes.  

“Do you want to go to the city tomorrow?” He asks and she thinks of a mouth taking shape in her mind. Her once-maybe never was home chomping its windowed teeth.   

Nesta says yes, but what she really means is that she wants to go home. She thinks of the words to say, rehearses them over and over. They sit on the tip of her tongue.   

But she does not say them.   

Nesta is home.   

~  

“Where are we going?” she asks as they walk through the city. People greet them as they pass, and Nesta wonders if they know what she’s done. Never mind who she is, Nesta wants to know what they see. What title accompanies her when she walks? Arrogant queen. Haughty witch. Sister of the High Lady. A lady and her lord.   

Hero, drunk, or saint?   

I am Nesta Archeron, she wants to tell them—anyone who asks. I am Nesta and no one and nobody else.   

But she is barely even Nesta some days, and so no amount of smiling will convince them that it isn’t a grimace. She nods politely instead, while Cassian laughs a boisterous roar. He has no problem living with people.   

“I’ll take two, please,” he says to the fae at the stall, whose stand proudly displays two hundred vibrant colors. A flag for his country, though she doesn’t recognize which one. A sign that is written in childish font. In crayon, she thinks… happy crayon by happy little hands.   

The fae eyes her as she gleans. “My children made that sign years ago,” he shrugs with a smile on his face. “They’re older now but I can’t seem to part with it.”   

“It’s a nice sign,” she responds politely. The fae seems proud of her acknowledgment.   

Cassian seems proud that she speaks to the fae and Nesta remembers that look. Nesta has seen that look before. When he’s surprised that she’s polite. When he’s surprised that she’s not mean. When he’s surprised that she can blend in as easily as them.   

The male hands her a stick of cotton candy and she rips away the clouded pink. It’s sweet on her bitter tongue. Cassian carries a bag of popcorn, red and white stripes covering the outside, and in his other hand is an apple. Ruby and glaringly bright. All the colors make her think of the last romance she reads.   

A date , she remembers, is something that the characters do to get to know each other. Usually before love has had a chance to embed itself so deeply in their sternums. Love is a worm wiggling through the core of an apple as it feasts. Cassian takes a great big bite.   

But Nesta already knows Cassian and love has already had its fill. He’s her mate after all. Her one and only. Her forever. Her home. But... what does she really know?   

Who is he really if he’s never there?    

The day is warm, and the sun shines brightly and Nesta doesn’t know who Cassian is.  

It seems sinful somehow to already love him.   

When he’s done with the apple, he takes up her hand and soon enough they’re walking through a quieter part of the city. Shops turn into parks and streets wind through tall, sturdy homes. They pass street signs and bulletin boards and the sweet song of birds chirping in trees.   

This is a place you abhor , they sing. Because she does. Only resentment fills her lungs when she breathes in fresh air. This is not what her mother imagined when she dreamt of castles. This is not what Nesta yearns for when she peers out windows.   

Nevertheless, this is somewhere she should be. Nesta knows it in her heart of hearts. A dainty cottage with the love of her life. Children laughing in the yard. To be surrounded by boisterous life. Loud enough that’ll seep into her skin, stuff cotton in her mouth, silence her when she inevitably tries to speak.   

This place is quiet in a way the House isn’t.   

This place is somewhere she can live and not speak to animacy.  

“Where are we going?” Nesta asks. She resists the urge to tug her hand out of his and run the other way. She knows her way back to the House.   

Cassian hums, leading her forward and Nesta is greeted with stone and grey brick.   

A female, all blonde sunshine and praise, sweeps down the porch, offering them her hand. “Aren’t you two the loveliest couple I’ve ever seen?”   

“Barbs, this is my mate, Nesta.”   

Cassian gestures towards her and she wonders if he's proud of that fact. She wouldn’t be.   

"She’s gorgeous just as you said.”   

Nesta shirks back at the tone of her voice. High pitched and squealing.   

“There’s no one in the house, just as we’ve discussed. So, you two can look to your hearts content!” The female, Barbs, waves her hand to the melancholic thing. A two-story painted grey . She almost seems proud of that, too.   

Cassian tugs on her hand and Nesta moves through that open doorway. Right into its mouth.   

“Well look around! Look around!” The fae calls, smiling with her teeth. It reminds her of a drawing she’s seen in a book in the library.   

The book is called Serrasalmidae . It is housed with the A’s... For Aquatic, she learns.   

It has no author as many of the books in the library don’t. Too old, maybe, or perhaps names don’t matter at the time. Sometimes there are symbols pasted in the inward corners of the cover page and Nesta thinks that might be a name, but she has yet to learn the language of stamps and dyes. Some identity in pigmented hues. She looks for it, too, in this one but finds none.   

Inside the dark burgundy cover, however, is a detailed account of the discovery of a species of fish. They reside in a lake somewhere near the borders of Scythia, where the wall has once split the land. A team of traders happen upon it while traveling the Golden Road—a route that’s said to weave through the human and fae lands when the wall stopped all trade. It used cracks—weaknesses in the magical foundation—where creatures were said to be able to squeeze through… or at least that’s the rumor.   

All these traders find is a system of rivers that connect at a large, murky lake.   

Thinking that the water’s safe, two of the tradesmen go in, fishing. They use a technique, Nesta remembers, referred to as noodling . She thinks she’ll suggest it when Cassian comes home—an activity that he might like as well as her—but when she turns the page, Nesta thinks better of it.  

The male dips his hand in for that catch and... the author describes the scream.   

His hand is chewed upon. There are bite marks up his wrist and it seems the ruckus the two males make trying to get out of the water, the fear that the serrasalmidae must smell, brings out a swarm.   

Barbs’ grin reminds her of the serrasalmidae .   

Nesta imagines sharp points in lieu of pearly whites. There must be more of her waiting behind each closet door, she thinks. If she opens one, she might lose a hand.   

“Please, please. Look through everything.” Barbs reaches for the closet, swinging it wide open, “See, how much storage!”  

Nesta turns to Cassian, but he only gives her a small grimace—a look reserved only for her—a funny sort of look to say he’s as frightened as much as she is by the female who smiles with her teeth .   

When Barbs turns her back, Cassian chomps down mockingly. Nesta pretends to laugh, even as she feels breathless and strange.   

“This house is suited for a growing family, like yourselves,” she remarks cheerily, “unless of course you’d rather a bigger house. I have some of those available too!”   

She already lives in a house, Nesta wants to say, but Cassian squeezes her hand. “We’re just looking at our options.”  

Options.   

Nesta looks to Cassian, and she swears he can feel her shaking from where their hands meet. Permanently entwined. A comfort... if she wasn’t already bursting at the seams.   

We have a home, her scowl seems to say.  

Cassian’s gaze softens, and he squeezes her palm.   

You are my home, his look answers.  

“New mates are always so proficient! Any chance Velaris will be hearing some exciting news soon?” The female pauses as if waiting for one of them to jump for joy, raise banners, yell across rooftops.   

Nesta shirks back, wishing to see another one of those closets. Hand, be damned.   

Cassian answers for them, “We’re taking our time.”   

Barbs winks, though Nesta can see the disappointment practically seep into her eyes. It doesn’t deter the female from smiling, though. Oh no . “Well, I wouldn’t wait too long. This house has only been on the market for a few days, and I suspect we’ll have a lot of offers.”   

Barbs leads them to the backyard where an oak tree sways from gentle winds. It’s large enough for a treehouse, Nesta thinks. A treehouse or a swing tied to a branch. It would be a golden life for a child.   

“As you’ve seen, this house has four bedrooms. A beau -tiful, large master suite. Two and half baths. The neighborhood is quiet, safe... and it's located by one of the best schools in town. It’s a real steal for a couple like you.” The female clasps her hands together, getting teary eyed. “Oh, I do hope you put in an offer. You too would be lovely addition to this neighborhood.”   

Nesta opens her mouth, ready to tell the female to go sell this nonsense to someone else. But Cassian beats her to it. “Can you give us a minute?”   

Barbs smiles impossibly wider. “ Of course ! I'll be waiting in the kitchen right over there if you need anything—anything at all.”   

Nesta needs nothing from her.   

When she’s gone, Nesta doesn’t speak first even if her lips yearn to open as wide as that female’s grin. She thinks she might say something awful if she does.   

“Do you like this house?” Cassian asks.   

“Do you like the house?” Nesta roars, “I wasn’t aware you wanted to buy another one. Is this for your other family then?”   

Cassian sighs and Nesta tries not to shirk back at the sound. Everyone is always sighing when she's near. As if she’s tiring.   

Tire of me, then.   

“We live in the House,” she says like a well-known rhyme.   

“We can live anywhere .”   

Anywhere. As in, here, where this house is quiet and quaint and… normal . There is nothing unique about it. There are four rooms and two and a half bathrooms, and a beautiful yard with an oak tree in the back. It’s a family home. One that they can grow into and Nesta can see it. She can imagine the boy with wings that will be the spitting image of his father. She can imagine the girl who will have all the fire of her mother. Both will have her eyes and their father’s laugh. She will want to hear them laugh—smile when they do.   

But Nesta shakes that picture away as Cassian gestures for her.   

That life was never meant for her. How does he not know this already?   

“I don’t want to live here,” Nesta hisses, stepping out into the sun.   

~  

Nesta doesn’t know why she does it, but she slams the door when they make it back to the House of Wind. Cassian isn’t far behind, following her as he watches her kick off her shoes and head straight for the private library.   

She topples onto the armchair, taking up the entirety of the space—every space that can be covered by her small frame and her lilac-colored dress, because she doesn’t need him to take up room.    

Nesta grabs the book she’d left on the table and opens it to a page—any page, she doesn’t care.   

“You’re upset,” Cassian states as if he doesn’t already know.   

“No,” she says, but they both know she’s lying.   

“It's just a house, Nesta.”   

“It’s my life, Cassian!” This time she roars it. She can’t keep it in. If the House has a heart, then her lungs have a chimney, and smoke is pouring out of mouth. Fire rages in her gut and he doesn’t know that he’s feeding the flames. He wants to burn her, wants the whole house to crumble to ash.   

Cassian shuffles and Nesta thinks of matches.  

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says as if she should care. As if she should cater to him because he’ll be gone for who knows how long this time.   

“Go then.”   

But Cassian doesn’t listen. Cassian pulls up a seat, and he places his hands gently where she grasps the book open. He lowers them to her lap, and Nesta wants him to touch her even now. Even when she feels the bitterness sweet on her tongue like a poison, she gladly swallows.   

“When I get back, I’m going to take some time off and I want us to have some time together.” Cassian tucks her hair behind her pointed ear, “If you aren’t busy that it.”   

She untucks it from him. “You know I’m not.”   

Cassian frowns at the words, and she knows what he’s thinking—it's what they’re all thinking. Nesta who has nothing. Nesta who does nothing. Nesta who feels nothing.   

“I'm happy here,” she says, but it sounds too empty. Unconvincing. Like she’s trying too hard.   

“I’m not good at knowing what you need.” She can feel his hand graze her hand with his thumb. “But I know something is... off.”  

“I don’t like you leaving so often.”   

“I have to. I’m a soldier, Nesta.”    

I’m a soldier, too, she wants to say. But that’s not true. Nesta doesn’t know what she is. She cannot be wife if her husband isn’t there. Not a mother because she has no children. Not a lady because she holds no court. Not a soldier if she’s not willing to lose her life or her soul.   

She is a toppled deck of cards. Empty rooms waiting to be filled. A house she can’t leave.    

What is she but wasted wishes on frivolous dreams?  

“I’m worried every time I leave you,” he admits. It’s only a whisper of words, but she hears them clearly. Her eyes sting and his are a burning, brash red.    

“What for?” She asks cruelly, “That I’ll go to a bar and drown myself while you’re away. I’m allowed to. Remember? If I make it down the stairs, I might even deserve it.”   

“You don’t have to live here,” he pleads.    

“Where else will I go?”   

Who else will I be?   

“You can go anywhere.”   

You are magic made flesh.   

Cassian shakes his head and takes her hand and Nesta wants to pull it away, but he clenches it tight in his own. “You get... quieter every time I come back.”  

You don't leave the house , she sees in that look. The silent words are a question Nesta won't claim are true or false. Say it with words if you want to know, she thinks. If she doesn't hear them, they don’t exist.   

“I’m fine.”   

She can tell she’s infuriating him. His nostrils flare and he looks like he might sigh but thinks better of displaying that impatience. Get tired of me, she thinks.   

Tire of me, so that I might be free .   

Nesta doesn’t know where that thought comes from, but she swallows it down. Her eyes stinging on their own. Nesta blinks it away, but the thought aches and it screams.   

Would she be free? If Cassian no longer loved her, would she be free?   

Say it, she demands, say it so it may be so.     

“I am trying to right a wrong. To do right by you.”    

“I am not a wrong you can fix whenever you feel the need,” she gasps, her eyes stinging and bleeding and bright. “You are not even here most days.”   

“Then go with me.”   

“I can’t!”   

“Nothing you throw at me will make me stop loving you, Nesta.” Cassian pleads as if that is the problem all along. She is pushing him away, he thinks, but what has been doing but holding out her arms. “I’m here to stay.”   

“Go,” she croaks.   

“I can’t .”   

“Just leave me here,” she begs and angry tears stream down her face. Nesta doesn’t mean to cry. She isn’t even sure sadness is what sits there, thrumming in her chest, yet it leaks out of her eyes. One moment of blue skies and a second later, there is only grey, and it pours and it’s heavy and it drowns.  

“I’m so sorry,” he pleads, and she can feel the wetness on her skin, where he places his head on her hands, kissing them. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving and expecting you to be okay. I’m sorry that you love this house, when you can’t leave.”   

“The House loves me.”  

“ I love you . I love you more than anything. Anyone.”   

“But you left me here,” she says. Nesta shakes her head, willing the blasted, cumbersome tears to stop falling, “You don’t leave things you love.”   

And she’s right.   

Cassian stares at her for a long moment, a rain cloud parked over his expression until she only sees resigned contemplation. A resolve that seems to defy all logic. “Then I’m staying here with you... I’m staying. If you won’t come with me, then I’m staying, and we’ll live in this house, and I won’t take you from here. But I’m not going to let you become a ghost in your home, Nesta.”   

Nesta wonders what book she’ll find ghosts in as she wipes fists across her eyes. Is she a ghost, like those faint spirits? Does she float through these shelves, pale and ghastly?   

Or does she haunt those who live here? Vengeful and terrifying.   

Trapped.   

But this house is not a trap. This house is a home, and she made the House come to life. So Nesta shakes her head and his words away, for she knows she can't be dead.   

She is only ever empty...   

Nothing to fill her but cobwebs and sunlight.    

So Nesta raises her shoulder, opening her book once more and sitting in that chair that fit the two of them better. “Do what you want,” she mocks casually, “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all this time?”   

~  

Nesta sits on that training field above the house, so high she can see the vastness of the sky and nothing down below, and for some reason it doesn’t rain.   

She thinks it should be, but the sky is blue... and it’s odd to see the world so calm when it had been raging for days—for months now. There are no clouds. It’s just blue... like the sea she’s never been to. One she can just about swim in, if she’d been born lucky enough to have wings.   

But if she’s magic made flesh and the only thing she does is float through walls, hoping someone will hear her when she rages, what would she do with wings?   

Is she even that creative?   

Nesta reaches up and there’s nothing she can grasp. The wind doesn’t mock her for trying and there’s nothing really punishing about it, so it doesn’t feel foolish to reach, but still... there’s embarrassment.   

It sits in her chest and it fills her with disgust, but the judgment isn’t coming from the sky looking down at her. There is nothing particularly animate about it. No mouth to deceive, no eyes to glare, no tongue to swipe a taste, no throat to swallow.   

It’s just blue.   

It’s not even easy to drown in for she cannot reach high enough, and yet when she reaches up, she feels too young.   

Nesta has to wonder if the strange emotions are not because of Cassian.   

Perhaps it’s because he leaves this morning. He promises, with a soft peck to her lips and run of his hands down her cheeks, that he’ll be back before sundown, and he’ll be here to stay. And he’d been gentle with her in a way she almost forgot.   

He’d been gentle all last evening, too, even after all that’d been said.    

This morning he cooks her breakfast, kissing her forehead when she looks at the dish as if not understanding why he’s being so nice, and he repeats what he says in the evening when they lie in their enormous bed never quite getting too close.   

I love you. I love you. I love you.   

I love you so much.   

So yes, Nesta reaches, and she feels too young and too naïve and a little stupid.   

What are you even reaching for, she thinks. What could you achieve by raising your hand up into the air as if you can capture a cloud in your fingertips?   

Such frivolous dreams...   

She reaches up and expects nothing, but the wind gently swipes across her hand as if shaking it hello. For everything is alive if she dreams it... and Nesta wonders if Cassian will become a ghost, too.    

Trapped... like she is.   

Because she is a ghost, isn’t she? What is a spirit but what was once alive? She’d never thought of herself as such, yet it keeps turning in her mind over and over and she’s not supposed to feel like this.   

I love you, he says.   

but you’re a ghost, she hears.   

“I’m a ghost,” Nesta says, and it hurts to say aloud. The words sound something like propaganda and betrayal and naivety. Foolishness for she’s about to be tricked again, even if she’s gotten her way.   

But she’s not certain how she’s been tricked, when the sky is so blue, and the anger isn’t spitting fire in her lungs. So Nesta lays back on the tile of an unused training field and says the only other words she can voice without choking.   

“I love you. I love you. I love you,” she repeats and in the depths of a lonely room with no walls and a fathomless sky, if Nesta only says the words to herself, so be it.   

~  

The bookshelves are lined up like dominoes and they might fall if one tips over. Nesta never does finish the A’s.   

“Do you think you’ll ever leave this place?” she asks.   

Gwyn’s smile is a sure thing. Beautiful and bright and at peace with a decision Nesta doesn’t even want to discuss. “I will.”   

Nesta can only count on one hand when she’s ever been sure of anything. Laying across Cassian’s body made her sure. Giving her powers away to Feyre took away the guilt. Screaming at the top of her lungs for Elain gave her purpose. Accepting the mate bond made her nauseous, but at the end it calmed her more than she could comprehend.   

Gwyn clears her throat, setting the book back into its slot.   

“You’re leaving,” she says, and it isn’t a question.   

Nesta doesn’t know what to say. So, she moves to the railing, peers below to level seven where the House greets her in inky darkness.   

Gwyn lets out a breath and Nesta thinks of the desperate gasp of air someone takes when they’re drowning. “You knew this day was coming... Someday we all have to leave.”   

Nesta shrugs noncommittedly, “I’m not a priestess.”   

“But you’re here for the same reason we are.”   

Because I make homes out of prisons.   

“ I thought priestesses were allowed to stay here forever.”  

“The beautiful thing about forever is that it doesn’t last long.” Gwyn steps to the edge, gripping the railing as if she can keep it from falling and she shrugs as if she’s read all these books and she knows all these answers. There is nothing she doesn’t know here, in the depths of the library.   

Nesta shakes her head, the thought unbearable. Is nothing constant? Will nothing ever stand still? “But the library is a safe haven.”   

Why would anyone want to leave?     

“The library is bubble. It keeps us protected, because we think all the harm is outside. But you know what I learned? The torment is in here.” Gwyn beats at her chest, “and it’s not going to go away. Nesta, you survived. You lived. I lived. Forever will not be forever for us.”   

“I used to think that was a horrible thing,” Nesta shakes her head. “Survival, I mean... I hurt so many people.”   

“They hurt you, too,” Gwyn says, giving her a somber smile. “You’ve been screaming without a saying word, haven't you?”   

“How do you know?”   

“I’m surrounded by books, and you walk around with open pages.” Gwyn shrugs, but hums to herself as if thinking better. “I know you Nesta. How can I notice? I know I’ve said that we’re the rock in which the surf crashes. But even the rock changes. Even the sea.”  

“I feel like I’m drowning,” Nesta admits, suddenly feeling small... and guilty for the House had shown her its pain, too. “I keep trying to fight, to stay above water, but I’m drowning.”   

“Maybe... it’s time to stop fighting.”   

Nesta scrunches up her brows, as if not having to fight seems blasphemous.   

“Hear me out,” Gwyn says diplomatically. “The thing about drowning is that the more we struggle, the more we fight, the more the tide pulls us down. We get water in our lungs, and we choke on it. We get weak... but the sea isn’t trying to kill us. The sea does what seas do. Float. Stop fighting and float.”   

Gwyn reaches a handout to the darkness, unafraid of its depths. Its fury. No wonder they’d become friends, after all. “You said you met the heart of the House, that the House showed you all its darkness.”   

“It was unwanted,” Nesta says as nonchalantly as she can. She drifts her hands through the shadows, and she can feel it thrum, the little tendrils like a hand that clasps her own.   

Friend. Companion. Home.   

That is what the House is to her.   

Gwyn lays a hand on the railing, and the movement is soft. Gentle as she says, “but do you like living here?”   

“I love every part of this house.”   

All its cold hallways, all its empty rooms, the soft echoing lament of loneliness that follows her with every door opened and every door closed. She has to love it all. It helped her when no one else would.   

“But if the House had no heart,” Gwyn shrugs, “if it was just a house... would you like it here?”   

Nesta scrunches her brows at the question. She can feel her heart thump in her chest as if it wishes to escape. “Of course! I—”  

“Why?” Gwyn goads.   

“Because it has a library... It overlooks the city." Nesta can feel the unspoken words sit in her chest, and they crawl up her throat, “It takes care of me.”  

“The heart takes care of you... with the power you gave it.”   

Same thing, she thinks.   

Nesta shakes her head. She feels dizzy from all these words. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t leave it.”   

“But you want to,” Gwyn says and it’s not a question. Gwyn says the words like they’re true. Like she knows.   

“Yes,” Nesta admits. The word sounds like a gasp. Yes. “But I can’t.”  

“Why not?”   

“I made it come to life. Shouldn’t I be responsible for it?”  

Even as she says the words, Nesta knows that’s not the reason. Responsibility has never been something she grasps like an outstretched hand and Gwyn knows her too well to believe her.   

“What are you afraid might happen if you leave? That it’ll be lonely? It has us. All the priestesses are here. You’ve seen them talk to the shadows.”   

All manners of truth sit in her throat and still she can’t say it. So Nesta says the simple version, “it loves me.”   

Gwyn smiles softly. So soft it hurts to look at her. “But I love you... and I want you to do what you feel is right. I won’t resent you if you go.”  

“Why not?”   

“Because you don’t have to give up even a tiny ounce of who you are or what makes you happy, Nesta. You don’t have to do that for the people you love.”  

“But that’s what I do. I don’t know how to show it any other way.”   

Suffering is love. Enduring suffering is love.   

When she laid on Cassian’s body, when she laid on Feyre’s. When she dug her own grave to make her mother happy. When she used that soil to help Elain plant gardens. When she stayed at the bottom so her friends could climb.   

“Nesta... We don’t have to become martyrs for the people we love, and the people who love us won’t ask us to do that.”  

But she thinks of them all. Feyre and Elain and Cassian and Gwyn and Emerie and the House. All of them people she’d live and die for. All of them she owes.   

“It loves me,” Nesta repeats, and the words sound like a broken record. The symphonia that keeps replaying the same songs.   

“ I love you.”   

“It loved me when I was unlovable.”  

“You’re not unlovable,” she sings and Nesta hears the words like the pop of a soap bubble. A rumbling, bottle of champagne. Gwyn takes her in her arms, and Nesta lays her head on her friend’s shoulder. One of the only shoulders she’s ever been offered. “You have never been unlovable. Not in your entire life and it’s a shame that anyone’s ever made you feel so. You never will be.”   

In her friend’s arm, Nesta sniffles. She can feel the wetness on her lashes, and she blinks it away. But all things fall eventually... all things collapse.   

“I wish you could come with me,” Nesta says.   

“I’ll be out there before you know it. We’re fighters and we didn’t need a sword or a ribbon or a Rite to tell us that.”  

“What if it’s not like I imagined?”   

“It’s going to be nothing like you imagined.” Gwyn laughs and Nesta thinks of unencumbered blue skies, so wide and vast it should have been frightening. “Isn’t it wonderful?”   

Yes, she supposes it is.   

“I love you,” Nesta says, the gasping out of her lungs.   

Gwyn offers her a big, warm hug that speaks of possibilites.   

“I'm so proud of you.”   

~  

It’s sunny when Nesta decides to leave.   

The sky is clear, and she sees the entire city below. All the stairs. All the people she used to be, the different faces she dawned like masks.   

She's not going to climb down them. She’s not going to climb back up.   

Nesta is through climbing mountains.  

But right now she’s sitting on top of one, and there should be some sort of reckoning, a clearer view... but Nesta’s seen enough of this view. She turns her back to it and squares her shoulders as she searches for Cassian through the house, the House opening doors leading the way.   

She finds him in the kitchen, where he’s been practically every day now, busying himself with cooking since he promises not to leave again for war or whatever it resembles now that the world has held its breath for so long.   

He must hear her, she knows, but he doesn’t turn back to look at her and Nesta needs no invitation. She wraps her arms around him from behind, his wings already raising to fit her between. Nesta holds onto his waist tightly, willing his body to give her strength and hoping that the House doesn’t feel betrayed.   

“I want to leave,” she gasps out, panting even if it’s like taking a breath for the first time. Cassian pauses his stirring and rests his large palms where they wrap around him so tightly. “I don’t want to go. I love this House so much but I’m not happy.”   

“I love the House,” she repeats. “I love you and Gwyn and Feyre and Elain and Nyx, but I love me too.”   

Cassian disentangles himself but as he peeks at her face, and there isn’t a moment he spares as  he merely wraps her once more in his arms—his wings, so close that they might as well have been hers. He runs his hands down her hair and Nesta can’t even feel ashamed for staining his shirt with the wetness of her face.   

How many tears can one person hold, she thinks. She hopes not so much more.   

“I am afraid,” she blurts. Doesn’t mean to. Doesn’t even know if she is trying to manipulate him or because it comes from a deep well in her chest that has not spoken but aches to rip and tear and roar.   

Today, it only whispers. I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. I will never not be afraid.   

“ I am too,” Cassian takes her face in his hands, “It’s scary to feel so much... but I have you and you have me. So, where do you want to go?”   

Nesta doesn’t know. She thinks about that city, and she thinks about the world. She thinks about her father and the world of books. It’s too large. She wants to go but it’s too large, and it will swallow her.   

“We have forever, you and I.”  

“I don’t want promises of forever. I want a now.”   

~  

They pack very little. Just some clothes. Most everything belongs to the House anyways.   

“Are you ready?” Azriel asks. He’s there to winnow them or however he travels through shadows.   

But Nesta peers out of windows once more, gripping the curtains as if she is a child and she holds her mother’s hand.  

“I have to do something first,” she says, and she offers no explanation to Azriel or Cassian as she grabs the first container she sees.  

Nesta has practiced this she thinks.  

Running up and down stairs all the way to the seventh level—where darkness makes a home beneath books.  

“What am I?” She whispers to the dark. The only one who’d listened to her whistling song.   

You are magic made flesh.   

Nesta remembers Gwyn's words. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice an ounce of who you are.  

Why couldn’t she have it all, she wonders. She wades in the in between.   

You brought it to life, now make it move.   

Make it move, she hears. A soft voice like a reckoning.  

Make it move, make it tumble, make it crash.   

Chaos is something she fears, but her life is chaotic. Life is chaotic.    

The house is alive when it was just walls and rock. She made it live. She made it beat. She gave it a piece of her heart. All her ugly pieces, all her shadowed parts.   

“I’m leaving,” Nesta says to the darkness, “I’m leaving, and I might not return... I don’t think I want to return even if I can… but I might … I’m—I’m not sure.  

“You were unwanted and unloved, but you're wanted and loved by me. I won’t leave you behind. If you can’t go, I’ll come back.... but if you can go, I promise I’ll keep you--”   

Safe? The world was not safe.   

“I will love you to the best of my ability,” she says instead. “I will love you as you are, who you once were, and as you will be.”   

She sets the jar on the floor and wonders if it can contain all its heart.   

The shadow settles right in.   

When she closes the door, the house is as it always was. Red walls, and empty rooms waiting to be filled.   

~  

~  

~  

“What do you think of it?” He asks, his feet shuffling against the hardwood. Cassian can’t help the nervous movement as he watches Nesta take everything in. It’s her eyes, he decides. He loves the brightness of them, the lur and temptation, but they see too clearly, scrutinize every wall.  

Cassian understands, though. He must. This is not her home. She is not familiar here. She clenches that jar, tucked in her arms like a well-behaved cat, and as Nesta holds it to her chest, he thinks about how small she looks. Queenly arrogance aside, he sometimes forgets she is not all raging limbs and war cries. Cassian wonders too if that doesn’t make him worthy of the trenches, as if he thought she was above such things as feelings.   

Nesta doesn’t say a word as she takes a step forward, running a hand along the cream-colored paint of the entry hall. It’s not nearly as modern as the House and not as open. The kitchen is to the right, closed off from the living room but with a view of the porch and the snow outside. He can cook and look back and see visitors coming in. He can clean and see the forest across...  but Nesta doesn’t cook... at least he doesn’t think so. He’s never seen her do it. And the House cleans. Cassian supposes she might not find any use for it at all.   

Through the kitchen, he can see the dining room table. Nesta takes note of it too, and Cassian watches for any shift of her expression. She merely looks across, her face stoic and unchanged.   

The house is smaller than the House of Wind and it doesn’t have nearly enough rooms for hosting large gatherings. Right now, it only has a small table fit for four. It’s in need of sanding and a fresh coat of varnish and Cassian makes a note of it. Even if Nesta chooses to throw it out and move in a new one that is more suited to her taste, it’s a good table, he thinks. It can be re-housed—go to another home where it’s well-loved. Cassian can make it loved... He can fix it into something usable.    

It’s a thought that doesn’t sit well with him and Cassian doesn't know why, but Nesta is moving to the living room before he can process where his mind has wandered.   

There is barely a couch...   

Well, there is one, but it's covered in a fine layer of dust and a cloth to keep it clean and protected. Cassian doesn’t remember who tells him to do that, but he follows their advice and has since never taken it off. Mostly, because he’s never here long enough to lounge on the cushion in front of a fire and leisurely kick back. This place is usually not where he wants to get home to.   

Cassian laughs, but it comes out nervous, and Nesta doesn’t turn towards him as she looks to the fireplace. "I’m building bookshelves to go on the walls. Or... we can put them somewhere else, but there will be bookshelves for all those romances of yours.”   

“And your war texts,” she adds. Cassian can’t tell what it means, the sound of her voice. It barely gives anything away, but he clears his throat and smiles, hopes that it somehow translates to his voice. She wants to live in a library, she once says. It’s always been a dream of hers, and there is no library like the House, so he will build her one. Cover every wall if she likes.   

“Yes, my war texts, too. We can mix them together and make a game of what we read for the night.”   

Her lips raise slightly as she turns to him, and Cassian can’t help but want to sigh in relief. “I’m positive I have more books than you, so the odds are in my favor.”   

“I think you’ll enjoy me reading your books.”   

Cassian takes a gentle step closer, but she clenches that blasted jar in her arms and he stops before he can sweep her to him. Still, he reaches for a stray piece of hair that’s fallen out of her braid and tucks it behind her ear. “I’ll leave notes for you to find, my personal anecdotes of course... highlight my favorite parts... mark the pages, we can try later.”   

Her eyes narrow and Cassian grins. “Dog ear my books and I’ll make you pay.”  

It’s that haughty look that has him tracing her lips with his thumb—has him leaning forward to close the distance that sits like miles between them. But Cassian can feel that jar hitting his stomach and he looks where the shadow moves in swirls. Some rabid beast in a cage.   

Cassian looks back to Nesta, her eyes a tepid bluish grey.   

There's a table for her to set the little beast down, next to that couch he is very eagerly awaiting to rip the sheet off, but Nesta doesn’t set it down.   

Nesta doesn’t want to set it down, he thinks. She merely tucks her hands across it and stares as if daring him to take it from her. He can hear her heart start to pound, and he hopes it is from the anticipation of their coupling and not because she thinks he will actually grab it from her.   

What male does she think he is?   

All males, he thinks, and Cassian chastises himself for forgetting as he so often does.   

It’s easy to forget when he’s not there for weeks and he seldom sees her shaking, her eyes wary without a cause, because some prick decided Nesta belonged to him... because another prick decided she was to be fae against her will... because some monster dragged her into the depths of still water. He feels the rage already beginning to bloom, his fists wanting to clench and pummel and hit, but Cassian leans down to place a kiss on her forehead. Today he will forget of past crimes suited for closed doors, a badly drawn picture, and some darts for him to throw despite his wish to maim.   

Today, he will not be jealous of a shadow that has given his love comfort.   

Still ... it’s another reason Cassian marks down, for when he wants to remember why he belongs with the lowest of low. Reason number thirty-seven, because he forgets all things he should be remembering. Reason number thirty-eight, because he can’t love Nesta in any way that’s good enough.   

“Come on,” He calls softly, pointing his chin to the rest of the house, “my tour isn’t finished.”   

Nesta nods and as her shoulders relax, and Cassian brushes off the berating thought of himself that makes a home in his mind.   

“We don’t have to turn on the fireplace,” he says as an afterthought. “Yesterday, I brought down every blanket I could find. Stole them from every person I could think of, though Amren gave me a fight for hers. I swear she nearly chased me through the streets. Who knew there would be a wool shortage this year?”  

He chuckles casually, hoping that Nesta might chime in, but she only glances to the large windows at the back overlooking the other half of the forest.   

“The House can make it warm,” she remarks, looking to the snow that sprinkles down until it settles like billows of cotton.   

Softer , he thinks, I need to be softer .   

The problem is that Cassian doesn’t know how to be soft. It’s different, he knows, than being casual or funny, which he has mastered easily. It’s different than being serious, though he struggles with that still. It’s being loving, he imagines, but slower... Not a raging fire that burns without care, but a warmth that’s tamed to provide comfort.   

A bit less like himself, he ponders, because Nesta is a bit less like herself, too.   

Or maybe, she’s more like herself, he doesn’t know.   

He’s spent so much time thinking he’s wanted the old her back, the one with fire in her lungs and fresh vitriol on her tongue, that he never stops to consider that maybe this is who she is. Shy and soft and often uncomfortable... But Cassian has seen her with that outlandish courage, a voice that doesn’t shake, a chin raised so high he might have bowed right then and there, and he contemplates how both can exist in the same person.   

“When I bought this house, I bought it for the windows,” he explains, settling next to her and that jar tucked tightly in her arms. Cassian wonders if the reason she holds onto it is because it’s the only thing that’s familiar. “Never mind that it’s freezing here, and windows are probably not the best idea for the cold, I wanted to see outside.”  

“You don’t live here though.”   

“I wanted to be with you,” Cassian shrugs, “and before that I wanted to be near the others. It was too quiet here...”  

It is too quiet.   

Nesta is too quiet, too. She’s not usually like this. He figures the fact should make him feel privileged, that she shows him the most vulnerable parts of herself, but it only makes him feel scared because she still won’t look at him with the same willful ire.   

Say something. Yell at me. You’ll grow to like this house; he wants to remark.   

Like you grew into the other one? His mind replies.   

“Show me the rest of the house?” She suggests.  

Cassian obliges, distracting himself from his fear by leading her to a room tucked away by the staircase. It’s a smaller space. A sunroom he thinks they’re called, but before he shows her the rest, he turns toward her, stopping her in her tracks. Because this is the most important part, isn’t it?   

“I can fly you to Illyria if you want to visit Emerie,” but Cassian thinks about that, too. “But there’s also carriages that come through her every hour. We’re at the intersection between three cities and there’s a road nearby. It will lead you into the city or into Windhaven. Otherwise, it’s about an hour walk to Emerie.”  

“That’s quicker than the stairs.”  

Cassian shrugs a shoulder, “but if you’d prefer horses, we can get horses. There’s plenty of room to build a stable.”   

He trails off... He doesn’t even know if they’ll stay here for that long, but the idea of waiting seems... off. Every ounce of time is in their palms and it’s the only time they’re allotted.   

So he does, he takes her back downstairs, where the rooms are still mostly bare, “I thought you might like this place the best,   

“What about you?  

“You have shown me places where I could fit, but what about you? What space is yours?”  

“Whichever. I don’t care. I just want you.”   

“Do you--” Cassian nods encouraging towards her, “Do you have hobbies?”   

Ah. That’s another thing, Cassian forgets.   

It hasn’t been that long since they mated... not even that long since they acknowledged each other. Sometimes, in the middle of the night when he wakes up and she’s in his arms, he can’t possibly think of a time before when they didn’t love one another. But that’s not true... it’s an awful truth, but   

Talking to her, the way she makes him laugh loudly, makes him want to hold her so close, as loved as he is... she hasn’t been with him his whole life. Seems strange somehow. He’s comfortable with her.  

“I build things, but there’s a shed for that... “  

“What else do you do?”  

It takes him a moment to think about it, “I like to cook sometimes. Ice fishing.”   

“Both of us live here.”   

“Yes.”   

“I would like both of us to live here.” And Cassian understands.  

“And I would like to dream small for a while. Enjoy this right here.”   

“There’s a basement, too. I made sure I made one for the House’s heart. It’s pretty empty, and pretty small, but I figured we could decorate it even and the House might like it. It's warm. The furnace is there in case you didn’t want the fire. But there’s a fireplace,” he points to the one in the living room, “and there’s one in our room upstairs. I can show you.”   

And he does he takes her upstairs, and he shows her their room. The cabin is a loft of a sort. The stairs lead up a singular room with another fireplace and a room for a small reading nook, there too or any hobby she picks up later. He’ll fill it with music, too, and he already can imagine the symphonia sitting on a table in the living room or up in that reading nook while the windows are open in the spring or shut tight in the winter, where the bumbling snow drifts on clouded grounds.   

“It’s mostly secluded. There isn’t another house for a few miles so this forested area is ours, and there’s some space if you want to have a stable later, or even we need to expand the House.”   

“Of course, this doesn’t have to be a permanent home,” he reminds himself, “it can be temporary—or a vacation home, something that we just come back to or... we don’t have to come back at all if you don’t want. It’s--it’s up to you.”   

Nesta smiles slightly, still clenching that jar taking a turn of the room.   

“Where would we get all the stuff?”   

“I’ll build our bed. I’m building bookshelves right now. They’re in the shed in the back. But if you want to buy some, we can have it winnowed from Velaris or there’s some Illyrian craftsman in a town a flight away. I thought you might like some cataglogues, so I got Emerie to get me some for you. They’re on the table downstairs.”   

But Nesta’s brows furrow.  

 So, Cassian continues. His mouth running beyond him.  

“I chose this place because I wanted to be reminded that at any moment I could leave and join the world again, where the forest was right across from me.” He peers out the window to the world beyond. “There are dangerous creatures in those woods, so I guess you can’t get too far if you don’t want to wield a sword, but you can step out into the sun and smell the pine all around you—”   

“Homes are not prisons,” she says.  

“That’s not what I meant. I mean that—”   

“You mean that the House was something I could never leave, and this house is something I am given a choice to leave if I want to. An apartment. A cabin. A house. The House of Wind. They’re all the same. I can leave anytime that I want to. I can leave without ever looking back. I can leave everything behind at a moment’s notice. I choose to be here. I chose to be in the House, and I chose to leave, and I choose to be here with you. Homes are not prisons that I am trapped in and... and poor Nesta, she doesn’t want to go outside. Poor Nesta, she has to climb stairs. I have climbed feats taller than 10,000 steps and I will do it again. Stop trying to sell on this house. I’m here aren’t I?”   

Cassian blinks, “Have you been waiting to say that?”   

“For weeks.”   

He smiles for he doesn’t know what else to do, when she seems so... relieved. He belongs to the lowest of low.  

~  

Later that night, when the House is safely tucked in the basement and when they can feel the warmth of its life through the house, Cassian asks Nesta a question. “Are you as nervous as I am?”  

She only blinks up at him and tilts her head. Her hair is stark against the white of the pillow and she looks beautiful in nothing but her nightgown with her hair tucked between her head and the cushion. She always looks like magic, he thinks, and he wants to reach out a tuck her close but he can’t.   

He can’t when there’s a wedge between them that feels tangible. As if he can run his finger through it, a dark cloud as permeable as the night. “It feels different than being up in the House. I keep thinking at any moment I might combust.”   

“Why?” She asks, her voice a sweet song.   

Cassian shakes his head. “I just—I want you to like this house. I didn’t buy it thinking that I was going to have you here. I haven’t even lived in it for more than a few nights. I keep thinking you might say you hate it, or we’ll live here and it’ll turn out awful for us and we just wasted all that time.”  

Perhaps it’s this truth which swats the ugliness away—that sick feeling rumbling through his chest. Nesta crosses the threshold of his maybe-maybe nots, and it doesn’t seem to bother her as it did him when he wanted to reach for her. There’s nothing holding her back.   

He will always want her.   

Nesta reaches for him, tucks herself between his arm and lays her head on his chest. Cassian can smell the lavender of her hair and he breathes it in. He hopes this whole house smells like her.   

“When you were away it felt like time was slipping by. But now that you’re here… I think that time could pass me by, and I wouldn’t notice.”   

“I’m afraid,” he admits. It feels like a heavy weight on his chest and it doesn’t make him any freer my admitting it, it makes it well up inside until he swears it makes a knot in his lungs. He wants to clear it away but it feels like revealing something too intimate. Something too close to his soul.   

“Do you think the honeymoon phase is over then?” She says as she plays with his fingers.   

“I hope not. It ended so soon, otherwise.”   

Nesta peers up at him, raising a shoulder and smiling lightly.   

“I would be okay if it was over.”  

“Why?” He’s afraid of the answer.   

Nesta shrugs simply, her voice soft. “Because it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t love you less.”   

“I’m comfortable with you.”   

Nesta smiles, “It’s cold here.”   

He pauses as if it might be the first of many complaints, but Nesta doesn’t continue, only grasps him closer. Cassian doesn’t think they can be anymore entwined.   

“You’ll keep me warm?” She asks.   

He smiles, tucking her closer even still.    

“I’ll keep you warm,” Cassian promises.