Page 194 of Harbinger

Bishop grabs my wrist, and then I’m spinning, time reversing in an instant to somewhere before the angry words and broken promises. To that fleeting moment where we belonged to each other—and I find myself in his arms again.

“It’s been so long since … since there was life in this garden. In this house.” He presses me closer. My hands land on his chest, and I’m back in the night that he died, and he’s solid. Real again. “Since I felt alive.”

His face angles closer, his breath whispering across mine, but he doesn’t kiss me.

And I can’t admit that I want him to—can’t risk it even if there are no assassins waiting around the corner.

“Don’t let me disappear again. Don’t let me become a ghost.” He gives the words to me like that dagger in the astrolatory. Like it’s my choice. Like his fate has always been up to me.

Mercy.

Sacrifice.

I think we’ll always be tangled in both.

Maybe the knife is the least painful path.

But maybe I was never the one who needed saving.

Because something wild beats in his eyes, pounds in his chest. Caged and broken by a life he can’t control no matter how hard he tries. Trapped like that bird.

I surge up, bringing my mouth to his, and release it.

THIRTY-THREE

Our relationship isn’t a secret. But after the garden, we just … don’t tell anyone. As if we can steal a little more time before whatever crisis comes next. Since Twelvetide, any moment of peace feels borrowed anyway.

Keeping things quiet might work better if everyone at Miradores didn’t seem to know already.

Taliesin gives up his lectures and doubles down on sly comments. Lenora takes to leaving breakfast trays outside our respective bedroom doors like she’s not sure where to deliver them. Even Vessica smiles when I enter a room.

Bishop spends half his nights chasing those whispers across Vennaro. The other half, he spends here.

In my bed.

His arms tighten around me in the dim light. “The equinox is coming,” he murmurs into my hair, and I go still. “I wasn’t sure if …”

It’s been months since Kieren’s body was laid to rest in a plot in the private Marius cemetery, but it still feels impossible to think of his soul being gone, too. To imagine the world rebalancing its days without him here.

Some people never let go, never let the world rebalance. I’ve seen it happen. “My father waited four equinoxes before he released my mother’s spirit,” I whisper.

“If you aren’t ready, it can wait until the next one,” he says, stroking my back. “There is no timeline on grieving.”

But that’s not what Kieren would want. Not the boy who read pirate stories. Nor the man who died before he could go on his own. His soul deserves to be free. To go on its adventure.

I take a deep breath. We’ve never discussed this, so I’m not sure he’ll agree to my decision. But it’s for me to make. “I want to go to Damalis. To perform his Evensong there.” The words rush out of me, tired of swirling in my brain and finally ready to be spoken. “We don’t actually know where he was born. Our father never told us. Kieren didn’t remember, but it feels … right.”

His hand pauses on my back.

“Damalis,” he repeats softly.

“I know that you want me to stay in Vennaro,” I whisper. “I know it’s safer here, but I need to do this.” I brace for the argument I already know is coming. The one that’s stopped me from even bringing it up.

Instead, he pulls me closer.

“If that feels right to you,” he says, “then we’ll go.”

Relief loosens the knot in my chest. “You’d come with me?”