Page 142 of Commanding Flame and Shield
“This is…you? Younger, but you.” She nodded, quietly, hesitantly. “I…I feel like I should…remember you. This way, I mean. Did you—did you trigger something?”
“Not specifically.” She gave a timid, one shoulder shrug. “It was…an intuitive tug, I suppose. The watch was my father’s.” She let out a long, low breath. “During the railroad boom, they became common. I don’t really have anything from this life—my human life, I mean. But that, I’ve hung onto that. My father held it for the last years of his life and had promised it to my future…betrothed.”
“Michael.”
A nervous nod. “And I know we’ve only just…finally acknowledged our feelings, but—I thought you should have it. Before…everything happens. I think reunited, soul-bound mate would supersede betrothed.” She smiled broadly around the words.
I let out a long breath, steadying my hand as I turned it over in my fingers again. Studying. Where it was worn, where the design was rubbed shiny, versus where it had aged. The heaviness within such a tiny object.
“Ally, this is—”
“Yours, if you’ll have it. I’ve meant to have the watch restored. Get it working. Lana is good with trinkets and bobbles. I just, hadn’t prioritized it.”
“Thank you.” I let out another heavy breath, wanting to kiss her, to hold her as she offered up a piece of herself. She just grinned at me.
“Soon, love. But I will take my time with you, August Porter. You’re a story I will not rush reading.” I rolled my eyes, but then she pointed back to the box. The blade within it, laying forgotten. Gently, like it could dissolve into dust and memory, I set the watch aside before picking up the blade.
The sheath was thin—a supple black leather. The small pommel was round, engraved with a Celtic knot that braided down into the blade itself. I slid the blade free and weighed it—surprisingly heavy for a knife this size. It seemed to sing in my hand, as though the steel wanted to be held. Clean and oiled, there was no need to feel it to know she kept it precisely sharpened.
“A throwing knife?”
“My favorite one. Alec teases that the Celtic witches must have enchanted it to always meet its mark.”
“Couldn’t have just given you credit for being proficient?”
She smirked. “Of course not. But it seems to strike true no matter who wields it. A piece of a past life, perfectly preserved. Ansel gave it to me a few centuries back. Wouldn’t tell me why, or who I had been to him. But he…remembers me. Swore he’d fill in the gaps at the right time.”
I knew the old general kept secrets, kept his thoughts close to the vest, but this…
“He knows who you were, and hasn’t found the right time to tell you in a fewhundredyears?”
“Evidently not. Frustrating as it may be…I trust him. He’s earned that much.”
Evasive, arrogant bastard. We were going to have words; his secrecy be damned. She grinned even wider at the protective blade I balanced on.
“Snoop.” I nudged her foot.
“I call herheart tracker. For…obvious, morbid reasons.” She grimaced, but continued, “And I hope she serves you well in these coming weeks.”
“You really think it will still come to a battle? Still no way around it?”
“Adrastos wants you. And it seems if we don’t agree to an alliance, he will find some way to make you agree to serve him. Evidently, I am no longer his bait. It will come to a fight, if I can’t think of something cleverer to get us out of it. Trust your blades.”
“You will. Think of something clever, I mean. And trust your blades.” I playfully nudged her through the blanket, and she jabbed me back. “Thank you, Alvara, for the gifts. I—I don’t know what to say.”
“I wanted you to have a piece of me with you, no matter what happens.”
“I will have all of you with me, no matter what happens.”
She grinned. But the shadows in her eyes turned my stomach into a molten knot.
“What did you see, Ally?”
“Nothing I won’t try to work my way out of. He’s…good, August. At what he does. At this game of his. As good as me, certainly. Maybe better.”
“You’ll figure him out, Ally. We will. Together.”
She granted me a small, thin-lipped smile. “Do you trust me, August?”
