Page 66 of Fate
So maybe... maybe he’d stay.
Which sounded rather lovely, especially with the day they’d had, and this room really was comfortable when they were situated just like this, and...
He stayed.
???
Lucian was gone in the morning.
Which she would not panic about.
She wasn’t.
He was hardly her prisoner, and she really must stop expecting the very worst of him. She opened the shutters, andthe suns were higher than she’d realised, and Da was usually tinkering away by now.
Which sent a guilty twinge through her. She had not considered that part. That suddenly his domain was invaded, that he would have to work around their sleeping rather than tend to his work whenever it pleased him.
She hurried into fresh clothing and scrubbed at her teeth, then bound her hair in an untidy knot before she slid open the door and shut it fully behind her. No more soot—she’d had her fill of scrubbing the night before.
Da was there, after all.
The forge was quiet, but he was seated at his worktable, making use of his largest magnification glass as he bent and twisted impossibly small chains together.
“Sleep well?” he asked, not moving his head from his work.
Firen smoothed at her hair and promised herself she would buy him something nice next market day. For the inconvenience.
“Yes.” She would have gone closer. Perhaps kissed his cheek and patted his shoulder, but she knew better than to interrupt the fiddly work. “Da,” she began, needing to say it, needing to acknowledge that she’d imposed, and he’d indulged her. But the sacrifices were to be for Lucian and herself to make, not... not him.
“Hmm?” Her father hummed, then he made that pleased smile when two joints settled neatly into place and he could move on to the next.
“I’m sorry. For intruding on you. He’s agreed to the week, but I realise now that isn’t fair to you. This is your workshop, and you can’t be expected to...”
“Firen,” Da stopped her, his hands dropping slightly against the worktable as he looked at her fully. “You were not intruding when you had just grown your flight feathers and headed up into that loft in the first place. You certainly aren’t now whenyou need a place to gather your thoughts and figure out what comes next. There’s plenty of work that needs doing that doesn’t require pounding away at an awl at all hours.” He glanced back down at his task. “If that’s what you were fretting about.”
A lump settled in her throat, and she hurried to him and put her arms about his neck from behind, hugging him to her. His wings were low so she did not receive a face full of feathers, and she was rewarded with a pat upon her arms. “I love you, Firen. You know that?”
Her eyes burned and she would have tightened her grip if it would not have risked choking him. “No,” she choked out, an old tease.
“Hmm,” he chuckled. “Then I’ll have to work on that.”
She smiled, and released him, brushing at her eyes as she did so. “Does Mama have Lucian making breakfast?”
Da’s eyes drifted quickly back to his work. “Not breakfast, no.”
Firen did not pause to give any sort of parting word as she hurried to the shop door, accompanied by her father’s laughter at her urgency.
She opened the back door as calmly as she could manage, although her heart raced and apologies were already at her tongue—both to Mama for not being up earlier to help with meals, and to Lucian for whatever he’d endured in her absence.
“Firen,” Mama greeted, rolling her eyes as she took in her daughter’s haste. “Do be careful with that door. I don’t need you slamming it about.”
They were seated. Not tending to cauldrons of porridge and slivering nutmeats and dried fruits.
Instead, Mama was sipping at her tea while Lucian had a pile of papers in front of him, an inkpot and one of Da’s metal quills tucked between two of his fingers as he looked down at it thoughtfully.
Firen closed the door as quietly as she could, trying to appear less alarmed than she felt. “Morning,” she murmured to her mother, trying desperately not to fidget.
Or to go over to inspect the papers and see what Mama had Lucian doing.