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Percy carefully disengaged from Vex’s mouth, already in real danger of embarrassing himself.
“Darling?” she asked. “Is everything alright?” Her breath was a touch labored, a dizzying boost to his ego. The twins had a habit of insisting upon their human provenance in spite of their frankly obvious fey qualities. He’d hardly seen Vex breathless in the thick of battle, but in his arms she was flushed and pliant— and he needed privacy, urgently.
“Percy?” she asked again, more steady, fingers threading into his hair and tightening, drawing his focus to her face.
“I’m sorry, I just recalled,” he started, mind grasping like a drunkard, “in my workshop — I left an iron in the fire.”
Vex’s face changed, one eyebrow lifting, her softness dissolved. “Really?”
He shrugged an apologetic shoulder, righting his glasses. Vex touched her fingers to the corners of her mouth and straightened, patting his cheek.
“Better take care of that, then,” she said, slipping out of the alcove she’d tugged him into scant minutes before.
That might have gone better. Percy took a few deep breaths, collecting himself before following. He emerged from behind the heavy curtain and nearly collided with Vax.
“Hello Freddie.” Vax smiled, slow.
Percy closed his eyes. “I suppose it’s pointless to ask how long you’ve been here.”
“Oh dear, you already know the answer to that question,” Vax said. Percy couldn’t see his hands, tucked somewhere behind his back in the dramatic swirl of his cloak. Vax had a way of looking entirely pleasant while radiating menacing intent.
“I know,” Percy said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m an idiot.”
“As long as you know,” Vax said, almost kind. He gripped Percy’s shoulder, a touch more firm than strictly necessary, and then swept off, just as silent as his sister.
“Hell,” Percy said after a moment, kneading the back of his neck. Aroused and abashed were not a great combination. He subtly adjusted the crotch of his trousers and made his way to his workshop. At least there he would be blessedly safe from uncertainty and mortifying blunders.
“I can hear you,” Vex called out as she stalked toward her rooms.
“No you can’t.” Vax caught up with her at her door, following inside without invitation. She ignored him, shrugging into her cloak and gathering up her bow and quiver.
“Bit late to be going hunting. A bit cold, too,” he said mildly.
“Stay inside then,” Vex said, making for the door. Vax settled back against the jamb, blocking her way. “I’m not arguing with you right now, Vax. Move.”
“You’re that desperate to poke something?”
She almost hit him for that. The impulse rippled through the tightness in her shoulders, down to her fist clenched around Fenthras’ grip. Vax’s eyes widened, very slightly, and his stance eased.
“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” he said.
“Are you following me?” she demanded, jabbing at him with a finger.
“No!” His brow tightened, claws back out. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay! You seemed upset.”
“Maybe because my brother keeps eavesdropping on me like a fucking creep!”
“Fuck’s sake, I wasn’t eavesdropping, don’t be disgusting. Maybe try to keep your groping sessions behind closed doors like normal people—”
“So you did hear?” Vex interjected with a burst of triumphant vindication. Almost immediately it drained away, replaced by a sick feeling, knowing her rejection had had an audience. “Fuck. Shit. Well, I didn’t think the evening could get any more mortifying, but here we are.” She put a hand over her face, aware she was lucky it had only been Vax.
“It was mostly an accident,” he said after an awkward beat, begrudgingly. After another drawn out moment, he asked, “Do you want me to kill him for you? I can make it look very tragic and unplanned.”
Vex smiled a little in spite of herself, even as she rolled her eyes.
“No, that won’t do at all. They’d almost certainly shut us out of the treasury without him,” she said.
Vax nodded, scuffing at a spot on the floor with the heel of his boot. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not,” Vex said. When he just looked at her, she waved dismissively. “It’s nothing, really. Only a bruised ego.”
“Because you bruise so easily,” he said, back to more sardonic territory. That was good. Far better than being pitied.
“Well, I am a Baroness,” she said primly, smoothing the fall of her rough linen tunic. “Speaking of, will you get out of my fucking way now?”
For a single, tight-throated moment, she thought Vax might stay — press the issue. She could see him hesitating. But then he stepped aside, making an elaborate bow. Vex tweaked his ear sharply as she passed, haughty smile fixed in place.
Was she walking too quickly? She could feel his eyes on her back, an annoying itch until she turned the corner. She didn’t break into a run until she reached the courtyard, the cold evening air greeting her like a slap. The night watchmen jolted as she blew by, too silent to be heard until she was upon them.
Trinket waited for her outside the small stable tucked behind the barracks, nose upturned and sniffing deeply, big wet puffs of steam clouding over his head. There was no way he could’ve known she’d sneak out tonight. Probably he’d smelled her approach. Even so, she preferred to believe, as the creature of her heart, he had simply sensed she needed him. Vex collided with his shoulder, burying her face in his neck for a moment to inhale the warm, comforting scent of his fur.
“Let’s go buddy,” she said. He snorted agreement, tossing his head. Together they picked their way toward the treeline, two more shadows disappearing into the crystalline silence of the Parchwood.
“God, I need to stretch more,” Vax groaned, collapsing back onto the bed. Keyleth purred and tossed a leg over his thighs, shoving a damp lock of hair off her forehead.
“You do alright,” she said, pink with exertion and visibly pleased with herself. Vax propped himself up on his elbows, enjoying the view until the color across her cheeks deepened and spread.
“Bashful?” he said. “After all of that with the—”
The flat side of a large pillow took him in the face, followed quickly by a barrage of discarded decorative poufs. A swift and brutal battle ended decisively with Minxie sprawled over Vax’s chest, pinning his arms and punishing him with broad, indulgent licks across his face.
“Alright,” Vax laughed, wriggling. “Alright, stop! Gods, your tongue is like sandpaper.”
Keyleth relented, delicately cleaning her paw for a pointed moment before letting the tiger shape fade. Vax looped his arms around her waist, ignoring the discomfort of their sticky skin. He squeezed a little when Keyleth shifted to move away.
“You okay?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him.
“Yeah,” he said. He unlocked his arms, quietly gratified when she only scooted to his side. “I, uh. Kind of stumbled across a private moment. Earlier.”
“Oh?” Keyleth propped her chin on his shoulder. “What happened?”
“My sister,” Vax said. “With Percy,” he added reluctantly, wincing at Keyleth’s small gasp.
“Did they...notice?” Keyleth whispered.
“You could say that,” Vax said. “They actually stopped before they knew I was there, but Vex stormed off and then Percy just grimaced at me all constipated, like he does. No doubt we’ll pretend it never happened. I guess,” he paused, frowning. “I guess that’s what worries me.”
“You think they were embarrassed?” Keyleth said. She dug around in the pile of pillows, not unlike a big cat kneading up her bed. Vax waited until she’d settled to put his arm back down. She took up her spot on his shoulder again.
“Maybe,” he said. “But no, to be completely honest with you? I worry about Percival.”
“Really?” The note of surprise in Keyleth’s tone made Vax rephrase.
“I worry about him for Vex,” he said. “I worry about her with him.”
“Percy’s a good man,” Keyleth said after a moment, quietly.
“Dear heart, you don’t need to tell me that. We’ve all got troubles; I’d be a mighty hypocrite to hold his against him. No, beyond all that. Who he is at his core — the man he is here, in Whitestone? Stuffy and serious and cold. He’s powerful, he’s rich, and he’s so damned convinced of his own rightness, even when he’s wrong. He is everything Vex and I never were.”
“Is that so bad?” Keyleth asked, brow wrinkling a little. “That he’s different from you?”
“Well, no.” Vax half-shrugged. “Speaking hypothetically, if I didn’t have you, and if he were inclined that way, and if he and I had connected, I imagine we’d get on like a house on fire. I can’t fault Vex her taste. But she isn’t like me. She has…” he paused, half sifting through memory, recalling the way their father’s bullshit hadn’t stuck to him the way it had to her. Vax carried scorch marks in his chest; his memories revolved around the powerless rage he’d felt on Vex’s behalf.
“Oh, Kiki,” he finally sighed. “She has such a hungry heart.”
“And you think,” Keyleth started, reaching gingerly for the thought, “You think she’s going to… what? Starve? With Percy?”
Vax contemplated the ceiling, playing with Keyleth’s fingers where their hands rested over his ribs. He was reluctant to admit it out loud. It felt like a betrayal of his friendship with Percy, however strained or rigid it sometimes was. More importantly, it felt like a betrayal of his faith in his twin. But he worried all the same, and Keyleth could always tell. Eventually, inevitably, she drew the poison out of him.
“I don’t see him like that at all, you know,” she said bluntly. “It’s funny you do. Like, that we both know him, but he’s so different to each of us. I wonder how Scanlan sees him?” Catching Vax’s expression, she cleared her throat. “Anyway. I get how people can think he’s cold, with his voice and his tinkering and how proper he is. But he’s, like, the most explosive person we know! Literally! And yeah, he’s rich, and maybe he acts a little… I don’t know—”
“Priggish?”
“—traditional,” Keyleth said, “that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Half the stupid shit he does is because he cares so much.” Her arms were out, gesturing emphatically towards the ceiling.
“I suppose that’s true,” Vax agreed, capturing one of her hands and pressing her knuckles to his lips.
“I wouldn’t count Vex out, either,” Keyleth said. “I know she’s your sister and it’s your job to worry. But I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone better at pressing peoples’ buttons than her.”
Vax laughed, delighted. “That’s definitely true. Poor Freddie.”
“He loves it,” Keyleth said, certain. “It’s boring being respectable all the time.”
“I’m grateful for you,” Vax said abruptly, hugging her close. “That’s all I really wanted to say. All of this,” he said, circling his hand to encompass the conversation, “was just another way of saying it. I’m grateful for you.”
“I’m grateful for you, too,” she said, tucking her head under his chin. She let him kiss her forehead and squeeze until her breath squeaked out. Then she whispered, conjuring the sounds of a mild spring storm around them. Her arms wound around his chest, a sigh blowing warm across his sternum.
“No more worrying for tonight.” She said it firmly, like an order. “We’re all going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” Vax said, stroking her hair. He could almost feel the patter of raindrops against his skin. “Yeah, I think we will.”
The trouble was, Percy was unaccustomed to not knowing what to do. A significant portion of his mind remained stalled on the mere fact of Vex’s affection, wondering at it as he sometimes did at the revived Sun Tree, at a Whitestone free of Briarwood vermin for the first time in years. That he was unworthy of his good fortune was beyond dispute, yet the reality of it remained. And in keeping with his selfish nature, he found himself wanting Vex with an intensity that was sobering, the question of his worthiness notwithstanding.
She maintained a screen of clever and provoking flirtation, and had ever since he’d known her. Her brief touches (to his hands, his shoulder, his face) were new, however, and somehow more affecting. He coveted them, insofar as he could when he only ever responded with dumbfounded silence. It was no wonder Vex had begun to retreat if he was only going to freeze every time she reached for him.
Perhaps the real trouble was that it took so little to render him witless. He had to believe she knew the effect she had on him.
He received neither confirmation nor denial when he relayed these thoughts to Trinket, only an interested whuffle at one of his pockets.
“I should’ve known you’d keep her secrets,” Percy said, digging out a forgotten biscuit and offering it over. He frowned at the stale crumbs clinging to the wool.
Percy settled back into shaggy bear flank, lost in thought. The second stable had been converted for Trinket’s exclusive use, and was comfortable with clean hay and bedding, if a little cool. They hardly had the horseflesh to fill even the first stable anymore, and Vex had mentioned that Trinket preferred Whitestone’s chilly evenings to the heat of her rooms. He later learned from the guards that she often snuck out of the castle to spend her nights with her bear. Soon after that, he’d quietly had the servants install a small brazier and a greater proportion of soft bedding in place of hay. It was the least he could do, if he couldn’t offer any better incentive to stay in the castle.
Pike found him there some time later, suffering Trinket’s attempt to fit his whole snout in the becrumbed coat pocket with quiet dignity.
“There you are!” She said brightly. Percy stood, brushing off his trousers.
“Sorry, I must have lost track of the time,” he said. “Is it Cassandra?”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t here for you.” Pike held up a hand, considered for a second, and corrected, “I mean, I came to visit Trinket. I mean— I like to visit Trinket sometimes, and I just didn’t expect to find you! And no one up at the castle had seen you for awhile, that was all.” A faint, pained line appeared between Pike’s brows. She pressed her lips together.
“Ah,” Percy said. “I see. Would you like me to…?” He made a motion toward the door. She gave a vehement shake of her head, making her neat chignon list a bit to the side.
“No, no, please stay if you like. Really, I do love Trinket, but I mostly come here because Scanlan never does.” She paused again, with that same look of consternation: her mind and mouth in disagreement over what should be spoken aloud. Percy hid his smile in his collar as he turned, gesturing to a bit of soft hay beside Trinket’s foreleg like he was drawing out a chair.
“In that case, there’s room enough for us both.”
“What are you doing here?” Pike said, settling beside him.
“Would you believe I was seeking counsel from unlikely quarters?”
“Oh, I don’t know, he’s a pretty good listener.” Pike smiled. Trinket made a soft huffing noise of approval as she scratched idly at his ribs. “I’m happy to help if you need another point of view,” she offered.
Percy took up a bit of hay in one hand, testing its flexibility. It was brittle, almost sharp for its dryness. It made for a prickly place to sit.
“May I ask a rather impertinent personal question?” He said, watching his fingers.
“Sure,” Pike said, in her easy way. It was very like her, to trust him without hesitation, and wait without pushing when Percy took a moment to consider his phrasing.
“Have you ever… have you had any intimate partners?” He finally asked. He made himself look at her as he spoke, and saw her eyes widen.
“That is not the question I thought you were going to ask,” she said, a rueful grin starting in the corners of her mouth. “But yes, I have.”
“Oh,” Percy said, uncertain what answer he’d expected. A no would have been just as much a surprise, somehow. She peered at him, considering.
“I was a sailor before I built temples for Serenrae, you know. Not that she would mind.”
“Oh no, of course,” Percy said. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“I know,” Pike said. “Kinda comes with the cleric territory; people are curious.”
“Are you telling me you’re often interrogated about your romantic history?” Percy smiled, cocking his head to look at her. Her gaze slid sideways, meeting his, and they said at the same time: “Scanlan.”
Laughing with Pike came with a certain lightening of the spirit that eased the knot of darkness he carried quietly between his ribs. When they’d first met, Percy had struggled to understand her friendship with Grog, cynically assuming it was charity on her part, and on his, the fascination with divinity that often occupied the simpleminded. Percy was grateful he’d never said as much out loud.
“Is that all you wanted to know?” Pike said, tilting her head.
“Er, well. That’s not the whole of it, no.” Percy shrugged. He could feel his face heating, powerless to stop it. “I guess I might ask you how one goes about it, in general terms, but I can’t imagine that would be helpful.”
“You mean… like, how? What goes, uh, where? And all that?” She hedged. Percy groaned, burying his face in his hands. Bless her for trying, what a mess.
“No, that’s— quite alright, no, thank you. The mechanics aren’t exactly a mystery.”
“When are they ever, to you?” Pike grinned.
“Ha,” Percy said.
“But you’ve never—?” she continued, delicately.
“Well, no,” Percy said. He allowed himself a rare moment of nostalgia, familiar ghosts echoing in halls that were brighter, warmer, more comforting in his mind. He shook his head. “I was of age for it, I suppose, but Julius was always a bit of a scoundrel, and at the time it was more important to be distinct from him. And from his reputation,” He added, shrugging again. “I cultivated a love of books instead. Our egos find ways to betray us in the end.”
Pike snorted. Alright, perhaps the sentiment had been a touch melodramatic.
“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked after a moment.
“Please.” Percy spread his hands.
“I think you may be overthinking things,” she said, hurrying to add, “and I’m sure you hate it when people say that. But I think it might be true.” She turned towards him, tucking a foot under her knee. “We don’t come with instructions. Love isn’t a test you can prepare yourself for, or a strategy you can win.”
“Pelor in Elysium, don’t remind me, Pike,” Percy huffed on a weak laugh, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Her touch at his elbow startled him.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said, in the warm, patient tone she sometimes took with Grog. “You can’t win, but that also means this isn’t something where you can fail.”
Percy absorbed that like the blow it was. Pike offered him a gentle, almost wistful smile. Then she stood, gave Trinket a few parting skritches under his chin, and quietly made her way out of the stable.
Vex was convinced there was something about Whitestone that welcomed her, perhaps had even chosen her. It was the sort of feeling that would have made sense coming from someone like Keyleth, or maybe Pike. Vex kept it to herself, because she felt silly when she imagined trying to explain — even moreso now that Percy had given her a little piece of his city to call her own. Of course she would want a ‘special’ connection. Wanting didn’t make things real.
But she felt it, all the same. Nowhere did she sense it more strongly than in the de Rolo library. Which was noteworthy, because libraries didn’t send her into raptures the way they seemed to for other people, Percy foremost among them. Her general indifference was just one more thing she was loath to admit aloud.
It made a certain kind of sense, as the library in Syngorn had been a popular stage for Syldor’s disappointment or neglect. But Percy’s love of books transcended mundane obstacles like the remembered shame of a half-elf girl. Vex had seen him crouch in the tome-stuffed corner of a halfling brewer’s hovel, discussing the finer points of wheat storage with every sign of keen interest. Through some alternating effort of ingratiation and making himself a professional pest, he’d also won regular access to the library within the Alabaster Lyceum.
Even in his enthusiasm, Percy had never once fed the anxiety that her lack of similar feeling made her a dullard. But Vex’s fears could be insistent and persuasive. So her affinity for the library in Whitestone castle was a curiosity, a puzzle knot she enjoyed picking up and examining every now and again. It was a beautiful room, which almost certainly helped. The windows soared into lovely arches at their peaks, admitting wintry sunlight through leaded glass. The books in their leather bindings were inviting, most of them soft and well-thumbed. There was an abundance of deep-cushioned seating and thick blankets for keeping warm if the fireplace burned low. Through some quiet, unspoken magic, the de Rolo library felt like the very center of a deep embrace.
She was enjoying a slim volume on the city’s founding, tucked into her favorite chair, when Percy wandered in looking slightly frazzled. His gaze swung around the room, searching. When he spotted her, his eyes brightened.
“Vex! Can I borrow you?”
“Borrow me?” she said as he strode over. He was in his shirtsleeves beneath his heavy leather apron. Vex noticed his rolled cuffs and his bare forearms and the casual triangle of exposed skin at his neck and quickly smothered the impulse to stare. It was only that it was so rare to see him without his coat and necktie.
“Let me see your hands,” he continued, oblivious, taking her fingers between his own. “Perfect, excellent, you’ll do wonderfully.” That settled, he began to tug her toward the door.
Bemused, Vex tossed her book into her abandoned seat and let herself be led. “Percy, dear, where are my hands accompanying you?”
“Just to the workshop. This should only take a minute.” He didn’t seem to realize he still held her hand as they walked. His palm was warm, a little calloused, and it felt nice. In a moment of school-girl daydreaming, Vex half hoped someone might see them together.
When they arrived he ushered her inside with a soft touch at the small of her back. Much like Greyskull Keep, the Whitestone workshop was located in the basement level of the castle. The hall outside the door was cool and faintly damp in the way of stone rooms built below-ground, but the minute they stepped over the threshold the air went dry and hot.
“Alright,” he said, showing her over to a workstation piled with scrap, a long canvas holster of various sharp tools, and the jagged metal guts of something that looked intentional. “So, in my brilliance, I assembled a rather difficult portion of this project without fitting in a pin that, as it turns out, is critical to the overall stability of the structure.”
“Okay,” Vex said, looking between him and the chaos of the table. He dragged over a long tube connected to what looked, to Vex’s eye, like a heavy box. Then he brandished a thin metal rod with a slightly thicker end that terminated in a flat, round cap.
“This—” he wielded the rod, “needs to fit into the slot inside this,” he said, putting his hand on the tube. “The trouble is that I can’t quite reach in deep enough to put the pin in the housing.”
“Ah,” Vex said, flourishing her hands.
“Precisely,” Percy said. He stepped aside, making room for her next to the workspace. Vex accepted the pin from him, crouching awkwardly to peer down the length of the tube. She could just see a dark circle at the very bottom where the two pieces joined, perhaps as thick around as her middle finger.
“You don’t make things easy on yourself, do you?” she said, unbuckling the bracer on her right arm and setting it aside. She pushed her sleeve up, bunching it over her bicep. “Can you…?” she asked, struggling a little to lift the tube into a better position.
“Of course.” Percy reached past her waist to assist, elevating the opening until Vex could thread her arm inside. She fit, but her shoulder bumped up against the raw edge of the tube in short order. Her fingers twisted the pin in open air for a second, but then she felt the faintest catch when the tip drooped toward the outer circumference of the metal.
“Balls, fuck,” she muttered, wincing at the scrape of the opening against her skin. Being able to fit inside the tube made little difference if the tradeoff in muscle mass came with a proportionate penalty to her reach.
“Can’t quite get it?” Percy asked, chagrined.
“It’s close,” Vex said, squinting with the effort. “I can just feel it against the bottom but the hole goes in a bit and I think I’m missing it.”
“I don’t suppose a pair of tongs would help?” he said, though his tone suggested he didn’t think it was a great idea.
“I’ve almost got it,” Vex insisted, oddly demoralized at the thought of being no help after all. “I think if you pushed on me I could do it.”
Percy looked thoughtful at that suggestion, but his fingers gently inspected the reddened stripe on her shoulder.
“Come out of there for a second,” he said, stepping away to retrieve a rag from a bin. When he returned, he began to wind the cloth around her upper arm, careful to keep it flat. She hissed as he yanked to tighten it, more from surprise than any real pain. He flicked his eyes up, checking in, before continuing over her shoulder, knotting it in place. The final effect left her arm feeling rigid, trussed like a bird.
“You know, if you wanted to tie me up...” she started, smiling at the very tolerant look it earned her.
“Try it now,” he said, retaking his position beside her.
Vex slid back into the tube, pushing right up to the limit. The compression of the makeshift arm-guard won her a few extra millimeters, taunting her with little snags against the very edge of the hole. Her fingers cramped, extending as far as they could without losing her grip on the pin. She could let go and hope it would fall into place, but more likely than not it would just rattle at the bottom until they tipped it out to try again. She grit her teeth, ignoring a spasm from her wrist.
“Push me, I’m right there,” she said, and nearly dropped the pin at the sudden, solid pressure of Percy’s chest at her back. He carefully leveraged his weight, bracing her arm with one hand and supporting the tube with the other. Vex felt a flutter of phantom panic— a warm, gut-level interest colliding messily with an instinctive fear of being trapped. Her shoulder stung, the scratchy resistance going abruptly sharp, but the extra pressure was all it took to get the pin to catch, then slide into place as she found the right angle. Vex gasped as it left her fingers, a little swoop of victory. Pulling away was a reflex, aborted very suddenly by the wall of Percy’s body.
“Wait, wait,” he said, one hand hovering over the mouth of the tube. “Go slow.” He pressed down at the seam where her arm met metal, easing her loose with painstaking care.
The withdrawal hurt in a superficial way, nothing Vex couldn’t easily ignore. Less easy to brush off was the line of Percy’s thigh between hers, the breadth of his chest, the sound of his voice so close to her ear. He moved with her, the contact lessening as she pulled free. Then he stepped back a respectful distance, smoothing his apron down with a fidgety sort of gesture.
“Here,” he said, reaching for the knot at her shoulder, helping her unwrap.
“Thanks,” she said.
Anxiety ballooned in the back of her mind. Not two minutes prior she’d been enjoying the reminder of their easy camaraderie, one of the earliest ways she had learned to truly like Percy. He hadn’t been all that likeable at first, even if, in retrospect, it had been for good reason. At the time, she and Vax had made a small joke of the significant looks they’d begun trading behind his royal highness Percival Six-Names’ back. The work had changed that. Saving Uriel and his family, building Greyskull, finding Kima — he’d never failed them, no matter how snooty he’d seemed at first. And in growing to know him, she’d begun to uncover the layers of his humor, his kindness, his fierce intelligence that lent him a ruthless edge Vex couldn’t help but find compelling.
She couldn’t say when roots of respect and admiration had started sprouting warmer, hungrier blooms. She only knew a garden seemed to have grown up beneath her without her noticing.
She brushed a ticklish bit of hair off her face before she saw the black grease streaked across her skin, staining her fingers, wrist, and elbow. Percy tsked at her, folding her arm in the rag to wipe her off.
“Thanks,” Vex said again, faintly.
“No, thank you, truly,” Percy said, smiling a little, eyes on their hands. “You saved me a great deal of trouble, you know.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” she said airily, waving it off.
“I think I’ll be the judge of that.” He spoke with such pompous finality Vex tipped her head back and laughed. He was still smiling, slowly kneading her arm, and then he lifted a hand and cupped her jaw, bringing a corner of the rag to her face and gently wiping.
“You got a bit— just there,” he said, trailing off as he looked down at her, as she looked back up at him.
Vex could see it in his eyes, feel it in the sweep of his thumb over her cheek. She had no breath to hold, tensing at the cliff’s edge of expectation, waiting. One heartbeat, two, five.
It felt like a shove into freefall when he dropped his hand, pulled away. He laughed a little, an embarrassed sound, rubbing at the back of his neck and busying himself with tossing the rag toward the bin.
The momentary impulse to smile and find something pleasant to say flinched through her as he glanced back, but she found she couldn’t drag it up in time. She found she didn’t want to. And she saw the moment he noticed, his stricken expression of regret.
“Vex,” he started, reaching for her.
She dodged his hand, grabbing her bracer from the table.
Hot, miserable hurt clawed up her throat. Running was cowardly, but she simply couldn’t abide any more gods be damned pity.
Percy wasn’t sure when Scanlan joined him in the library; he’d simply glanced up from his stack of papers and found he was no longer alone. Had Scanlan not been pacing a stripe into the floor and muttering, Percy might not have noticed him at all.
Against his better judgment, he asked, “Something amiss?”
“What? No.” Scanlan had his face smushed against the glass of the window, staring down at something in the courtyard below.
Percy didn’t want to intrude (truly, he didn’t), but he knew the sound of grinding teeth when he heard it. Sighing, he shoved back in his chair and stood, striding over to see for himself. The courtyard was mostly empty but for two figures. Percy adjusted his glasses, stilling when he recognized the flash of blue in Vex’ahlia’s braid. The man beside her had similar dark coloring, but his hair was cropped short. Broad shoulders, a crossbow at his hip. Jarett.
“We’ve gotten too lenient with our employees,” Scanlan said.
Percy shot him a look. “Oh?”
Scanlan gestured sharply to where Vex and Jarett were talking. “Loitering around like he doesn’t have anything better to do! And don’t get me wrong, Vex isn’t helping by cozying up while he’s on the clock,” he said with beleaguered fairness.
“As I understood it, Vex pays their wages. Perhaps that’s what they’re discussing?” Percy knew he shouldn’t humor Scanlan in a mood, as it never ended well, but he wasn’t one to deny himself the entertainment of a perfectly avoidable trainwreck.
“Please!” Scanlan scoffed. “Look at how close they’re standing! He’s making her laugh! Vex doesn’t laugh about money!”
Somehow, that felt both unfair and accurate. Scanlan hardly needed the encouragement of agreement, especially when dismissal would dig under his skin so much more effectively. Percy shrugged, turning back toward his work.
“I think you underestimate Jarett. He’s quite charming,” he said.
“Not that charming,” Scanlan said. “Not ‘oh dear how clumsy of me to drop my tits in your hands wink wink’ charming.”
Percy’s eyes snapped back to the window. Jarett was grinning, and Vex had a hand on his shoulder, the other at her belly, face bright with humor. Ah. Just one of Scanlan’s exaggerations. Of course.
“Perhaps you’re overreacting,” Percy said, pulse kicking uncomfortably as Jarett’s mouth moved and Vex only doubled over further, visibly shaking with laughter even from this distance.
“‘Don’t worry pretty lady, your tits are safe in my big, rugged, man-hands,’” Scanlan carried on. “She’s going to dip her wick in the help and ruin him for the rest of us. This is why HR departments exist!”
“I hardly know what you’re talking about.” Percy felt suddenly ill, attention fixed on the tableau outside. Jarett touched careful fingers to the feathers in Vex’s hair and Percy jerked with the abrupt and powerful impulse to go through the window. He nodded to himself, pressing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Actually, would you excuse me for a moment?”
He didn’t hear if Scanlan replied, already striding through the door, figures and paperwork forgotten. If he was honest with himself, he had a perfectly serviceable study where his privacy would’ve been all but guaranteed. The choice to loiter in the library on the weak hope Vex might cross his path now struck him as foolish bordering on pathetic, moving in something just short of a run toward the main hall.
It was one thing to know he’d made a grave mistake that afternoon in his workshop. It was another thing entirely to confront the potential consequences of his blundering. Vex could have her pick of enthusiastic partners, whether it be for a night or a lifetime, and through some unearned stroke of luck she’d taken an interest in him. So maybe Percy had allowed the comfortable bonds of their little group and the chaos in the wider world to lull him into complacency. The cold truth of the matter was he was not nearly selfless enough to push her away for her own good. The painful truth — made glaringly apparent by Scanlan’s buffoonish insinuations — was that she was under no obligation to wait for him to find his courage. He’d already frittered away a damning amount of time under the shameful influence of his fear. He cursed himself for an idiot all the way to the front doors, pausing only to steady his breathing before stepping outside.
Vex and Jarett were still in animated conversation as he approached.
“—that is hardly how people bathe where I am from, you know. So I told them, ‘it’s not that big to me!’” Jarett spread his hands, all humble, easy charm.
“No!” Vex pushed at him, wiping an actual tear from the corner of her eye. “Please, you didn’t.”
“Ah, good afternoon Percival!” Noticing him, Jarett lifted a hand in friendly greeting.
Percy had no attention to spare for him when he could swear Vex visibly tensed before turning his way with an equally friendly smile.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but I was wondering if I might have a word with you?” Percy spoke to Vex. “In private?” he added, a little too low to be polite.
Her eyes widened, a measure of concern bleeding through the unfamiliar pleasant mask.
“Of course.” To Percy’s considerable relief, she accepted his extended hand. “You’ll have to tell me the rest later,” she said to Jarett apologetically, who acknowledged the dismissal with a small bow and all of his typical grace.
And there was the sound of grinding teeth again, this time from Percy’s own jaw.
He managed a short nod of farewell before he ushered Vex inside. For lack of anywhere better to go, he led them to his suite of rooms, collecting his nerve as he leaned the door closed behind them.
“Should I be worried?” Vex asked, tilting her head to catch his eye. Percy scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“I owe you an apology. And an explanation, if you’ll have one from me,” he said.
Her expression went briefly fixed again, the way it had in the courtyard, and then she shook her head even as she waved her hand in a small, prohibitive motion before her.
“Oh, no, please don’t. There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said, gracious.
“I beg to differ,” Percy said.
Vex spoke over him, “I’ve given it some thought and, you know, it wasn’t fair of me to— to make assumptions.” She pressed her hands together, still determinedly smiling even if she wouldn’t quite look at him. “People don’t always want the same things, and that’s never fun or easy, but it happens, and it’s hardly the worst thing in the world. Certainly less important than a pair of dragons who still need killing, right?
“Vex,” he tried, floundering, every response he wanted to make slipping out of his grasp with the force of the thoughts spilling out behind. “I don’t think you understand—”
“Please. Please,” she said, the pleading note in her voice bringing him up short just as effectively as a swordpoint leveled at his heart. “You don’t have to say it. I know you love me, just as you love all of us. I’ve never doubted it. I just need…time.” She wore it plainly on her face now, the false cheer gone fragile around her mouth, in her eyes.
Percy had never felt so wrong-footed in his life, gaping fish-mouthed in the stymied impulse to explain. Of course he loved her as he did the rest of them, such a thing hardly even needed to be spoken aloud for its obviousness. And yes, the dragons did need killing, but they had no guarantee they’d all pull through on that score either. All the more reason to be truthful when it counted, which was the whole point, only— only…
It struck him like an arrow-shaft to the chest. She wasn’t frustrated. She wasn’t regretful, or awkward. She was just as he’d seen her that evening before Syngorn, coming to him for help. She was hurt. She thought they didn’t want the same thing.
She thought he didn’t want her. She truly thought he—
“Vex,” he said again, careful. “I have a confession to make. I’ve never done this before.”
He hated the wariness in her expression, moreso for the fact that he’d put it there. Giving her a wide berth, he took a seat on the large trunk at the foot of the bed, knotting his hands together between his knees.
“It seems silly I didn’t tell you, especially considering how thoroughly I appear to have, um… fucked this up so far.” He looked up at her. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, attention fixed on the floor between them.
Percy blew out the breath he was half holding. In for a copper, in for a platinum.
“I’ve never courted anyone,” he said. “I’ve never been in love, or even, ah. Been intimate. With anyone.” When he glanced up again her face had changed, though for better or worse was hard to guess. She looked less guarded, at least, staring at him with wide eyes.
“You’ve never been intimate with anyone?” she repeated, hesitant.
“Er, no, not as such,” Percy said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You’ve never had sex,” she clarified.
“No,” he said.
“You’re a virgin?”
“Do you think you may be focusing on the wrong part—?”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, pressing her fingers to her forehead. “I just don’t understand. Why would any of that matter? Did you think it would matter to me?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t thinking of you at all.” He grimaced at the admission. “Which may have been the start of my problem, if not the end of it. I don’t do well with… uncertainty,” he said. Even to his own ears it sounded feeble. The look she gave him was an odd blend of fond and dissatisfied.
“But you’re so smart, Percy.” She flashed a small, suggestive grin. “You don’t think you could’ve… figured it out?”
Teasing notwithstanding, he recognized the signs of her pain resurfacing. Her voice wavered beneath the breezy confidence.
He heard, You couldn’t have tried?
He heard, It was easier to walk away?
The disappointment — radiating off of her, what he felt towards himself — twisted sharply in his gut. He pushed to his feet, clenched hands tucked against his middle to restrain himself from reaching for her. “I don’t want to solve you, Vex’ahlia. I just,” he started, working past the catch in his throat. “I want to be worthy of you.”
The sheen in her eyes swelled at her lash-line, spilling over. She turned away, swiping at her face with the back of her hand. The desire to hold her wrenched through him; he didn’t want to face the possibility that he'd lost his chance.
“I know I went about this the wrong way. And you owe me nothing if… if you’ve changed your mind.” Percy swallowed, mastering himself. “I might not be what you deserve, but it occurred to me, in a small, rather clarifying moment of panic… that I could ask for your help getting there. So I’m asking for your help, Vex. I’m only sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”
“You’re such an idiot.” She said it, wetly, from behind the press of her fingers against her face.
“Yes, I know,” he agreed, for lack of anything better to add.
The air left him in a rush as she leapt into his arms.
He half spun with the momentum, gathering her against him, cupping her head even as she sank her fingers into his hair, their mouths meeting with desperate, painful relief.
For perhaps the first time in his recent memory, Percy’s mind quieted. He was simply the blended sensations of her soft weight against his chest, the vanishing taste of salt on her lips, the circle of her arms around his shoulders.