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The River House was buzzing with activity as Lucien stepped inside the front doors, let in by Feyre. A general air of busyness filled the foyer. Laughter drifted down from upstairs, and he could hear multiple discussions going on down the hall. The familiar smell of baking tugged on something hibernating in his chest. It lifted its tired, hopeful head, but he urged it to go back to sleep.
Feyre was smudged with half-dried paint, and there was ink on her fingertips. She tucked a notebook under her arm.
“This is a surprise,” she exclaimed as she hugged him, “We weren’t expecting you until market day.”
“I suppose I missed being besieged by annoying Illyrians and overactive younglings,” Lucien teased as he hugged her back, quick and affectionate.
Feyre smirked as she leaned back, giving his arm a squeeze, eyes searching his. “I could have sworn that’s the reason you gave for leaving this time.”
He shrugged. “Or maybe I decided to return early and offer aid in your time of need, knowing you were in desperate need of my skills.”
“Oh? I won’t object to more helping hands,” Feyre said, shifting the notebook back. “Actually, I could use your court brain…” She paused, stopping herself from returning to the issue of preparing the annual art market down by the lake. Her eyes searched his. “Is everything all right? Be honest.”
Lucien nodded. “I might have needed a break from things.” Things meaning Day Court drama and politics. Not that Night Court didn’t have its own issues, far from it, but Day Court was complicated in different ways, some of which were made more difficult by the fact that he was, to the eyes of most, there as the Night Court’s emissary. Not an actual part of the Day Court. Until things changed in the Autumn Court, keeping his actual parentage a secret seemed the safest route for his mother. And others he cared about—
“Lucien!”
He looked up to see Seryn, Gwyn and Azriel’s daughter, leaning over the railing on the next floor. Her cheerful crooked grin reminded him why secrets about his family, even if certain ones were truly Eris’ secrets, were best kept close to his chest. There were some truths Lucien couldn’t stand for Beron to know.
Nyx sauntered out from a hall and folded his arms onto the railing beside Seryn. They looked like siblings with their dark hair and light eyes, and Lucien wondered not for the first time if Azriel and Rhys weren’t somehow related by blood.
“Morning, Luce,” Rhys’ little lookalike said with a charismatic smile, “Get bored of libraries and sunshine and acting fussy?”
“More like I could sense you needed more lessons on etiquette and certainly intense tutoring on how to craft a proper verbal barb,” Lucien said. Feyre smirked and bumped her arm against his.
“Did you bring us something besides witticisms?” Nyx asked, laughter in the eyes that were identical to Feyre’s. He launched himself over the railing and unfurled his wings while Seryn took the stairs, rushing down them as fast as she could manage.
“Nyx,” Feyre said, rolling her eyes as her son landed beside her. “What are the rules about flying in the foyer?”
“Only do it in emergencies,” he said.
“He thinks dramatic entrances are an emergency, Aunt Feyre,” Seryn said as she jumped off the last step. She dashed over and hugged Lucien around the middle. “We missed you.”
“I missed you, too, moonbeam. And maybe you, too, Nyx.” Lucien hugged her back and then reached into the satchel he had slung over his shoulder.
Feyre opened the notebook and made a face at him. “You’ve got to stop spoiling them. They’re already half-rotten.” Lucien knew that she didn’t mean it. She would give the children everything that she had never gotten as a child, and besides, Rhys was around. He gave gifts in a deluge, raining them down like a monsoon whenever he had the chance. The idea of them being a little spoiled was a given, but honestly, they didn’t actually act like brats.
“The wound, it’s so deep,” Nyx said in feigned hurt, putting a hand to his chest. “Why don’t you want us to have nice things, Mother?”
Feyre plucked out the pen that had been tucked behind her ear and made as if to jab him in the side. “Imp.”
Lucien pulled out two books. “These come from the boring libraries.” Wouldn’t Gwyn hate to hear him call them that. He held out the smaller one to Nyx. “This one is about Avolan.”
Nyx’s eyes lit up. His current favorite research topic was ancient cities throughout the world. Avolan was so old there weren’t many texts on it; supposedly it was a city made of silver and gemstones and inhabited by a kind of faerie that no longer existed.
Lucien had spent hours hunting this book down alongside his father, who kept thinking he knew where it was and then remembering its location as “elsewhere.” As if the cataloging system wouldn’t tell him exactly where it was, even if his memory was suddenly oh so faulty. If Helion wanted to spend more time together, all he had to do was ask, but after a decade he was still learning how to be a father. Honestly, Lucien was still learning how that relationship should look since all he knew before was Beron.
“Thank you,” Nyx said with genuine warmth. He took the book and ran his thumb over the metallic symbol on the front.
Lucien held the second, larger book out to Seryn. This one had been much easier to acquire but he was excited to see how she would react. “Open it.”
Seryn glanced up at Feyre, who smiled at her niece. Placing the book against the crook of her arm, she left the pages fall open at random.
“And yet you tell me that there’s no other way, when I have already given my all to this quest,” a sonorous male voice said as an image appeared over the page. It was a male in full ornate armor, standing before a female in grey robes, insect wings lifting over her shoulders.
Seryn’s own wings opened a little as she closed the enchanted book, a shocked smile on her face. “Is this a Corio Bassette book? I’ve never seen this one.”
Lucien smirked. “It’s brand new.”
Seryn’s teal eyes became enormous and thrilled.
“Damn, so now you know where Bassette lives,” Nyx said appreciatively, “If you ever wanted to literally hunt down your favorite author you have a starting place, Ser.”
She squeezed the book to her chest and ignored Nyx as she beamed at Lucien. “Thank you, this is the best, I’m—” Spinning around on her heel, she took off toward the study, probably to hide under the huge orrery where it would be difficult to reach her. “I’m going to go read!”
Nyx snorted. “Thanks again, Lucien. I’ll make sure she surfaces for dinner.”
“Aren’t you so nice,” Feyre said, tousling his hair as he passed by.
As the pair disappeared, Lucien fished out a third book. “I’ve got one for you, too, but I left it at the apartment. This is for Rhodes, if he’s around.” The book he had brought for Feyre was about a certain art style newly popular on the continent. There was another gift at the bottom of the satchel, but that one was…different. Not on loan, though a loan from Helion could last centuries.
“He’s in the kitchen with Elain,” Feyre said. At least no one faltered when they said her name around him anymore. Years ago, when the bond had been new and raw, the way people sometimes looked at him with pity when they had to speak her name around him had grated his nerves. Now, he had grown used to the old hurt of the ignored bond, and everyone had stopped fumbling her name around him.
While Elain hadn’t fully accepted him as her mate, they were…friends. Of a sort. Not close, of course, but they could talk and be amiable. She sometimes used the gifts he brought her. The last time he had visited, he had seen her wear the emerald bracelet he had found for her in Rask.
“Let me know what I can do to help with your little market by the water,” Lucien said, taking a backward step toward the hall that led to the kitchens and his lodestar.
Feyre smirked. “It’s good to have you back.”
“And good to have one more person to put to work, I know, I know,” he said with a polished smile, offering a casual salute before turning on his heel and loosening a breath in the face of the next meeting. He smoothed his hair back and gave his jacket a little tug.
The enticing aromas wafting from the kitchen would have been enough to drag him inside, but it was Elain’s scent that pulled him in. Jasmine and honey together, flowers and baking, the perfect mix for her. Life and comfort, beauty and hearth and home.
It was clear that Elain had sent out the kitchen staff. Nuala and Cerridwen were also missing at the moment, presumably busy with other market-related tasks. Elain always made a spread of treats for the family tent that the Inner Circle used at the market. She also had cookies that she gave out to any child that showed up at the tent. The cookies seemed to be the current project.
Elain stood at the marble counter scooping out dollops of cookie dough onto a metal tray, smudges of flour on her arms and face. There was one pale streak of flour across the side of her neck that begged to be brushed off. Lucien’s fingers twitched against the cover of the book.
“Everything smells delicious,” he said, staying near the doorway as Elain looked his way. That hibernating emotion inside him stirred again as his gaze met her warm brown eyes.
“Thanks,” she said, a partial smile on her face, “Did you just arrive?”
“I stopped at the apartment first.” The apartment that she had a key to in case she ever wanted time away from the River House, regardless if he was there or not. She had never used it, but he felt better knowing she had that option. He always thought she might move out of the River House into her own place, but besides the occasional month every now and then in the House of Wind or Dawn Court or Summer Court, she never did.
Nesta and Cassian’s son Rhodes sat on a stool beside her, a mixing bowl in front of him. His hazel gaze darting from Elain to Lucien and back again. All three children knew that Elain and Lucien were mates, but they didn’t know the full story.
“Hey, Lucien,” Rhodes said, “Welcome back.”
“I brought you something,” Lucien said to the boy. He held up the book and crossed over to the counter, keeping it between him and the two of them to give Elain space. “You wanted to research swords from Xian, right?”
Rhodes’ eyes lit up. “You found it?”
Lucien handed over the book. “It covers a couple centuries.”
Rhodes gave a hiss of appreciation. “Thanks,” he said, opening it, getting flour on the cover. At least that would brush off. “Aunt Elain—”
“Go on,” she said, giving him a smile.
Rhodes kissed her cheek and took off, racing for the door.
“The other two are in the study,” Lucien called after him. He looked around the kitchen and then gestured toward the bowl that Rhodes had abandoned. “I think I deprived you of your assistant.”
“Seems like it,” she said, her smile half-hearted before her nose wrinkled. Reaching out, she took the bowl and pushed it his way. “Good thing you’re capable of stirring things up?”
He tried not to grin too much at the turn of phrase even as he inclined his head toward her in acknowledgement.
The silence that fell wasn’t awkward, simply a pattern they had fallen into over the years. Casual surface level questions, polite conversation, the occasion deeper moments scattered throughout over the course of weeks or months.
“Have you been well?” he asked, running the spoon along the side of the bowl.
She nodded and then shook her head before hovering her own spoon over the pan. “I’m fine, it’s…I need something bigger to work on.”
“Like what?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” she said, pushing a roll of cookie dough onto the pan. She pursed her lips. “I need something to do with my hands.”
Gentlemanly thoughts, think of protocols and fan language and gloves, no, gloves were no good because then he would think about Elain’s idle hands and activities for them—No.
A little device sitting beside the sink rang shrilly. Elain began to put down her bowl, but Lucien stood up. “Is there something in the oven? I can get it.”
“Thank you,” Elain said, dipping the spoon back into the cookie dough.
There were a pair of large iron ovens, both massive and capable of heating up the room if there wasn’t a spell in place to leech away the warmth in spring and summer. During autumn and winter, the heat was welcome.
Lucien called on the flames that flowed through him, the heat and the embers that fueled his spell-cleaving abilities as well as the fire ones. The sun was hot, after all. With his power in his grasp, he twisted it, the practiced bit of magic allowing his hands to negate the heat of the oven. He knew that this fireproof gift could be given permanently, but that was one of his mother’s abilities, not his. She hadn’t been able to get it to stick with him.
Opening the oven, he grabbed the tray and pulled it out. “Where would you like me to put these?”
Elain lifted her head and he saw those beautiful brown eyes go wide in unmistakable horror. That lethargic bond within him sprang to life as startled dismay rushed down the link between them like a spring storm, lightning striking his heart.
She moved so quickly she seemed to winnow from the counter to the space directly in front of him. Lucien was too slow as she snatched the pan from his hands and threw it down. Cookies broke, and the pan clanged.
That fae speed and strength that she rarely tapped into was out in force today as Elain snagged his elbow and hauled him to the sink. She turned on the flow before plunging his hands under the water.
Lucien was stunned into inaction as she frowned up at him, fierce and bright eyed. “What were you thinking, why didn't you use the mitts?”
“I—”
She pulled his hands from the water and turned them over, searching for the blisters she expected to appear. The frown on her face deepened. Her thumb ran along the sensitive side of his palm, melting him. “I thought…”
Lucien felt the sting of a recent burn through that bond she had reawakened. Gently, he changed the positions of their hands, moving his under hers. Her hands fit perfectly in his. “Well, here’s what I think. You forgot that I can be fireproof.”
He cut his eyes at her as he drew her fingers beneath the water. She hadn’t held the tray long enough for her fingers to blister, but they were red where she had grabbed the pan to take it from him.
She didn’t pull away, her arm touching his chest as she looked up over her shoulder. “Why couldn’t I get that gift?”
Lucien blinked, the corner of his mouth tilting up. He kept her hands under the water. “Aren’t seer powers enough?”
“Being fireproof is more practical. I’d never have to buy another oven mitt.”
“Then what would Cassian get you for Solstice?” For the last ten years, that had been Cassian’s present to Elain: increasingly ridiculous oven mitts. The big guy did want to get her something she would like, hence something related to cooking, but he seemed to think she would like animal themed oven mitts. So far she had a rooster, a horse, a duck… “Those cookies are ruined.”
Elain nodded. Her fingertip moved against his hand, tracing a line on his palm as the water soothed the wounds that would quickly heal.
There was a spiky plant beside the sink, one Lucien recognized after spending years studying plants. Breaking a leaf, he turned off the water flow. He squeezed the leaf. Greenish aloe smeared across her singed fingers, and he dabbed it across the bright red spots on her fingertips, gentle, methodical.
“Does that feel better?” he asked, his voice rough.
“You know about aloe,” she said. He could feel her eyes on him, and it felt like she was looking at him for the first time.
Lucien lifted his eyebrows at her. “I’ve been alive for a few centuries, and I lived in Spring. And you love plants. I do know a thing or two about them, amazingly.”
Elain started to say something, but she was cut off as Nuala and Cerridwen stepped into the kitchen, both of them looking from the pair of them to the oven to the cookies on the floor.
Lucien released Elain’s hand. After bowing to her at the waist out of pure courtly habit, he hurried out of the kitchen. His fingers kept the shape of his hold on hers even as he told the bond to go back to sleep.
It couldn’t quite manage it, but he wasn’t the one keeping it alert. On the other end of the bond, tentative, something waited, curious for the first time in years.