by J. M. Frey
“I hate this,” she gasps, only partially in relieved pain. “I hate not knowing what’s going to happen next. I hate not being able to figure it out. I hate feeling like I’m an idiot. It’s all hateful.”
“You’re not an idiot,” I soothe, curling and flexing my fingers against the soft welts of her ribs.
“I am. I’m so book smart, but I can’t figure out real life. Even this,” she says, one of her fists knotting around my belt, possessive, as if she fears I will dissolve into mist if she lets go. “I can’t figure out how this happened.”
“You kissed me,” I remind her, and, yes, my voice is a bit smug, but I feel that I deserve it. “Believe me, if you are unsure of how or why we have become . . . this, as you put it, then do understand that I am twice as confused but half as likely to question my good fortune.”
“Good fortune?” she asks, one fingertip starting to circle my nipple.
“Unf,” I say, trying to keep my mind on the thread of our conversation. “Ah. No one has ever chosen Forsyth Turn before.”
Pip looks up at me, startled. “No one has ever chosen Lucy Piper before, either. Not to date. Not to keep.”
“I’ll keep you,” I say. Her skin is so soft, so smooth against the palms of my hands, her cheeks warm to my touch and flushed, eyes wide and embarrassed and in awe. “I’ll keep you for as long as you’ll let me.”
I fear it’s too much to say, to admit. But then she licks her way into my mouth, chasing the confession to the soft velvet wall of my cheek, trying to pin it down to taste, to feel. My skin tightens all over and I stop massaging, pressing my palm against her back instead and running it up the ridges, shivering at the sensation. Pip moans loud against my mouth, bites at my lips, but doesn’t speed us along.
I choke back an oath at the way she swings one thigh over my lap and rolls her hips, delicious and hot.
“One of these days, I’m gonna get you to swear in bed,” she breathes into me.
“Find us a bed, and I will comply.”
I pass my hand across her scars again, sweeping back and forth, reveling in the way that Pip squirms and ducks away from my touch, and then presses herself back into it like a particularly finicky cat: not sure if she should enjoy the sensation or not, but clearly desperate for the experience of it all the same.
The kiss is soft, and slow. I tuck her upper lip between mine, and then her bottom lip, gentle, gentle. Her tongue is soft, tentative in a way I find endearingly girlish. Pip’s eyes slide closed, her head falls back to give me all the access I could want, a low, soft moan fluttering up out of her throat.
I peel her out of her clothing slowly, and Pip laughs in delight when I raise a naughty eyebrow and pitch each and every garment over my shoulder and into the fountain. When we make love, it is languid, careful, but not at all lazy. Pip’s eyes, flushed emerald with lust, never leave mine. Please, please, she mouths into my skin. The lines on her forehead scream, the nails she digs into my shoulder blades beg, and her breath on my skin demands: Please love me.
I love you, I say back with the flick of my thumb, with the press of my palms, with the snap of my hips. Pip lays back and tangles her fingers in my wet hair, brings my mouth to her sex, teaches me the art of kissing a woman’s entrance as I would kiss her lips, bringing her pleasure with my tongue and tasting the results of my successes.
And when I drive her to climax, she wriggles and writhes and pants, hips jumping up impatiently to meet mine before she settles back against the bedroll with a long, low moan of sinful satisfaction. The look of genuine gratitude and admiration in her eyes sends me over, and I lock my arms around her, hold her still, hold her to me, and she pets my shoulders, my neck, kisses my ear, tangles her fingers in the sweaty curls at the nape of my neck, all the while murmuring: “Yes, yes, oh, good boy, Forsyth, yes. I’ve got you, bao bei. I’m here. Let go. Go on.”
When I am able to move again, when my vision has recovered from being washed white and my lungs have remembered to breathe, I lay my head down on the pillow of her breasts, ear pressed against her racing heartbeat. I breathe in the reek of sweat, and sex, and us.
“You’ve gotten good at this,” she says.
“Good teacher,” I admit.
“God, you’re wonderful,” Pip moans, stiffening and shivering a little as I slide out of her, growing soft and too sensitive to stay joined. And wasn’t that a surprise when I first experienced it. “How did I get so lucky?”
“How did I?” I say, kissing the nipple beside my mouth because I can’t not, because Pip is magnetic and I want to be touching her all the time, for the rest of my life.
I should get up and fetch my towel to clean us up. The bedroll will be stained, but I don’t care. By the Writer, I profoundly do not care. I just want to roll her up in my embrace and stay where we are forever, content as a pair of cats in a puddle of butter yellow sunlight.
“And I just got clean, too.”
“The fountain isn’t going anywhere. Nap now.” Pip yawns, and throws one of her arms around my shoulders in return.
My body seems to agree, for I yawn, and my eyelids droop before I can make any conscious decision to follow Pip into sleep. I cannot help the goofy grin that seems to have taken up permanent residence in the area of my mouth. It had been wonderful.
And it had felt a little bit like saying goodbye.
✍
The nap extends into the evening, and we wake in full dark only long enough to light a fire, drink some water, and feed the horses before we collapse back into one another like magnets. Then we tumble back into sleep.
A sense of unreality pervades the following morning. For a long moment, I am not certain that I have actually woken up. Mist lays heavily on the ground, and the creature has indeed snuggled close to us in the night. Its fur is clean and warm, and its lion-like tail is curled around us protectively. Carefully, I extricate myself from Pip’s possessive limbs, and then tuck my blanket in beside her. She squeezes it to her side immediately, accepting the substitute, and I push away the ridiculous sensation of being jealous of cloth.
Walking softly, I make my way over to where we tied up the horses, on the far side of the fountain from our campfire and the creature. Karl and Dauntless are both awake, ears pricked at the opening in the hedge, pawing the ground and snorting softly.
“What is it, gents?” I ask them, running a hand down Dauntless’s nose. My shoulders are warm, and there is discomfort, a burning across the skin of my back when I extend my arms. A sunburn? Ha. If so, it is well earned.
Dauntless knickers, and I turn to look over my shoulder. All I see is mist beyond the hedgerow. Whatever has them uneasy is not something I can spot.
Reluctantly, I go and wake Pip. Whatever it is must be met seriously, and that means being prepared. She crawls back to wakefulness grudgingly, snuffling adorably into my blanket. But the moment she realizes that I am awake and tense, she is on her feet, climbing into her jerkin and belting on her sword. The afternoon sun did its work on her clothing, and it is all dry again, thankfully. The creature stirs with us, black eyes wide and alert.
Within seconds, it is on its feet as well, growling softly at the mist beyond the Library boundary, the tip of its tail flicking back and forth, the now short fur along its spine bristling.
“I don’t see anything,” Pip admits after a long, tensely silent moment.
“Nor I,” I admit. “But there’s something . . .”
As soon as I utter the words, the horses seem to forget their anxiety, and the creature flops down onto its stomach and begins grooming one huge paw.
“Ooo-kay,” Pip says, her grip loosening on her sword. “That’s not even remotely disconcerting.” The sarcasm is so thick it could rival the mist. “Well, now that we’re up . . .”
She digs around the campfire, coaxing the coals that are blanketed by protective white ash back to life, rousing them from their beds. There is more than enough deadfall by the hedgerow to feed another fire, and it feels strange to feel no anx
iety when Pip stops within grabbing range of the vines to collect some up. The greenery trembles, but then the creature growls and both go still.
For the next hour, there is tea, and fire-warmed bread, and the last of the hard cheese. The creature licks the rinds from Pip’s palm, and she obligingly keeps her fingers flat to avoid its teeth.
I am surprised by the affection she shows the great beast, and say so.
“He reminds me of my parents’ dog,” she says. “I miss the fluffy little bastard.”
How is it that I can know so much about Lucy Piper, and yet know nothing?
✍
The second day on the road, the creature stops tailing us and turns back to the Lost Library. It moans in that sort of rusty machinery way that it has, and then the heavy underbrush behind us rattles with its passing. It is retreating into the forest, heading back the way we came. Pip stiffens in her saddle, and I reach out to grab her hand to keep her from turning around and beckoning the thing to follow after us.
“It’s a lovely pet,” I say, circling my thumb over her knuckles. “But I suspect that it is magically bound to the Library. To take it with us may be to kill it.”
“I know that; the color of its coat matched the stonework. I’m not a complete tourist,” Pip snaps, yanking her hand back, but the ire in her words had not been directed at me, so I let them pass unremarked upon.
I also do not remark on the fact that Pip’s cheeks are wet, her eyes red.
She is very quiet for the rest of the afternoon, and instead of curling into me when we tumble into our bedrolls that night, instead of skimming her hands up under my shirt and taking me apart with her tongue, she simply presses her back against my front and tangles our ankles together, cuddling my arm miserably. I spend the evening with my mouth against the ivy leaf, my nose under her ear, breathing in her skin, and scent, and sorrow. Eventually, her breathing slows, and I assume she has dropped off to sleep.
“Why us?” I whisper against the leaf. “Why do you love my world so much that they would pick you for this?”
“Because that’s the magic of being a fan,” Pip whispers back. I had not realized she was still awake, or I would have kept my musings behind my teeth. She shifts against me and repositions us, tugging gently on my shoulders until I am resting atop her, pressed from knee to nose. I hold myself upright on my elbows, wary of crushing her, but Pip gathers me against her chest, pressing my cheek into the pillowy valley of her breasts. Her heartbeat is slow and sure in my ears, soothing and comforting, the sound of home. I curl and wrap my arms around her ribs, enchanted by the way they retract and expand, an even metronome of life.
“Being a fan?” I ask, watching as my breath brushes across the nipple right in front of my face, peaking it under her shirt.
“Unconditional love,” Pip says. “No matter what happens, no matter what the characters do or how the author twists, no matter the surprises and the heartbreak and the joys, you love something—with all its flaws and all its diamonds. Being a fan means being devoted. It means daydreaming, and flailing with joy, and proudly showing your colors in public with pins and scarves, t-shirts and bags and costumes. It means being part of a tribe, having a place and a people to belong to. Being a fan means being obsessed, but in a good way. It means learning to love—wholeheartedly, honestly, proudly, crazily love.”
“You love us?” I ask, turning my face so I can gaze up at her from under my eyelashes.
Her breath catches in her throat, her cheeks pinking and her pupils dilating. “I am a fan of The Tales of Kintyre Turn.”
I smile, warmth spreading under my skin and lacing through my torso. “I love you, as well.”
Pip threads one hand into the hair at the base of my neck and gently, gently uncurls me, bringing my mouth up to hers. “That’s not what I meant,” Pip breathes against my lips, but she doesn’t explain, and I am too content with our lazy kissing to want to ask.
✍
The next week is spent on the road. We manage an inn three of the seven nights, and a farmhouse with a very loud, very generous, very prolific family on the fifth.
On the eighth morning, and well before the next blue moon, we pull our horses to a halt at the crest of a hill. A chill wind unfurls from the valley below, brushing back our hair and summoning goose bumps along my neck. I snuggle down into my robe. Pip flips up the collar of her jerkin and cinches it tight at her throat.
“This is cheery,” she says.
“It’s a graveyard. I’m certain that it’s not meant to be cheery.”
“Was it chosen to be a graveyard because it’s spooky?” Pip asks. “Or did it become spooky because it’s a graveyard?”
“Scholar,” I accuse her warmly, and she smiles back. “The chill comes from the way the mist bottles in the valley. I suppose they chose this valley because the bodies wouldn’t rot as quickly, giving them time to construct the tombs.”
“You suppose?”
“A man can’t know everything.”
“Doesn’t stop you from trying,” she points out amiably.
True.
The horses prance, and Karl tosses his head, displeased with our proximity to the mouth of the valley. It is all white below, like staring into a bed of clouds, impenetrable to the eye and chilling to the soul.
“We’ve gotta go in there, don’t we?” Pip sighs.
“Eventually, yes,” I allow. “The tomb we’re searching for ought to be in direct line with the rest of King Chailin’s dynasty, but I don’t know how far along the river that begins. We could travel alongside the valley, but then we might have to backtrack when we decide to descend into it.” I point out the faint white mark of the path cut into the chalk cliffs by the millions of travelers who had decided to bypass the Valley of the Tombs rather than take the swift road through it.
“Which means starting at the beginning,” Pip accepts. “Damn.”
Without waiting, she nudges Karl into motion. Dauntless, unhappy at having to follow, clips up after Karl without my say-so.
The odd tip of a stone spear or helm, the top of a carved head, or the spire of some great tomb intermittently punctures the mist that rolls along the ground. They poke above the clouds like stones in a harbor, the wash of ash-gray breaking and swirling around them in a tide ever receding, yet never leaving. The air is perfumed with petrichor and dew, crushed grass and damp wool. It tastes wet and mossy.
“So, what can we expect?” Pip asks, once Dauntless has brought us up to flank her. “Info-dump me, Mr. Exposition.”
Her forced cheeriness and understanding of the situation makes all the tension and worry I was harboring about the commencement of this Station lessen. It doesn’t vanish entirely, though, because Pip’s Excel says that this is going to be the Station where the Unexpected Twist occurs, and my mind is racing across the possibilities of lichs and poltergeists.
“This valley is no-man’s-land,” I explain obligingly. “It is midway between the Three Kingdoms—Hain, Gadot, and Urland. It is where each royal household buries their dead. They say it is so the great rulers can learn to make peace with one another in the afterlife, in the hopes that their descendants will somehow benefit from this knowledge.”
“That makes no sense,” Pip points out. “Not unless their kids, you know, commune with them afterward.”
“Which I’ve never heard of any royal attempting,” I agree. “Hmm. Possibly because they fear it will actually be successful, and then they’ll be scolded.”
“Nobody wants their dearly departed Daddy telling them what to do?”
I shudder once. “I certainly don’t.”
Pip goes quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she says, eventually.
“Don’t be,” I say. “I’m not. Had I the bravery, I might have pushed him down the stairs myself, instead of waiting for the drink to do it for him. He was a hateful man, with a horrible addiction, who spawned an equally hateful son. At least Kintyre is addicted to adventure and sex, and not the bottle.”
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“And what are you addicted to?” Pip asks. “Addictive personalities are sometimes hereditary.”
“You,” I say, trying to lighten the topic. My lungs have become a hot knot behind my sternum, and I can’t seem to get enough of the cool, damp air to make them expand again. I shake my head, and water droplets from the condensed fog fly off into the gloom. I wish, suddenly, for the over-warm summer sun of the Library courtyard. I even miss the sunburn that plagued me with heat rash and blistered skin for the last few days. The lack of heat radiating from my shoulders is felt twice as keenly in the damp cold that is reaching slimy fingers under my collar.
“Books, secrets,” she offers instead. My honesty seems to have made her uncomfortable, so I take the work-around.
“Secrets, yes, I suppose,” I allow. “I am addicted to knowledge. An addiction that I hope, unlike with my brother and my father, will not prove fatal.”
Pip bursts into peals of bright, sharp laughter that echo around the valley, slapping back at us from the slabs of marble tombs, from the water of the river that is so slow and deep that the surface is veritably still. She swallows the sound swiftly, stunned, and on guard.
I tense, but nothing seems to have heard Pip; or, if it has, it hasn’t decided that her laughter was the perfect signal to attack. After the last echo fades away, I whisper, my voice perhaps too low: “What was so funny?”
It’s a bit ludicrous to be whispering—if anything was going to hear us, it already has—but Pip also drops her voice and says: “Knowledge. Fatal. We’re on a hero’s journey because of our curiosity. So yeah, I’d say that this is a pretty dangerous addiction.”
I have to concede the point. Then I ask her if she has any addictions of her own.
“Jogging,” she says. “Endorphins and adrenaline and all those hormones that make you feel incredible after sex. Books. Stories. Academic debates. Being proven right.” She smiles wryly, her lips twisting into her cheek. “You.”
I manage to get Dauntless to walk beside Karl long enough for Pip and I to engage in a swift kiss.