64. All kinds of secrets

It started as a whisper of a kiss, easily mistaken for the brush of a night's breeze had Ada not been bound against Raeph's chest. His arms were taut around her back as her lips touched his, hardly breathing, before she drew back, the tip of her nose tracing the hollow of his cheek.

Raeph pounced, one hand coming up to tangle in Ada's hair as his other dragged down to her hip. She gasped as they tumbled into the alcove, their boots still sticking out into empty air, as if they were holding each other at the edge of the world.

Raeph's mouth captured her own with such fervour that Ada felt the tips of his teeth scrape the inside of her lip. She ran her hands across his shoulders and down his arms, the hard muscle moulding into place around her body, urging her closer. Ada's fingers clutched at Raeph's shirt and he groaned, the noise rumbling up from some animal place in the back of his throat.

They clung together, fae and human, impossible and inseparable. Ada felt the tingle of Raeph's breath across her neck, warming her to her toes. He gazed down at her, their fingers weaving together as he kissed her again, and the clock ticked on towards sunrise.

Ada and Raeph left the alcove before light could leak fully into the valley. The sun was just emerging over the Wystwood as they clambered back down into the city, their hands occasionally finding one another upon roof slates and around chimney pots.

Morning proper had begun by the time they reached the canal. Raeph kept his head bent low, not wanting to be seen by the fae setting up their shopfronts. There seemed to be a particular air of caution swirling through the inner city, as though the fae were afraid a Hound might stride down the street at any moment.

"Why is everyone acting so oddly?" asked Ada, casting a furtive look behind them before pulling up her hood.

"The Harvest Moon rises two nights from now," Raeph replied. "It once was a time when plants could be reaped to produce the most potent forms of agrestal magic, but now the Hounds use it to celebrate their own triumphs over Casting."

"Celebrate?" Ada repeated. "How?"

"They will come together in the central court of their Barracks for a banquet, along with their families and other high-class supporters of the Lady."

Ada came to a stop by the bridge into the outer city. "The Barracks are where they're holding Solen."

Raeph frowned, shaking his head slightly. "No... they wouldn't just keep some bandit under such high security."

"Min told us," insisted Ada, and then thought of the healing calendula flower a Hound had seen them with. "Besides, what if the Hounds think Solen is using magic? Or connected to the Stone Circle?"

Raeph still seemed in disbelief, his hands clenching together, releasing, then clenching again. Ada tried not to dwell on what that could mean for the state of the Barracks.

"Will you also be attending the banquet?" she asked instead.

"I am usually made to go." Raeph didn't meet her stare and ran a hand through his hair, the darkened skin beneath his eyes seeming to grow harsher in the sunlight.

"Then if the Stone Circle will help us enter, we can all work together to break Solen out," Ada said, remembering Edmere's uneasy agreement to aid Lark.

Raeph's eyes twitched back to Ada at her mention of the Stone Circle, and she could see the corners of his lips curl back as he grasped her shoulders.

"If there is any time the Stones will be planning something senseless, it will be the night of the Harvest Moon," he said. "Do not get involved with their foolish plots. You will just be placing yourself in unnecessary danger."

"You can't get Solen out of there alone! Someone would recognise you in an instant and you'd be caught." Ada glared back at him. "Why can't you just let us help you?"

Raeph's snarl faded and his hands on her shoulders softened. "If I were to be caught, there would not be anything you or any other could do to help me."

Ada huffed and shook his hands away, preparing to argue against his infuriating stubbornness. But she forgot her words when she saw that Raeph wore one of his rare smiles, this one creasing lines at the edges of his eyes. His gaze glittered down at her, as though he was amused to see her disagreeing so readily with him.

"You know, were you not a human, I would say you were fated to join our ridiculous band of bandits," he said. The hands Ada had shaken from her shoulders had caught the tips of her hair, which Raeph now curled around his long fingers.

"Were you not a fae," Ada replied, trying to ignore the trembling in her chest, "I might be tempted to accept that offer."

Raeph's eyes shone, as if the moon had disappeared from the sky only to reappear behind his dark stare. His fingers released her hair to come up and trace the round shape of her cheek, then the curve of her ear.

"Though I'm finding human to be not too terrible either." He took a step closer. Ada's heart was beating far faster than she thought possible as Raeph stroked her hair to one side and leaned down to murmur, "I'm very glad to have met you, Adalyn Kavanagh."

A flush of warmth swept through Ada. It didn't feel as it had when Min had spoken her name, but rather like a tingling sensation had spread down her neck, across her chest, and then to every extremity of her body. She felt breathless, but only in the sense that her chest was too full of all sorts of other fluttering things for oxygen to be of any concern.

Raeph's smile was smaller when he leaned back, as though excited and nervous and desperately longing all at once. Standing so closely, Ada could barely see his face without rising onto her toes, though he had tilted his head down, and her hands had come up to rest on his chest.

The shattering of glass sent them jumping apart. A young man had emerged from the back door of a pub, only to trip on a step and drop a carton of bottles. A dark liquid spread out between the cobblestones as the man cowered back into the pub, his scolding still echoing into the street after he had shut the door.

"You should go," Raeph said, dropping to his knees beside the canal and reaching under the bridge. "Find Armestrong and Lark again. You will be safer all together."

The latch for the wooden door must have still been loose, because Raeph only needed to flick his wrist for it to swing open. Ada was quietly relieved, as it meant nobody had taken the passage and discovered the unlocked door while she had been gone. Still, she raised an eyebrow at Raeph, crouched above the previously covert entrance to the Stone Circle.

"When you know who to look out for, you can discover all kinds of secrets." Raeph gave her a satisfied smirk. "The dark-haired girl should watch herself."

Ada almost laughed, but the thought of Yue's vengeful glare was enough to dispel it. She sat beside the canal and hung her legs over the water, watching Raeph's broken reflection amongst the algae. She didn't want to return to the Stone Circle, but she knew Lark and Armestrong would prefer to hear about the banquet. And above all, she knew she couldn't leave Min without saying goodbye.

She pushed away from the bank, her boots scrabbling at first to find the opening, before they sank into damp mud. A cool hand covered her own on the cobbles, and Ada looked up at Raeph, now kneeling again beneath the bridge. His face hovered inches from her own, and she could feel heavy breaths mussing her hair. He tilted his head until his lips brushed against the shell of Ada's ear.

"Raeph Vy Fenn."

Raeph's mouth was gone with his final word, and when Ada looked up, the man had vanished entirely. She twisted her head just in time to see a dark form disappearing into the ashen remains of the outer city, but after she blinked, all that lingered was dust and ruin.

Ada slipped down through the wooden door, shutting it behind her and firmly bolting the latch. It was only after she had made it to the crypt that she realised. Raeph had told her his name.