89. The alcove and clock

Ada and Raeph soared high above Wysthaven, leaping from rooftop to chimney pot, slates sliding crooked in their wake. As they climbed higher and higher, they remained touching. Even if it was just their fingertips brushing as softly as the sunshine, neither strayed too far apart.

Ada reached the alcove first and collapsed against the clock, trying to breathe between her streams of laughter. Raeph's hands came crashing down on either side of her head, his hips pressing her deeper into the alcove as his lips recaptured her neck, nipping and kissing the skin he found there like it was a map he could memorise with his mouth.

"Raeph," Ada gasped, his name becoming a moan as he charted a path up her neck to the delicate spot beneath her ear.

His arms circled around her waist and her hands became lost within his hair. The world smelled of smoke and sweat and leather and it was intoxicating. Ada wanted to bury her face against Raeph's shoulder and be lost in that world forever.

"I can't— " Ada panted "—catch my breath."

She heard Raeph's ragged gasps before his lips slanted over hers, his tongue hot and frantic as it met her own. He was devouring her, as if there were words he sought to prise from her mouth before the letters could come together. She kissed him back just as fiercely, tugging his head back by the hair as she bit his lower lip and felt him shudder against her body.

Ada rolled her hips against his, and his groan turned to a snarl as he jerked back as if stuck with a firebrand. His lips were red and swollen, his eyes as dark as Ada had ever seen them, like night already fallen. One hand hovered at the back of her neck whilst the other gripped her waist. She felt the flush rising to her cheeks before she looked down and saw where he was staring.

A new stream of laughter bubbled up as Ada took the iron dagger from her pocket and set it on the ledge beneath the clock. She looked up at Raeph and shrugged, "A knife in my pocket."

He raised an eyebrow. "To think I ever doubted you were happy to see me."

The eyes that had been black fire had turned molten, and when his lips descended again, the kiss was deep and long. They sank down onto the stone in a tangle of limbs, and Ada's head came to rest against his chest as his fingers smoothed the knots from her hair.

"I apologize again to have left you with the iron dagger's burden," Raeph said, and Ada could hear the words rumble beneath her ear.

"That's alright. I think I know how I'll make sure it won't be used again," Ada replied, and when Reaph didn't ask her further, she looked out over Wysthaven. She could just about see the evening's darkness seeping over the valley and between the wystwood trees. "Did you ever find the ebony dagger?"

"No," Raeph said. "I searched around the tower for many hours, but it must have fallen into the canal and been washed away with the current. As the water continues to run beneath the tower, I am confident that no fae will ever find it again. It will die a myth, or else be forgotten."

Ada was still watching the city transform under the setting sun, shards of glass losing their sharp glitters in the streets as the evening brought with it a tender cloak of shadows. More fae had come out from their hiding spots and voices rose from Wysthaven like the first lines of a song coming together in broken chords.

"I once thought that this world was a myth," she whispered, finding that the figures below were beginning to blur.

Ada didn't know how the sadness had welled up so quickly, but she felt the sob rising in the back of her throat. She could hear Raeph's breathing had similarly become tight and strained, but she couldn't bring herself to look up at his face.

"And now..." Ada continued, her voice breaking. "And now I would do anything to make sure I never forget a single detail about Wysthaven, or its people, or you."

Her last word was the most difficult to say, and she didn't know if Raeph had understood it as the tears began to run down her cheeks. He was forcing his chest up and down in slow and steady breaths, although when Raeph spoke, his words came just as broken.

"Don't leave."

His chest heaved and they were both crying, for themselves and for the city. For all of those that had died and all that remained to live on under the weight of grief and ruin. Yet, with only two words, Ada knew that Raeph recognised exactly what she had been burying in her mind for so many days. And how could he not? Ada wanted nothing more than to return to her home and see her family, just as he had been longing to do for twelve years.

"I'm so sorry," Ada breathed.

"Don't apologize," Raeph said, suddenly fierce again as his arms tightened around her. "Never apologize for loving another. It is too precious a feeling to be repented."

"But I love you, too."

A tick of the clock, and then, "I love you, Adalyn."

She finally looked up into those dark eyes and the universe they held within them. Time couldn't prise them apart in that universe, as it held only memories and the moments in which they were together now, inseparable and forever. The clock in the alcove ticked on but neither Ada or Raeph marked its measures. They were lost, at once faraway and impossibly close, one and the same whilst distant and full of potential promises.

When they turned again to the city, night proper had fallen and the stars had approached as audience. They shimmered, sorrow and sweetness, like a million wishes suspended upon the lips of a million souls. Ada remembered Min's declaration that wishes could change worlds and felt the shape of the crystal flower in her pocket.

"How will you do it?" Raeph asked as if sensing the shiftings of her mind.

"My grandmother's flower. She never made a wish with it, even after her dealings with the fae. The bargain still stands, so the flower will still grant a wish, I think."

"When?"

"Not now," Ada said, and felt his body loosen within her arms. A rush of warm breath down her neck. "After I've said goodbye and when I'm ready. But if I stay too long, I'm afraid I won't be able to say the words. I'm afraid that I will and I'm afraid that I won't. It's so difficult."

Raeph pressed a kiss against her temple. "You needn't decide now. But when you go, let it not be in Wysthaven. There are too many miseries in this city already, and your returning to your family should be triumphal, even if my heart insists otherwise. Let us go back to the forest, where it all began."

As she nodded, Ada couldn't help but realise how appropriate his suggestion was; the wystwood forest had not only been the start of her adventure, but the start of her world's history with that of the fae. So long as the wystwood grew, so too would the stories of the two worlds, which were separated by nothing more than a veil of words and wishes.

"What would have been your wish at the well, Ada?" Raeph murmured as they settled against the clock, now looking together at the stars.

Ada thought back to her golden coin tumbling into the depths of the Wishing Well. She could almost feel the breeze spiralling across the hillside and hear the songs from Little Crestbury. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to slip into memories of her home now that Raeph's arms were securely around her.

"You know, I don't even remember," she eventually said with a little laugh of surprise. "It seems so minuscule now. Probably something about wanting to make peace with my sister, despite having all the means to achieve it had I just calmed down and truly tried to speak to her."

Raeph smiled. "Life weaves curious schemes to put things into perspective."

Ada held him closer, pressing her nose into his neck until the scent of him enveloped her once more. With his face out of sight, she whispered, "What will you do?"

He was quiet for a long while, content with merely holding her as she did him. But she knew his eyes strayed out from the alcove and toward the dark horizon.

"I think I will also leave the city. There is no duty remaining for me here— Solen, Lark, and Armestrong will find places of their own, which I would merely complicate with my history. Wysthaven should and will rebuild itself without me.

"But outside of the city— stars! I've been dreaming of it for so long. All those nights in that damned tower looking at the forest and not knowing what lies beyond... My family were free folk, and I believe it is in my blood to be free also."

"They would be so proud of you, Raeph."

His lips were achingly soft when he leant down to kiss her, but as they parted for air, his brow was furrowed as if deep in thought.

"I waited twelve years for you, Adalyn Kavanagh," he said, and she felt the wondrous thrill of her name within his mouth. "As I truly intend to scour the worlds this time, doubtless it will be a much shorter period before we are reunited."

Ada was unsure if she was laughing or crying, but found it didn't matter as her lips found Raeph's in the moonlight.