“Fuck them.” Viv stood again, dusting off her dress. “The people who made you feel like you’re better off gone. What do they know? Most people who think they have it all figured out are a tangle of fucked-up shit under the surface, so who cares what they think?”
“She has a soft way with words, my girl,” Sasha said, and Viv made a face at him. He grinned, and she turned back to Micah.
“Come back and stay the winter. You can hide in a closet and eat cave fruit for five months if you want to. You can learn magic if you want to. You can shave your face and eat enough to sustain yourself, even. And maybe you’ll leave in the spring and build a new house for yourself where the old one was, but you won’t run off again—or, so help me, I will tie you to a post.”
“I’m not a submissive, you know,” Micah said. “You didn’t have to be so… forceful with your dominance.”
“Nah, go ahead and be forceful all you want, baby.” Sasha winked at her. “But maybe do it back home, yeah?”
“I think my great-grandmother was like me,” Micah said. He blurted the words out like it was urgent, something that had to be said or it would burn through him. “I think she had magic. I think this book was part of it.”
“So you come by it honestly.”
Micah made a pained sound, and Viv drew back in alarm. She never knew how to respond to tears. She looked at Sasha, who winked and got to a knee at Micah’s other side.
“I wish I’d known her.” Micah’s voice was tight.
“Yeah, I know.” Sasha held out an arm, and Micah looked from him to Viv, clearly confused. “It’s a hug, buddy. I can do it all day.”
Micah turned into Sasha’s arms, and when Sasha held him, he clutched Sasha back, pressing his head to Sasha’s chest. Viv remembered clinging to Sasha in much the same way when he’d first hugged her, and something unfamiliar and warm stirred in her chest. They looked nice together, Micah and Sasha. Maybe they would be a comfort to each other, if a fever did take her. Sasha needed people to look after the way Viv needed her magic—it was a part of him.
She looked down into the spring and went still as she saw her own face there.
It wasn’t her reflection. The water was too clear for that. No, her face was looking up at her from a stone embedded in the bottom of the spring. The crags and bumps in the rock that made up the image seemed to shift in the sunlight, and silt stirred at the bottom of the spring, a perfect expression of terror molded in the stone. Viv swayed, her limbs going heavy, and her heart sped up, blood rushing in her ears. She turned to Sasha, like she always did when she felt a dizzy spell coming on, but she was already tipping sideways into the water, which closed over her like a fist dragging her down.
She woke to the smell of something roasting. The air was warm, and she tried to sit up, only to collapse when her limbs shook and her head throbbed. She was in bed, dressed in a nightgown with her hair still damp but feeling clean and brushed, and Sasha was radiating heat at her side.
“Hey, lovely,” he said, and Viv made a face at him. “Yeah, that’s the girl I married.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you.” Viv covered her face with both hands the moment she heard her own voice breaking. Shehatedsounding weak.
Sasha took her wrists and tugged gently. He kissed her palms, and Viv stared at him.
“I still don’t know how you’re real,” she said.
“My mom fucked a guy because he could throw a barrel across an entire cave.” Sasha’s voice held a note of pride. “Ulfren. Muscles the size of your head.”
“You didn’t tell me that was Ulfren!” Viv laughed. “That explains why he tried to give me chickens when you and I got married.”
“Yeah, he’s a softie that way.”
“Why would someone give you chickens?”
Viv looked over to find Micah at the door, holding a mug in both hands. “Wedding gifts.”
“Oh, like a mating? We don’t give people things for that. Just if you have a baby.” Micah brought the mug over and set it on the table next to the bed. “I made you tea. It’s from the book. Um. It’s supposed to fortify you.”
“Hypothetically, or by magic?” Viv let Sasha help her into a seated position, and Micah shrugged.
“Magic, maybe. This is… still new, for me.”
Viv reached for the mug, glared at her own shaking hands, and sighed. Sasha took the mug without her asking, but they glanced at each other when Micah turned his back on them.
“Micah?”
“You probably don’t like people to see you looking sick.” The tips of Micah’s ears were pink. “So. Um. I won’t look.”
Viv felt the warmth she’d noticed when Sasha held him by the spring and looked at Sasha to see him smiling at her. “What.”
