Chapter Text
October 14 - 4 years after
Years ago, before she had children, in a different body, Nesta didn’t know there was a difference between quiet time and quiet time alone and just being by herself. In her first years as Other, she found she favored quiet time alone, but could only find it at the bottom of a glass. Now, as a mother she tries not to dwell on any of the three, because she rarely experiences them.
There’s always someone making noise in the background. Generally shrieking, mostly with laughter, though, for which she is eternally grateful. There are times when the noise is of pain, which never fails to rend her soul in two. Sometimes there is silence, which nearly always sends her into a panic and frantic searches.
Rarely, when she’s lucky, if she’s lucky, she gets a quiet moment. Quiet time, not by herself. With three tiny angels. All blessedly, miraculously, asleep.
Simultaneously.
This isn’t free time, Nesta knows. She’s got plenty to do. But she takes a moment to just gaze at her children, sleeping on their respective beds, unaware of the world around them.
Avery, her eldest, stirs a bit, and Nesta’s heart does, too. But she settles soon after, moving a lock of her deep brown hair--Nesta’s hair--out of her face.
Nesta knows she can gaze in wonder at her triplets the whole day through, but she knows that’s a luxury for another day. So she bends down to kiss Avery on her forehead.
“Good morning, ladybug,” she whispers to her.
Avery groans a little and writhes under her covers. Nesta laughs; another thing she bequeathed her daughter.
Nesta makes her way to Nicholas’ bed, and she lightly runs her fingers over his stomach as she kisses him. He giggles as he wakes up, opening his eyes and smiling widely. “Good morning, Nicky,” she says to him.
“Good morning,” he says, stretching out the vowels as he always does, in his sing-song tone. Nesta smiles again at his Gilameyvan accent. She knows her children can mimic hers, and they generally do, when they speak to her, but they always sound Gilameyvan when they chatter amongst themselves or to their fellow townspeople.
When she makes it to Ollie’s bed, he’s already awake, as she knew he would be, his brother and sister’s early morning antics having roused him. “Good morning,” she says to him.
Ollie reaches up to kiss her cheek, as well. He doesn't say anything. She doesn’t expect him too.
“All right,” Nesta says, standing up to leave the room. “Brush your teeth first. Then come downstairs.”
Nesta knows it useless even as she says it. Nicky never brushes his teeth before coming to breakfast, and sure enough, he grabs her hand and bounds down the stairs with her.
He’s babbling somewhat coherently, and Nesta joins in when necessary, most of her mind focused on breakfast. Ollie doesn’t eat enough in the mornings, she thinks, but she’s not sure if that’s just because he isn’t hungry. She wonders if she should take him to see their family healer, a female recommended to Nesta by the female who delivered the children.
But if she does take him, she’ll have to ask Zeyn to watch the other two. Perhaps he can pick them up from their nursery, if he leaves work early tomorrow. Or perhaps she’ll bring them all in to work with her and leave Avery and Nicky there with him? She’ll discuss it with him today.
“And I would like to go the store sometimes,” Nicky is saying.
“Oh?” she says. “What store?”
“Just for some groceries.”
“What groceries do you need?”
“I need some oranges.”
“You need some oranges?” she says to him. “I think that can be arranged.”
“I would also like to go to another store sometimes,” Nicky starts again, and Nesta half-listens to him, but now she’s mostly thinking about how Avery needs to drink more orange juice, but she will only do so out of a specific purple cup, and perhaps she should send that cup in along with her to nursery, perhaps that would be better than having the cup her at home.
“Mummy,”says Nicky, cutting into her thoughts. “Is Zeyn coming to our house?”
Nesta turns around to face him. Her expression is neutral. “Do you want him to?” she asks, placing a plate of pancakes in front of him.
“Yesh,” he says through a mouthful of sugarberries. He swallows. “Because he’s going to show me something.”
“Something.”
“It’s a secret.”
Nesta rolls her eyes. Zeyn is always making up secrets to share with each of her children. It only mildly irritates her, though. She actually likes that they all feel comfortable with him.
Well. Sometimes she likes it. Other times it scares her.
And that is one thought Nesta will not let herself wander towards. Because it’s another routine day in Sugar Valley, one she worked to make perfect for her children’s safety and happiness. There’s nothing here to threaten that, and she certainly will not let herself sabotage it with her own fears and weaknesses and insecurities. Not for the past three years. Not today.
And so she continues on preparing her children for the day, entertaining Nicky’s babbling, and Avery’s too, when she joins them. She encourages Ollie to take part in the conversation. She wraps them all in their winter coats, taking care of their wings as she does so. And she walks them to the Sugar Valley Nursery: outside their standard red-roofed house, past the others that look more or less the same, into the town square, where Avery and Nicky shout their hellos to the various shopkeepers and townspeople they have seen every day of their lives.
And like every morning she drops them off, her smile grows wide as Avery and Nicky rush inside, one of them taking care to rush Ollie along in with them.
Some days she’ll stop and chat with another parent, generally Classia, a female who emigrated from Prythian, or Ramilya, a Sugar Valley native. But today she doesn’t. She’s got extra work to do today, and she doesn’t want to leave any till tomorrow.
So she turns her back on the nursery. It doesn’t hurt her nearly as much as it did on the first day, just over a year ago, but there is still a twinge of longing. She misses them whenever they’re not with her. Every morning.
As per routine, Nesta does not let herself think about the people who no longer miss her.
Nesta’s persona at home-- Mummy , really, not Nesta--is quite different than who she is...well...anywhere not in front of her children.
Nesta will not lose her temper with her children. She made that decision long ago. And she’s kept true to her word. She doesn’t yell or grit her teeth or mock or threaten. She’d lost too much in her journey to holding them in her arms to do so. She’s a good mother. She has to be.
But only a few short hours at Sugar Book Manufacturing and Archiving, and all the patience Nesta has instilled in herself has evaporated.
“What the hell is this?” Nesta hisses, slamming a crate of books down on a table.
The male sitting at the table blinks up from his spining and meets her eye. He sticks his chin out. “Those are yours,” he says, his voice insisting.
“They’re short stories, Donmaz,” she says, her temper rising. “Do I look like I’m in charge of short stories?”
Maz folds his arms defiantly. “They’re romance short short stories. They’re yours.”
“Romance novels ,” Nesta practically snarls. “Not short stories. Are you--?”
“Ah, let’s try for a little mercy on Maz this morning, Nesta. What do you think?”
Nesta shrugs off the hand on her shoulder and glares up at Zeyn. “Do I look like--”
“Like you’re very beautiful and very tired and overworked and you missed your morning coffee? Yes, you do,” he says, grinning as he hands her said coffee.
Nesta glowers at him, but takes the coffee. It’s her usual order from Samir’s, she knows.
“Take this over to Leyla, please, Maz,” Zeyn says cheerfully, pulling out two chairs at the table.
Maz gets up, shooting Nesta a glare which she returns. She sits down next to Zeyn when Maz is out of sight.
“He’s such an idiot,” Nesta says, venom in her voice.
“You just use up all your patience with Ava, Nicky, and Ollie,” he tells her, as he has many times before. There’s no judgment or malice in his tone, though. Only ever amusement and jest with Zeyn.
And kindness and sympathy and an eternal flow of patience he never uses up, not with her children and not with her.
Her gaze softens a bit. “I have so much work to do today,” she says.
“I know,” he replies. “Good find, though. I know you’re excited.”
Nesta allows herself a brief, small smile. She is excited. She’s been an archivist at Sugar Books for four years now, in charge of romance novels and anything human-authored. Obviously, most of her work focuses on the former, but Adil, their Head Archivist, has just brought it in a crate of human-authored novels from decades before Nesta was born. Her job is to restore them--reapplying ink if necessary, spining, applying new covers--and set a price. The other archivists participate in sales, but Nesta rarely does.
“No patience left for customers,” Zeyn likes to say.
Of course, Nesta is also in charge of reading them.
Nesta will always have a soft spot for human-authored books, no matter the genre, no matter if she even likes the book or not. Even reading something she doesn’t like...just feeling proof of human ingenuity and creativity and art in her hands...something she once thought she’d have to live completely without....
“Adil’s called a meeting for later today,” he says.
“What about?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is it going to run late? I have to be at the nursery--”
“At four,” Zeyn says, a lazy smile on his face. “You think I don’t know your schedule?” He lightly tugs on a lock of Nesta’s hair that’s fallen out her coronet.
His touch is warm and familiar. Comfortable. Nesta doesn’t shrug him away this time, and his fingers linger on her cheek.
Zeyn is a lesser faerie--though of course, they don’t call themselves that in Gilameyva. They uses the term nagil. The finger lingering on her cheek is warm, warmer than Nesta’s body is, and his skin is brown and spotted white, like a deer. He has ears like one as well, and horns. Antlers , he calls them, but Nesta disagrees. They curl twice around, planted in his white hair, which is short and has the same texture as fur. His legs are muscular and humanoid down to his knees, where they switch to those of a deer, too, and end in hooves.
It’s never bothered Nesta. She’s never differentiated between the different types of faeries--first, because she feared and loathed them all, and now, because her town is full of nagil, and these are the people who helped her build a home for her children.
“How are your new mystery novels?” Nesta asks.
“Coming along,” he says, drawing his hand away from her cheek and draping it over her shoulder. He likes to always be touching Nesta, she knows, and she lets him, sometimes. “I’m glad they’re getting more popular.”
He tells her about the influx of customers from Wintergreen Glen, how their town’s bookstore wasn’t keeping up with their sudden demand for one of his genres and one of Leyla’s as well (horror).
She listens to him. Mostly. As she does with her children.
She just has so much work to do. And more to do when she gets home. She really can’t spare a moment to think.
“Hey, you two,” Xeyale Mammadov, calls, walking in. “Come to the front of the shop. Adil wants to start.”
Some of the nagil, like Zeyn, don’t spark anything in Nesta’s mind. They are faerie, yes, but not so faerie that she could not have imagined them as a human. But some people make her remember that humans know nothing of faeries.
Xeyale and their sibling Amir, their twin marketers, remind her.
Born to a nagil people with no sex markers, they each have black eyes, with no irises or whites, and deep blue skin. Their similarities end there, though, with Xeyale being a few inches taller than Amir, a longer face, and darker hair.
“Do you know what it’s about?” Nesta asks them.
“Yeah. And it’s quite grim, I think. Morrisey’s not signing with us.”
“What?”
“Really?”
Xeyale nods. “And Adil knew when I told him.”
Nesta stands up and stalks into the front room of the shop, where most of her fellow staff are already gathered. Adil is sitting quietly, ignoring Miri, the archivist in charge of faerie-authored human fiction and historical novels, talking animatedly with Leyla.
Maz and and Amir are talking as well, Maz still working on the spine of one of his new nonfictions.
Nesta jerks her head upward. “Is it true we’re not publishing the next Morrisey novel?” she demands.
At this, everyone stops talking. Leyla’s mouth drops open.
“What?”
“How can he do that?”
“Don’t we have a clause?”
“Is that true, Adil?” Miri says, in a calmer tone than the others, still sounding concerned.
Adil meets her warm brown eyes with his own near-black ones. “I’d prefer to wait until Hazar is here to discuss the matter.”
Hazar, their publishing agent--oh, yes, Nesta wants to hear what he has to say about this.
And after a few minutes of uncomfortable murmuring (mostly from Maz--“What about the clause?”), Hazar walks in as he always does: unhurried, dressed impeccably in ostentatious City fashion favored by the young, later than everyone, and completely oblivious. In this case, it’s to Nesta glaring daggers at Adil and Adil’s pointed look at the ceiling.
“Good afternoon, lovely people,” he says, practically chirping.
“Right,” says Xeyale, clapping their hands. “To business, yes?”
Adil finally looks at them, his staff. He meets each of their eyes, takes a breath, and says, “We have competition.”
The archivists and agents are all quiet for a few moments. Then Leyla says, “Well, sure.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Adil says. He purses his lips. Miri strokes his arm with her hand, but Nesta doesn’t have the patience for this.
“Out with it, Adil.”
“I mean...” he says, and he looks right at Nesta, “we have competition in Chokecherry.”
Nesta sees Zeyn frown. She doesn’t think he understands. But she does, and her heart sinks. Images in her mind appear like flashes: Ava spinning around in her new City dress, Nicky laughing at the tumbling classes he’s only just started, and Ollie finally talking to another child at the local pool without following his brother and sister.
“Chokecherry doesn’t do publishing, though,” Maz says.
Nesta rolls her eyes, the biting reply an easy outlet for her heartbreak. “They’ve clearly begun, Donmaz. And they’re stealing our clients.”
“Morrisey’s signed another contract,” Adil says. “With them.”
“I don’t understand how he’s allowed to do that with our clause,” blurts out Maz.
“For the Mother’s sake, Maz,” Nesta says. “The clause only prohibits him reselling the novel we published."
“Well, why didn’t we put in--”
“My fault,” Hazar says, and his face has fallen, for the first time since Nesta has met him. “I just...I never even thought...we have no competition. Not west of Anvernessa City.”
“I don’t want us to start blaming each other,” Adil says sternly, and he looks each of them in the eye. “Now, this is going to be a fight. But we are not going to lose. We have the best team of archivists, the best set of marketers, and the best publishing agent in Gilameyva. We have the support of the town. We have loyal authors who won’t even consider signing with Chokecherry, and we’re going to write new contracts for those who might leave. We’re going to do better in sales, and we’re going to be all right.”
The pep-talk is all fine and good, but Nesta needs to feed three children and she will not drop any of the new things she has finally been able to provide for them. “How are we going to do better in sales?” she says.
“We’re going to travel,” he answers. “We’re going to go to berry fairs and open booths up. Amalike Orchards has one in two weeks and I’ve got us registered.” Adil continues telling them about his plan, about how this is going to work for them, but Nesta can’t hear him. She can only see the three of them, her children, her babies.
If they lose publishing, they will lose archiving and marketing. They will lose money. There will be pay cuts. And Nesta cannot have one. She has nothing to fall back on. She has savings, sure, but not enough forever, and they’re mostly for the children when they get older, when they want to start their lives--
“You’re spiraling,” Zeyn mumbles in her ear.
Nesta tucks a stray lock back. She struggles to keep her voice low and calm. “I’m properly concerned.”
“Do you really think any of us are going to let Ava or Nick or Ollie starve?” he says. “Do you think I’m going to let anything happen to you?”
Nesta’s heartbeat quickens. She knows he’s waiting for an answer. “I’m worried,” she says.
“I know,” he says, voice still low. “But you’ll be all right. This whole town adores your children. People love you. Even if they’re a little scared. You make them feel safe. Do you really think we’ll let you lose your house?”
She’ll never have the blind faith in people he has. But that’s one of the reasons she likes him around her children. She hopes they’ll be more like that. Trusting. Hopeful.
“You’ll be all right,” he whispers again.
The meeting ends rather unceremoniously, with Adil clearly not knowing whether or not he should apologize. Which he shouldn’t. She knows, perhaps better than the whole staff, how hard he works for them. How much he gives them.
She’s not naive. She knows full well the more than generous deal she made with the bank on her home was not in thanks to her salary as a then four-months-employed archivist.
And so she says to him, mumbling, “Thank you,” as she leaves.
But Adil is like her, and so he barely nods his acknowledgment and hurries to do something very urgent in the back room.
“Nicky wants you to come for dinner,” Nesta says to Zeyn as they gather their coats when it’s time to leave. “So you can show him your secret.”
Zeyn grins at her. “Of course he does.”
Nesta rolls her eyes. “Are you coming, or are you breaking my son’s heart?”
“Breaking his heart, unfortunately,” he says, his voice in mock sorrow. Then he grins again. “Promised Maz I’d meet him at Jamal’s.”
“You’re ditching us for Maz?”
“I know you secretly love him. I’ll come over tomorrow.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Nesta says as they leave the store and head toward the nursery. “Can you pick up Avery and Nicky tomorrow? And just be with them for a bit? I need to take Ollie to the healer.”
Zeyn frowns, his ears quivering as his brow furrows. “What’s happened to Ollie?”
“He’s not eating.”
“Oh, Nesta, he’s three, he’s not starving himself. He’s just not hungry.”
“Well, Avery and Nicky eat a lot more than he does...”
They talk all the way to the nursery. It’s not so much bickering for Nesta as it is her thinking aloud and consulting, sharing her ideas and getting feedback in return.
Having Zeyn around is like having a partner, Nesta thinks.
“Zeyn!” Nicky cries when he spots them at the nursery. “Are you coming to my house?”
Zeyn scoops him up. “No, I’m sorry, little chief, I can’t today. But we’re going to be together tomorrow after nursery.”
“Can you!” Nicky cries out, then lowers his voice. “Can you show me our secret then?”
Zeyn lowers his voice to match Nicky’s. “I sure can.” He looks at Nesta and winks.
Nesta rolls her at him. “Hi, Ollie,” she says, crouching down to help him into his coat. “How was your day?”
“Good,” he says to her. His voice is small and high-pitched and he uses her accent when he talks to her.
“What did you do that was good?”
“I colored,” he says.
“You colored? That does sound good. Did you play with anyone?”
“Ava and Nicky.”
“Anyone else?”
“Emilia,” he says, naming Classia’s daughter, the female from Prythian.
“You did?” she says, smiling, pleasantly surprised.. “By yourself and Emilia or with your brother and sister?”
“By myself because Nicky was with Oz and Ava was with Ramil.”
Nesta beams at him. “Let’s get your sister. We’ll go home and eat something and maybe we’ll go to the park. Maybe we’ll pick up Emilia. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good!” Nicky says.
“All right, where’s Avery?”
It takes a little while longer to get back outside, and they split ways at the entrance to the housing section, with Zeyn turning around to meet Maz at whatever they’ve planned.
“Oh, and could you bring by some oranges?” Nesta calls after him.
He waves to show he heard her and she nods. She picks Nicky up, because he keeps walking too far ahead, and holds onto Ollie’s hand, because he keeps lagging behind, and says to Avery, “So, you were playing with Ramil today?”
“Yes, I was,” she says. “I was playing with him and with Nicky and Ollie and Kamrin and Zehra--”
“Avery, ladybug,” she says. “Can you tell me how Ramil’s doing?”
Ramil’s mother was alone, like Nesta was. They had just moved here. Nesta didn’t know from where, but she suspected Anvernessa City, Gilameyva’s capital. She felt for the female.
Avery starts to tell her, but she doesn’t hear. Because her heart has stopped in her chest. Because Cassian is standing on her porch.
September 23 - Year of
Nearly two weeks Nesta had been in Illyria, and though she did not think it comfortable in the least, she had found herself a routine.
Every morning she would stay in her bedroom in Cassian’s home and ignore his incessant knocking until he left to go do whatever it was he did. After she heard him-- felt him --leave, she made her way to the kitchen to find herself something to eat.
It appeared that she left whatever little appetite she had back in Velaris and she could not keep what she did manage to swallow down. Generally a bit of dry toast. Then she’d head back to her room and try to concentrate long enough on a book to read, until it was time for lunch. Then she again try to force something down, something warm. Try to read again. Until she fell asleep.
She skipped dinner. Cassian was always there for dinner.
And all this while trying to avoid the mind-splitting headaches.
She knew what was causing them. She needed a drink.
There was no reprieve. She wanted a drink every second; she did not care what kind. She could feel every drop of blood in her body circulating and every drop hurt. Every bit of her screamed for it, demanded it.
But she had searched the entire house top to bottom multiple times, even though she knew it was no use. There was no way Cassian would keep anything even similar to alcohol. Not while she was here. And certainly not if her sister had anything to do with it.
She had sent letters. They both had, Feyre and Elain. Cassian left them for her in the kitchen. They made her freeze the first time she saw them. She hadn’t realized what she was doing, but she was suddenly aware of herself holding them, moving to open them. She had dropped them just as suddenly and turned on her heel, back into her room.
She did not even let herself think what was in those letters. She couldn’t even bear to summon their images in her mind’s eye.
The throbbing pain in her head, in sync with her aching blood flow and the chokehold she felt beating at her throat never wavered, and she did not know if they ever would.
She was sitting in her room, book open in her lap, staring at the wall, when she heard him walk in the door.
He did everything so loudly...each step thundered through the house, shaking the desk a bit when he knocked on the door.
She did not know why he bothered. She knew he was home, obviously, and they both knew she wasn’t going to open the door. She did not enjoy their fights nearly as much as he clearly did, and she was too tired, anyway.
“Nesta, I know you’re up.”
That’s what he said each time. And it was such a stupid thing to say, it almost earned him a biting reply. I know you’re up .... She wasn’t hiding it! She wasn’t too scared to talk to him. She just could not have been bothered.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
She almost scoffed aloud.
“About... I’m going to Velaris.”
At that, she responded. Not to him, of course, not in words. But she jerked her head towards the door.
He was leaving to Velaris? He was...leaving her alone? Or would he send someone in his stead? Someone from Velaris to take his place here, or some other brute from Illyria?
Of course, if he was going to Velaris, that meant Feyre had summoned him. Feyre would not have some Illyrian stay in the house with her, would she? She hadn’t let Lucien, the Autumn male, talk to them when they were all staying in the House of Wind, and they had been friends....
“So you’ll be alone for a few days.”
Nesta raised an eyebrow. A few days? Alone?
“I’m leaving now. I’ll be back before the week is over.”
And what day was it? She did not know, she was not keeping track. She only knew she had been here about two weeks because a few days prior he had asked her if she wanted to do something special for their one-week anniversary.
Prick. Sometimes he made her angry enough to want to break out of the quiet she had sunken herself into.
“Something’s come up. It’s urgent.”
I don’t care , she almost said, but she bit her tongue.
“Well, I’m going now.”
She heard him leave down the hall into his own room. After a few minutes, she heard him reenter the hallway and linger for a few moments. She knew he was debating going to knock on her door again or just leaving.
He decided to go. She heard his retreating footsteps, and the front door open and shut. She was alone in the house.
Nesta closed her book slowly.
Being alone in the house did not mean very much to Nesta. She did, of course, prefer it over being with him. But it’s not like there was anything she did while he was gone.
Still, it seemed a shame to waste these precious few days...whole days with him gone, in Velaris. Hours of flight away.
Illyrians were a warrior race; these mountains clearly had nothing to offer her. But she might like a walk outside. And she might...possibly...find a tavern.
That thought was enough to set her in motion. She grabbed her coat and and made her way to the door.
She opened it and was startled by how cold it was. And the wind. Nesta had never lived in the mountains before, she hadn’t realized how windy it could get. And this was the northernmost area of Prythian. It was only September...how cold would it get?
If she was going to spend more time outdoors here, she would certainly need heavier clothes. But she had no money, and it would have to be a lot colder than the windchill for her to ask Cassian to take her shopping.
Cassian’s house was separate from the others in the camp. That’s what he called it, a camp. Not a town. Not even a village. A camp. A war camp.
The houses in the camp all circled the center. It was easy enough to find, and she remembered Cassian pointing it out to her as they flew in.
“It’s got all the stores,” he told her. “Clothes and food and...” he had trailed off, and standing in the center, Nesta knew why. It was because it didn’t have much else.
The clothing stores were clearly nothing like the ones in Velaris--they weren’t even better than the market booths in her little human village. Just looking in through the windows, she could see they sold things people would need for the cold in the mountains and fighting gear. Nothing fashionable or fun.
Nesta had liked wearing pretty things, once. She may not have cared for her appearance anymore, but she quite suddenly found herself missing just wanting something new.
The food shops weren’t much better. Nesta passed a few butchers’, two produce places, and a fish market. There was a place Nesta knew would serve drinks, but it was too big, it would be too crowded, too noisy. Not what she was looking for.
There were dozens of Illyrians around, of course. Nesta had forgotten how much they had feared her last time.
But she did not spare any of them a second glance. Most High Fae in Velaris had been frightened of her as well, and she learned how to let that roll off her, as well.
After a few more minutes of wandering, on the edge of the shops, she found it. It wasn’t clearly advertised as a tavern, but that was how she knew: Nesta had done a good job of familiarizing herself with shoddy, unmarked buildings.
Some of the Illyrians around her--mostly female, the males were probably off training for whatever war they planned to fight next--mumbled as she steered herself towards it, but she didn’t care. She was thinking only of her next drink.
Finally. It had been far too long.
No bell rang as she entered, but the door creaked. The few patrons there were inside did not look up, but the male at the counter did. His chin set and he squared his shoulders. Summoning his courage to face her, undoubtedly. Ridiculous.
Nesta looked around as she approached him. The chairs were mis-matched, but mostly all red, and looked comfortable enough. There were two males in the far corner playing a card game--not one she recognized, but she was a fast learner. They had a plate of what looked to be thinly sliced roasted potatoes. She wasn’t sure how clean they were, but she always appreciated when a tavern offered something more than assorted nuts.
“What’s your house drink?” Nesta asked the male as she slid into a seat at the bar. All the abandoned gods, she was finally going to have a drink. She hated even wasting time to ask! Because anything he would give her would be good enough.
“Not serving,” he said carefully. His eyes flickered around the room, but they kept darting back towards her.
“All right,” she said, frowning a little. The whole point of the house drink was that it was served all hours the establishment was open, but whatever, she didn’t care. “Do you have any white liquor?”
He shook his head.
“Ale?” she said.
He took a deep breath and a step back. “No, lady, I mean we’re not serving you.”
Nesta narrowed her eyes and angled herself forward. “You’re not serving me?”
The male took another deep breath. “Commander’s orders, lady.”
Nesta’s lip curled. Commander’s orders . She would kill him. She would kill Feyre and her stupid new High Lord. And most of all, she would kill for a drink.
As she opened her mouth, ready to shred into the barmale, an old expression her mother used to use floated into her mind: you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
“Look,” she said, and she tried to make her voice sound less... frightening. “It’s been a long few weeks. I just want one drink. Your Commander’s been hounding me... I’m sure you can understand.” She tried to laugh a little at the end.
Was she flirting? She didn’t know. She had never been good with any of that stuff, anyway. Feyre and Elain, sure. But she had never really engaged in a courtship.
With Tomas... she didn’t like to think about it. But in hindsight, it was clear to her that no, she didn’t really captivate him with any wit. And it made her feel stupid to think back on it, so she steered her mind back towards the bar.
“He’s not my Commander,” grunted the barmale.
“What a coincidence,” she said cooly. “Neither is he mine.” She drummed her fingers on the bar. “Come on, then.” She pulled a silver piece out of her pocket, grossly overpaying for one glass. “Just one drink... I’ll even buy you one.”
There. That was flirting, wasn’t it? And she was still beautiful, even if she did terrify him, and anyway, males liked feeling scared. Didn’t they? Wasn’t it part of the excitement for them?
That’s what had driven all those males in Velaris to her bed. She certainly hadn’t made any effort to romance them.
Would she take this male to bed? The thought of being with an Illyrian... Cassian would lose his mind, surely. Which had its appeal. But Nesta didn’t think she’d be able to stand it, either.
With a start, she realized she was thinking of doing something solely for the purpose of irritating Cassian. Just being in a tavern was making her feel better.
Well, perhaps not solely that purpose. Sleeping with a barmale would have other obvious perks as well.
“What do you say?” she tried to sound coy. She wagered she did not.
“I say get out,” he said, flatly. Then hurried to add, “Lady. Commander’s orders... as I said.”
Commander’s orders . Nesta clenched her jaw, angry thoughts swimming in her mind.
So he just brought her here, dumped her in his war camp, and cut off all resources to her only vice?
Nesta turned herself around, stiffly. There was no point in arguing with him. He was clearly more scared of Cassian than he was of her, and she did not have enough control of her magic to threaten him properly. There were not enough patrons to sneak in and convince one to buy her a drink--but later, tonight, perhaps, there would be. Yes, she would come again tonight, find someone, a group of males, eager to impress her and one another, and she would beat them at cards and they would buy her a drink.
She stopped at the door. There was a corkboard with papers pinned to it. Some notices in Illyrian, some in the common tongue. One in particular caught her eye. She turned back around to the barmale.
“What is this?”
“What?” he said warily.
“This,” she said, pointing at the flyer in question.
“Oh,” he said. “Ships out to Gilameyva every two months. You can ship something. Or you can book passage.”
“Gill-ah-may-vah?” Nesta said, trying out the new word.
“Aye, lady. On the continent. No more than a month by ship.” He looked at her expectantly, but still wary. “Will that be all? Lady?”
Her eyes trailed back to the paper. The date read for two weeks from then. The cheapest ticket price was...more than Nesta has on her.
Somehow she didn’t think Cassian would fund this.
She didn’t answer the barmale. She just left, and she ignored the Illyrians who pulled themselves out of her way as she stalked back to the house.
Her mind was focused on the paper. It advertised Gilameyva as the berry lands. There had been a drawing of a berry field on the bottom, with smiling faeries.
It sounded ridiculous, as a country. And the only lands she knew of on the continent had sided with Hybern in the war. And she didn’t have near enough money to buy her way there, let alone support herself when she arrived
But the idea was there. And it wouldn’t go away, not if she knew herself.
Which, she mused, she wasn’t quite sure she did anymore.
October 14 - 4 years after
Cassian has spent the entire flight from Velaris with Nesta’s likeness in his mind’s eye. In different forms. Her snarls from when he had known her in her father’s estate, her blank nothing in her crumbling apartment, and her eventual comfort in Illyria. Or so he thought. Before she fled.
And of course, he thinks of the Nesta he hadn’t seen. He imagines her wandering Gilameyva, pregnant and alone. Hungry and poor and scared and calling for him. Wanting to come back. Sending letters and crying when no response came.
Of course, that image is barely reconcilable with the Nesta he knew, in any of her states. And she has a home, as he knows from the Veritas. And she does look well enough, from what he was able to make out. A bit heavier than he remembers her, which is good.
But the fact remains. He has become everything he has raged against. He has abandoned his pregnant female to rear their children alone.
Rhys, he knows, will plead his ignorance of her pregnancy, but it doesn’t matter. Not to him, not as he sees her lost and afraid the whole way over to Sugar Valley. And certainly not as he finally sees her in person, when she turns the corner to her house, her-- their --children in tow.
Everything he planned on saying falls out of his head. There is simply Nesta. Nesta, her hair in her usual coronet, framing her face, paler in Gilameyva’s autumn than it had been in Illyria’s. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, and then they are white, and then very red.
He can’t take his off her. He can’t speak.
Until he hears a small voice say, “Who’s our neighbor, Mummy?”
And he looks down. At his son.
The one who spoke has black hair-his black hair--loose around his face, almost rectangular with the chubbiness of his cheeks. Wide grey eyes. Red lips. And Cassian realizes the combination of pointed ears and Illyrian wings, which he has only seen on two other people before, is in front of him threefold.
Nesta says, softly, “He’s not our neighbor.”
Her voice. He has not heard her voice in four years.
“Does he live here?” pipes up the girl.
And Cassian nearly breaks down in tears when he takes in the girl. Because she is Nesta, with her sharp chin and sloped nose and full lips. The same brown hair. But she is slightly darker than her mother...and she has hazel eyes.
“No,” Nesta says, her voice still quiet.
He looks at the third child, the other boy. Slightly smaller than the other two, with a thinner face than his brother and darker skin than his sister and his eyes, again. His hair is lighter than any of theirs, more reminiscent of Feyre and Elain than Nesta.
They are all so perfect, beautiful, small, and Cassian’s about to fall to his knees and beg Nesta for her forgiveness when she locks eyes with him and opens her mouth and says, “Let’s go inside.”
“Can we say hello?” the girl asks her.
“You can say hello. Then go play upstairs.”
“Is he coming inside? Hello!” The greeting is directed at him when they reach the door.
Cassian tears his stare from Nesta and looks down to the girl--his daughter. “Hello,” he says, and by some miracle he manages to find his voice and sounds normal.
But then she smiles at him and Cassian doesn't know what to do because he can feel his heart break again--
“Inside,” Nesta instructs. She is seemingly unaffected, ushering the children in as she opens the door.
“I want to say hello too!”
“You can say hello, then go inside and let Mummy talk.”
“Hello! What’s your name?”
“Are you our neighbor?”
“Inside,” Nesta says firmly, and closes the door. She turns to face him.
Neither of them say anything.
Until he does. He says to her, “Hello.” And his voice is as soft as hers was with the children.
Hers is not. “Why are you here?”
He blinks. Is she serious? “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“I said everything I wanted to four years ago. There’s nothing left to say.”
He supposes she’s right but it still hurts, cuts sharply into his heart.
“Are you all right?” he asks her. Because that’s surely all that matters here.
“Am I all right?” she asks, blankly, as if not understanding what he means.
“You and the children,” he says. “Are you all right?”
Nesta purses her lips--Mother, he’d forgotten she did that. “We’re...fine,” she says slowly.
“Let me help,” he says immediately. “What is it?” He prays it’s money, because he doesn’t know what else he can do. What if she says she can’t take care of them by herself anymore? Will they move to Velaris? Or will he have to move here? Or what if...what if she says she can’t at all anymore, and the children are his fault and he left her, really, because of the letters, and now he has to take care of them alone? He doesn’t know how. He’s nearly five hundred fifty years old and he’s never had children to take care of.
She looks up. Looks back at him. Her eyes tell him she hates this. “My...place of work,” she says carefully, gritting her teeth, “may be coming into some...issues.”
Relief hits him like a blast of cold wind. “I’ll give you money,” he says. “I’ll--you can have access to my entire account. It’s in Velaris’ bank--I’ll set it up so you can use it here.”
“I don’t need your entire account,” she starts to say.
“Please let me be in your lives,” he blurts out. “Please. Please, Nesta, sweetheart, please.”
Her eyes widen. He bites his lip. Please he wants to say again, but he doesn’t let himself.
She takes a deep breath. “I can’t...discuss this...right now.”
He seizes the meagre bone she tosses. “When can you?”
Nesta brings her hand to her face and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Um,” she says, eyes shut tight. “Tomorrow...noon.”
“Lunch?”
Nesta opens her eyes. He can’t quite read them, which is another twist inside. He used to know all her looks, all her poses. He used to name them.
“Sure,” she says. “Lunch. There’s a place in the square. Jamal’s. We can meet there.”
He sucks in a breath. This feels surreal. He’s making plans with Nesta for lunch tomorrow and his children are inside.
“Nesta--”
“I don’t care what you think of me, but I am a good mother,” she cuts him off. And there’s fire in her eyes, the fire that burned in a body far weaker than the one before him, burned all the way through he feared it would destroy her. “I am doing this for them, you understand?”
“I understand,” he says.
“Where are you staying?”
“I, ah....”
“There’s an inn. Just outside town. Sugar Valley Inn.” She gives him the address. “Tell no one who you are. Tell no one where you’re from. Do not mention my name. In any capacity. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Then...go. And...I’ll...see you. At lunch.” She looks at him for a moment, on the verge of something, but then pushes past him, enters the house and shuts the door firmly behind her. He can hear her turn four locks.
He knows he could stay here on her porch all night, so he throws open his wings and flies in search of the inn, before he hears one of their voices and breaks down the door, begging her to let him in.
He sees the street name Nesta gave him before he even realizes he doesn’t know their names.