Roman waited at a small table in the corner of the café, coat slung over the back of his chair. He had called Iris from one of the public phones just outside the train station, unwilling to risk using the one at his parents’ house. It had taken all his wits to sneak out of the estate to begin with. He couldn’t use the front gates without detection and so he had strayed deep in the gardens, where he knew there was a break in the property fence, far from sight of the back windows.
He drummed his fingers over his thighs, his gaze remaining on the café doors, watching people come and go. None of whom were Iris, but he had wanted to be the first one here, and by the ticking of the clock on the wall … she still had eight minutes to arrive on time.
The waiter delivered a tea tray but Roman didn’t touch it. Fragrant steam danced from the pot, reminding him of those sulfur pools in the world below.
The bell chimed above the door. A young woman wearing a trench coat and a hat stepped into the café. Roman held his breath but it wasn’t Iris.
He was fairly certain Val was trailing him. Roman hadn’t caught sight of him on the brisk walk downtown, but he had felt a cold sensation creep down his neck. A prickle of warning that someone was observing him, keeping a tally of where he went and what he said.
Don’t let your guard down, he told himself for the tenth time that morning. Not even when you see her.
Two more minutes passed before he finally caught sight of Iris through the café windows.
Roman froze like he was ensorcelled. He couldn’t breathe as he watched her cross the street. Her trench coat was unbuttoned and flapping in the breeze, revealing a glimpse of her snug sweater and pleated skirt. He saw the flash of her pale knees as she hurried over the cobblestones, her hair tangling across her face as she glanced to the side, waiting for a vehicle to pass.
Make it feel like the Gazette days, Roman thought as Iris reached the door and pulled it open with an adorable scrunch of her nose. She stepped into the café, a gust billowing around her as if the very wind had brought her here, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. She paused by the counter and chewed her lip as she studied the crowd. As she looked for him.
Roman felt his pulse in his ears. Within those two beats, he tamed his longings and put a guard in place. His expression was cool, aloof. He could play this role well. It felt as familiar as an old, well-worn shirt. And yet when their gazes met over the bustle and noise, the entire world faded away.
It was only him and her.
It was only the ten steps between them, distance that felt both heady and crushing. It felt too far and dangerously close, and Roman stood, bumping the table. The cups rattled in their saucers; one of the scones toppled from the plate.
Iris smiled and began to weave her way to him.
Don’t. Roman nearly panicked, feeling his blood pound hot and fast. Don’t smile at me like that.
It made him want to collide with her, his lips on her neck, the curve of her ribs. Tasting her mouth. It made him want to draw out all those words he loved from her, but most of all the way she said his name.
By the time she reached their table, she sensed it. His cold exterior, the ice in his gaze. That cloud of reservation and politeness, building like a thunderhead.
Her smile faded but she didn’t seem defeated. No, he only saw determination flare in her eyes, and Roman felt relieved. His shoulders relaxed a fraction.
“Hello, Kitt,” Iris said in a careful tone.
“Winnow,” he replied, clearing his throat. “Thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”
She removed her trench coat and sat. Roman lowered himself back down to his chair and reached for the pot. There was a slight tremor in his hands, as if he had drunk too much coffee on an empty stomach.
“When was the last time I saw you?” Iris said as he poured their tea.
Yes, perfect. Establish a timeline. He dared to glance up, meeting her stare as he handed her a cup.
“I believe it was your last day of work at the Gazette,” he replied. “When I won the columnist position.”
“Ah, so it was.” She sounded like the old Iris. The one who got under his skin with her perfect articles.
But he noticed how she rubbed the palm of her hand. How she studied the tea tray, a wrinkle in her brow, like she suddenly didn’t know where to look. The blush was fading from her face as if she were speaking with a ghost.
“I must say you look well,” he said. And then, because he was an utter fool for her, he bumped her foot beneath the table.
That brought her gaze back to him. Keen and full of light, warm as embers. “Are you implying that I looked ill before?”
He almost smiled, and he was pleased to see the color return to her skin. It could have been a bloom of indignation, or desire. They had played this game well at the Gazette, although if Roman could go back …
No. He shut the thought down. He wouldn’t change a thing. Because if he could, would the two of them still be here, bound together by vow and trial and love that had crept up on him like ivy on stone?
“You look just as I remember you,” he said.
Iris must have understood the hidden meaning. Her expression softened, just a fraction.
He wasn’t acting this way—like they had stepped back in time—because his memories had faltered again. All those pieces were still there, aligned and restitched back together. He was acting reserved for another reason entirely, one he hoped to explain to her later, when it was safe.
“You said you have a message for me?” Iris reached for the pitcher of milk just as he reached for the honey dish.
Their knuckles brushed.
Roman almost froze again, his heart beating like wings against his ribs.
“Ah, I forgot,” Iris continued seamlessly with a wave of her hand. “You only take honey in your tea, like all the poets did. The office was always running low because of you.”
Roman was thankful for the lighthearted distraction. “And you like a little tea with your milk.”
“Oh, come now,” Iris said as she, indeed, poured far too much milk into her cup. “It makes it more substantial.”
That sobered Roman. He remembered those office days, how he had never seen Iris eat or take a proper lunch break. He hadn’t realized she had been keeping herself satiated as best as she could with tea until she was gone. It still made him feel like his lungs were full of water when he thought about it.
“Here,” he said in a gruff voice, to hide how it wanted to shake at that memory. “I ordered some refreshments. Help yourself.”
“I will, actually, take one of these sandwiches.” Iris reached for a triangle-cut cucumber sandwich but then covered her mouth. “Oh, gods!”
“What?” Roman was tense as he leaned forward, preparing to flee. Had she seen Val? Was this all about to crumble?
Iris sighed. “I forgot my purse at the Tribune! I left in such a hurry after you called, I—”
“Don’t worry, this is on me,” Roman gently interrupted. “I drew you away from work. The least I can do is feed you.”
Iris quirked her lips to the side. Roman made himself look down into his tea, feeling an ache in his stomach. In his chest. In his bones.
He waited until Iris had eaten two sandwiches and a scone before he spoke.
“I was sent here to meet with you, by a specific request.”
Iris frowned. “Whose?”
Roman could feel Dacre’s name sitting on his tongue like a shard of glass. He didn’t think it wise to utter it aloud, especially to Iris, who he knew wouldn’t be able to hide how she felt about the god. Especially after everything Dacre had done. To her brother. To the land. To Avalon Bluff. To the army and innocent civilians. To both of them and the future they longed for.
Roman hesitated. This was the part he was most anxious about, but he reached into his coat pocket with confident ease, finding Dacre’s letter as well as the one he had written that morning. He grabbed them both, keeping the elegant blue envelope on the top, his scrawled note concealed below.
“To read in private,” he said, extending them to Iris.
Her frown only deepened when she saw her name, written in penmanship she didn’t recognize. But she took the envelope and felt the folded paper hiding beneath. She kept the two together, gazing down at the blue one before tucking them away in her own coat pocket.
If Val was watching, he would never know two messages had been slipped to her.
“Very well.” Iris drank the last of her tea before setting the cup aside. “Is there anything else you’d like to say to me?”
Roman stared at her. There were hundreds of things he wanted to say to her, and yet he couldn’t voice a single one. Not here, in public. Not as he longed to do, as if it were just the two of them on an ordinary date, and after this they would take a stroll in the park, hand in hand.
Maybe one day.
“No,” he said. “And I’ve kept you longer than I should.” He rose and drew on his coat, putting the bill on his father’s tab.
Iris also stood, although that worried gleam had returned to her eyes. She pressed her lips together as she donned her coat, buttoning it tight this time.
“I suppose that’s it, then?” she asked.
It killed Roman to resist eye contact. To act like she was nothing more than a former colleague. He drew in a sharp breath, smelling a hint of lavender. He knew it was her skin, the soap she used.
“That’s it,” he said, hollow. “Good day to you, Winnow.”
He turned and strode away, shoving the café door open so hard that the bell above almost rang itself loose.
He walked, hands clenched in his pockets, until the city had swallowed him whole.
Iris stared at Roman’s retreating backside.
It felt like her heart had impaled itself on one of her ribs. That if she reached beneath her coat and sweater and touched her side, her fingers would come away bloodstained.
The dark spell was broken by the waiter, who began to gather up the dirty dishes.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Iris gave him a weak smile and stepped out of the way, but her mind was like a hive, humming with thoughts. She reached into her pocket and felt the sharp corner of the envelope again. Turning, she walked down the lopsided hallway to the lavatory.
It was empty, and Iris locked the door behind her.
She grimaced as she lowered the toilet lid and sat on it, bringing the notes out into the dim light. She stared at them both, as if caught between the starkness of the two. The blue one with her name in elegant ink—Iris E. Winnow—or the plain one, with Roman’s endearing scrawl—My Iris—over the face of it.
She had always preferred bad news first, and she tore open the blue envelope.
Dear Iris E. Winnow,
I confess that I had never heard of you, or taken proper interest in your journalism, until your most recent article in the Inkridden Tribune, by which I was deeply moved. Forgive me, for overlooking you in the past. In all my years, I have discovered that the most precious of things are often taken for granted, and that we tend to let time wheel forward at such a pace that we cannot catch every detail that makes the whole. We miss a multitude of opportunities, and so we ask ourselves, decades later, what could have been.
I do not wish the same for you—it is a constant flame I see in mortal kind—and hope you learn from my wisdom. For I would offer you the world reforged if you would be brave enough to stretch out your hand and take it. A writer such as you, with words like iron and salt, could change the very course of time if you only had the right support.
Come write for me. Come write about the things that are most important. The things that are often overlooked, and what lurks just beneath the surface of what we see. Join me and my forces as we build a stronger realm above, one of healing and restoration. One of justice for old wounds. I would like to hear your thoughts, face-to-face. I would like to see what other words hide within that mind of yours, and how we may use them to sharpen the world around us and usher in a new and divine era.
Think on my offer. You will know when to give me your answer.
Dacre Underling
Lord Commander
Iris released a tremulous breath as she lowered the paper to her lap.
She sat numb for a moment, staring at a painting that hung crooked on the wall. Dacre’s words spilled through her thoughts, permeating everything until it felt like she was about to sink into a bog.
“Later,” she whispered, tucking Dacre’s letter back into the envelope. “I’ll deal with this later.”
A bad idea to delay something that would only grow to become a stronger monster. As if her indecision and terror would feed it.
But Iris still had Roman’s note to read. She held it up, admiring his handwriting before she unfolded it. Her palms were damp, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might tear its way free, through bone and muscle and veins.
She would always take bad news first, and Dacre’s letter was one of the most sinister things she had ever read. But after her strange meeting with Roman, this could also be something terrible. Something she was not prepared for, just as she had not been prepared to hear his voice on the line, and Iris closed her eyes, afraid to read his words.
You look just as I remember you, he had said not half an hour ago.
She breathed deeply until her lungs burned. Only then did she open her eyes and read:
Dear Iris,
I know you’re brimming with questions. You’re wondering why I just met you for tea, why I am in Oath to begin with, and why I haven’t written to you prior to this, letting you know I was coming for a visit. And I have the answers, but I can only give them to you in person, when we are not being watched. When we are in a safe and private place.
I will be here for one night only before I must return to my post. One night, and I would like to spend it with you.
I will have to sneak you into my house, of course. Be prepared for a climb. And I know this is not without its risks, to ask you to come by cover of night. But if you can … there is a break in my father’s estate fence, toward the northeast side of the gardens. Approach from Derby Road—there is a footpath between homes 1345 and 1347—and you will see the weak point in the fence, just beneath an oak tree. It is nearly concealed by brambles, but if you look, you will find the path. I will be waiting for you there at half past ten, when the moon rises.
Love,
Kitt
P.S. A final note written by my future self, because I know I will be feeling this as I walk away from you: gods, you looked gorgeous at tea. I would like to take you to all the places you love most in the city, and then beyond. Think about them. Make me a list. We’ll go anywhere you want to. We’ll go together when the war is over.
Iris made it to the end. She couldn’t quite read the words anymore, through the tears that stung her eyes.
Someone knocked loudly on the door. The sound brought her back to the present: she was sitting on a toilet lid, the sounds of a café muted through the walls. She pulled the lever to flush, alerting the person waiting that she was almost done, because her voice had rusted in her throat.
Rising, Iris tucked the letters back into her pocket and washed her hands at the sink, staring at her reflection in the speckled mirror.
She would not live in fear. She would not fulfill Dacre’s silver-tongued omen for her.
It didn’t matter how many years passed or what lay ahead for her. What the war would or would not bring.
Iris would never find herself lost to what could have been.
