The pane of glass is stretched from floor to ceiling, offering a view of The Fade’s gradual smudge into the distant Shade, framed by frosty runes that make the window look like stone from the other side. Another one of Essi’s clever adaptations.
Seeking that wonky moon in the distance, I see the rising aurora tangled around it like the frayed threads of a silver gown unraveled by the handsy wind.
A soft smile fills my cheeks despite this weight settling in my chest, like something’s sitting on me. Something that feels a bit like … regret.
My smile falls.
Essi called me family and I walked away. After everything she’s been through, I walked away.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
How can I look at that moon with so much love in my heart—love that ricochets off my ribs every time I look at Essi?
Stupid question. I know exactly what’s wrong with me.
Loving that moon feels safe. Moonfalls are so rare it’ll likely always be there, accepting my quiet adoration.
Loving Essi … it makes me feel like I’m handling something fragile that’ll break apart in my hands if I tighten my grip even the slightest bit.
Sighing, I lift the lid on my small box.
Nee bats her plain parchment wings and rises from the hollow, fluttering around me in a churn of giddy motion, nuzzling my face, shoulder, neck. She tries to wiggle into my ear, making it impossible not to smile.
“Careful not to hurt yourself,” I murmur, gently nudging her away from my face and easing her toward the rest of the room so she can stretch her little wings. She does a few lofty loops, then tucks her head and plummets—too fast.
Too far away.
She collides with the floor beak-first, and I flinch.
Fuck.
I scramble up and dash to her, swooping her into my palm. “Nee, I really wish you’d stop doing this …”
She jerks, flipping onto her back, baring the three beautifully scrawled letters visible on her abdomen, the rest of her message tucked within the darts of her streamlined body.
I cut her an incredulous glare, unimpressed by the not-so-subtle nudge for me to unfold her. “You know, of all the tricks you use to get me to read you, this is my least favorite,” I mutter, waiting for her to move again. To dart back into the air and burn off all the energy she’s built up while I’ve been out.
Nothing.
“I’m serious.” I jiggle my hand. “You look dead. Stop it.”
Still, she doesn’t move.
I blow on her. Again.
Again.
My heart crimps. “Nee—”
She waggles her parchment tail, and all the breath shoves from my lungs as prickly relief packs me full.
I shake my head, rubbing my sternum. “This is called rewarding bad behavior,” I grouse, gently unfolding her crushed beak, head, tail, wings, then body, baring her message that’s more than five phases old:
Three small words I’m certain were never meant for me—not that it’s stopped me reading them again and again.
I devour the delicate sweep of each tailored letter, brushing the pad of my thumb across them like a Nee belly scratch as I recall the moment she came to me.
She must’ve gotten lost on her journey to whoever she was intended for, instead nuzzling into the crook of my neck like she was seeking comfort from a storm. I’d opened her, read her message, and realized how important she was—come from somebody who was not okay, though they perhaps didn’t know how to say it aloud.
I’d folded her up and blown her back to the sky, asking Clode to carry her high into the currents so she could recalibrate and head in the right direction.
Find the one she was intended for.
The next rise, I’d woken to her resting in my palm, a tear in her wing and a very squished nose, like she’d battled against Clode’s currents … and won.
Hard to part with her after that.
I sweep my thumb over those three words again, then gently fold her back up, flattening her beak crimp and checking that her rip hasn’t gotten any bigger. She bursts from my hand in a flutter of motion and bats about the room like she’s burning off a furnace full of energy.
“If you’re not more careful, I’ll pack the room with down feathers,” I warn, and she flips through the air, swooping toward me in a wobbly glide, dipping into the crook of my neck where she nuzzles in. I settle my hand atop her and rock until she stops wiggling, my thoughts drifting back to Essi. To the jarring way she looked at me through those big eyes glazed with … too much.
Sighing, I make for my pallet, then cast my stare to the sky outside.