Folding the Sky

Bonus!

12/12/2021 - I wrote this little extra scene between Aldric and Wil some time ago, because I was sad I didn't have time for it in the rest of the book but still wanted to play around with it anyway. And since it's Aldric's birthday today, I thought I'd share with you all! Enjoy :D

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After a while, once Aurora and Aldric had done enough catching up, Wil caught Aldric's eye in the dark and jolted his head, gesturing at the spiral staircase. "You haven't seen the store, have you, Ricky?" Wil asked. He seemed nervous, which was strange; all the years he'd known him, Aldric had never known Wil to be nervous. "You should come up. You would like it, I think."

Slowly, Aldric let his eyes pan from Wil's face to Rory's. She winked at him, a mischievous smile curling her lips.

He narrowed his eyes at her, even as he moved to follow Wil up the steps. "We'll just be a second, Rory."

She called back, weirdly chipper: "Sure thing!"

The staircase was narrow and short; it followed a curve so tight and sharp Aldric almost found it dizzying. He kept his eyes trained on the broad plane of Wil's back, wondering why his heart couldn't seem to stop hammering within his ribcage, until the scent of old paper and fading ink and sawdust surrounded him.

Wil stepped up, his footfalls softening as they landed on soft green carpet rather than creaky old wood. He was watching Aldric—Aldric could feel it—but Aldric's eyes were elsewhere. They were raking over the careful array of bookshelves that stretched to twice his height, admiring the lovely blue lilies sitting in the windowpane, curiously examining the stacks of clean, meticulous notes left behind on the mahogany writer's desk.

There was a sense of magic here; somewhere between the ambient yellow glow of the floor lamps and the feel of years-old, water-damaged pages beneath Aldric's fingertips, he found it. He was remembering things. Things about Meathe, and about himself. Who he used to be, who he wanted to be, when he could be anything.

"Well?" Wil asked. He was leaning back against the windowsill, arms crossed proudly over his chest like he already knew the answer to his next question: "What do you think?"

"I-It's beautiful, Wil," Aldric told him, running his fingers along the gold-embossed spines. "Is it yours? This place?"

Wil shrugged. "Not technically. It's my younger brother Henrik's, but I've spent so much time here it may as well be mine."

"That does make sense. Henrik did always have his nose in a book, didn't he?"

Something in Wil's eyes softened; Aldric watched it happen. He said, his voice brittle, "You did too, back then."

The air trembled with the words.

Aldric pulled out a chair, sinking down into it. "Let's not do this, Wil."

"But I have to!" Wil said, pushing away from the window, the lilies quivering as he did."But I...I have to."

Aldric turned his face away, studying a spot on the floor where the carpet fibers had worn thin, but still Wil kept talking. "All these years you've been away I have been thinking about what to say to you, how to mend everything that I broke. And I'm not sure that's possible, but can I at least tell you something, Ricky? Can I at least tell you this?"

"Wil," Aldric warned. "I don't—"

"I am so sorry," Wil said, with a sharp, shuddering inhale, like he was urgently holding back tears. "I am so sorry that I ever sent you away. That day when you tracked me down in the square? I remember it. It was your sixteenth birthday, wasn't it?"

Aldric closed his eyes. He knew Wil well enough to know that it was pointless trying to get him to stop.

Aldric nodded.

"The truth is I'd been hoping I would see you again. Praying for it, even, and you know all this Almighty Kiro stuff has never really been my thing. But—fuck, Ric, I would've given anything to just know you were okay."

His voice was closer; he'd moved. Aldric's skin tingled, sensing him, preparing for his touch.

"And then you were," Wil said, "and I panicked. I saw something in your face, and it was so different, so faraway from who I thought I knew you to be, and I panicked. You were okay. You were back, but you were...different."

Aldric winced. "Wil, I—"

"I know." His hand gripped the top of Aldric's chair, knuckles brushing the center of Aldric's back. "I know, I know. Rory told me everything, and it's awful what they put you through. I had no idea."

"You did have an idea!" Aldric said, his voice rising, bellowing out of him before he could even make sense of it. He shot to his feet, whirling to look Wil in the face. "You just said you could see it, Wil, that you were afraid of me. You are still, aren't you? You know what I've done. How could you not be?"

"What you've done?" His voice was honey, soothing, comforting, but could Aldric trust its sweetness? "You've saved all of Kiro, Ricky. That's what you've done. That's all that matters."

Aldric shook his head, dropping his chin, the weight too much to bear. "I would like to believe that."

"Then believe it," Wil urged. "Because I do. I was stupid back then, Ricky. I was stupid and naive and I did something I can never take back. But it won't happen again. I won't turn my back on you again, okay? I promise."

At last, Wil touched him. Hands on his shoulders first, then a finger below his chin, delicately tilting it upwards. He told him, "Look at me," and when he didn't, Wil told him again: "Look at me, would you, Aldric?"

Aldric looked at him, trying to understand how a face could be so familiar and so new all at once. He recognized those eyes, the earthy dark brown a shimmer of gold in the lamplight, but the intensity in them was novel. The beginnings of scruff peppered his chin. And his lips...he knew their shape, had memorized it long ago, but had they always looked so petal-soft?

Wil looked at Aldric, too. He seemed to be studying him, his eyes nor his hands ever staying in one place. For a while he held Aldric's face, and then he caught a lock of his hair, pulling it forward and letting it slip over his fingers. "Such a beautiful color," he muttered, almost to himself. "Reminds me of the Gentiana saporiana, in this light. Harvestbells."

Aldric's mind was a blur. He could think of nothing else to say except, "It wasn't always this way."

"I know." Wil lowered his hand. "I like you the way you are now."

Wil's hands slipped lower, furling around Aldric's waist, and Aldric at last accepted the invitation he'd been waiting years to receive.

Wil tasted like everything Aldric had forced himself to forget about, all the sweet and good things he had shoved away to make room for who he'd become. Except Wil held him like he was still something pure, something new, bringing him closer and closer still, stroking his cheek, rubbing circles behind his ear. Aldric loosened. He sighed; he let go. He let him in.

Aldric's back struck the bookshelf, and both of them broke away, staring wide-eyed at each other as the books above their heads rattled, rattled, and at last went still.

It was silent for a moment, save for the frantic rhythm of their breaths, running away from them. Then they laughed.

Aldric brought his forehead to Wil's, brushing the soft hairs at Wil's temples. "I am so glad to be home."

"Good," Wil told him. "We've been waiting for you."