After Forever Falls Apart

Chapter 23 (uplift/wild)

You danced down the stairs, dear dead of mine, with cyan cotton woven through your hair; the little bows at the bottoms of your braids bouncing. Tatter-cloak perched at the table, eyes half-shut, hands shoving bean-spread bread in his mouth.

"When are we leaving?" you stood on tiptoe on the final step, hands fluttering.

Tatter-cloak's eyes widened to alertness and he reached for a cup of water on the table's corner. "At dawn?"

"I mean, are we trying to show up at dawn, or leave at dawn?"

"The first one. I think. Does it really matter?" he came uncross-legged from the chair, feet sinking to the tile, body leaning forward.

"I might go collect crawling fungi. If I have time."

"No, no, I can be ready soon," he shoved another bite into their mouth. "Is it starting to get light out?" he glanced toward the solid door, as if that might announce when dawn would come. Neither the sitting room nor kitchen sink's windows were visible from where he sat or where you stood.

You shrugged. "We can always dim the electric light and see."

You meant, see if light coming in the windows was strong enough to illuminate either of you.

"You can make this thing go dark?" he pointed at the electric bulb in the ceiling outside the kitchen.

"I don't know," you shrugged again. "I haven't figured out how."

"Neither have I," he grinned. "Nor any of the commanding guards."

You carefully lowered to the second stair, silent. "You've tried?" my fingers flex at the thought of commanding guards and Tatter-cloak standing atop chairs--or the table, bootprints forbid--trying to darken an electric light powered by you-didn't-know-what.

"Not really," he shoved the last of the bean-paste bread in his mouth. "We just squinted at it and wondered."

Your fingers fiddled with your cloak. "So. Where do the guards think this house came from? Or, how they ended up with...you at this specific place?"

He shrugged, sliding the water cup back and forth on the wood between his hands. "I told them it technically belonged to no one, since the real owner died," his eyebrows furrowed together. "I didn't think they'd assume it was the queen."

"Oh," you said. It'd been so long since you'd really talked, you hadn't known that.

"I thought that was better than..." his eyes slid away.

"The death mage killed the previous occupant and adopted the house as her own?" you attempted a smile.

"Well...yes," he stared at the floor.

"That's fine," you said, like it was. Fine. "I didn't really kill him, I tried to warn him off."

Tatter-cloak tilts his head. "I don't think I knew that part?"

You shrugged. "Probably not."

Tatter-cloak stood from the seat, weaving through the cluster of crammed, extra chairs toward you. "I'm going to change clothes. Then we can go. And you can tell me that story."

You leaned into the painted wall, so he could shuffle past you up the staircase. "Okay."

***

The soaking wetness of my shirt does little to ward off the muggy heat in the air. Or the radiating heat of the fire, scorching the sand. I don't look behind me, at how close the fire licks over the sand. I only looked once, when I feared the heat was too close. Green shapes consumed the grass, red claws scraped out toward the beach but withered away to nothing. I turned back to the water, shuddering, determining the sand formed a safe barrier. From the heat, at least.