Ned has lost count of the years, the loss, almost everything—when he notices her.
She shines. She's utterly radiant in the oblivion of this place, this place where he has so little that he's only a whisper of memory. And she's so bright and beautiful that he feels the absurd impulse to make himself—
Not beautiful; that's lost to him. But someone who appears to be... more than he ever will be again.
It takes a year, and in that year, he's in everything around her. A gentle chestnut mare who responds eagerly when Nancy sets off in pursuit of a fleeing suspect. The dock where the culprit's boat is moored. The lake water lapping at her feet as she plays with her friends. A splinter becomes the heart of his palm, and the sea fills the broken places. When she leaves, it's all he can do to keep himself together, to remember why he's putting himself through this pain.
It's when she's at the house fire that he realizes there will be no better time, and when he strides toward her car from the overgrown forest around him, he senses the shift in the sea of onlookers.
He doesn't care. If she so much as glances his way, Ned will die a very happy man.
And she does more than that. She meets his gaze the next time they meet, once she no longer considers him the possible enemy, and the warmth of her smile washes him in grace.
And, with that warmth alive in him, he becomes.
She can't love him. But all he wants is to love her, even if they never touch, even if all he can keep is the memory of this warmth.
He offers Nancy a ride to the airport for her next case and actually feels his stomach drop slightly in surprise when she accepts, smiling, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind one ear. She's wrapped in a fine navy coat, her slender fingers in butter-soft gloves, and there's something classic and timeless about her crystal blue eyes. But she carries no bag beyond her purse, and directs him to drop her off at the small airfield, the one River Heights uses for fireworks displays and fall festivals, the disheveled hangar standing in for Santa's Workshop or the Civic Club's approximation of a haunted house, a spectacle he observed the year before, passing through the papier-mâché scarecrows and tattered bulbous ghosts without leaving a ripple. The glass panes, turned matte by age and weather, are checkered purple and gold in the dying light, and the stone of his heart aches when their gazes catch again.
He doesn't have to force the smile. "When can I plan on your return?"
She just holds his gaze, without nodding or shaking her head. Just holds it.
"I don't know," she murmurs, and the wind catches the nearby fir tree just right, sending a cascade of fine white powder swirling, catching his eye.
When he glances back, she's gone.
Every few months, she materializes again. She's hastily pursuing an Emerson professor who might give her a clue about a long-vanished civilization and their scientific discoveries. She's buying a disguise to sneak into an old barn, the exterior a mass of overgrown ivy, the interior a den of smugglers and thieves.
She sees Ned and there's a glow that alights in him, a growing desire that any number of shared ice cream floats and grateful cheek-kisses won't sate any longer. He takes what she gives but no number of letters is enough; no call is long enough. He trembles with the effort of holding back, and three years after they've met, dizzy with the bliss of holding her for an hour during the spring formal, he plucks his stone heart from his chest and offers it to her. Her answer will destroy all of him, and rebuild him anew, triumphant—or leave him wrecked and senseless.
But Nancy turns to him, those blue eyes brimming with tears, and says nothing, makes no sign. As though her own heart must be calcified, entombed.
He closes his eyes as the thick tide of black despair swamps him, and when he opens them, she's gone.
Moonlight. Moonlight on the equinox, the height of his powers, the height of it all.
She scrambled to the top of Pine Hill barefoot, scratched and stinging, and she's panting as she breaks into the clearing and sees it all silver and black around her. The wide rock's surface was worn by the elements to a shallow bowl, and the moon is reflected in that nearly still pool, silver and brilliant.
It's perfect.
She blinks a tear that breaks that flat image, sending shallow ripples out, but in a breath it's gone. Her presence here is just as meaningless. Just as powerless.
But she reaches for the folded knife in her pocket anyway. Maybe a fingertip or palm is traditional, and it hardly matters now, but she extends her arm anyway, considering.
They will have her blood, one way or another. She will just have to make it count.
"Nancy?"
She shouldn't be surprised, and yet a pair of fat tears rolls down her cheeks anyway, and the reflection ripples again.
"What… what's going on?"
She's tried. She's tried so hard. And it no longer matters. Maybe the truth would always have been best.
"I was told to—take you," she says, unable to meet his gaze. "In exchange for another I've saved. But I can't. I've tried so hard to stay away from you, but I can't. And my life stands in forfeit."
She expects disbelief, dismissal, patronizing soothing. Ultimately, for him to walk away and, in doing so, save himself. Instead, Ned's expression hardens. Like he believes her.
He believes her.
"The knife?"
"Just a drop of blood." She blinks another pair of tears down her cheeks, clearing her vision to see him again. It will all end tonight and yet she finds herself memorizing his face, as though it will matter in a few hours.
Her heart is wrapped in stone and a panicked, cage thing beneath.
But she knows herself and that she couldn't have done differently. It was Helen's life. There had been no other bargain to make.
"Have you done this before?"
She shakes her head slowly, watching him—become older, in some subtle way. The vulnerability is hardening to resolve. His dark eyes, so tender only a few moments ago, are narrowed and cold in rage.
He closes the distance between them, and her heart is pounding so, so very hard as he cups her cheek. "This ends tonight," he says softly. "No matter what, love.
"Sleep now."
And in the space of another heartbeat she's falling, thinking of all she's left undone, all she's forfeit, all for the sake of a six-year-old girl.
For the sake of this man who catches her in starlight.
The becoming is always slow, and after Ned gently lowers her to a soft patch of moss, under the shade of a willow, he takes off the suit jacket, drapes it over her and gently arranges it to cover her bared shoulders, and rolls his sleeves up. He blinks and, for a brief second, a drop of thick red is visible in the water, before it turns to tendrils that swirl and vanish in the moonlight.
The sound is no sound at all, but he detects it anyway.
The being breathes and surges a few minutes shy of midnight, and Ned is waiting. A part of him is screaming, but he knows what he has to do, and he's not backing down.
A finger unfurls, knit of starlit spiderweb twined around dry, cracked grapevine. What passes for skin is a yellowed-white ripple of fur, dappled in places, from mud or time or the memory of blood.
Becoming can only rearrange what is already there, after all.
The being, enshrined in flesh and fur now, glides into the moonlit patch, smooth and certain as a magnet to the pool. The blood is but a memory now.
"She has forfeit."
Ned studies the being. "Look into the blood. She cannot. She has delivered me."
"Unblooded."
Ned smiles, and the sight is terrifying. "Look into me," he says, more quietly.
That spiderweb-tendril unfurls once more, a single bead of dew trembling. Then it recoils, contracting to a position a few feet away, at the edge of the moonlit clearing.
"You."
Ned inclines his head, slightly. Another of the layers slides away. Bone and blood, muscle and breath, all painstakingly knitted by his own will. The burden of holding himself upright is eclipsed utterly by the oblivion of her despair.
She will see him for himself, and… well. In humans it means madness, terror, horror.
But at least he can buy her this.
"You were banished."
He doesn't bother acknowledging. The being is owed no explanation.
And yet, it glides a step back toward him, fascinated and horrified. "You survived. The bounty…"
"Is unequal to what was offered. The contract is voided."
A chittering sound from the shadows would have stiffened the hairs on the back of his neck, were Ned what he pretends to be. Instead he turns, slowly, always keeping her in arm's reach.
"I wrote the contract," he says, his voice deep and furious as it vibrates through all around them, all gathered for this sacrifice. "The offer is unequal. Helen Swenson is free."
And Ned touches his thumb to his middle finger. "That blood was mine."
Asleep as she is, even in that drench of shadow, Nancy's skin bears a trace of silver, her hair touched with amber like a light through colored glass. The shimmer of her…
That she would offer a single drop of herself for him is impossible. That she would forfeit anything for any being, he can easily believe, but for him?
Midnight passes. The oppressive weight of their audience trickles away. The spiderwebs untwine, the grapevine cracks, and the clear pool evaporates.
He thinks of doing it there, just relaxing the tension and collapsing to earth. His heart would be poison to her, as he fully sees her now, finally understands that silent call that drew her to him. But maybe she needs to understand that, to move on.
And so he waits, memorizing her face and knowing that for the eternity of his own unbeing, she will be the sole constant.
All around her is a spill of scratchy netting and ocean-turquoise tulle, a grid of dyed illusion over a bleached comforter. At night it's all silk and roses; now, in the sunlight, she is herself again, and the rough edges have sharpened themselves again.
She can no longer remember what it was to see her reflection with no wash of repulsion and shame, breathless awe and mourning and failure. It's part of what she traded, after all. The choice that was no choice.
Nancy pushes herself up and sees him in the shadowed corner, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. His sleeves are rolled up to reveal tanned forearms, and his dark eyes are weary. From all appearances, he kept a bedside vigil for her.
She realizes, distantly, that shame should likely factor into this scenario as well, but they both appear to be alive. She can't muster much outrage.
"I'm sorry."
He gazes at her steadily, then sighs. "No, I am."
Her body feels oddly fragile. She slowly draws her knees up and props her chin on one. The fabric is scratchy, and she wrinkles her nose.
It's like seeing everything anew again. Like the pain of rebirth all over again.
"I drugged you. Twice."
He raises one eyebrow, unperturbed. "Oh?"
She nods, blushing. "Something they gave me. It looked like a pebble."
He glances away and gently scratches behind an ear. "What were the drugs intended to do?"
He returns his gaze to her, and it's her turn to glance away. "To make you obsessed with me," she murmurs. "To make it easier…"
"To bleed me, when the time came. They told you I'd beg you for it."
She nods.
"It requires three doses."
He's not reacting to anything as she expected. She doesn't know what to think anymore. "You offered marriage," she replies softly. "A third dose seemed unwise. Overcompensation."
"So all this has been an illusion," he says, but he's smiling a little. The flat rage she saw in his eyes the night before hasn't vanished entirely, but it doesn't seem to be directed at her.
"Did they kill me last night?"
His expression shifts, and the weariness gives way to sadness. "They never had domain over you," he says. "Nor do they now."
She sits up. "Helen—"
"Helen is free. That won't change. But the bargain was unequal."
She searches his expression, her chest tight.
He stands. "Do you know what you are?"
She opens her mouth, closes it. She's in free fall; the solid press behind and beneath her has given way. All that she knew is gone.
"That you would offer any of yourself for me is… impossible. You would never have hurt me."
Her eyes flood. "I did. Over and over."
"To keep me safe."
She nods rapidly.
"That blade. They gave it to you."
She nods again.
"Willingly used on your own skin. You can't be harmed. Only by yourself. And you would do that for me."
She doesn't bother asking how he knows. It's easing an infinite weariness in her. She's had to pretend for so long.
"When did you do it?"
"Four years ago. Before we met."
"You were too young."
She shakes her head. "This is what I am."
He sighs and reaches for the collar of his shirt. "They did not know what I am, only what I was," he says, and holds her gaze. "I'll show you what I am and you'll go back to your life. And I'll always remember you. But I'll take this from you. You won't remember me."
He's unbuttoning his shirt when she stands, fear and anger in her belly. "I will never forget you."
"You will be grateful to," he replies, through his tight jaw.
"Is it written on your skin, like mine?"
He stops, then, his shirt parted. The shadows obscure the sight, but his skin seems mottled.
"Where?"
She blushes as she turns. His fingertips are so gentle and tentative as he tugs the zipper down, easing the satin-lined bodice from her skin, like spreading the petals of some wilted flower.
The wings are traced in gray, as though stroked in idle pen while she slept but never scrubbed away, only faded with wear and time. She tries not to look at them often, which isn't hard, since she requires two mirrors to see them. When they're glimpsed she blames a recent bruise, a careless mistake.
He traces one with his fingertip and she draws inward, lashes fluttering down, head bowed. He is reverent and she is too tired to fight it.
To be seen… and he would unwrite it all.
She turns, and though she wants to surprise him with it, deny him the time for refusal, she keeps her movements gentle and telegraphed.
His chest bears the mottled bruising of…
"They hurt you." She brings her tearful gaze up to his.
He shakes his head, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "This is a form I borrowed. My control slipped last night."
"Can you show me your true form?"
He considers, then shakes his head. "I can wipe your memories of me, but I doubt the madness the sight would cause could be cured so easily."
She raises an eyebrow, then touches his chest. Then she closes her eyes, bowing her head.
And he sees them then, the wings unfurling in a shaft of sunlit air, just a soft shimmering suggestion of light, iridescent and fluttering gently. She may know what she is, but her power is kept banked.
I would have loved you regardless. Bewitched pebble or not. Such is your nature.
She breathes in and brings her chin up, opens her eyes. "And yours…"
"Is fallen."
She smiles. "It was," she says. "I was defenseless to you. All you had to do was walk away and they would have had me." She tilts her head. "Tell me I'm misunderstanding."
He just meets her gaze, steadily, and says nothing.
The thought had come to him. The power would have been unimaginable. He would no longer merely become; he would have incarnation, should he choose it.
And his darkness would have smothered her light.
She draws her fingers to the edges of his shirt, and he lets her drag it down his arms. This flesh—he will have to work to renew it, to bring back the flush of life. For now, this skin is a puppeted corpse.
And she places a palm against his back.
His own wings vanished long ago, in the banishing, leaving not even a trace of scar tissue on this willed form. He doesn't look at his back; it hurts too much. He remembers what should be there, what it was not to be tethered to this earth.
He remembers the lines her fingertips trace.
And his eyes fly open.
"You can see them." His voice is hoarse.
She makes a quiet humming sound, and when her fingertips slide down his spine, tracing the bumps of vertebrae, this form he's built shudders.
No. No. He is resolved, and she is—
She pulls back, and he turns just in time to see her bring her wrist to her lips.
The scent of her blood is rich, wine-dark, and burns his borrowed flesh like acid, but he clamps his jaw tight and moves only to rest on the comforter, as she completes her tracing. Her blood etches the outlined wings into his skin, and even the pain is its own blessing.
And then she makes a desperate, whimpering sound, and he rolls onto his side and she's moving onto the bed beside him, facing him, and her lips—
Most of it has dried but a trace of it is wet, the blood that paints her perfect lips now, and when she kisses him the sensation is silver claws dug into every inch of him, tugging him into a brutal blooming, filling the gaps.
Incarnate.
She gives it freely, and because she does, her light is not dimmed. She draws him into her arms as the cracked stone mass of his heart reshapes, begins to beat again.
What he offered her the night before is so paltry in comparison.
And when he pulls back to gaze at her, her slow, radiant grin is everything. It's everything, the beginning and the end, the desperation and the salve. He could not be charmed into obsession; his devotion to her began at that first glance.
"I promised you forever," he says. "But I didn't know what that truly meant, when I did.
"I offer it again, with no guile between us, and no exaggeration. Forever, love."
"You look—as you did, before. Alive."
He strokes her cheek. "You made me flesh again," he breathes. "And I would owe you everything, I do, but I've been yours since the first hour we met. I will always be unworthy of you—"
She shakes her head. "You are my equal," she says, fiercely. "I cannot be your goddess. I will not wait for some mistake to shatter your faith in me. Let me shatter it now." She strokes his cheek too. "I don't want you kissing my feet. I want you by my side. Forever."
"Then no more walks in the moonlight on the equinox. No more knives."
She's smiling when she searches his gaze. "This is my one precious life and I'll do with it as I please," she says. "I didn't ask for this and I will happily give every bit of it away, until I'm human again, if it's to save those who are in need.
"Forever is as long as we make it."
He's quiet as his thumb strokes her cheek. "What is freely given will never pass away from you."
"Well." Her smile falters slightly. "At least I'll be able to help a lot of people."
He leans forward, capturing her mouth in a long, deep kiss that has her cheeks burning before he ends it. Her eyes are sparkling, though.
"Have we missed it? They said if I took you in the moonlight, I'd have you at the height of your powers."
"Only if I were your first lover."
Her gaze shifts away, then returns to his. "Have you..."
He shakes his head, his gaze warm on hers. There is pain in this, but the joy dulls it. "I knit myself for you," he says. "And you've made me real."
When he sees it, the mingled joy and despair in her, he gently tips her chin up again. "I know you find it a burden," he says softly. "So let me share it for as long as you have it."
She blinks, warmth flooding her again, but she manages to force it through a throat choked by tears. "And when we unite for the first time..."
He strokes her cheek, brushing tears away. "I'm still fallen," he says. "Maybe that will make you human again."
Her cheeks redden. "Then I would beg it of you," she murmurs. "Are you truly free? Will that... call them back, make you disappear?"
"This is my second precious life, and I will do with it as I please," he replies. "But I promise you this. I've never had so much to fight for."
She smiles, bittersweet. "Because of what I've become."
He touches her bare back, the edge of a gray line. "This? Nancy—there's a light in you. You're drawn to those who need it. That is the heart of you. There are some who would devour it. And I... when I first saw you, it was before you sacrificed yourself. Before this." He touches the line again. "What you willingly give, you can never lose."
She sits up, and the grief of the past three years, the understanding that it's over, it's finally over, smothers her. She sobs at the uselessness of it all, the frustration and fear and its sudden absence.
The night before was a nightmare. This is a dream. She will turn and he will be gone.
He's sitting beside her when she looks up again. His chest is still warm and firm, shoulders muscular and broad, and—
In the three years since that day, he hasn't aged. He has always existed as he does locked into her memory, in the privacy of her heart, where she has been so certain that her love for him is what put him at risk in the first place—and that his desire for her was a violation of his own will.
His life for hers, for Helen's—for a world she would no longer be able to endure, knowing what it had cost.
"How did you bargain for me? How did you ransom me?"
His lips twitch up, once. "A drop of blood in a moonlit pool," he says. "And a reminder that I know the rules."
"And the pebble—never worked. You were never influenced by it."
He shakes his head.
"But how do you know?"
He cups her cheek, leaning over to brush his lips against her ear, and the experience of him as he is now, feeling that fine pulse beat under his warm flesh, being enveloped by his arms—she feels ashamed for not knowing, and even more now for loving what her blood has sealed. Her lashes flutter down anyway.
"How could I be poisoned by my own blood," he murmurs, and even the weight of his breath has her shivering. "How could my total devotion become anything more."
Her eyes are still closed as she whispers, "What are the rules for this?"
His mouth is on her neck and she shudders again.
"Whatever we say they are."