CoS15

**Chapter 15** of **City of Spells** follows **Tavia**.

## **Full Version**

IT WAS RAINING IN RISHIYA and Tavia sat with her legs hanging from the tree house edge. The Uncharted Forest was beautiful and when the water hit the leaves just right, the entire city looked like it was made of stars, deep green leaves glistening and tree roots stretching across the muddy sky to stow their thirst.

Wesley had just finished up in his shower and was currently trying on the new suit Tavia had gotten him from one of the buskers in camp. She’d been prepared to trade her knife for it, but it turned out that being a leader meant free gifts as a perk. Besides, when the guy had heard it was for Wesley, he’d all but stripped off in the middle of the clearing.

Tavia unscrewed the cap from the bottle of Cloverye and placed it on the floor beside her, next to a single glass.

“This is a little tight around the shoulders,” Wesley called from the spot in the corner where he was changing behind a makeshift curtain.

“Must be from all those bulging muscles you have,” Tavia said sarcastically.

“Must be,” Wesley said back. “I did see you noticing earlier.”

Tavia took a drink to keep from killing him, but she was surprised when she brought the bottle to her lips and realized that she was somehow smiling. She’d missed this. She’d missed *him*, from the warm husk of his voice to his irritating sense of humor.

“I was going to come for you,” Tavia said. “As soon as I found out where you might be. But then Karam left and the buskers were so uneasy.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Wesley said. “It was too dangerous and you—”

“Excuse me,” Tavia interrupted. She slammed the bottle down hard enough that a puddle spilled out onto the floor. “I’ve been leading a horde of buskers while you were gone. I can handle myself.”

“I just meant that it wouldn’t have been worth the risk,” Wesley said.

She heard the sound of the curtain drawing back.

What he’d meant to imply was that putting herself in unnecessary danger would have been stupid. What he’d actually said—what Tavia had heard coating his words—was that he didn’t think he mattered enough for her to try.

He didn’t think he was worth saving.

She thought back to when she’d seen him in the clearing, shirt torn and his feet bloodied with dirt.

She’d had to try so hard to keep from crying.

“You’re worth the risk, Wesley,” Tavia said.

She turned to him, finally, dressed in the best suit she could find. It fit him snugly and though, yes, it was a little too tight around the shoulders, if he hadn’t said it, she wouldn’t have noticed. He looked like he belonged in that suit. He looked like himself in it.

Except for the bruises.

Except for the bags under his eyes.

Except for the way he smiled, like he didn’t mean it at all.

Tavia hated Ashwood and Zekia more than anything in that moment.

“You should let Saxony heal you,” she said.

“I can heal myself.”

“You shouldn’t need to.”

Wesley didn’t answer. He just sighed and adjusted his cuff links, as he always did when he was trying to distract his mind.

“I have something for you,” Tavia said.

She slid the bone gun onto the floor beside the bottle of Cloverye.

It had been the only thing of Wesley’s she’d had to keep her mind calm and her heart alive, but now that he was back, she could feel the old gun calling to its owner, begging to go home.

When Wesley saw it, his smile turned, far more genuine than the one he’d given her just seconds before. It was the smile he’d had when they were kids running from the amityguards with possibility in their pockets, and the smile he’d given her when they got rooms opposite each other in the busker dorms, and the smile she’d savored when they created their first crystal ball together.

It was her favorite thing in the world.

“Damn, I missed this thing,” he said.

Wesley took the gun from the ground and sat beside her. His feet dangled next to hers, close enough that they could touch if they were ever so careless.

“I hope you took good care of it,” he said.

He examined the bones that made up the weapon, checking for scuffs and scratches.

“If there’s a mark on here anywhere, then you’re cleaning it off.”

“Your precious little murder weapon is fine,” Tavia said. “I’m glad to see your priorities are still in check.”

Wesley shrugged and placed the gun into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, right where his heart was.

“Do you think Karam is okay?” Tavia asked. “Saxony looked really worried earlier.”

“Aren’t you?”

“She’s good at fighting her way out of trouble,” Tavia said.

Only, she was still just as worried as Saxony was. Karam could fight, sure, but that didn’t mean that she could fight anything Ashwood threw at her. It didn’t mean she was invincible, and Tavia cursed herself for thinking otherwise. She’d always seen Karam as unstoppable, unkillable, but that was a lie and now that she wasn’t here, Tavia couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d let that lie comfort her too often.

She hoped desperately that Karam would come storming back into camp, angry that Wesley had escaped before she’d had a chance to rescue him.

“There are a lot more people here than I thought there would be,” Wesley said.

He peered over the edge to look down at the camp below, brimming with buskers and Crafters.

“Yeah.” Tavia took the bottle from Wesley and downed another swig. “Saxony contacted all the Lieges in the four realms and a bunch of them agreed to send us more Crafters. It’s not much, but including Saxony’s and Asees’s Kins, we have eighty Crafters already. When the others come, it should bump that up to a hundred and fifty or so.”

“And the buskers?” Wesley asked.

“A little deal I made with Casim,” she said. “We’ve got fifty of his buskers and he’s negotiating with the other underbosses of Uskhanya to send us their forces too. So that gives us ninety altogether so far, with more possibly on the way.”

Wesley looked vaguely impressed.

“I used your name to threaten him, by the way,” Tavia said. She passed the bottle back over to Wesley, neither of them bothering to use the glass. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Go for it,” Wesley said. “I’m glad my name still strikes fear in the hearts of my cowardly colleagues.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Underbosses really are all chickenshits.”

Wesley laughed and the sound jittered amid the rain, like it was a storm in itself.

“What was it like?” Tavia asked him.

He looked at her in questioning.

“Where you were,” she said, and then, softer, “What happened to you?”

Wesley stiffened, and she knew that she shouldn’t have asked. If he’d wanted her to know, then he would have told her. But the thing was, Wesley had a habit of never telling people things that would make him look weak. He had a habit of being too stubborn for his own good. It was why Tavia had wanted to get him a suit, to make him not just look more like himself, but to feel comfortable enough to relax a little. If he was relaxed, maybe she could get through to him.

She wanted Wesley to know that it was okay for him not to be okay.

“What did they do to you?” she asked.

“It wasn’t about me,” Wesley said. “It was about her.”

“Zekia?”

“She’s just a scared kid,” he said. “Ashwood is in her head and he has her thinking that this war is the only way she’ll ever be safe. She thinks that she’s protecting me and the rest of our people. I think that she’s afraid of what he might do if she starts to doubt him.”

“You’re wrong,” Tavia said.

She didn’t think Zekia was just a kid, following orders because she was too afraid not to. That *kid* had tried to kill them on the Kingpin’s isle and then she’d stolen Wesley—the only family Tavia had left—and did Many Gods knew what to him.

She wasn’t a child, she was a monster.

“She’s had it rough,” Wesley said.

“Well, excuse me if I don’t feel sorry for her,” Tavia said. “We’ve all had it rough, but when someone tries to kill the people that I care about, it kind of dampens my sympathy.”

“She wouldn’t have killed me,” Wesley said.

“Just her own sister, then?”

Wesley didn’t seem to have an answer for that, so he sighed instead. “You seemed to be the one who has a problem with Saxony,” he said.

“That’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, then get over it already.”

Tavia narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll take advice on holding grudges from you,” she said.

Gods, how had she forgotten how easily he got under her skin? Wesley could make Tavia mad in a moment and she wondered how in the fire-gates she’d actually *missed* it.

He was infuriating.

“How was Ashwood?” she asked, trying to distract the part of herself that wanted to argue with him.

Wesley barely mustered a shrug. “Mostly it was just me and Zekia and the shadow demons she got to rough me up when she got tired of me kicking her out of my head.”

His expression was blank and his tone was far too apathetic, like Wesley was talking about it happening to someone else, or like he didn’t care that it had happened to him.

Tavia cared.

She hadn’t seen a shadow demon before, but she’d heard enough stories to know that she never wanted to. They were the worst creatures in the four realms. They were death made visible and so Tavia couldn’t stop herself from grimacing at the mere mention of them.

Wesley saw it—he saw everything, even if he wasn’t looking at her—and so quickly he righted himself, adjusting those cuff links and putting on the smirk she hated.

“I didn’t see Ashwood much,” he said. “He probably thought that it was best to let Zekia wear me down. The lesser of two evils and all that. Plus he was busy destroying our city.”

“Is Creije really ready to fall?” Tavia asked.

Wesley nodded.

The rain soaked down Tavia’s legs.

She couldn’t stomach the thought.

“If we lose our home,” she said. “Then I . . .”

She trailed off, because she didn’t have an end to that sentence. If Creije was gone, then Tavia didn’t know what she would do.

“We won’t lose it,” Wesley said. “Ashwood might be good at being a murderous dictator, but I’m not so bad at it myself.”

“Trust you to make being a sociopath a competition,” Tavia said. “What if Creije is too far gone to save already? What if we don’t live to bring it back?”

“*Skeht*, Tavia,” he swore. “Can you try being a little more positive?”

“I’m just saying,” she said. “It’s not like we’re invincible.”

“You’re so morbid,” he scolded. “Trust me, it’s going to be fine. There isn’t a world where I’d ever let anyone hurt you. There isn’t a future that exists where you’re not okay. So drink your damn Cloverye and quit being such a huge downer on my first night.”

Tavia almost laughed, but as she looked at him the sound got caught in her throat. She’d just noticed, suddenly, without reason, how much browner Wesley’s eyes looked in the wake of lightning.

*There isn’t a world where I’d ever let anyone hurt you.*

Tavia’s breath disappeared somewhere deep in her chest as Wesley kept his gaze locked on hers, his face newly serious.

Wesley’s hand was sitting idly on the ground between them, and Tavia didn’t give herself the time to second-guess before she placed hers overtop.

“I’m so glad that you’re here,” she said.

Only, she didn’t know what to say next. Tavia had thought about the moment when she saw Wesley again, what she’d give to make it happen and what she’d do once it did, but now that he was here she forgot about every scenario she’d thought of.

She forgot everything but how beautiful he looked.

“Tavia,” he said.

Her name was magic on his lips, a spell that pulled her inward.

She wanted to kiss him.

She’d wanted to for years, really, but she’d never dared to let herself think it before. Now, though, after knowing what the world would be like without Wesley by her side, it was all Tavia *could* think about. She wanted to feel him pressed against her. Feel his smile on her neck. She was hungry for him, like the trees hungered for the rain and the stars hungered for the night.

They had never spoken about the thing that existed between them, as broken and complicated as it had become, and Tavia wasn’t sure what words she could say to put it back together in all the perfect ways.

What if she ruined it somehow?

“I missed you,” Wesley said.

Lightning cracked across the sky.

“Me too,” she said.

Wesley’s hand was warm under hers and he turned it so that their fingers locked together. He squeezed her hand tightly.

“No matter what happens, I’m not going to leave you again,” Wesley said.

Tavia shivered as the rain soaked through to her toes.

She didn’t speak, for fear her voice might not sound like her own. For fear that if she started, she might not be able to control everything that came spilling out.

“Do you know why I love Creije so much?” Wesley asked.

Tavia shook her head.”Good booze?” she guessed, gesturing to the Cloverye.

“Creije is the city that showed me magic and wonder,” he said. “It’s the city that shaped my soul. But most of all, it’s the city that gave me you.”

Tavia’s throat was painfully dry.

“If we don’t die, then you’re going to really regret embarrassing yourself with that speech,” she said.

She laughed nervously, but Wesley’s face didn’t change.

He brought his thumb to her mouth and swiped a raindrop from her lip. “I’ve never regretted any moment with you,” he said.

She hadn’t either, even the bad ones that Tavia had once thought would be so easy to throw away. Now she wanted to cling to each of them.

Wesley didn’t kiss her, but he did keep his hand tangled in hers, and after a few breaths, after they stared at each other for so long that Tavia could see her reflection in his dark eyes, Wesley turned to the ledge and looked back out at the army below.

They sat there like that, in the quiet of the forest, with the wet rain trailing down their legs and the bottle sitting between them, and their hands tied together. Neither of them spoke again and neither of them needed to. Tavia hadn’t known what the right words to say were, but Wesley always did, and he’d said them when she wasn’t brave enough to.

For the first time, Tavia felt like things would be okay.

She felt like the world wasn’t ending after all.