Chapter 210 — Late, After Everyone Else Is Asleep

Chapter 210: Chapter 210 — Late, After Everyone Else Is Asleep

He’d taken a Floor Five contract that ran longer than expected, a supply escort that turned into a two-hour wait while a mining crew argued over a delayed shipment, and by the time Arlen climbed back to the surface the Foxglove had already gone dark except for a single lamp in the common room.

He let himself in quietly. The kitchen was still warm from the evening’s fires, and he stood there a moment, tired, deciding whether he was hungry enough to bother.

He was.

He found half a loaf, a wedge of the hard cheese Rilla kept behind the flour, and an onion nobody seemed to have claimed. It wasn’t much. He sliced the onion thin and set a pan on the banked coals, and the smell of it filled the kitchen slowly, sweet and sharp.

He was humming again before he noticed.

"Still doing that," Yveth said from the doorway.

He didn’t turn around. "You could just say hello."

"Hello. You’re still doing that." She came in and leaned against the counter beside him, arms folded, a shawl over her nightclothes and her hair loose. "It’s past midnight."

"Long job."

"So I gathered. Rilla waited up an hour before I told her to go to bed."

"She didn’t have to."

"She knows that. She did it anyway." Yveth looked at the pan. "What is that?"

"Onions, mostly. Cheese on bread after."

"Ambitious."

"Don’t start."

"I’m not starting anything." She took the wooden spoon out of his hand without asking and stirred the onions once, then handed it back. "You let them catch on the edge. Lower the heat."

"They’re fine."

"They’re catching."

He looked. They were catching. He moved the pan to the cooler side of the coals without comment, and she made a small, satisfied sound and went to sit on the counter where she always sat.

The onions softened. The cheese went onto the bread and under the coals’ edge to melt. Neither of them said much. It was the kind of quiet he’d gotten used to in the last few weeks, the kind that didn’t ask to be filled.

He split the bread onto two plates without thinking about it, and she took hers without thinking about it either.

"This is good," she said, after a bite.

"It’s onions and cheese."

"Good onions and cheese." She chewed a moment. "You’ve gotten better at this."

"I’ve had practice."

"You had practice before. This is different." She set the plate on her knee and looked at him, and something in her face had changed, gone quieter, less sharp at the edges. "You’ve been home a lot, lately."

"I told you. Staying on the upper floors for a while."

"I know what you told me." She turned the crust over in her fingers. "I didn’t say it right. I meant I’ve noticed. I like it."

He put his plate down.

"I like it too," he said.

"Good." She looked at the crust instead of him. "That’s what I wanted to hear."

"Is it?"

"Mostly." She almost laughed, short and quiet. "I don’t say things very well at midnight. It’s a flaw."

"You’re saying them fine."

"I’m saying half of them." She finally looked up. "You could just say something."

He hadn’t planned to. He wasn’t sure he had anything planned at all, just the plain weight of the evening and the kitchen’s low light and the fact that she was sitting close enough to touch, close enough that he could see where the shawl had slipped off one shoulder.

"I don’t want to say it wrong either," he said.

"Then don’t say it."

She slid off the counter. She didn’t move toward him right away. She just stood there, a hand’s width away, waiting, and he understood that it was his to close, that she was leaving it to him on purpose.

He closed it.

Her hand came up to his jaw first, brief and light, like she was checking whether he’d hold still for it. He did. Then she kissed him, unhurried, and he forgot entirely about the cooling plates and the banked fire and the lamp in the next room.

When she pulled back, she was smiling, small and a little rueful.

"That took longer than it should’ve."

"You could’ve said something."

"I did. Twice." She took his hand. "Come on."

"Where?"

"Not the kitchen." She tugged him toward the back stairs, her voice dropping to a murmur as they climbed. "Pella sleeps light, and Rilla sleeps lighter, and I’m not explaining this in the morning."

"Explain what?"

"Exactly."

Her room was at the end of the hall, smaller than he’d pictured, lamp already low. She closed the door behind them and stood with her back against it a moment, looking at him.

"You can leave," she said. "I mean it. No hard feelings, tomorrow morning will be exactly the same as this morning."

"I don’t want to leave."

"Are you sure?"

"Yveth."

"I’m asking properly."

"I know. I’m sure."

She held his eyes a beat longer, then something in her shoulders loosened, and she crossed the room to him in three steps.

The lamp burned down slowly. Somewhere below, the inn settled into the deep creaks of a building at rest. Outside, the last of the night market’s noise faded to nothing.

Later, neither of them said anything for a long while.

He lay staring at the ceiling, her head against his shoulder, listening to her breathe. She’d gone quiet in the way of someone who wasn’t asleep but wasn’t ready to speak either.

"You’re thinking," she said eventually.

"A little."

"About what?"

"Nothing important." He turned his head slightly. "Just glad."

"Glad’s fine." She traced a slow line along his collarbone with one finger. "Glad’s a good place to start."

"Start what?"

"I don’t know yet." She said it lightly, but she didn’t move her hand. "We’ll find out."

He didn’t push. He just lay there, warm and unhurried, and listened to the lamp gutter, and thought that this was the first time in a long while that the quiet in his head matched the quiet in the room.

She fell asleep before he did.

He stayed awake a while longer, watching the last of the lamplight fade against the far wall, and let himself simply be there, in a small room at the end of a hall, with nothing waiting for him until morning.