always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
“Only a dozen?” He smiled a little. “It’s as if they hardly know you.”

The hand which had traced her leg continued up her side, still checking for altercations of the flesh. Mallos considered, briefly, how hard he would knock the heads of those dozen men if he found so much as an arrow scrape. He hesitated over her waist, sensing the strain on her spine. His fingers traced their way around her back, locating an acupressure point and pressing against it. And Sperantia had laughed when she’d caught him reading up on anatomical pressure points.

Could come in useful, he’d muttered to her.

Only if you intend to write sensational fiction, Mallos, she’d giggled back.

His chest constricted at the memory, unwelcome in that moment.

There was little he could do about the baby. Block the pain, maybe – ease the stomach, insist on sleep… but on the whole, in this area, he was a powerless. The nature of pregnancy, of a small fairy bloating the belly and pressing against the spine and organs, was itself so inherently uncomfortable a state that even magic could do little about it. What a cruel irony that the strength needed for childbirth was the very strength which the third trimester sapped away.

“Until the baby comes?” The words felt alien in his mouth, wrong. He shrugged, helpless against the weight of this newfound burden which now felt as if it was pressing in on all sides. “Any day now. Until the guards come? We’re not waiting to find out.”

He moved his arm up her back, supporting it with the crook of his elbow, and transferred the other one under her legs. He stood slowly, holding her in his arms as one would a sleeping child. She weighed no more than she had the last time he’d held her, but that weight had shifted disproportionately. What she’d gained in the waist, she’d lost elsewhere; her arms and legs felt spindly and fragile, grossly skeletal in comparison to her swollen stomach. Why hadn’t he checked in on her in the last few months?

Something else nagged, too. Why had she allowed this of herself? Her earlier words which hadn’t really penetrated the fog of his confusion registered belatedly now: I should have taken care of it, I should have done something. But I couldn’t.

There was no turning back now, and there was no staying here. Mallos hugged Croe tightly to his chest and concentrated on making the world around them disintegrate at a gradual, gentle pace. His quarters shifted serenely into view, miraculously empty. Helena had cleared the cinders from his desk and left, probably with a few muttered curses under her breath. Mallos never usually locked his door, but on this occasion he urged the bolt to inch across with a rusty shliick. Then, and only then, did he softly lower Croe onto her feet.

She looked more out of place here than she had in prison, if that was even possible. The grime on her body and loose, shapeless clothes contrasted starkly to the immaculate tidiness of the office-living area. To their left, by the door which led out towards the rest of the castle, a completely clear coffee table sat before a sofa which looked as though it had never been touched in its life. The unadorned walls looked as though they’d been freshly painted. In fact, the only sign that anyone lived here at all was to their right, where the generously-sized mahogany desk sat before the window. The screwdriver he’d dropped earlier had fallen on top of a neatly stacked pile of documents and knocked aside one of the pens which were usually lined up in a perfectly parallel row beside. Mallos deliberately kept his castle quarters, which anyone could walk in and out of, devoid of any kind of personal touch.

He kept his arms around her and held her close, resting his cheek against the side of her head. What now? The penalties for their collective crimes hung over them even here, whispering callous promises from the shadows. He should address them, banish them – but what could he say? Not that it would be alright. Not even that no matter what else, they could live and live together. He couldn’t insult her intelligence by lying.

Mallos shifted his head, pressing his lips against her ear, her neck, and finally her mouth. Her skin felt unnaturally flushed, warm in a worrying way.

“Whatever happens now,” he said, brushing away a mark from her jawline, “you were worth it.”

He kissed her again, running his hands down her back and tracing them around her midriff. This distorted body shape was a novelty – so far removed from the woman he knew that he couldn’t have imagined it before. This time, when he pressed his palms against her belly and felt the baby stir in answer, he didn’t shy away. Their daughter shuffled, reacting to his magic with her own, warming his hands through the layers of fabric and skin.


i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”