Rhys Downing's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Trema closed the door behind him and laughed at herself. Her kitchen smelled of thyme and empty air. She lifted the lid of a clay pot and showed him the bottom. "I forgot," she said. "I meant to buy flour and eggs this morning and I sat by the window instead. There is nothing here to feed you." Rhys looked at the empty pot. His shoulders eased a little. "Then we walk." "The bakery stays open late," Trema said. "We can eat there. If you don't mind sweet for supper." "I don't mind," Rhys said. She took a shawl. They walked the path together in the last light. The bakery rose out of the flowers like a hive made of glass, moss webbed across every pane, a huge broad-leafed plant crowning the roof. Warm yellow light spilled through the honeycomb walls. Inside, trays glinted behind the counter. The queen of the hive met them at the door. She was small and gold, wings folded, a crown low on her brow. She took Trema's hands like a grandmother. "Sit, sit," she said. "I have a berry cobbler still hot. You look like two people who need a bowl of it." She brought it in a wide dish. Blueberries and raspberries bled purple around a biscuit crust, a scoop of cream melting on top. Two spoons. She left them alone. Trema ate first. She talked while she ate, easy, the way she moved. She had lived in the swamp longer than most of the village had been alive. She had helped raise three generations of children in the lanes near the fountain. She wanted a garden of her own one day, and a low table, and someone at the other end of it. Rhys listened. The mask hid most of his face, but she watched his eyes and kept talking. "Your turn," she said. "Where were you before Chorastine?" "North," he said. "Cold country. Pine and stone." "And what did you do there?" His spoon stopped in the bowl. The word for it sat behind his teeth. Hunter. Cryptid hunter. The mask he had left in the chest was scored by the things he had killed. He could not lay that on this table, between the cream and the berries, with her waiting. The pause grew. Trema's smile stayed, but her eyes tightened at the corners. "I worked at night," Rhys said. "For coin. It is not work I want to talk about at a good table. Someday. Not tonight." He waited for her to pull back. She set her spoon down and reached across the wood and touched his wrist above the cuff. "Someday, then," she said. "I can wait for someday." He breathed out. He had not told her. He had not lied. She had given him the room and taken his hand anyway. That was the door he had not known to hope for, and she had opened it.