Chapter 75. The Braid

By midnight, the braid held like old rope. It wasn’t beautiful. It didn’t have to be.

“Change of hands,” Syra ordered, walking the line. “If you’re proud of being tired, find a wall to lean on, and I’ll move it so you keep walking.”

Kael and I took the turn in the inner ward, where the moonlight came thin, and the draft smelled like old cedar. We had three minutes before someone needed one of us to bless, sign, lift, bind, scold, or lie.

He used two of them to look at me. Not assessing. He was counting freckles like stars as if the pattern told him something he didn’t want to forget.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and watched the understanding move through him like the beginning of a storm. He stepped close until my back touched cold stone and the wedge of his thigh pinned mine.

“You taste like flour,” he murmured into the hinge of my jaw.

“Don’t waste it,” I said, and pulled him in.

It wasn’t careful. The wall stole the heat off m