Page 106 of Shardless

There wasn’t a shred of uncertainty or doubt in his countenance as Skye casually strode around the couch and sat down beside her. But when he didn’t move to place his arm around her, just like he had done a thousand times over the years, she recognized the gesture for what it was—aquestion.Is this okay?

She hadn’t given him an answer before—when he had practically laid his heart at her feet. If she moved away, they would forget what happened that morning and move on. That conversation he had confidently declaredon holdwould be closed—forgotten—and that invisible boundary between them would be fortified, never to be crossed again. They really would bejustfriends, from here until the day she died.

Something about that made her feel hollow inside. This wasSkye—the one constant in her life. The boy who’d found her in a pile of cindered rubble. The man that had proven time and time again that he would do anything to stay by her side. They’d never beenjustanything, and she’d be a fool if she tried to convince herself otherwise.

When Skye shifted, putting a little more distance between them, something inside her cracked.

Could she really do this? After trying to push him away so many times, was she really capable of doing it again? Yes, he might very well reject her when she told him her secret. And yes, she was still going to have to figure out a way to articulate her very confusing feelings when they inevitably picked up their conversation from earlier—even confess that she had been planning to leave him again. And of course, if they made it through all of that,thenthey could start to consider the logistics of what a relationship between a human and a fey noble would actually look like. So many questions to answer. So many hurdles to overcome.

Defeat began to creep into Skye’s expression, just around the edges, and Taly felt that crack inside her widen into a gaping breach when helooked away, his shoulders slumping forward almost imperceptibly.

The questions and confessions could wait. For now…

“And second,” Taly said, wriggling awkwardly as she tried to lean into him. As soon as she began to close the now conspicuous distance, Skye blew out a sharp breath, and his arm immediately encircled her waist, pulling her across the couch and tucking her into his side.

“Second?” Skye prompted a little unsteadily when Taly lapsed into silence, her hand resting on his chest. She’d gotten distracted by the rapid pounding of his heart that she could feel just beneath her fingertips. “My brother and I are both shameless flirts, and?”

“Um… oh, right. Second,” she stammered, finally relaxing in his arms as she sipped at her coffee, “you and Kato both do the same little eyebrow waggle when you think you’re being cute. It’s a little eerie.”

“Wait,” Skye said, one eyebrow shooting up, “you think I’m cute?”

“See, you just did it.” Taly poked at the offensive brow, her finger tracing the inhuman arch. Everything about his face was too carved, too sculpted, toofeyto be human.

Catching her wrist, Skye placed a tender kiss on the palm of her hand. That soft brush of his lips sent a visible shudder down her spine. “I take it since you’re over here, that means you gave up on digging through thousands of years of shadow magic regulations?”

“Um…” Taly’s mind went blank when she felt his tongue dart out, his fingers already pulling at the cuff of her sleeve as he continued to place soft butterfly kisses on the skin of her palm. At the very least, she could safely say he wasn’t disgusted by the idea of kissing a human. For a moment, she let herself get lost in the cascade of unfamiliar feelings that washed over her, allowing Skye to pull her close enough that she had to hook one of her legs over his.

She jerked her hand away when her scar began to peek out from underneath her cuff. “Stop that,” she said sternly. Skye looked unrepentant as he leaned back into the couch. “I stopped looking because I found the answer.” Reaching over him, she dug a hand between the cushions of the couch, retrieving the book she had stashed there earlier and waving it in his face.

“Why’d you put it down there?” he asked, taking the book and opening it to the page she had dog-eared.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Taly replied with a shrug.

Skye leaned forward as he started reading the entries she’d marked, releasing Taly as he frantically turned the page. “No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible.”

“It fits,” Taly said softly. She stared into the mug, watching the swirling eddies of cream blend with the light sprinkle of cinnamon clinging to the surface. Where Skye had managed to find cinnamon, she didn’t know. Even when they weren’t in the middle of the end of the world, the human spice was always hard to come by this close to the Aion Gate connection.

“I suspected…” Skye hung his head. “Shit, I should’ve seen this sooner.”

“I wouldn’t take it personally,” Taly said, sinking further intothe couch as she thought over what she’d found earlier that morning. “Ivain’s the only one on the island old enough to remember it first-hand.”

Skye threw the book off to the side. “Of all the million and one awful things we could be dealing with, why did it have to be shades?”

Taly shuddered. She had only heard Ivain talk about the Shade Rebellion—the civil war that had nearly destroyed the Fey Imperium—a handful of times. When the Myridan rebels started losing the war, they had taken their fallen and found a way to piece them back together—harnessed the power of the dead’s own souls, their anima, to put them back on their feet.

“No,” Skye said, still refusing to believe it. “In every account that I’ve read of the Shade Rebellion, the shades were almost indistinguishable from the living. Those things we fought yesterday looked very,verydead. I also don’t remember there being anything about them eating flesh.”

“I think I have an explanation for that.” Taly reached between the cushions and produced another book. Handing it to Skye, she said, “That’s one of House Myridan’s lab journals from the Rebellion. Although both the Time Guild and the Infinity Queen sided with House Ghislain during the war, there were a few dissenters.”

Skye opened the book, reading over the bookmarked entry. “They were using a time magic enchantment built into their armor to slow the decay rate.” The book slammed shut, and Skye hung his head. “Of course. With no time magic, the corpse is still going to decay unless it can feed on aether—which would explain why those things seemed so… hungry.”

“But even feeding on aether doesn’t completely stop the decay. Not like time magic,” Taly whispered, the mug in her hands forgotten. “The things in the square looked old, but some of the shades that attacked me were… fresher, I think. Granted, I can’t be sure since his face was all messed up, but I think I recognized one of them, Skye.”

“What?” he breathed, his eyes wide.

Taly stared up at the brightening sky outside the dome of the library. “I didn’t know him well. I just saw him at Dimas’ table a few times buying scouting notes. His name was Femy. From what I heard, he never checked in after his last job a few months ago.”

“The people that have gone missing… all those mortals?” Skye went still as he came to the same conclusion that Taly had reached earlier. Not only had there been someone on the island abducting people and turning them into undead foot soldiers, but they might also end up fighting their own people before this was over. “Shit.”

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