Page 118 of Claimed By the Mothman
Nell yawned and stretched as she drifted into the wide kitchen, which was equipped with a lovely pantry (minus a pair of red doors) and a stove that expanded and contracted depending on what was being prepared. Right now, it was small as Sig stood before it, poking something questionable in a saucepan. She leaned her head against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Good morning, beloved,” he exclaimed. “Breakfast is currently undergoing negotiation. I hope it to be resolved it in the next ten minutes.”
He turned and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She was wrapped in one of his sweaters, which fell all the way to her calves. Her hair was a complete, delighted mess, and her green eyes were soft.
“Is it sentient?” she asked, scooting over to the cabinet and pulling down a mug and a tea tin.
“At this point, it seems probable.”
Nell plugged in the electric kettle. “In that case, can I have toast instead?”
They carried their breakfast to the small cafe table on the balcony patio—Nell with her toast, Sig with whatever his breakfast was, she refused to ask—and sat as Bellwether hummed beneath them. The early October weather was picture-perfect, the wind warm as it wove through the golden and red trees below. The scent of cinnamon was in the air—probably Catalina, baking a mess of pies for next week’s potluck.
“I talked to Goldie yesterday to see if she’s gotten any further on the whole dyad-lore thing,” Nell said, sipping from her mug and bouncing her bare leg in time with some internal tune. She reached out to stroke the small squash-colored vine-thing curling out of its cracked ceramic pot in the center of the table. It gave a pleased little coo and leaned hard into her palm, leaves twitching with affection.
“She’s still waiting on a few books from the inter-library loan system in Elmborough—or maybe Ell Between, hard to tell with the handwriting. Yesterday, I heard her yelling into the phone, trying to find out if an intertemporal glitch was holding up delivery. I think she threatened to hex the courier service into a time loop.”
Sig hummed as he bit into something that squeaked. “Did you thank her for the fermented moon-plum jerky?” He asked, utterly content. “It was decadent.”
“I did, but you can tell her yourself tomorrow when she starts moving into the vacant apartment.” Her eyes gleamed. “It’s getting real, Sig. She’s putting her house up for rent next week. Her exact words were,it’s not fair that you get to have all the fun; it’s high time I get a sexy mothman of my own.”
“There are no additional sexy mothmen in this building,” Sig pointed out flatly. “Has she terminated her arrangement with the Ezra?”
“I think Goldie and the Ezra have a delightful on-again-off-again dynamic built entirely out of melodrama and mutual provocation,” Nell said, sipping her tea. “Honestly, I think they thrive on the chaos of it.”
Sig watched a flicker of brightness pass behind Nell’s eyes. She was chasing timelines again, the possibilities-to-come. “I haven’t seen a resolution yet,” she murmured, her voice carrying an underlying harmony, like it was being played in two keys at once.
Then she blinked and her natural grin came back, wide and unbothered. “And I kind of don’t even want to find out. Watching her spiral in real time isdelightful.”
Sig churred with laughter. Nell twisted the new ring on her finger. It was small and silver, set with a tiny carved line that mirrored the one on Sig’s hand. Their rings didn’t shimmer, hum, or glow with an ancient blessing, but they were still magical, because they weretheirs.
They weren’t married, not in the traditional sense of walks down the aisle and vows, which had left Theo despondent at the lack of vest-wearing opportunities, and Goldie had exclaimed it to be “a travesty of bridal potential.”
Sig and Nell had promised everyone that yes, there would be a party. Eventually. But there were still many things—physical, emotional, and magical—that remained to be unpacked.
Not much had changed in the past four months, yet everything had. Mr. Caracas had declared Nell “not too bad for someone who used to be human,” and now insisted she join him every Wednesday night forMurder, She Wrotereruns. He grumbled nonstop through each episode, muttering that Jessica Fletcher was “a demon from the ninth circle of hell” and “clearly orchestrating every murder for the thrill of the narrative.” Nell didn’t disagree.
The Thornfather had awakened a few days ago, a development that startled everyone, considering he typically only stirred for births, deaths, or seasonal catastrophes. Sig had gone to visit him the moment word reached the seventeenth floor and had returned looking pale and thoughtful, with bark dust on his shoulders and a scratch blooming gold on his forearm.
“He dreamed of a man planting bones like seeds,” Sig said quietly, “and harvesting power from what should have stayed dead.”
Nell had simply nodded. That sounded about right.
All in all, it was life as usual at Greymarket Towers.
—
Later that evening, after the dishes had been cleared and dusk began to wave its soft hands over the skyline, Sig and Nell stood on the balcony together. The city stretched out below them in a tangle of rooftops and shadowed streets, street lights blinking into bloom like fireflies.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock tower chimed thirteen. A flock of something winged and translucent peeled away from a nearby spire, laughing in fractured echoes. A street vendor four blocks down opened an umbrella that whispered secrets in three languages, and Bellwether’s heartbeat—slow, strange, andvery much alive—thumped beneath it all.
Sig curled an arm around her waist. Nell leaned into him contentedly, watching the city unfurl. The bond hummed softly between them, a thread that pulsed in time with both of their breaths.
Somewhere deep within the walls, the Tower shifted like a great beast turning in its sleep. Doors opened. Lights blinked on. The world—their world—continued.
Nell closed her eyes. Sig pulled her closer, his chin resting atop her head. Above them, the stars flickered into place, like a pattern, like a promise, like a love story with teeth and wings and roots…that was just beginning.
Epilogue
