Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)

by Rebecca Ross

How utterly sobering it was, then, to realize how seldom daydreams like that aligned with reality.

“If my words have bewitched your son, then know that his possess the same magic for me,” she said, reflexively touching her wedding band again.

The magic still gathers, and the past is gilded; I see the beauty in what has been but only because I have tasted both sorrow and joy in equal measures.

The problem is … I want to hear from you at all hours. I want to read your words. I am greedy for them. I am hungry for them.

You remember how you said that word to me in the infirmary, post-trenches? You believed I had come to the Bluff to outshine you. And I would speak this word back to you now, but only because I would love to see you burn with splendor. I would love to see your words catch fire with mine.

I find that I am leaning more on the side of impossibility these days. I am leaning toward the edge of magic.

Perhaps it was her tone, or the words she didn’t say but which he could still hear, hidden within the cadence of her breaths. Or the way her vulnerability flickered, like she was lowering a piece of steel.

She saw him as he saw her. With eyes open, with eyes shut. As the stars faithfully burned beyond the window, Roman had never been more certain. He could wake in the deepest region of Dacre’s realm, as far from the moon and sun as divinity could shackle him. He could wake and not know his name, forgetting every word he had ever written. But he would never forget the scent of Iris’s skin, the sound of her voice. The way she had looked at him. The confidence of her hands.

There is no magic above or below that will ever steal this from me again.

“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt. Write to me and fill my empty spaces.”

“Sometimes,” Iris began, “I don’t think we know what we’re made of until the worst moment possible happens. Then we must decide who we truly are and what is most important to us. I think we’re often surprised by what we become.”

Sometimes, she distracted him when he was trying to write, but most of the time, he felt a deep sense of peace and comfort when he was in her presence. When he looked at her, watching her go about simple but lovely everyday tasks. When she sat in her favorite chair by the hearth and read to him in the evenings. When she woke in the mornings—always after him—and when she stole most of the blankets at night. When she came home from the Inkridden Tribune, smelling of newspapers and spilled coffee, full of brilliant ideas. And that, he had come to realize, was when his best words emerged. When he was with her.