A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1)

by Freya Marske

Robin managed to hold his tongue on something truly unwise like You look like a Turner painting and I want to learn your textures with my fingertips. You are the most fascinating thing in this beautiful house. I’d like to introduce my fists to whoever taught you to stop talking about the things that interest you.

Edwin wondered, from nowhere, what it would look like if Robin’s heart was breaking. It was a terrible thought to have. He had it anyway.

Edwin touched the back of Robin’s other hand with his fingertips. He felt painfully awkward. He’d never had the knack of knowing how, why, when to extend this kind of touch. But Robin, of course, made it easy: he turned his hand up and clasped Edwin’s in his own, squeezing it.

And admission, even in his own head: I am nothing like you, and yet I feel more myself with you.

Now that the show was over, Bel and Charlie followed suit, though Bel shot curious glances over her shoulder at Edwin. She was looking at him with more interest than she had in years. It was discomfiting.

The curse was gone. The knowledge felt like having a bone new-knitted beneath white flesh.

Edwin, who’d learned to hide the things he wanted so completely that he almost didn’t let himself want them at all.