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“She’ll give me no competition. None at all. She dropped out of Windy Grove School in her final year.”
First promise already broken
Iris sighed. She could hear Roman’s steady typing, like a heartbeat in the vast room. Fingertips striking keys, keys striking paper. A prodding for her to do better than him. To claim the position before he did.
She left with bright eyes, hurling her broken heel into the dustbin on her way out.
Broken heel... Typewriters... Iris... I see Taylor Swift everywhere lol
She lived with her mother on the second floor, and Iris paused at the door, uncertain what would greet her. It was just as she expected. Aster was reclining on the sofa wrapped in her favorite purple coat, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. Empty bottles were strewn across the living room. The electricity was out, as it had been for weeks now. A few candles were lit on the sideboard and had been burning so long the wax had carved a way free, puddling on the wood.
Lovely
she reached beneath her bed, where she hid her grandmother’s typewriter. Iris pulled it out into the firelight, relieved to find it after the radio’s unexpected departure.
The first time she had read the engraving in the silver. THE THIRD ALOUETTE / MADE ESPECIALLY FOR D.E.W. Daisy Elizabeth Winnow. Her nan’s name.
It was as if someone wanted to steal the knowledge of the past. All the myths about Dacre, his magic and power. Why he was furious with Enva. Why he was instigating a war with her, dragging mortal kind into the bloodshed.
Roman was reading in bed when the paper arrived.
I knew it!
Sometimes when it rained, flowers would bloom in the most unexpected places—teacups and vases and even old shoes.
A candle would always be lit on the counter beside a warm glass of milk and a plate of his favorite biscuits. For that entire year, he thought the cook was the one leaving the meal out for him, until Roman realized it was the house, sensing his troubles and seeking to comfort him.
By all means, don’t stop on account of me or my floor. I claimed who I wasn’t, and you then—quite naturally—asked who I am, but I think it’s better this way. That we keep our identities secret and just rest in the fact that some old magic is at play here, connecting our doorways. But just in case you were wondering … I’ll gladly read whatever you write.
Those who favored Dacre in the war tended to be people who were one of three things: zealously devout, ignorant of the mythology where Dacre’s true and terrifying nature was depicted, or, like Zeb Autry, afraid of Enva’s musical powers.
“We’ve arranged a marriage between you and Miss Little,” Mr. Kitt announced. “This joining of our families will not only be beneficial in our next endeavor but will also be just as your mother described: a joyous occasion.
But just before he deigned to sip the wine, he met Elinor’s eyes. He saw a flicker of fear in her, and he realized she was just as trapped as he was.
He burned with fury; she had slipped away. She had denied him. So he decided he would unleash the brunt of his wrath on innocents; he would refuse to heal them out of spite, knowing Enva would soon have no choice but to answer him and give herself up as an offering. His hounds tore across the land. His eithrals haunted the skies. His anger made the ground shake, and he created new chasms and rifts. But he was right. As soon as innocents began to suffer, Enva came to him.
“Kitt and I are like fire and ice. I think we’d probably kill each other if we had to be in the same room for too long.
“It feels like wearing shoes that are too small,” she whispered. “With every step, you notice it. It feels like blisters on your heels. It feels like a lump of ice in your chest that never melts, and you can only sleep a few hours at a time, because you’re always wondering where they are and those worries seep into your dreams. If they’re alive, or wounded, or sick. Some days you wish that you could take their place, no matter the cost. Just so you can have the peace of knowing their fate.”
But if I’ve learned anything from those fools, it’s that to be vulnerable is a strength most of us fear. It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are.
For a breath, Iris couldn’t move. And whatever mask he had been wearing for everyone else—the smile and the merry eyes and the flushed cheeks—faded until she saw how exhausted and sad he was. It struck a chord within her, music that she could feel deep in her bones, and she broke their stare first.
But I realize that people are just people, and they carry their own set of fears, dreams, desires, pains, and mistakes. I can’t expect someone else to make me feel complete; I must find it on my own.
Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you—a shadow you carry in your soul—but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. You will learn to live outside of it again, as impossible as that may sound. Others who share your pain will also help you heal. Because you are not alone. Not in your fear or your grief or your hopes or your dreams. You are not alone.
Iris’s heart beat swift and hard within her chest. When Roman finally looked at her, time seemed to stall. His eyes were keen, as if he could see everything that dwelled in her—the light and the shadows. Her threads of ambition and desire and joy and grief. Never had a man looked at her in that way.
She decided she wouldn’t answer him, and she folded up his final letter and stuck it with the others she had kept, bound with a ribbon. Her faithful candle extinguished at last, burning itself out.
I don't think it is the wardrobe connecting them.
“This typewriter is a very rare beast,” Helena said, leaning closer to admire it. “Only three were made just like it. Haven’t you heard the old story?”
it is the typewriter connecting them!!!
The next words she said Iris felt in her chest, resounding like a second heartbeat. Words that were destined to bind them together as friends. “I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four only to realize I haven’t lived.
The more Iris dwelled on it, the more it rang true. Enva had never been buried in an eastern grave; she must have struck a deal with the mortals long ago. She had been the one to sing the other four divines to enchanted sleep in deep, dark graves.
And yes, my typewriter has a few quirks. It was my nan’s. She granted it to me on my tenth birthday, in the hopes I would become an author someday, like my grandfather. Before your letter, I never thought to check the underside. I’m shocked to find the silver plaque you described. The engraving is as follows: THE SECOND ALOUETTE / MADE ESPECIALLY FOR H.M.A. Which are my nan’s initials.
“Iris,” he whispered.
“And you’re going to let her slip away, then?” He froze. How was he to answer that? He said, “I don’t think I have much of a choice, Nan.” Nan puffed and swatted his hand. “There is always a choice.
The reassurance was like a warm blanket,
Until he wrote: I want the same. Perhaps we could go irritate the librarians of Oath with our quest for missing myths, or I could take you to meet my nan over tea and biscuits. I think she would take a shine to you. You could also settle the debate about my chin being too pointy and sharp, and if I look more like a knight errant or a rogue. Or maybe we could even just walk the park together. Anything you would like, I would too. I’ll be here, waiting for whenever you’re ready to see me. She read it twice before hiding her smile in the crease of the paper.
She was writing brave, bold things. And it had taken him a while, but he was ready now. He was ready to write his own story.
His hands reached for her as she reached for him, and the stillness broke when they touched, as if they had cracked the world.
“What the hell are you doing here, Kitt?” she demanded, shoving his chest. “Have you lost your mind?” She felt his hands slide down her back, resting on the curve of her hips. If she wasn’t so exhausted and stiff from the harrowing encounter they had miraculously survived, she would have knocked away his touch. She would have slapped him. She might have kissed him. He only smiled as if he had read her mind, and said, “It’s good to see you again too, Winnow.”
That fire in her eyes could have brought him to his knees, and he loathed the façade he was wearing.
She crumpled Carver’s half-read letter into her pocket.
Ahhhhhhh
She unfortunately had to sit on Roman Kitt’s lap, nearly all the way to the front lines.
When he addressed her as Iris … it was like completely new territory and it scared her sometimes. As if she were stepping up to the edge of a great cliff.
The silence felt thick and strange. She was almost afraid to breathe too deeply, welcoming that heavy, chilled air into her lungs. The same air that the enemy was drawing and exhaling, mere kilometers away. It was a silence to drown in.
He looked younger, she thought. Softer. For some reason, it made her ache, and she had to push those alarming feelings aside.
Her attention was divided now, between him and Carver’s letter. She longed for a moment in private, to savor the words she had been reading. Words that were turning her molten.
He carefully tore a new page from his notebook and sent You should take advantage of me. I can give you advice. And why did her gaze hang on that first sentence of his?
And if he knows you well enough … then he’ll mention something about books or newspaper articles, because surely by now he knows your writing is exquisite, and above all he knows that he doesn’t deserve you and your words and he never will.
Ohhhhh my goodneeeeeess
She caught him staring at her. He was suddenly grateful that speaking was forbidden in this part of the trenches. Or else Iris might have made a comment about the frequency of his gazes.
She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words.
“Iris,” Roman whispered, desperate. His grip on her tightened just before the explosion blew them apart.
Iris swallowed a sob, falling to her knees beside him. Was he dead? Her heart wrenched at the thought. She couldn’t bear it, she realized as her hands raced over his face, his chest. She couldn’t bear to live in a world without him.
She and Roman would survive this war. They would have the chance to grow old together, year by year. They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had—the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined—Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?—and they would
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“Don’t leave,” he whispered, and his hand flailed, reaching for her. “You and I … we need to stay together. We’re better this way.”
