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The fact that I only noticed one :omg:
If something befell her … how would he learn of it? “Iris,” he spoke into the lamplight. “Iris, write to me.”
But it certainly felt like something. Something that was now stealing his sleep and making his chest ache with each breath.
“There is always a choice. Are you going to let your father write your story, or will you?”
when you find something good? You hold on to it. You don’t waste time worrying about things that won’t even matter in the end. Rather, you take a risk for that light.
The reassurance was like a warm blanket, and he suddenly realized how sore and weary he was. He wanted to fall asleep with Iris on his mind but resisted her taunting draw.
If I had wings, I would fly home for a day.
She sent that confession over the portal, and her mind added, I want to touch you.
Anything you would like, I would too. I’ll be here, waiting for whenever you’re ready to see me.
Things I know about you:
Carver.
“Little flower.” I see it now. The name suits you. P.S. Hi, Iris.
iris: transitive verb: to make iridescent. Let us make our names exactly what we want them to be.
You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel.
He forgot everything when he read her words, and a smile crept over his face when he reached the end. Damn, he was proud of her.
I don’t think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn’t swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it’s found in quiet, gentle places. The way you hold someone’s hand as they grieve. The way you listen to others. The way you show up, day after day, even when you are weary or afraid or simply uncertain.
Keep writing. You will find the words you need to share. They are already within you, even in the shadows, hiding like jewels.
They carried a typewriter case in one hand, a leather bag in the other.
It was Roman Confounded Kitt.
The impact was jarring; Iris bit her tongue as they tangled together in the long grass, his body warm and firm beneath hers. His hands splayed against her back, holding her to him.
She wondered if Roman could feel it, how she was quaking against him, and when his hand pressed harder into her back, she knew he could.
She could smell his cologne. Spice and evergreen. It ushered her back in time to moments they had spent together in the lift and in the office. And now her body was draped across his and she couldn’t deny how good it felt, as if the two of them fit together. A flicker of desire warmed her blood, but the sparks swiftly dimmed when she thought of Carver. Carver. The guilt nearly crushed her. She kept him at the forefront of her mind until a shiver spun through her, and she felt a strange prompting to open her eyes.
only to discover Roman was intently studying her face.
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.
“Did the eithrals drop a boy from the sky, then?”
“Inkridden Iris,” he said, his rich drawl making her sound like a legend.
Iris’s eyes slid to Roman. He was already looking at her, and in that shared moment, they were both remembering the sway of a golden field and their mingled breaths and the shadow of wings that had rippled over them.
“Keep it, Iris.”
She thought of Carver, but she fell asleep to the metallic song of Roman Kitt’s typing.
And he winked at Iris. She was so flustered by it she spilled her tea.
so he could keep his gaze on her as she labored up the hill.
That fire in her eyes could have brought him to his knees,
She didn’t want Roman going to the front. She wanted him here, where he would be safe.
Your rival? Who is this bloke? If he’s competing with you, then he must be an utter fool. I have no doubt you will best him in every way.
There was no doubt in her mind that he was as uncomfortable as she was.
The last thing in the world she wanted was for Roman Chafing Kitt to know she was magically corresponding with a boy she had never met but felt sparks for.
She imagined letters were sacred on the front.
What’s that you’re reading, Winnow? She picked up her pen and wrote her reply: What does it look like, Kitt? She recrumpled and hurled it at him.
A love letter, I presume?
It’s none of your business, but if you would be so kind as to allow me to finish reading it in peace … I would be eternally grateful, she wrote,
You should take advantage of me.
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.
Perhaps that was all she needed to do to make him heed her: call him Roman.
He could lose himself in those hazel eyes,
She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words.
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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I need you to steal the front page from me like you normally do, all right?”
A transcendent connection.
A divine threshold.
