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The thrift store certainly lived up to this city’s favoured slogan.
It was weird.
More like a costume shop than a place in which Nesta would actually find something she’d be caught dead wearing. It was like a poorly lit room that time forgot - big, poofy dresses and military jackets and bell bottoms all clashed and screamed a thousand different colours and patterns and metals at her.
Even running her fingertips across the various racks of clothing was an assault on the senses. So. Many. Fabrics.
So many fabrics that other people had worn and lived and probaby died in.
With that thought, Nesta pulled the hand sanitizer from her bag and made her way down the outrageously narrow metal staircase that she just knew would lead her right to Gwyn.
Wherever the darkest, strangest corner of any given place was, you could find Nesta’s best friend and her new goth boyfriend.
He’s not goth, she could hear Gwyn’s voice chirp in her ear. He just wears a lot of black.
And eyeliner. Not that Azriel would ever admit it, but no one’s waterline was naturally that colour. Nesta would die on that hill.
The walls seemed to press closer and closer in the longer she continued her descent - how many stairs were there? Shelves lined the wrought iron steps, some new creepy tchotchke coming into view with each step down. All the rummage sale classics were present and accounted for - dusty tea pots and unpolished silver trays, tapered candlestick holders and miscellaneous but mostly unremarkable jewelry. And then, there were the not at all classics. Each shelf seemed to hold something … Creepy. The knitted voodoo doll was a little too on the nose to send any sensations skittering up Nesta’s spine, but the jar of (what she hoped were) fake teeth and mirror with an unsettling frost across the glass were enough to have her picking her speed up.
Finally exiting into the fluorescent lit basement, Nesta still could not shake the feeling that something felt strange here. Not wrong, exactly, but … uncanny. Familiar, in the coldest, loneliest possible way. Like her memory was a puzzle and this thrift store in Portland held pieces she didn’t even know were missing.
Get it together, Archeron.
There was nothing strange here. She’d just been swooped up in Gwyn’s witchy tour of the city since they arrived that morning. Sticking a pretzel in a jelly donut did not cause paranormal activity.
Just one weekend, and then Nesta would be back in Seattle with her grey skies and moody, black coffee people.
“Nesta, come look!” Gwyn clearly felt nothing strange as she jumped up and down, waving a black and white photo around.
“Look at what?” Nesta flattened her brows, “The way people’s kids give their prized photos away to be sold for 25 cents to some weirdo.” Nesta scoffed as Gwyn held the photo up so she could see it better. “I mean seriously, who buys these things?”
“Look,” Gwyn insisted, leaning over the box containing what looked like a thousand vintage photographs. “Doesn’t she look like you?”
Nesta raised an eyebrow, staring down at the woman in the photograph.
She was beautiful - victory rolls in hair that looked too blonde to be Nesta’s. Her nose was too thin and her lips too wide, but -
“The eyes,” Azriel said. And suddenly that tingling along her spine had returned. “The guy kinda looks like my brother.”
Nesta ran her thumb across the still image of the man in question without realizing she had even moved.
“No he doesn’t,” Gwyn wrinkled her nose.
“Not Rhys,” Azriel shook his head. “Cassian. The one we’re meeting for dinner. You’ll see tonight.”
Nesta studied the man in the photo. His pointed jaw and All-American Smile didn’t do much for her, but …
The eyes.
Even in black and white there was something about his eyes. Some empty space inside of her chest twitched and tugged like a spider spinning a web along the empty spaces between her ribs.
The heat was what Agnes' daddy would have called oppressive. Manhattan didn't hold a candle to Mobile on its worst day, but the spring of 1944 came in hot and early. By the end of April her thinnest wool sweater was clinging with sweat to the back of her neck. The mountain of books in her hands and heavy market satchel over her shoulder didn't help matters - nor did the absurdly crowded street. Terrible even by New York standards thanks to the three massive US Navy ships docked in the harbour. A fueling stop before some month-long sailing to Germany, Mary had told her with wide teal eyes.
Please, they're just going back to hang out on the Hawaiian beaches, Emily had snorted. Pen already in hand as she pressed out the door of their shared boarding house. Anything to get her story, even talking to a bunch of sweaty, leering sailors.
Agnes shouldn't think so unkindly of the men risking their lives, she knew. But to be honest ... their absence brought a peace to the city like she had never experienced. It was wrong, horrible to think, but it was ... nice, walking to and from class without sneers or grasping hands. Pushing into the Barnard Women's College building without so many preening Columbia men stalking around every corner to offer up MRS degrees.
Not to mention the incident at her exam last month.
What are you doing here? The question came from every angle as she sat to write the standardized test that would make or break her entire future. The whole reason she moved all the way to this big, terrifying, often unfriendly city that she loved so much. She had mostly learned to tune their voices out – sexist nonsense from men who saw her intellect as so far beneath their own that it was a joke for her to be writing the same exam.
Except for that one man. A boy, really. No older than her. The one who leaned over her shoulder before the timer began and whispered, You know how many of us are here for the draft deferment? If you take a man’s place in that school, they’re going to send him to the front lines.
Lost in her the horrible memory, Agnes' square heel caught on a loose stone and her books went flying into the street. Her body would have joined them if not for a strong, steady hand on her bicep.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" His accent was thick as over steeped sweet tea, not so different from the one Agnes herself had carefully coaxed out of her voice the last few years living in the city.
"Yes," she rushed to pull out of his grip, scrambling after the books that would cost far more than she had if they were not returned to the library. "Yes, I'm fine."
One, two, three ... there had been four books.
She was certain of it.
Agnes straightened, smoothing a few errant strands of hair from her face and squinted her eyes. No. The book was nearby. It had to be. But a look up and down the street revealed nothing
No. No, no, no-
"Looking for this?"
Relief flooded through her chest before annoyance crept in a second later. The man was holding her book aloft, a gentle smirk playing at the corners of a too-confident mouth. Agnes would have reached for it and been on her way, but she knew this game. Knew the way men liked to play.
She folded her arms over her chest and sized up her opponent. He was tall and lean. The uniform broadened his shoulders and instilled an air of authority that the youth on his face betrayed.
"What do you want?"
The man blinked, smirk falling. "I wasn't trying to bother you or anything, ma'am. But, well, opportunity presenting itself and all I sure would like to buy you a cup of coffee." She raised an eyebrow, "Or a whiskey if you are feeling a bit reckless."
Agnes didn't tell him that she was always feeling reckless these days. War did that, removed any sense of practicality that was not strictly required. The sky was falling, and the world was ash, how could a few fingers of good brown liquor in her stomach possibly be worse than everything else happening around them?
But Agnes had all the time in the world to drink whiskey and read her books. This man was on a clock. "You should spend your time on land with a girl who can give you what you want, sailor. I'm not that kind of girl."
The navy man swallowed, Adam's apple working hard around what Agnes almost thought might be nerves. "What I want is a conversation with the prettiest girl in New York City. And I can't get that with anyone else."
"Quite the charmer." She refused to grin, even if something warm flooded through her chest.
The smirk returned, lighter this time, "My mama always taught me to be honest."
Agnes did smile at that, just a little. “I don’t drink with men I don’t know.” It was a weak protest and they both knew it.
His hand shot out, overeager in the most endearing way, “Caleb Thomas. Now, if you tell me your name, then we won’t be strangers anymore.”
Turning her head up to meet his eyes -
Breath caught in her throat. So tight she thought she might choke. He couldn't have been much older than her, but the years reflected through hazel eyes told a different story. One that Agnes was quickly lost inside of.
She couldn't explain it, had no words for the tight pulling at the center of her chest, but as his pupils blew wide in the sunlight, green streaking brilliantly through the golden brown, she knew he felt it too.
“Agnes,” she said quietly.
“Alright then. Know any good places to get a drink, Nes?”
“Don’t call me that.”
His accent was from Oklahoma, Agnes learnt as she led him to a cheap, dark bar tucked beneath a bookshop that she loved so well. Caleb had taken her satchel wordlessly and then tucked each of her four books under one of his arms.
"What do you need all these books for, anyway?" He asked as they settled in. And the question should have grated. It should have sent every one of her walls flying up. She should have launched immediately into her well-practiced speech about the future being now and the importance of women being educated and hadn't the past fifty years taught society anything about exactly that?
But his voice was soft and genuine. The question earnest.
"I'm studying at the women's college," she said quietly.
"Studying what?" He leaned in closer. The distance between them entirely proper and respectful, his interest plain.
"Government and history for now. But," her teeth found home inside her lip, "Well, the law schools have started admitting more women every year and I ... my professors think I have a shot. I took the admissions exam just last month."
"I knew you were smart." His voice was almost a whisper, "it's in your eyes." Agnes swallowed. "I was never much good at books."
"What are you good at?" The question could have been considered rude, but she was entirely genuine in asking it. Just as he had been.
"Boats." She laughed, eyeing his uniform as if to say duh. "I mean it, it's what I'm good at. Fixing them, I mean. The engines and wiring and stuff. Never made sense to me in a book, but put me in front of an electrical problem and I can fix it every time."
"I imagine that is very useful in your line of work."
"Vital," he agreed. "And lucky, I'll take the deck of a ship over a muddy trench any day. Even if, well…" Something like guilt flashed behind those ageless eyes and Agnes shifted the conversation quickly.
"My friends can't agree on if they're sending you to Germany or Hawaii. Care to settle the bet?"
"Neither," Caleb’s mouth flattened into a straight line, turning back to his glass. "I'm not allowed to say where I'm going, but ... well, let's just say the plan is to end this blasted thing."
"Isn't that always the plan?" Agnes was tired of being told the war would end soon. Everyone said it all the time. For years the end was just around the corner. Perhaps a soldier like Caleb had to believe that. Only way to get out of bed and keep fighting.
His mouth opened to answer, but a man pushed in behind them. "Mind if I take your picture?" He held up a clunky camera, "I'm trying to capture the sailors on their leave. Get a look in between the fighting, y'know?"
"Uh, sure," Caleb said.
"Lean in a little closer there hon." Again, Agnes should have fought and screamed and protested. But she didn't. Because truth be told, she wanted to lean in closer. She wanted to feel the weight of Caleb's arm around her shoulder, the scent of his aftershave.
When she smiled for the photo, it was real.
When Caleb asked her to write to him, she agreed.
When the US Navy stormed the beaches of Normandy a little over a month later, Agnes didn't need to wait for confirmation.
She knew instantly that was where his ship had sailed. Remembered the shot of guilt in his eyes. Thought of all the ships that had gone down in this war. She had met him only once, but she knew her final letter would never be read. Because he was the sort of man who would volunteer to be in the first wave of soldiers – the ones Emily had called a human shield in her latest article. She never told her friends about him. Never told anyone about him.
Caleb belonged entirely to her.
It was the strangest thing, for her heart to break over a man she never even knew.
He left her in the middle of a sentence, their semi colon forced to become a period.
Time passed, as it always does. Agnes finished her studies, went to law school like she said she would and met a wonderful, intelligent man who drank too much but was otherwise perfectly fine. She got married, had children. Taught law.
And never forgot the entirely different future she had once seen, staring back at her through timeless hazel eyes.
In a better world than this, he returned to New York after the war. Walked into that same little bar and declared, I’m home.
Nesta put the photo down quickly, something heavy settling over her skin. "We should probably get going if -"
"Just a few more minutes," Gwyn waved a hand through the air. "I want to see if they have any actual china cups. I’ve got a bunch more bees wax and want to do candles."
"I saw some on the shelves as I was coming down the stairs," Nesta said, already turning back in that direction. Desperate, suddenly, to be in the open air again. To breathe. She didn't even notice that Gwyn wasn't following her when she half ran back to the metal staircase. Wrought iron cool under her tightly gripping fingers. Calming, grounding. Nesta paused, took a deep breath in and resolved to steady herself. She was not a child who believed in ghosts and witches and-
The mirror moved.
Nesta Archeon was officially losing her ever loving mind, because she knew that the creepy frosted mirror she passed on the way down moved. Not the mirror itself, but something inside of it. A trick of the light, she had to imagine. It was old, the metal half-rusted and the glass so foggy she could barely see herself inside of it, but when she moved ... so did it.
Nesta took a step up, and then down. Up, down, up, down, trying to make herself see something other than the impossible truth that stared back at her.
The image of a man was cast inside the mirror. Nesta leaned in closer. He was broad-shouldered and stern. With a large forehead and the ghost of a smile playing across his lips. When she moved up a step, he disappeared. When she moved down one ... his eyes caught her.
Hazel.
Scotland was prettier out a window than England. Her entire life, everyone told Cate of this horrid, ugly, far-off land full of savages and freezing moors, but looking at it from up here at the Gamekeeper's cottage of the exiled Queen’s estate, she couldn't help but fall in love. That was her greatest skill it would seem, falling in love with beautiful things she could not possibly keep. As if he could hear her thoughts, Callum closed the door to whatever closet he was socking his muddy boots away in and re-entered the main sitting room with a decanter of something golden and expensive looking.
"Don't waste your best scotch on me," Cate pulled her gaze from the window.
"It's nae a waste." His voice was deep and serious. The same confused edge pulling to the top as every other time she tried to convince him not to bring her things or be kind to her. "The Laird gives me two things in abundance, Lass. Space and scotch. I would like to enjoy both with you."
"I should be heading back," Cate sighed even as she pulled the burgundy flannel blanket more tightly around herself. Burrowing deeper into the soft, well-used cushion of his little couch.
Callum poured them each a drink. "Ye say that every day. And yet," he easily lifted both of her tucked up legs into his lap, settling a hand so high on her upper leg that she nearly blushed. Leaning forward to rake his fingers through her already wind-tangled black hair, "Ye never go."
"Perhaps I think that God will give me points for trying to do the right thing."
His light eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead. "The English are so strange. How do ye know this isn't exactly where God wants ye tae be?"
Cate smiled. She was always smiling with him - and it was not an expression that came easily to her. "I think it is where you want me to be."
"Aye, I'll not deny that." Callum lifted the scotch glass to her lips, a dare flickering through the golds of his hazel eyes. Strange to think all of this had started because of one of his dares. Well, that and her famously horrific sense of direction. Still, Cate drank what he offered. Wished he held out a handful of pomegranate seeds instead so that she could end up trapped here forever. "I love that look ye give me," he grinned.
Cate pursed her lips, liquor burning warm and slow through her chest. "What look?"
"All of them, actually." His grin only widened. "Ye have so many looks for a lass with such a wee face." Cate might have taken offence to that a few weeks ago, when they met in a muddy field and every word he said had felt like an insult. When she screamed and beat her fists against his back as he pulled her by the waist from the bog she had managed to stumble into.
In retrospect, she must have fallen in love with him when he went back into the muck to save her favorite blue satin slippers. Or perhaps it was when he mixed his mother's solution to clean them and had a footman find her in the castle with nothing but a first name.
"The surprised one is my favorite," Callum whispered. One thick finger trailing over the space between her eyes. "This scrunches up and those highland morning eyes get so wide I swear the whole storming sky is caught inside of them."
Cate smirked, batting his hand away only to intertwine her fingers with his own and set both of their hands back in her lap. "Who taught a Scottish gamekeeper to be so charming?"
"Who taught an English lady to fuck like a-"
"Callum!" She shrieked, but he was already doubled over with laughter. Hands steady on her waist as he leaned up to capture lips that were still swollen from their tryst only that morning. Honestly, Cate wasn't sure how no one had noticed her disappearing act yet. She barely cared anymore, when she left and when she returned. In what state she returned. Incredible, how much freedom she now had when only two years ago she had practically been kept under lock and key. One of the many perks of being a widow, she supposed.
She could thank her husband for that, at least. For dying.
Callum's body was warm and heavy on top of hers. One of his long legs forced to find purchase against the wooden floors since the sofa was too thin to fit the entirety of his large frame. What a thing it was, to feel safe underneath a man's body instead of terrified. "I wish I could stay here forever."
Callum's eyes always looked so green when they were outside, as if the Scottish hills rolled through his very soul and simply could not be kept inside. Now, as he stared down at her, they were nearly black. She wished, for only a moment, that he were a more whimsical sort of fellow. That he could give into her fantasy for a moment. Whisper beautiful assurances in her ear and promise to fell the Queen of England himself if she tried to separate them.
But then again, no.
She liked Callum practical and sardonic.
She liked the pain that sliced through his eyes, a blade matching her own. Liked the hardened stone that encased his chest. Again, perfectly matched against her own.
It was beautiful in its own way, to desperately grasp at the few fraying strands of all the happiness a life might provide. All the while knowing each of their strings would be torn in different directions in only a few weeks’ time. Perhaps days. Things were more fraught than ever between their two Queens. It had been thought that the English envoy would mean imminent talks of peace, but as far as Cate could tell, they had all been left there to freeze over the winter while the Virgin Queen set her chess board.
Cate would have been happy to languish in the highlands for the rest of her life, but that was more of a dream than peace between their two sister nations.
There was nothing more dangerous than a young, pretty, titled widow. Men did not like women such as herself to remain free for long.
And the letter she knew was coming had arrived only that morning. Her father had promised her at least a year of freedom before she was shoved down an aisle again, but he had always been a weak man.
Some Earl’s son from so far north that the air would hurt her face and everything would smell of seawater had made an offer. Apparently, she danced with him at a ball while she was young and foolish enough to imagine that marriage would be a beautiful thing. Cate must have left quite an impression if he wanted her even now.
The Queen thought it was a good match, her father wrote in the letter. It was a lie. Elizabeth would have rather none of her ladies ever married at all. It was rather Nesta’s favorite thing about having been accepted into her service.
Second favorite, she supposed. After being sent to Scotland. Strange, that it had felt like a punishment at the time. A way to put her out of sight while she donned widow’s black. Decorations were not meant to look so somber.
She told Callum about the engagement, of course.
He only stared for a moment. Nodded tightly and then sunk into her body with such dedication she swore he was trying to imprint the shape of himself onto her permanently. Swore he succeeded.
“I have something for ye,” Callum broke the silent, perfect moment.
“I can feel that,” she laughed. Pressing her hips up into his.
“Ignore him,” Callum quipped with an affectionate swipe of his hand over her thigh. “Doesn’t know when to pick his moments.”
“I think he’s doing a fine job.”
Callum shook his head. Standing to his full height. Cate smiled, sliding back into the corner of the sofa. She watched him leave the room and come back with the most peculiar sort of gift.
A mirror. Large, with expensive metal and unclear glass. The inside so at odds with the outside that she nearly asked.
“Look,” he implored, swivelling the object this way and that. Last week, she had given him a miniature of herself and told him she wished he had a portrait.
And now he made one – and found a way for her to keep it always.
“I hate it.” Cate declared, petulant. Pain shot through hazel eyes. “No, I love it.” She corrected. “Of course I love it. I hate why you got it for me.”
“We were always on borrowed time, my lady. We stole more happiness than we were ever entitled to.”
No one is entitled to happiness.
One of the first things they ever agreed on.
It would have to be enough, they agreed when their lips parted for the final time. This happiness, it would have to last them both a lifetime.
There were other joys to be found in life, of course.
Cate learned to love the Cornish sea. It was quiet, and her second husband was kinder than her first. If she never loved him, it didn’t seem to matter. Cate had known love already, kept it tucked in a closet on the second floor of a grand house that never quite felt like her own.
Late at night, when her husband was out bothering other women with his presence, Cate would cast her mind to Callum. Think of the woman he eventually married. She pictured a sweet Scottish lass who could make his favourite meals and (hopefully) match his stubbornness. The brood of freckled children over-filling that little cottage.
Did he ever think of her? The delicate English widow with a bad attitude who carried the tattoo of his lips on her neck.
She would never know it, but Callum thought of her every night as the only other woman he ever loved curled into a furry ball at the foot of his bed.
There was a fantasy that spread across the sea through both of their dreams. Some impossible world where she found the courage to run away. Stole money from her husband and travelled all the way back to him.
In a better world than this, they grew old together in that little cottage.
“Nesta!” The sheer volume of Gwyn’s voice indicated she had repeated herself several times. Nesta’s head was swimming. She could barely focus. It was as if too many selves existed inside her brain. It was too much, too real, too unreal. “Hello. Earth to Nesta?”
“Sorry,” Nesta shook her head. “Sorry, I … I got distracted.”
Gwyn’s brow scrunched up. “You really don’t do well with all this old stuff, huh?”
Nesta grasped for the lifeline. “It’s the dust,” she joked. “Gets to my head.”
“Alright, well Az’s brother is waiting. And you are about to experience the best vegan burger you’ve ever had. I swear.”
“Can’t wait.”
Something was off the entire two block walk to whatever hipster café Gwyn had chosen for dinner. Air settled too thick over Nesta’s skin. Her steps moved too quickly, body pulling forward as if against her will. Storefronts and people all blurred into a haze.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nesta didn’t have an answer. Didn’t have a defence for the way she rose onto the balls of her feet as they walked in the door. Kitschy décor slipping past her notice entirely. It was borderline rude, the rough, jerky nod she offered the hostess when she informed them the first in their party had already arrived.
Nesta nearly stepped on the poor girl’s heels (easy to do while she was wearing Birkenstocks) in her rush to find-
What?
Her rush to find what?
What was she doing?
What was she looking for-
She found it.
There, his entire massive body curled uncomfortably against a bright blue corner booth. Black curls pulled back in a messy half bun, several curly strands escaping as he smiled down at his phone.
He laughed, and Nesta’s heart stuttered to a stop in her chest as she tracked the crinkling lines at the sides of his –
Eyes.
"Hi. I'm-" But his voice cut off when she looked up. Their eyes meeting. Chests unbearably tight.
Gold met silver and a different life washed over her with every blink.
She was an artist’s muse in Athens when the gods still ruled the city and he was a fisherman who sculpted by night, determined to cast her body perfectly in stone – the vision of Aphrodite. His ship sunk to the bottom of the Aegean Sea.
He was a gladiator in ancient Rome and she was a serving girl. They tried to run away. They failed.
He was an Italian orphan scraping his way through the dark ages and she hired him to pass off her scientific studies in his name so they could be taken seriously. The plague stole her at twenty-three.
He was a progressive theologist in the Islamic golden age and her traditionalist father wanted his head on a pike. He got his wish, in the end.
He was a viking and she was an English lady sent along for peace talks with her horrible husband. An angry Dane slew her in the street. He was only six steps too late, sword already poised to defend.
He was a Victorian age factory magnate and she was a desperate debutante with an indecent proposal. Her father sold her to a lesser man.
They grew up together in the idyllic south and actually made it down the aisle for once. His conscious pushed him away from her to fight for the union. He never returned.
She sang in a jazz club and he curried bootlegged liquor through the tunnels of Moose Jaw. She took a bullet meant for him.
He was a recovering druggie and she was the family failure. They nearly touched greatness in a Waffle House and then spun out on black ice.
He was a pilot and she was a diplomat with a scowl and a layover. Her return flight got cancelled and they never met again.
She was a ballerina and he was a fool who fell in love at first sight. He never plucked up the courage to approach her again after that first, cutting rejection.
Fangs grew from her gums and a slayer’s stake held firm in his fist. He loved her, but could never resolve himself to immortality.
She was the witch of the woods and he was a knight trying to save the princess. The dragon had other ideas.
He was a dragon desperate to win over his human mate. She threw her life away on a human lord for her sister’s happiness.
He was a pirate captain that raided her father’s ship and took her as the best thing he’d ever looted. His enemies ran her through at an unfriendly port.
He was a loyal warrior assigned to bring her into line, by any means necessary. She never forgave him for taking away her freedom.
"You," Nesta whispered over the never ending flood of lives they might have lived. Some of those worlds weren’t even real. Couldn’t possibly be. It didn’t matter.
"You," he agreed. Stepping out from behind the wooden table. Their body's were a breath away in seconds, everything else forgotten.
And somehow, inside that tiny, pretentious vegan eatery five hundred years and a thousand fantasy world's of almost solidified. The anxious, invisible string between their souls settled to a contented golden glow.
This go around, they would be timeless.
Right?