Chapter Text
The third time, Nesta brings herself to the shop.
Cassian leaves her just outside the door, and they barely have time to exchange a parting kiss before he has to take off again. Nesta knows he’s headed no further than to the House of Wind, now that he and Azriel have exchanged roles with regard to training the priestesses and teaching Emerie the more complex flying maneuvers, but she still misses his presence, his proximity, even with the promise of their upcoming mating ceremony in just a few days.
She wants to do this alone, though. As much as she longs for him, this task is better accomplished with a lucid mind and clear focus.
Being together with Cassian inside a sex shop is everything but.
So, Nesta takes a steeling breath and opens the door, a brand-new set of little bells and chimes jingling to announce her entrance to the owner.
Indeed, Moana emerges from the beaded curtain behind the counter with her best shopkeeper’s smile, which only grows when she takes in Nesta’s form.
“Well, hello, Lady Archeron,” Moana says, in her signature flirty tone. “You missed your friend by ten minutes.”
Nesta frowns. Her friend? It can’t be Emerie, as she’s not been in Velaris―in the Night Court, in general―for the past month and a half, so this has to mean... “Gwyn?”
“Yep,” Moana replies, popping the ‘p’. “No shadowsinger in sight, this time. Trouble in paradise?”
Nesta shakes her head. “No, Azriel is busy with Emerie in Dawn.”
“Mmm. Still, coming here with the High Lord must have been one hell of an adjustment for Gwyn.”
It takes an embarrassingly long moment for Nesta to take in the meaning of Moana’s words. “Wait.” She blinks one, two, three times, stunned. “Gwyn was supposed to come and go with Feyre.”
Moana looks down at the floor, blushing.
“What’s Rhys planning?” Nesta presses then, bending down and angling her head up so she can meet Moana’s eyes. “What are he and Gwyn up to? Is it my hen party?” She grimaces at that, images of male strippers and dick-shaped cookies and weirdly named cocktails flooding her mind. “Please tell me it’s not my hen party.”
Moana mimics sewing her mouth shut.
Nesta straightens up with an annoyed huff. “Fine. I’ll make Gwyn spill the beans, then.” She taps her fingertips on the counter, prompting Moana to look up again. “She already tells me everything about your sessions, and I’m guessing this thing came up in your conversation, right?”
“Our session today was physical therapy, not mental therapy, and we don’t talk at all during physical. Gwyn needs to stay focused and sink into her body to do her exercises.”
“Wrong,” Nesta bites back without missing a beat. “You do talk, at times. It keeps Gwyn distracted when it’s necessary.”
Moana rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “You truly tell each other everything, don’t you?”
Nesta curves her lips into a fiendish smile. “The markings of a profound and successful friendship.”
“Indeed. Which is why,” Moana says, matching her smirk, “I already know that your little... experiment with your mate went wonderfully. Even better than we’d dared to imagine, I would say.”
Moana winks at her, and Nesta feels herself getting flustered for absolutely no reason.
“Is this why you’re here, Lady Archeron?” Moana goes on, her voice low and persuasive. “To... push this thing further?”
Nesta’s, “Yes,” ends up being smothered in an involuntary gasp.
Moana snickers at that, but she quickly regains her composure and nudges Nesta towards an aisle at the other end of the shop. “Come. I’ll show you what you’ve been missing out on all this time.”
Nesta keeps her gaze trained between Moana’s broad shoulders as they walk, not trusting herself to even glance at the colorful selection of various other items on display. She’s there with a mission―the irony of being in the exact same place as Emerie was when they first came here doesn’t escape her―and she can’t let her thoughts stray from their carved path.
Not even when Moana leads her past a shelf full of familiar glass bottles, the scent of that sweet-smelling oil reaches her nostrils, and Nesta’s sanity threatens to leave her for good.
Moana, Cauldron boil her, picks up on that and immediately goes for the sale. “You know, there’s a two-for-one deal on the oil this w―”
“Yes.”
Moana is so stunned by her swift reply, she stops dead in her tracks in the middle of an aisle and cranes her head enough to shoot Nesta a sideways glare. “You’ve become an easy customer now, huh?”
Nesta gives her what should be a noncommittal hum, but instead turns out to be more like a moan. “You’re a good seller, is all.”
“Am I?” Smirking, Moana turns to face her fully and starts walking backwards, only stopping when she reaches the corner of her shop furthest from the entrance. “Well, then: let’s see precisely how good I am.”
Moana gestures at the wooden shelving unit behind her with a dramatic flourish of her arm, and Nesta clenches her thighs on instinct.
Nesta lacks the specific words to describe what she’s looking at. The shape of the many, many objects in front of her is unmistakable, although they vary in sizes, colors and materials; some are smooth, some ribbed, some look more like the real thing while others are simpler or more... creative.
(There’s one that resembles a tentacle. Nesta can’t decide whether she’s more intrigued or disgusted.)
“Do close your mouth, dear, or you’ll catch flies with it.”
Nesta obliges immediately, unaware that she even had her mouth open in the first place.
Moana winks at her. “Pretty sweet, right?” Then, without waiting for her answer, she smacks the palm of her hand onto an adjacent shelf that houses two limbless mannequin torsos. “Harnesses. Pick your favorite.”
With difficulty, Nesta drags her gaze from the wide array of fake cocks and directs it towards what Moana is showing her now.
The thing on the left would be indistinguishable from male underwear, with the hem stopping a couple of inches above the knee, if it weren’t for the large hole cut right in the center of the crotch area. The one on the right looks more like the harnesses she’s used to: black leather, multiple buckles, one long strap around the waist and two smaller ones around the thighs, sort of like a garter belt or some kind of knife holster.
“There used to be dildos placed inside these, but I sold both of them recently and I still haven’t gotten around to replacing them,” Moana says.
From the context, it’s easy to understand that these dildos must be the phallic items she saw earlier.
Nesta has a sudden urge to upgrade her smut collection to include novels where the protagonists get a little... inventive with their lovemaking habits.
“I could do it right now, though, if you’d like,” Moana adds, “so you can also see how they’re supposed to go in.”
Nesta shakes her head. It was the wrong move: she feels dizzy now. “No, I can... see the vision.” She clears her throat, hoping against hope that her next words will come out sounding fine and not like a strangled cat. “What would you recommend for a... first-timer?”
Moana, bless her, seems to give the matter some thought, and it takes a whole minute before she replies, “Depends on your skill level, I suppose. Ordinarily, I would say that this”―she points at the harness on the left―“is easier, while this”―she points at the one on the right―“is hotter.”
“I could’ve understood that myself, thank you very much,” Nesta mutters.
“However,” Moana goes on, heedless of her interruption, “this distinction means nothing to you, as I’m pretty sure you’re used to buckling and unbuckling harnesses by now, Valkyrie.”
Nesta will never be able to hide her reaction at being called a Valkyrie. She preens under Moana’s compliment, smiling. “Indeed.”
“Great.” Moana grins back. “So, leather harness it is?”
Gods, it sounds so dirty. Nesta loves it already. “Leather harness it is.”
“Wonderful. We can choose the color later. Now...” Moana nods to the array of dildos on the shelves. “How does your mate like his cock?”
Nesta takes three steps behind. To have a better view of the merch, she tells herself; certainly not because she wants to avoid dousing Moana with the scent of her arousal.
“Too late,” Moana snickers, unashamedly sniffing the air.
“Oh, for the Cauldron’s sake,” Nesta hisses between her teeth. “This is harder than I thought.”
Moana grabs the dildo closest to her and gives it a wiggle. “They’re quite flexible, actually.”
Nesta scowls at her. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I really didn’t. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t realize that these things need to have some give. I mean, some are still made of glass―because, to each their own―but ever since Dawn started creating these new materials...”
Nesta frowns. “Didn’t you say Helion designed these?”
“I said that Helion designed the rabbit vibrators, like those your dear Emerie is so fond of,” Moana corrects her. “But even those were manufactured in Dawn. The two courts have had this shared project ever since... oh, ever since I opened this shop, at least.”
Nesta shakes her head. Leave it to Rhysand to believe he’d been the one to lay the groundwork for collaboration between the courts, while Dawn and Day had already been working together for years right under his nose.
Working together on sex toys, of all things, but... better than nothing?
“So then, Lady Archeron,” Moana asks her, “what will it be?”
Nesta bites her lower lip, considering.
As much as she would like to repay Cassian for years of being stretched to infinity by his massive cock, he did say that it had been a while since the last time he’d done this, and he’s still tight enough around her fingers that she knows he’d feel uncomfortable if she decided to just go big or go home.
Besides, the thought of training him over the course of months, of years, of slowly, methodically getting him used to one size to the point of feeling empty and then giving him a little more, and a little more, and a little more, until she can match him for girth and length and make him feel just like he makes her feel...
“Let’s start simple,” she says, forcing herself to look Moana in the eye to block her mind from wandering to unseemly places.
“Smart,” Moana agrees, with an emphatic nod of her head. “I have just the thing for you. Are you ready to choose the colors? And are you still interested in the oil? There’s also―”
She is a good seller, Nesta muses, and lets herself be swept under by Moana’s enthusiastic sales pitch.
This is how, twenty minutes later, Nesta exits the shop with a heavy bag in her hand, a significantly lighter wallet, and in dire need of changing her undergarments.
***
Nesta feels him approach before he even steps through the door to their bedroom. The bond rears its head in her chest, warning her that she and her mate are going to be mere inches apart in a matter of seconds, and she’d better do something about it.
They’ll be officially mated in one week. It’s not the first time Nesta has found herself to think that, somehow, this connection between them knows, that it, too, is counting down the days, the hours, the minutes that separate them from announcing their love to the world, from being recognized as one soul cleaved in two.
Cassian must be feeling the same thing, because he crosses the distance between them in a few powerful strides and immediately goes for a hug, wrapping his arms around her from behind and resting his chin on the top of her head.
Nesta meets his eyes in the mirror above her vanity. It’s difficult to tear her gaze from his, when he’s looking at her with such tenderness, but there’s something different in his appearance that she can’t quite put her finger on.
At last, curiosity has the best of her.
Unconsciously, Cassian aids her in her pursuit when he starts nosing down her neck. There: he’s changed his jewelry from gold to silver, from the hoops in his ears to the tiny ring at his nostril. To match, Nesta supposes, the delicate embroidery on his jacket, and...
And the thin silver line that highlights the inner and outer corners of his eyes.
Black kohl completes the ensemble, extending over his lids for a smudged, messy effect that makes him look like he couldn’t care less about how he applied his makeup.
But it’s obvious that he did care, if the smug stare he’s directing at her in the mirror is any indication of that.
“Like it?” he teases her, turning his head so can see the strands of silver ribbon woven through his curls to keep the wildest ones away from his face. The rest of his hair tumbles down his shoulders, soft and bouncy and still glistening with the oil she brushed through it two hours ago after their bath. “I’m practicing for our ceremony.”
“Practicing for―” Nesta groans, and she feels the rumble of his responding chuckle against her back. “You can’t just say shit like that.”
He laughs again. “Why not?”
“Because,” she replies, putting on a mock-affronted voice, “it’s improper to entertain such esteemed guests in a house that reeks of sex.”
“You could always ask the House to get rid of the scent.”
“I already did it twice today,” Nesta reminds him. “And the House doesn’t really want to do it a third time, right, House?”
In response, the House flings open the windows.
“I suppose that’s answer enough,” Cassian says, but the way he’s smiling doesn’t bode well. “I guess this also means I shouldn’t show you what else I’m practicing for, then.” His tongue darts out to lick along her jaw, and Nesta shivers. “Hint: it’s in silver, too.”
Nesta presses herself against him in retaliation. Through the fabric of her dress, she can feel the cold metal of his belt buckle. “Is―”
“It’s not this,” he anticipates her, causing her to scoff at him. “Although, do take my pants off, for all means.”
Nesta turns in his arms, one hand already on his belt. Being able to look at his face directly, without a mirror between them, makes her movements sloppy and uncoordinated, but Cassian does nothing to help her get him undressed―in fact, he even stops her when she starts tugging the fabric down his legs.
“No,” he growls, low and deep. “Get behind me first.”
Nesta can’t do anything but obey.
She spares a moment to run a proprietary caress down his spine, pushing her palms down into the spots where his wings meet his back. She expected him to whine and beg her to have mercy on him, as he always does when she touches his wings―but apparently, tonight, he’s a male on a mission.
He reaches behind him to circle her wrist between thumb and forefinger. Then, he leads her hand into his open pants, past the hem of his underwear, and down between―
“Fuck.”
Cassian gives a breathy laugh. “Fuck, indeed.”
Nesta scrambles to push the offending fabric down and away from whatever it is that Cassian decided to put inside himself when she wasn’t looking.
Damn him: it is in silver, as she finds out when she takes hold of the flared base and gives it a firm tug.
Cassian moans, falling forward and barely managing to brace his arms on her vanity.
She pulls a little more, just to test Cassian’s willingness to keep it in. Cassian whimpers and pushes his hips towards her hand.
“You beat me to it,” she tells him, bending down so she can whisper it into his ear. “You wanted it that bad, huh? You couldn’t wait a week?”
Cassian is gripping the edge of the vanity so hard, his knuckles have turned white. “Evidently.”
“Evidently?” Nesta laughs. “Is that all you’re going to say?” She tuts, shaking her head. “No apologies, no explaining how you got it? Where you got it? Just hoping that I wouldn’t be mad at you for trying to rush what we’ve already decided is going to happen on our mating night?”
“Well, are you?” Cassian asks her, searching for her eyes in the mirror. “Mad?”
Saying yes would be a bold-faced lie, but saying no would only inflate his ego even more than it already is. So, Nesta settles for, “I guess I’ll have to return my purchase to Moana, then. After all, we have no use for another one of these, now.”
She pulls the plug all the way out, quickly, not giving him a chance to protest or thwart her efforts. “Have we?”
She forces herself to meet his gaze, ignoring the alluring sight of his muscles fluttering around the sudden emptiness, and holds up the plug for him to see.
But Cassian is still looking too proud for her tastes, is not yet eating out of the palm of her hand like she wants him to.
“Truly a pity,” Nesta adds then, knowing that the piece of information she’s about to reveal will grant her victory. “I’d gotten a whole set, you know. All in blue.” She lets her free hand travel between his legs, tickle the stretched skin around his rim. “Weren’t you the one that told me I look good in blue?”
Cassian licks his lips. “Precisely.”
And it’s that word, the smirk that lights up his face right after, that makes her realize she’s been playing right into his hands.
“You’ll let me do that, hmm?” Cassian says, taking advantage of her startled silence. “Fuck your mouth, and then your cunt, and then slide that pretty blue thing out of you and fuck your ass, too?”
Nesta loves this. The anticipation, the charged atmosphere, the way power and control in the bedroom shift so effortlessly between them. He has the reins now, and Nesta can’t do anything but nod, entranced.
“Good girl,” he praises her, his stare almost wolfish as it reflects back at her from the mirror, his body language somehow predatory even while he’s the one half undressed and with his ass in the air. “And then you’ll do that to me, yes?”
“Gods,” Nesta whimpers, burying her nose in the curls at his nape. “Yes.”
Cassian reaches a hand back and up, fists her hair, and drags her mouth to his for a bruising kiss. Nesta goes willingly, allowing his tongue to prod at her lips until they open under his insistence, uncaring that they’re wrinkling their fine clothes and smearing their makeup.
It’s not such a formal dinner, anyway.
Alas, someone else doesn’t seem to share that thought.
The vanity under Cassian’s elbow rattles. Once, twice, thrice. They pay it no mind, too lost in each other and too confident in their balance skills to even consider relocating their make-out session to a more suitable place.
Then it’s the windows’ turn. Nesta bites Cassian’s lip, and the ensuing moan drowns out the sound of the glass panes shaking in their frames.
The curtains come next, flapping and snapping under a phantom wind, but they’re too far from the couple to do any significant damage.
At last, the House has enough.
“What the―hey!” Nesta yells, pounding her fists on the invisible wall the House has erected between her and Cassian. On the other side, Cassian smiles, shaking his head in disbelief. “What was that about?”
In response, all the lights in the room flicker out and then turn back on.
“What?”
The House does it again, now cranking up the brightness until it’s near-blinding.
At the same time, a booming voice reaches them from the open window.
Cassian exhales a laugh. “Helion.”
The House dims the lights, now finally content.
“Fluffing your feathers, are you?” Nesta taunts, then yelps when the House throws a pillow at her face. “Alright, alright, I get it!”
“We’d better hurry,” Cassian dares to comment, glancing warily at the ceiling. “Lest it develop winnowing powers and deliver us smack in the middle of our guests.”
Nesta snorts. “Right. You wouldn’t want Helion to see you like that, would you?”
Cassian looks down at himself, still exposed and with his pants and underwear around his ankles. “I wouldn’t want Thesan to see me like this,” he replies. “Isa would throw a fit.”
“And you think Helion wouldn’t?”
“Fair enough.” And then, as though it were a non-sequitur like any other and not like he’s about to turn her whole life upside down in just over a second, he says, “Put that back where it belongs.”
Nesta follows his stare to the plug she’s still holding in her hand. She swallows. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he confirms in a sultry whisper.
Nesta crosses the distance between them in a few quick strides and obeys, only stopping when she pushes a little too much and Cassian’s gasp threatens to bring the House’s ire upon them yet again.
“Good?” she asks him as she tugs his pants back up, just for the pleasure of hearing his breathy yes, and then sends him on his way with a well-delivered slap on his ass. “Go make some excuses for my absence. I need ten more minutes here, you smudged my lipstick.”
Cassian, being Cassian, decides to finish the job by kissing her one last time, squeezes her breasts in retaliation, and swaggers out of the room limping slightly and looking like the cat who got the cream.
***
With three recently allied High Lords (plus one High Lady) and their inner circles around the table, it’s no wonder the conversation drifts towards politics well before they’re even halfway done with their meal.
The worst part is that, out of respect for Nesta’s sobriety, there’s not a drop of alcohol in the entire House and everyone is disgustingly lucid. The only one who exhibits symptoms of drunkenness is Nyx, full of Feyre’s milk and dozing off on Azriel’s shoulder, the spymaster’s shadows pillowing his head and providing a dark, quiet place for him to sleep.
When Rhysand clears his throat for the umpteenth time that night, Nesta shoves her fork so hard into her mouth, she almost chokes on the best fish fillet Velaris has to offer.
“A silver piece says he disagrees with Helion’s import tax,” she hisses into Gwyn’s ear once she’s finished coughing.
On Gwyn’s other side, Emerie proposes, “A gold piece says he disagrees with Thesan’s.”
Seated in front of them, Cassian makes a show of leaning forward over the table, as though he wanted part in their bet, only to whisper, “There’s no import tax, you idiots.”
Nesta pulls a face at him, making him chuckle so loudly that everyone turns to look at them.
“Something you’d like to share with the class?” Lucien says, three seats away from Cassian―and twice as much from Elain. “No? I thought so.” He sighs, crossing his arms on his chest. “Pity. I’d take anything over whatever Rhysand has to say.”
Rhys’s indignant, “Hey!” gets swallowed by the violent laughter coming from everyone else.
Helion, being Helion, gets up only to walk over to Lucien and shake his hand. Their fingers glow when they touch, and Nesta wonders just how much Helion has to be amused by Lucien’s comment that his magic is making such a display.
She almost doesn’t notice Lucien flinching at the contact, and then again at the loss of it, his eyes widening as though he’s surprised at his own reaction.
Huh.
“I do have an announcement to make,” Rhysand tries again, shaking Nesta from her musings, “and I’d like you t―”
Suddenly, he trails off, because the strangest thing has just happened.
Gwyn is standing up. Silence falls, as if she’s commandeered the room. She smooths her hands over her robes, looks over at Rhysand, and says, “Let me do it.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rhysand nods.
Gwyn inhales before saying, all in one breath, “I’m leaving the priestesshood and starting work for the High Lord next week. I am the Night Court’s new Head of Administration for the Phaos Treaty. Thank you for your attention.”
Nesta and Emerie don’t even let her sit back down before they fling themselves at her body, hugging her within an inch of her life.
They join the chorus of congratulations coming from every corner of the room, remaining glued to her sides while Feyre, Cassian, Mor, Helion, and Thesan come over to shake her hand or pat her on the shoulder. Azriel, not wanting to jostle Nyx, only offers her a rare smile from his seat, but Gwyn flushes beet red as though he’d just kissed her cheek and grins back at him with twinkling eyes.
When the excitement has died down, Nesta delivers a half-hearted smack to Gwyn’s arm and tells her, “So that’s why Rhys flew you over to Moana today!”
“It is,” Rhysand confirms, even though Nesta was definitely not talking to him. “I’ll say, I was preparing to put up a fight. I didn’t expect her to agree so quickly.”
“Yes, well,” Gwyn replies, a little flustered, “I couldn’t stand to hear Cassian complain about having too much paperwork for another day.”
Cassian lifts his glass at her in salute. “You’re my favorite friend, Gwynnie, have I ever told you that?”
Gwyn clinks her glass against his, ignoring Azriel’s outraged, “And what am I, chopped liver?”
“Have you already arranged for inter-court coordination, Rhy―” Thesan starts to say, being immediately cut off by Lucien, who groans, “Oh, Gods, please, no, stop!”
Nesta seizes her chance to propose, “Why don’t we just go outside for dessert? It’s almost time for the show to start, anyway.”
Rhysand agreeing with Nesta is more unique than rare, but even he has to see the reasoning behind her words now, and he doesn’t even begin to protest.
Nesta leads her guests out of the formal dining room and up the winding staircase to the top floor. As they all file out onto the terrace, she is unsurprised to find that the House has already displayed the pastries Elain and the wraiths baked in the afternoon, going so far as to pick the tablecloth and napkins in the same color as the decorations Nesta and Cassian hung earlier in the evening.
As soon as she gets past the threshold, Elain beelines for the massive chocolate cake―also her doing―that towers at the center of the table and sets about cutting it in generous slices.
Cassian takes over handing the plates to their guests, sparing Elain from doing all the work herself and, most importantly, from having to confront Lucien with food. Lucien, smart fox that the is, immediately clocks in on the matter; Nesta catches him hide his reaction behind a mask of detached politeness, twirl the three-pronged dessert fork in his hand a few times, and go search for someone to talk to who is as different from his mate as they can get.
This turns out to be Helion, who has left Thesan and Rhysand to their once-again political mutterings―although, Nesta suspects, Thesan himself is getting weary of that―and is eating his cake in little morsels while looking down at the bustling city below.
Helion is hot, Nesta thinks, as he always is; brimming with power and radiating a kind of heat that allows him to wear nothing but a burgundy tunic and not shiver in the cool night air. Next to him, Lucien takes off his forest green suit jacket and drapes it over his arm, as though he himself were affected by Helion’s warmth, his glow, the sunshine that not even the Night Court seems able to quench.
The lack of a sultry comment from Helion―Undressing already, sweetheart?―baffles Nesta. Helion is appraising Lucien as she suspected, though not with the bedroom eyes he’s been flashing at literally any other adult tonight, but with a faraway, almost sad gaze that has Nesta going back to her earlier pondering.
Huh.
Maybe, that involuntary display of magic back at the dinner table took Helion by surprise as much as it did Lucien. Or maybe―
Maybe, Nesta is deluding herself into thinking that their noses look the same.
She intercepts Cassian in the middle of delivering a plate to Rhysand and drags him to where she was standing before, so they can both have an unhindered view of Helion and Lucien. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asks him in a whisper, memories of Helion’s recounting of his affair with the Lady of the Autumn Court coming back to her in fragments. “Or is it all in my head?”
It’s not, Rhysand barges into both of their minds, unapologetic but, at least this time, not unwelcome. Feyre thought the same thing years ago at the High Lords’ meeting during the war.
Cassian scoffs at him out loud. And you’re only mentioning it now?
I believe you remember that we were, how can I say, otherwise preoccupied at the time, Rhysand replies, walking towards them to snatch his slice of cake out of Cassian’s hands. Besides, unless―until―someone confirms it, it’s best not to get it out there. Who knows what Beron might do if he finds out.
Damn it. It’s the second time Nesta and Rhysand find themselves in agreement in the span of less than an hour. She needs to do better than this.
Alas, Rhys saunters away before she could do something about it.
Cassian, now free of his waiter duties, slides a hand around her waist and draws her closer to him. Their hips bump, and Nesta is reminded that the night is far from ending―that actually, it has yet to begin―and she’d be a bad hostess if she just left her guests to enjoy the Starfall show on the terrace so she could enjoy her mate in private.
Thankfully, no one is stopping her from enjoying her mate in public.
She slips out of his hold and comes to stand before him, lifting her hands to rest against his chest. “You’re hotter than Helion tonight,” she tells him, and rejoices in the laugh that spills out of his perfect mouth.
“Thank you? I guess?” Cassian says back, still laughing, so loud that it reaches Helion’s ears and the High Lord remarks, “It’s a compliment, you know!”
“Are you confirming that he’s in fact hotter than you?” Thesan teases him, the end of his question smothered by Isa’s offended gasp. “Oh, please, I’m not the one saying that, Isa, Helion is.”
“You said in fact!”
“And I was not confirming that he’s hotter than me,” Helion interjects, wagging his finger at Cassian for good measure.
Cassian sticks out his tongue in response.
“But, you know, I am a paragon of beauty,” Helion goes on. “Quite famously, might I add.”
“Quite notoriously, you mean,” Lucien quips with a snort.
Helion concedes the point with a shrug of his shoulders. Something shiny falls from his tunic at the gesture, and when he bends to pick it up and examine it―
“Look!” Emerie yells, pointing at the sky.
As it turns out, Helion was the first to be hit by the shooting stars―or souls, or spirits, or whatever they are―that have just begun to light up the night.
Isa is next, the glistening substance catching him square in the cheek and making Thesan burst into laughter. Then, it’s Nyx’s turn, the boy now wide awake and wriggling in his mother’s arms as he tries to fly free of her hold and get closer to the ledge, his flapping little wings showering Feyre’s whole face with glitter.
There’s music playing somewhere in the city, but they’re so up high, it’s a miracle they’re even able to hear it. As soon as the thought takes form in Nesta’s mind, the House picks up on her wish and delivers what she was looking for in her waiting palm.
It’s second nature at this point to let a spark of her magic into the Symphonia in her hand, set it down on the nearest surface, and fling her arms around Cassian’s neck as the first notes fill the air.
They’ve been dancing like this for close to a year, now; ostensively to practice for their mating ceremony, truly because it’s a kind of intimacy they both find themselves craving from time to time, something physical that’s neither sex nor fighting. Something beautiful, something loving, something that makes Nesta feel like she’s making art. She still has to lead, Cassian not yet fluid in his movements, though measured and precise, but it’s okay. They’re okay.
They aren’t doing much more than swaying gently, locked in a tight embrace, chests pressed together and heads tilted to the side. Around them, some of the others are putting on a more challenging performance: Rhys and Feyre, having left Nyx to Lucien’s care, are gliding around the floor in a pretentious, aristocratic waltz, while Gwyn, Mor, and Emerie keep trying (and failing) to wrestle Azriel into a silly dance circle. Helion is sitting cross-legged on the stone ledge, alone, watching the sky; Elain joins him and tells him something that has him breathe out a small chuckle, his glow brightening somewhat. On the other side of the terrace, Thesan is letting Isa nose down his throat and cover him in hickeys that heal one second after they bloom on his skin.
“Perfect,” Cassian whispers in her ear, and Nesta is inclined to agree. Does agree, actually, even as she thinks about everything that isn’t perfect about this night.
The Day and Dawn High Lords, tired after celebrating Nynsar in their home courts from sunup to sundown. Helion, still in his courtly regalia, with golden, gryphon-shaped brooches pinned on his shoulders; Thesan, clad in a purple robe embroidered in ochre, ceremonial paint snaking down his forearms, from his elbows to the very tips of his fingers.
Lucien, so close and yet so far from his mate, holding someone else’s baby who doesn’t even know him that well, if the fascinated way Nyx is gripping his flaming red curls is any indication.
Gwyn, thrumming with nervous energy that dissipates for a moment every time her fingers brush against Azriel’s.
Emerie, still too weak to carry Mor with her in the air so they can both chase the falling stars.
Elain, who gets lost in a vision for a long minute, only startling out of it when Helion touches her arm.
Rhys, wondering whether he’s done the right thing in allying himself with the other Solar Courts, in opening his borders, in opening Velaris.
Nesta herself, her heartbeat picking up at the realization that she’s become so attuned to the thoughts and emotions of the people around her, she’s forgetting to live in the present.
But as always, Cassian is there to bring her back, with a warm hand in her hair and a warmer mouth on the apple of her cheek. His lips on hers, at last, tasting of chocolate and a million tomorrows to come.