Steel Rose

Chapter 83

Evangeline Pov

It's a strange sight. It's a strange situation. In all of our lives, my life with my brother, with our parents expectations hanging over us, I should have expected it. It was inevitable. But still, even I can't keep the surprise off my face.

"Why did you wait so long to introduce us?" I hear Elane asks beside me. "You say it's been two weeks since you've met him. Two whole weeks."

Across from us Ptolemus sits balancing his infant son in one arm and cutting a piece of sausage with the other. The boy rests his head on his father's shoulder, eyes closed in a pleasant sleep, blissfully unaware of anything and everything. Evangeline thought it strange how everyone once started out so helpless.

Ptolemus doesn't glance up from his plate as he shrugs using the shoulder that his son doesn't rest on. "It's not that long, really. Isabelle works and so I've been using that time to make up for lost time." As he speaks, I can hear a certain lightness in his voice that's completely foreign to me. Finally, he spares us a glance. "I've admittedly been a little selfish with his company."

"Isabelle works," Elane questions from beside me. Her voice is light and airy. One may think she's teasing but her eyes look uneasy. She's fair in her thinking. Technically, none of us have ever held a job. In Montfort, everyone works for what they want. Nobody is getting any handouts.

Ptolemus only shrugs again.

I find myself leaning forward to peer closely at the infant. My nephew. Why does that sound so odd. Even in my own head. "Can I hold him?" I hear myself ask.

Everyone pauses. Ptolemus finally looks up from his nearly empty plate. Elane's teacup pauses at her lips. My head tilts and the humor in my voice is genuine. "Oh, I can't hold him?"

Tolly sits back. "I suppose so." He stands up, chair scrapping dully across the floor and walks over to me. I stand to meet him, my eyes on the child the entire time. I note his tiny fists, his small lips parted in sleep, his long dark eyelashes against moon skin. Carefully, so not to awaken him, Ptolemus pulls the child off his shoulder and hands him to me albeit a little awkwardly. "Just don't drop him." Tolly says with a smirk. "I'm trying to get back in Belle's good graces."

I roll my eyes at him. But a thought does occur to me that I've never actually held a baby before. As he presses the child to my shoulder, another sinister thought reminds me that a baby's neck is incredibly fragile. "Wait-,"

"There," Tolly says. He steps back making sure I've got his son, my nephew, secure before going back to his seat. "Nothing to it."'

I take my seat, slower than usual. I can smell the baby soap on his skin, hear his small little breaths close to my neck. Across from me, Ptolemus outright beams. A proud father if I ever saw one. Elane peers at the child curiously, perhaps thinking of the life she narrowly avoided had we chosen to stay in Rift. After all, she would have one day been expected to birth children of her own.

"How old is he again?" She asks softly.

"Only 4 months," Ptolemus replies. He doesn't go back to his plate, instead electing to closely watch his son in my arms. "He's so small." He adds quietly.

He's so vulnerable, I think to myself. On my shoulder, the baby sighs deeply in his sleep. In his little fist, he has somehow gathered a few strands of my hair between his fingers. I feel an unfamiliar surge of affection spread through my chest. It warms my limbs, and I press the child closer to me. He's soft. Squishy. But far from delicate.

"Remind me how to say his name."

"Dasarious," Tolly says slowly. "Sometimes Isabelle calls his Darcy."