ᴀꜱʏʟᴜᴍ :: ᴛ.ꜱʜᴇʟʙʏ

iii: frozen blue

"Wait—"

The word slipped out before Winnow could stop it, before she could grab it and reel it back in. She tightened her fingers in the front of her shirt, furling them into fists. Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears, feel it as it shook the paperweight of her frame.

"I'll say nothing," she whispered, lifting her gaze to seek the harsh man who stood before her cell. In his hand was sweet release. "I p-promise. By my life, I promise."

"By your life," the man murmured, turning his head to glance at her over his shoulder. All she could make of his features were shadows, cutting like knives beneath the angles of his high cheekbones. His eyes flickered towards her wrists, and Winnow wrapped her fingers around them a moment too late, her breathing quick and erratic. "Doesn't seem to mean much."

She couldn't tell whether or not he was mocking her, whether or not he was merely humouring the insanity he must have seen in her. Why else would she be trapped in an unadorned cell, not even trusted with a pen to write her own name? But it didn't matter; none of it mattered. Winnow had seen men like these all her life around Birmingham. While this man might leave her now, he would surely come back to finish the job if she knew too much, taking her last chance at freedom with the gun held to her temple.

And, god, she longed for her freedom with such desperation that it felt like an ache in her chest, a tug towards the world and the family from which they barred her. She needed this. Didn't he understand? The truth of it slipped out in a fractured plea, one broken monosyllable:

"Please."

For the longest heartbeat, Winnow truly thought he would leave. It was hard to tell what sort of man he was—whether he truly would have hurt her if she strayed too close, reaching out to wrap scarred fingers around her neck through the bars. Though his eyes were oceans, the most striking shade of pure blue Winnow thought she had ever seen, they were shadowed by exhaustion, haunted, heavy in a way she understood too well. People like that—people like her—were never easy to predict. If the flash of a new mood came, everything about him might change in an instant.

Instead, the man turned, eyes on her as he lowered back into a crouch. The gold chain on his vest glinted in the light, a black holster momentarily visible at his side. Wealth and weaponry only ever signalled danger, but Winnow couldn't stop hearing the strange gentleness in his voice as he beckoned her closer. Nobody had spoken to her with such soft kindness since before she could recall. Since her brother, perhaps.

A murderer who spoke soft words. Even more dangerous still.

"Come here," the man repeated in a murmur, looking down to unscrew the cork from the vial. "Tilt your head back." When Winnow hesitated, uncertain, he hissed out a sharp breath through his teeth, casting a pointed glance towards her wrists. "I can't exactly let you keep the glass."

Oh. Winnow ducked her head, forcing herself to find some sort of composure, even while her head swirled and ached, even while the light pressed against her eyes and the distant sounds of screams felt all too loud. Her pulse was a drumbeat, pounding against her ribcage with such force she thought it might shatter.

Every instinct screamed at her to move away from him—this strange, rough, beautiful man, dressed to the nines with an empty holster gleaming within his coat. The gun within it must have been confiscated at the door, but that made him no less dangerous: Winnow did not doubt his capacity to hide a knife, or to move as quickly as an adder should she draw too close. He watched her with a wolf's eyes, glacial, cold and blue and lethal. Trusting him would get her killed.

But Winnow didn't have to trust him to take him up on a better offer, the promise of better visions and blessed reprieve in exchange for simple silence. She could do silence, certainly; she had done silence well all her life.

So Winnow edged forward on her knees, never taking her eyes from the man and all his shadows, as though he might lash out and strike at any moment. No expression met her mistrust, his features as hard and blank as stone. Only when she had drawn close—so close, too close—to the bars of her birdcage did he stir, reaching for her in silence.

Cool fingertips touched her chin, the barest touch steadying her in place. Like his eyes, his skin was frozen cold, but heat touched Winnow's cheeks with faint pink all the same. Her lips parted, eyes screwed shut for fear of what she might see when they opened, dark brows furrowed into the tiniest frown.

A drop of cold liquid touched her tongue, another, as bitter as medicine and sweet as sugar. It tasted like eight hours of peace, and Winnow's tension relaxed as she tasted it, the fierce press of her fingernails easing against her thighs. At last, she might dream of something other than the dark.

Too soon, too late, those laced dewdrops stopped. Swallowing the shallow pool of narcotics beneath her tongue, Winnow's eyes fluttered open to seek the strange man as his fingertips disappeared. His hands slipped back through the bars, his lean frame rising until he all but towered above her. Before Winnow could catch a glimpse of his expression, he turned away, tucking the empty vial back inside his coat. Still, she thought she could see tension in the set of his shoulders, each muscle tight, each movement sharp and quick.

Choking on another plea, Winnow reached out to grab ahold of the bars. At any moment, the darkness would take her, sweeping her beneath its merciful tide. She needed to know before it did.

"Wednesday?" she managed. The word was a whisper, lifted by the hope she hadn't managed to crush. The man paused, looked at her over his shoulder in the half-second before he walked back towards the door. She could read nothing in him but stony disregard, yet she saw an ever-present calculation ticking away in his eyes all the same, gleaming in that frozen blue.

"Wednesday."

Footsteps against stone. Winnow shrunk away from the bars of her cell. She could feel the pull of the opium now, its fingers curling around her ankles to drag her into the deep.

Then the door closed with a slam, plunging Winnow into darkness. With another soft tug, with a whisper-thin sigh, the young woman closed her eyes and went under.

why do i love them so much already