Why not.” He took a deep breath. “So you’re talking to me again?”
“I did not have the words for all I wished to say.” Tal paused, confusion shadowing his face, mixed with something darker, like concern. After a long and uncertain silence, he knelt in front of Rags and bowed his head. “Forgive me. I lost my way when I saw the children in need. I almost sacrificed you because of my indecision—my stubborn insistence that I could save them all.”
“What?” Rags heard himself say it, the nervous laughter that followed. He backed away from where Tal knelt, like that would make him get up. “No. You’re mad at me.”
Tal lifted his head. Blinked. That steady, pupilless gaze was extra freaky in the underground light.
“You believe I harbor feelings of anger for you?” Tal asked. “Never.”
It was the spoon incident all over again. Tal needed Rags to explain things step by step. “Yes, you’re mad at me. Because I made you leave. I did what a thief’s supposed to do. I cut and I ran. You finally got that I’m not a hero and I’m not worth your time.”
Tal did rise then, but he didn’t look away from Rags. Instead, he reached over to grip Rags’s shoulder. Not too tight. Sturdy, strong. He was still someone Rags could lean on if he wanted to, despite Tal’s injuries.
“You saved all of us,” Tal said. “If I had succumbed to my fever to rescue every child, then all of them would have remained captured. The Lying One would have taken us. Those who are here, whole and healthy, have you to thank for their freedom.”
Rags did his impression of a gaping trout head tossed out with the scraps.
A tug at the old scar on his upper lip signaled that he was smiling. He reached to touch Tal’s arm where it was whole and undamaged.
“You’re an idiot,” Rags said.
“And you have helped me to do something unimaginable,” Tal countered. “I shall never be able to repay you, though what is left of my lifetime shall be devoted to it.”
Devoted to you.
Rags shook his head. “Uh-uh. We’re free. No Morien watching over our shoulders or through my chest. You can take the last fragments for yourself, if you want. You probably should. They’re yours, and all we’ve managed to do so far is hurt them.”
He didn’t say what he was thinking: that with Hope and the other fae awakened, there was little doubt the Weapon would choose more preferable masters. There was no need to settle for paltry human substitutes.
Rags didn’t know why, but Tal got to his knees again. He reached for Rags’s scarred, freezing hands. Took the injured one, black with bruising and dried blood. He kissed Rags’s fingers at the knuckles, warm lips, cool breath. Soft, but unmistakably that. Kissing.
“What are you doing?” Rags demanded, the words coming out hoarser than he’d intended. Scratchy. Young. Nervous.
“Your hands are precious to you,” Tal replied. “They are precious to me.”
“No.” Rags’s voice, independent of his instructions, coming from his mouth.
“No,” Tal repeated, though he didn’t pull away. “I should not have done this?”
“Shit, no, that’s not—” Rags wasn’t mad, he was happy. But every time he tried to show it, it flickered away like a flea between his fingers. When he tried to catch it head-on, he ended up with his hands holding empty air.
Rags didn’t know how to show it, much less share it. He swallowed. His throat was molten silver, and he knew what that was like because he’d seen it. He also knew what it could become, which was something more lovely, more powerful, than anything else. His voice was hoarse, reaching a buried place that should have stayed buried but wasn’t. It wouldn’t go back to being buried, not now that it’d been unearthed.
How Tal managed to look calm and in control when he was on his knees was but one of the infuriating and beautiful things about him. His bright gaze burned.
“Have I disappointed you?”
“What? No, I’m not disappointed.”
Daring as ravens, Rags reminded himself. But there was the second part. Rich as magpies. Tal was a treasure, just not the kind Morien and Lord Faolan had anticipated.
With only one good hand, Rags nabbed him.
“I want to kiss you.” The words screamed from under his skin, rooted him to the floor. No comparing it to the pain of mirrorcraft. The pain was natural to him, if brand-new. “But I can’t know