“Just Cassian,” he said, as he had said so many times now.
You are a lord in good deeds. It is not a title born, but earned.
He bowed his head as he said thickly, “Thank you.”
It took him until he reached the section where Clotho had said Nesta would be to shake off the high priestess’s words. What they meant to him.
The scuffing steps greeted him first, then the steady, rhythmic breathing he’d come to know so intimately. Cassian made his breathing match it, turned his own steps silent, and peered into the next row of stacks.
Anyone walking along the ramp would only have to look to the right to see Nesta standing there, in a near-perfect fighting stance, throwing punches toward the shelf. She’d picked five books as targets and worked through each punch toward them as if they were the parts on a body he’d shown her where to strike.
Then she halted, blew out a breath and brushed back a strand of errant hair, and straightened the books before returning to the metal cart behind her.
“You’re still dropping your elbow,” he said, and she whirled, falling back against the cart with enough surprise that he swallowed his laugh. He’d never seen Nesta Archeron so … ruffled.
She lifted her chin as she stalked toward him. He watched every movement of her legs. She’d stopped throwing her weight onto her right leg so much, and muscles shifted in her thighs, sleek and strong. Three weeks might not be much time for a human body to pack on muscle, but she was High Fae now. “I’m not dropping my elbow,” she challenged, emerging from the row of stacks and into the flat area before the slope of the ramp.
“I just saw you do it twice with that right hook.”
She leaned against the end of a long shelf. “I assume Clotho sent you to reprimand me.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know you were so invested in the training that you kept at it down here.”
Her eyes practically glowed in the dimness. “I’m tired of being weak. Of depending on others to defend me.”
Fair enough. “Before I dispense with the lecture about ignoring Clotho’s requests, let me just say that—”
“Show me.” Nesta stepped away from the shelf and squared off against him. “Show me where I’m dropping my elbow.”
He blinked at the rippling intensity in her face. Then he swallowed.
Swallowed, because there she was: a glimpse of that person he’d known before the war with Hybern had ended. A glimmer of her, like a mirage—like if he looked at it too long, she’d slip away and vanish.
So Cassian said, “Get into your stance.”
Nesta obeyed.
Hoping Clotho wouldn’t come shove him over the railing for disobeying her orders, he said, “All right. Throw the right hook.”
Nesta did so. And dropped her damn elbow.
“Get back into position.” She did, and he asked, “May I?”
Nesta nodded, and kept perfectly still as he made minute adjustments to the angle of her arm. “Punch again. Slowly.”
She heeded him, and his hand wrapped around her elbow as it began to dip. “See? Keep this up.” He maneuvered her arm back into starting position. “Don’t forget to flow the weight through your hips.” He took her arm, keeping a good foot of distance between their bodies, and moved it through the punch. “Like this.”
“All right.” Nesta reset herself, and he took a step away. Without his order, she did the punch again. Perfectly.
Cassian whistled.
“Do that with more force and you’ll shatter a male’s jaw,” he said with a crooked grin. “Give me a combination one-two, then four-five-three, then one-one-two.”
Nesta’s brows bunched as she reset herself. Her feet shifted into position, grounding her weight into the stone floor.
And then she moved, and it was like watching a river, like watching the wind cut through a mountain. Not perfect, but close.
“If you did that against an opponent,” Cassian said, “they’d be on the ground, gasping for air.”
“And then I’d make the kill.”
“Yes, a sword through the heart would finish the job. But if you struck their chest hard enough with that final punch, you might make one of their lungs collapse. On a battlefield, you’d opt for either the killing blow with a sword or just leave them there, unable to move, for someone else to finish off while you face the next opponent.”
She nodded, as if this all seemed like perfectly normal conversation. Like he was giving her gardening tips.
“All right.” Cassian cleared his throat and tucked back his wings, “so, no more practicing in the library. The next person Clotho asks to scold you probably won’t be someone you feel like talking to.”
Nesta’s eyes darkened as she considered which of her least favorite people it would be, and she nodded again.
His task done, he said, “Give me one more combination.” He rattled off the order.
Her smile was nothing short of feline as she did just that. And her right hook didn’t so much as bob downward.
“Good,” he said, and turned toward the ramp that would lead him out.
He startled at what he beheld: priestesses stopped along the railings on several different levels, staring toward them. Toward Nesta.
At his attention, they instantly began walking or working or shelving books. But a young priestess with coppery-brown hair—the only one of them with no hood or stone—lingered at the rail the longest. Even from a level below and across the pit, he could see that her large eyes were the color of shallow, warm water. They were wide for a moment before she, too, quickly vanished.
Cassian looked back to Nesta, who met his stare with near-simmering eyes.
“Your right hook was perfect this morning,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“But not when I watched you in the stacks.”
“I figured you’d correct me.”
Shock and delight slammed into him. She’d moved out of the stacks before she let him do so. Into plain view. So they would all see him teaching her.
He gaped at her.
“You can tell Clotho I won’t need to practice in the library anymore,” Nesta said mildly, and turned back down the row.
She’d known Clotho and the others would never invite him, and never go up to the ring to see what he could do. How he’d teach them. So she’d shown the priestesses what she was learning, day after day. More than that, she’d pissed off Clotho enough that the priestess had ordered him down here.
Where Nesta had used him in a demonstration. Not for herself, but for the priestesses who’d drifted over to watch.
Cassian let out a soft laugh. “Crafty, Archeron.”
Nesta lifted a hand over a shoulder in farewell as she reached her cart.
They’d needed to see it, Nesta realized. What Cassian was like when he taught her. That there was touching, but it was always with her permission, and always professional. Needed to see how he never mocked her, only gently corrected. And needed to see what he’d taught her. Hear him say precisely what she could do with all those punching and kicking combinations.
What the priestesses might learn to do.
But that evening, as Nesta left, the sign-up sheet remained blank.
She looked back at Clotho, who sat at her desk, as she always did, from dawn until dusk.