̣⭒˙✵• ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯☽✮☾⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ •✵˙⭒ ̣

We're different and the same, gave you another name

Switch up the batteries

If you gave me a chance, I would take it

It's a shot in the dark, but I'll make it

Know with all of your heart, you can't shame me

When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be

Rather be – Clean Bandits ft. Jess Glynne

A shift in weight, the sheets rustle softly, the warmth beneath the Raven's fingers slips away, and his hand moves through the darkness to find it again. The faint creak of wood. Tear cracks an eye open. Eris stands on the balcony, the last remnants of sunset over the sea tracing her silhouette. And like hers, the silhouettes of a dozen little swallows perched on the metal railing. The young man blinks, forcing himself out of his half-dreamed state. One by one, the birds drop something into the crook of her hand. What's happening? He pulls himself up, still confused.

"Stray?" His voice is hoarse, rough from sleep.

The different eyes snap to him instantly, fingers curling around what they hold. She steps inside, pulling the curtain shut behind her, plunging the room back into darkness. A few more seconds, and the weight of her body sinks the mattress, tugging at the sheets.

"It's still early," she whispers, brushing her fingers across the Raven's forehead. "Rest."

The room's temperature shifts suddenly, warm, welcoming, comforting, like a hug.

"What were you..." Tear's lips grow heavier with every caress.

"I'm here with you," her words are little more than a breath against the Raven's skin. "You can rest easy. I'll take care of everything."

The scent of something sweet, the sizzle of pans, the bitter taste of hunger and ambrosia on his tongue, drag the custos from his sleep. His gray-blue eyes flicker open in the room bathed in daylight. The image of Eris on the balcony floods back. He bolts upright, checking the balcony. Was it a dream? The sounds and smells that woke him pull him down to the lower floor.

Tear descends the stairs without making a sound. The organized chaos that had covered every available surface of the kitchen and dining table seems to have vanished. The hidden door in the bookshelf, however, is still there, held open by a chair. On the coffee table, the neat stacks of books that had crowded the shelves now have something new added: Cornelia's notebook. The Raven brushes his fingers over the dark red cover before his eyes settle on the figure darting between the stove and the oven.

"Good morning," the young man says, stretching out his still-heavy muscles. The dark stains on his skin catch him off guard, but then memory does its work. I almost forgot about the corruption.

"Good morning," Eris smiles, her body glowing with joy. "Sit down. It's almost ready."

In a matter of minutes, the dining table is literally covered with all kinds of dishes, both sweet and savory: two or three kinds of bread, eggs, bacon, savory pies, cream puffs, croissants, a bundt cake, a jam tart, fresh fruit, milk, and coffee. Tear studies the banquet in confusion, still standing.

"Sorry, I may have gotten a bit carried away," the girl laughs, realizing the avalanche of food she's set out for breakfast. "You've been asleep for a whole day. I figured you must be starving."

A whole day? Then I can take a dose of ambrosia now. His snow-white fingers grab a thermos resting on the kitchen counter. As soon as he unscrews the cap, the Wolf's skin shivers, and the joy on her face vanishes for a moment. He takes a generous sip under Eris's disgusted gaze, then puts everything back in place. That should be enough for today.

"I don't know how you do it. You're the first warrior I've seen take undiluted ambrosia," the croí speaks as though she'd just watched him swallow live worms.

"I have a resistance to ambrosia," the Raven explains. "I can't dilute it."

"A resistance?"

"My body needs more ambrosia than normal to have the same effect it has on everyone else."

"But that's risky! You could poison yourself!" Worry vibrates in her words. "Even in war, they had to adjust the doses to avoid poisoning."

"My tolerance is really high, don't worry."

The girl lets out a sigh of relief before practically pushing him toward the table, forcing him to sit.

"Sweet or savory?"

But before the boy can answer, the Wolf fills his plate with a bit of everything, creating a dangerous tower of delicacies.

"Are you planning to feed me too?" The custos gives her a sarcastic glance.

"You might want to lay off the charm for a bit, Mr. Raven," she retorts with a mischievous smile. "Now I know your secret."

A chill runs down Tear's spine, but his body and face betray no sign of the change. His cold eyes and apathetic expression are still firmly in place.

"Ravens don't like physical contact," Eris mimics the boy's indifferent tone. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

The custos continues to watch her, waiting for the rest of the story.

"When you sleep, you're the complete opposite of when you're awake," the girl explains with an amused laugh. "All talk and hugs."

"I don't follow."

"Last night, all you did was call me and hug me," the Wolf reaches out to grab something from the plates. "Now I get why you were so adamant about not sleeping in the same room. I thought it was because of the contamination, but instead..."

"You're making all of this up," he grabs a random piece of food from his plate and bites into it. Wow, this is really good! Who knew Wolves were so good at cooking?

"Stray, stray," Eris goes back to mimicking the Raven's voice, adding a dramatic, whiny tone to her act. Then she bursts into laughter. "At least in your dreams, call me by my name!"

"Well, you never call me by my name too," he pauses and gives a half-smile. "Eris."

The mismatched eyes snap up to his icy ones, surprised, then quickly drop to the table as a faint blush colors her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" Tear watches her as he brushes the contents of his plate into his mouth. "You asked me to, Eris."

"Yeah, but the way you say it..." she stammers, confused. "It makes it sound like a stupid name!"

"In what way, Eris?"

"Come on, stop it," the girl reaches out to cover his mouth, but the Raven is quicker and grabs her wrist.

"Never," a laugh cracks his serious expression. "Eris."

The croí jerks upright, pressing her palm to his lips. "Stray will do."

The Raven catches something a moment too late. The contamination! Instinctively, he pulls away from the Wolf's touch. They exchange a troubled look: Eris, realizing only now that she too had forgotten about the corruption; Tear, because despite that touch, the burning sensation he should have felt never came. How is that possible? All that miasma can't have vanished in twenty-four hours. He still holds her wrist in one hand. He brings her stained fingers to his face. Nothing. He pulls the other hand toward him. Nothing. Even Eris is stunned by this new development, but it only lasts an instant before something unreadable passes across her gaze.

"Usually, it takes days for you to get to this state," the custos doesn't release his grip.

"I think my body found a way to... rebalance the miasma, let's say."

"How?"

The croí shrugs before her expression shifts into her usual polite smile. The cheerful mask triggers something terrible in Tear's mind. I'm not like those idiots among her friends. I know when she's lying.

"You don't want to tell me what it is, I get it. But if it's something that could put you in danger, I need to know," the Raven shakes her wrists. "I'm not gambling your life away for this nonsense about cleaning the hunting grounds. Got it?"

Eris's polite smile morphs into a resigned one, and a strange sweetness fills the air around the table. "I'm not in danger."

The boy lets her go with a sigh of relief. "Now sit down and eat something. You need to recover too."

"After breakfast, can we read the red notebook some more?"

"I have to get back to work."

"Oh, yeah, you're right," the Wolf says, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

"After dinner?" Tear lets the words slip, watching Eris's sad expression turn bright again with a sidelong glance.

During those twenty-four hours of blackout, the situation in the hunting grounds was updated. The new surveys highlighted a restoration of balance across all areas. The contacts had reallocated the Wolf teams more efficiently, trying to match the pattern of the Flowers' appearance from the last assault. All these changes only mean one thing: hundreds and hundreds of digital files Tear now has to sift through, check, and manage. At least the phone hasn't come to life, and no emergencies have popped up on the horizon. I much preferred my old job. I could wrap it up in two moves, enjoy a few hours in the human cities, and then return to the paper and ink of the Castle.

His gaze shifts toward the door. The room across the hall has been empty for hours, and Eris seems to have disappeared. The image of the previous day imprints itself on the back of his pupils, and before he realizes it, he's already searching the house.

There's no sign of her upstairs. On the ground floor, the books are back in perfect order on the shelves of the secret door, and another small detail has changed: something's wedged between the doorframe and the door, blocking the sliding mechanism. Tear tries to use the object and realizes it's a lever. A lever that works both from the inside and out. Did she build a security knob? Inside the secret study, the dust is gone, as is the clutter. Various folders, binders, and files are neatly placed, recreating the strange patterns of flowers and starry skies between the spines of the volumes. There's only one place left to check: the garden.

The Raven glances out one of the windows facing outside, and his body relaxes. Maybe the Wolves-equal-farming prejudice isn't really a prejudice after all. He steps out the door without a sound and watches the girl working to overturn dark clods of earth. The trees have been pruned, as well as the hedges, and the cut branches are neatly piled in a corner of the garden. The path is back to its former light after months spent hidden beneath weeds. But the lawn is gone. Everything's turned into a small plowed field.

"What are you doing?"

The boy's voice startles Eris. She sighs, clutching her chest. "You gave me a scare. I thought you were working."

"I came down to make myself some tea," he lies smoothly. "Want a cup?"

"Yeah, sure," she wipes her brow with the back of her hand and smiles. "One minute and I'll be right there."

The kettle starts whistling, when Eris comes back downstairs, her hands still damp. 

 "Sorry I made you wait," she says, as she collects the leftovers from breakfast from the cupboards and fridge.

"Seems like you Wolves really love rolling in the dirt," Tear teases, watching the girl's reactions from the corner of his eye.

"You won't think so when, in a few months, we're eating the delicious vegetables I plan to plant," she comments dismissively, selecting one of the tea bags from the box. "And the trees I pruned are an apricot and a plum. They're healthy and will definitely bloom beautifully. If they've been grafted correctly, they could even give us an abundance of fruit all summer."

The Raven suppresses half a laugh at the serious tone of her speech. "You really care about it, huh?"

"About what?" Eris tilts her head, confused.

"The garden."

"I care about everything I put effort into. And besides, if the garden gives us good produce, we'll save on groceries and eat better. Food outside the barrier tastes like nothing."

"Well, I can't wait to try your vegetables," the Raven grabs his tea cup, strokes the girl's head, and heads for the spiral staircase. "But make sure you don't tire yourself out too much. I don't want the corruption to worsen."

"Don't worry, you know we Wolves heal at the speed of light," the croí boasts with a half-laugh.

"I care little about what Wolves can do," his gray-blue eyes meet hers, cold but gentle. "But I do care about you."

The hours blend together, all the same, in front of the monitor. Read, correct, approve, decide. The endless loop pulls him from one folder to another, from one report to the next, from one table to another. His concentration breaks with a soft knock at the door, just as he's about to finish a document. He lets out a sigh and turns his gaze toward the entrance.

"I brought you dinner," Eris steps in, placing a plate on the desk.

"Thanks," he mutters, offering a half-smile to avoid sounding rude.

"I know you Ravens can spend hours hunched over a table, working and reading," she says, stepping back toward the door. "But if my Raven skips a meal to finish work, I start to worry."

Tear raises an eyebrow. "Since when am I 'your' Raven?"

"Since I became your stray," she retorts, her tone playful. "Wonder if you'll still call me that tonight."

With that, she disappears down the hallway, leaving no room for him to respond. Tear listens to the sound of her footsteps on the wooden stairs and iron railing, and for a moment, he can almost hear her humming a tune from the Solstice festival. When she's in a good mood, she's unbearable! He suppresses a chuckle before turning his attention back to the dinner and the document still open on his screen.

He powers down everything when midnight's already long passed. Stepping out of the room, he notices the crackling light from the fireplace in the slightly ajar bedroom door. She must really love that fireplace. He carries the plate downstairs, stretching his back sore from hours in front of the computer. I need to get back into training, or I'll end up as useless as a puddle on the battlefield. He glances at the coffee table. Aside from the books—neatly returned to their shelves by Eris—the notebook from Cornelia is gone.

He heads back upstairs in a few quiet bounds. He crosses the threshold of the bedroom. Eris is lying on her stomach in front of the fireplace, a pencil between her lips. Cornelia's notebook is open on the first page to her right, with a pile of cut-up papers in front of her.

"Still awake?" Tear asks, his voice cutting through the silence.

The pencil falls from her lips as she scrambles to gather the papers and hide them under the bed. "You finished early today."

"What were you doing?"

"N-nothing," she stammers, sitting up quickly.

Tear sits beside her, trying to peek over her shoulder at the papers she just shoved under the bed. Eris bends to hide the mess even more. He feints one way, she bites, and then he reaches under the bedframe and easily grabs the white scraps hidden beneath.

"Let them go!" She flails, trying to grab them back, but Tear holds them just out of her reach.

"Is it something that bad?"

"No, but it's none of your business!"

His gray-blue eyes scan the wrinkled pages he's clutching above his head. A series of crooked symbols alternate with perfectly neat human letters, the same handwriting he'd found scribbled on post-its attached to the screen and the kitchen counter. In that distracted moment, the Wolf snatches the treasure from his hands.

"You're really learning the graphi," he murmurs, impressed by the discovery.

"I told you it wasn't that hard to understand your language."

"You mean our language," Tear corrects, then extends a hand toward her. "At least let me see if you've got it right."

"Don't tease me," Eris pouts, handing him the papers. "I know I'm not that good yet."

Tear retrieves the pencil from the floor and inspects her clumsy attempts at writing. They're as endearing as she is. Some of the symbols are off; clearly, the Wolf's decryption method was good but not perfect. Some human sounds are summarized with a single symbol, while others require more than one. It's hard to get it right without knowing the theory behind it. He returns all the pages except for one.

"I'll write out all the graphi and their Latin alphabet equivalents," he says, carefully drawing the symbols with precision, large enough for her to recognize easily. "It'll be easier than trying to interpret them from the notebook. There you go."

"Oh, thanks," Eris stares at the symbol chart, almost breathless, then a soft smile plays across her face. "Your handwriting is really beautiful. I love it."

Years of practice and punishment must have been worth something, then. "Do you want me to read the notebook, or should we leave it for tomorrow?"

"Please read for me," she leans against him, her head resting on his shoulder like always. "I love the sound of your voice too."

̣⭒˙✵• ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯☽✮☾⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ •✵˙⭒ ̣