Iron and Salt

It was almost dark when Iris walked to the closest tram stop to wait beneath the glow of a streetlamp. Helena had decided to stay at the printer through the night to assist Lawrence, dismissing Iris shortly after they had agreed what to do about the Gazette.

“Get home before nightfall, kid,” Helena had said, lighting her cigarette at last. “Your brother, I’m sure, is keen to see you.”

Iris hadn’t protested. She felt exhausted and battered now that the article was out of her hands. And she did need to get home—she wanted to see Forest—but then she remembered the sword, still hiding under Helena’s desk.

With a sigh, Iris began the brisk walk to the Inkridden Tribune. It wasn’t far from the print factory, and she thankfully made it to the office before the last editor left.

“Lock up behind you, will you, Winnow?” he asked, shrugging on his coat.

Iris sat at her desk as if she planned to work through the night, but she nodded. “Yes, of course. Goodnight, Frank.”

She waited until his footsteps faded away on the stairs before she rose and snatched a spare jacket from the rack. She hurried into Helena’s office, worried that the sword would be gone. But it was still there, just as they had left it.

Iris knelt and wrapped the scabbard and hilt in the jacket. It was the best way she could think of transporting the sword home without revealing what it was—gods, what would she do if the Graveyard caught her with it?—and she was about to rise to her feet, sword awkwardly in tow, when she heard footsteps again. They were growing louder. Someone was descending the stairs, approaching the Tribune.

Iris remained behind Helena’s desk. She hadn’t locked the door when Frank strode out, thinking no one would swing by since curfew had almost struck. But now she was stranded in Helena’s office, unsure who was coming.

She heard the main door open and close. Footsteps walking around the desks, almost hesitant, as if they were lost, or looking for something.

Iris held her breath as they drew closer to Helena’s office. Go away, she thought, thinking whoever it was couldn’t be here for anything good. But then she heard a muffled cough. Someone cleared their throat.

“Iris?”

The voice was familiar.

She shot to her feet, sword in her arms, and stared wide-eyed at the last person she had expected to see.

“Kitt?”

He nudged the office door open, the lamplight washing over her face.

“You hide under desks often, Winnow?” he drawled.

The mirth in his voice, the slight smile tugging on his lips, the way her last name sounded in his mouth. It was like they had fallen back in time, and it made Iris’s chest ache. She had to swallow a sob, and she couldn’t resist glaring at him.

“It suits me from time to time,” she countered, but then her voice dropped low. “What are you doing here?”

“I was making sure you were all right when you left my house. And that you made it home safely. I’ve been waiting outside the printer and was surprised when you made a detour.” Roman’s eyes fixated on the bundle she carried. “Do I want to know what that is?”

“I’m sure you will. But let me bring it out to the light. Here, to my desk, actually.” She walked past him, just shy of grazing his chest. But she heard his sharp inhale, and it made her pulse quicken.

Roman followed to her—lamentably—disorganized desk because who had time for keeping things neat these days? Her work typewriter sat with a half-typed sentence in its clutches, a few books sat open, and there was a messy pile of paper. She discreetly shoved the plate of old toast out of the way.

Roman watched as she threw off the jacket and exposed the sheathed sword.

He gave a low whistle. “You steal that from the museum, wife?”

“Do I look like a thief?” Iris grimaced. “Maybe don’t answer that.”

“Well, now that I get a better look at you…” Roman smiled, his eyes moving down her body, and then slowly up again. “I like your new haircut, by the way.”

Iris snorted, but her cheeks flushed as she traced her hair. It was still crimped from the stylist, the shorter ends now brushing her collarbone. “Thank you. And this sword was actually given to me.”

“By whom?”

“By Enva.”

Roman froze. He listened, hung upon her every word, as Iris told him of last night: the bomb, finding refuge in the museum. The dream. The things Enva had revealed to her.

“You were right, Kitt,” Iris said in conclusion. “She did kill Alva, Mir, and Luz, taking their power for her own but only as a preventative measure, so Dacre wouldn’t steal their magic when he woke. The cost of it, though, has weakened her own gift of music and has kept her here, beholden to Oath.”

“And why didn’t she just go ahead and slay Dacre in his grave while she was at it?” Roman asked sharply. “It would have saved us endless trouble if she had done that one thing.”

Iris hesitated, chewing on her lip. “I’m not sure. I didn’t realize it was her until the dream was about to break. I wish I could have spoken to her longer.”

Roman was quiet, his gaze drifting to the sword. “And she now wants you to kill Dacre.”

“Yes.”

“She has all that power at her disposal, and she still commands you to go.”

“She didn’t command me,” Iris said, but then wondered why she was feeling defensive. In some ways, she could see the draw of the Graveyard and their beliefs. Meddling with gods never seemed to benefit humans. There was always a catch.

“I don’t know how to get Dacre below where he’ll be enchanted by music,” she confessed.

Roman began to pace, raking his hands through his hair. Iris carefully set the sword aside and sat on the edge of her desk, legs dangling, as Roman sorted through his wild ideas. But then he stopped and turned, staring at Iris with dark, glittering eyes.

“Do you remember when we were in the trenches? How Lieutenant Lark told us that the eithrals never appeared at the front but were reserved for civilian towns, kilometers from the actual fighting?”

Iris nodded.

“I think it’s because Dacre is the one who commands the eithrals when they drop bombs, and to do that, he must be underground,” Roman continued. “During any bombardments in the trenches, he wants to be above, overseeing the assault. But during the stalemates, when nothing happened for days, he would descend into his realm and send out the eithrals to terrorize civilians. And he was always in complete control of the beasts.”

Iris traced the bow of her lips. “If that’s true, then Dacre will be…”

“Below tomorrow, when the city is bombed,” he finished. “There’s over a hundred crates in my backyard. The bombs he plans to use. He’ll be sending his eithrals there to pick them up, one by one, to then carry them southward to drop. That is when we need to make our move.”

“We?”

“Did you think I would let you go alone?”

“Attie will be with me.”

“And what door do the two of you plan to use?”

“Your parlor door?”

“It’s heavily guarded. I don’t think I’ll be able to sneak you in.”

“What about the keys?”

Roman rubbed his jaw. “I might be able to find a key. One was on the war table yesterday, unclaimed.”

The idea of Roman stealing one of Dacre’s beloved keys made Iris’s blood go cold. She was quiet, desperate to think of another way, but there was none. It would need to be the parlor door, which was surrounded by Dacre’s soldiers, or a key to unlock their own threshold.

“I wish it didn’t have to come to this,” she said.

Roman’s expression softened, like her words had struck a bruise. He stepped closer until he stood between her legs. Leaning on the desk, his hands on either side of her, he bracketed her in.

Iris didn’t move, spell cast as Roman’s gaze aligned with hers.

“If you had touched me today, Kitt,” she whispered. “I don’t think I could’ve hidden it anymore. Who you are to me. Who I am to you.”

“Like this?” He brushed her knee with his thumb, just beneath her skirt. His touch was soft but possessive, and Iris closed her eyes. “Or this, Iris?” She could feel his fingers caress up her arm and across her shoulder, stopping at the buttons of her blouse.

“Yes.” She tilted her head back when she felt his mouth on her throat.

“Did you think I would let him tell me when and how to touch you?” Roman’s voice was hoarse as he traced her jaw with his lips. “Did you think that I would let him steal this last moment from me? When I would surrender only to you, take you in my hands, and burn with you before the end comes?”

“This is not our last moment,” she said, holding his stare. But she felt the weight of his statement as if it were fate.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her skirt pooling on the desk. Over the papers and the books, the typewriter glinting as the table shuddered beneath them.

“Write me a story, Kitt,” she whispered, kissing his brow, the hollow of his cheeks. His lips and his throat, until she felt like love was an axe that had cleaved her chest open. Her very heart beating in the air. “Write me a story where you keep me up late every night with your typing, and I hide messages in your pockets for you to find when you’re at work. Write me a story where we first met on a street corner, and I spilled coffee on your expensive trench coat, or when we crossed paths at our favorite bookshop, and I recommended poetry, and you recommended myths. Or that time when the deli got our sandwich orders wrong, or when we ended up sitting next to each other at the ball game, or I dared to take the train west just to see how far I could go, and you just so happened to be there too.”

She swallowed the ache in her throat, leaning back to meet his gaze. Gently, as if he were a dream, she touched his hair. She smoothed the dark tendrils from his brow.

“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt. Write to me and fill my empty spaces.”

Roman held her gaze, desperation gleaming in his eyes. An expression flickered over his face, one she had never seen before. It looked like both pleasure and pain, like he was drowning in her and her words. They were iron and salt, a blade and a remedy, and he was taking a final gasp of air.

Please,Iris prayed, drawing him closer. Don’t let this be the end.

But it made their joining all the sweeter, all the sharper, with skin glistening like dew, with breaths ebbing and flowing, their names turned into ragged whispers.

To write the story they both wanted that night.

To think it could be their last.

A Hundredfold, a Thousandfold

Roman knew he had stayed out too late. He tried not to dwell on the consequences as he walked Iris home, one hand woven with hers, the other holding her jacket-wrapped sword. The streets were emptier than he had anticipated—even the Graveyard kept to their dens that night, as if they sensed the end was near. A slight rumble in the ground coaxed people to draw the curtains, lock the door, and curl up close to the ones they loved.

Iris’s flat came into view just as it began to mist. The lights glimmered like fallen stars, and Roman stopped between streetlamps, in a velvet patch of shadow. But he could still see Iris, faintly. The way the mist gathered, iridescent in her hair. How her eyes shined, and her lips parted as she gazed up at him.

“Do you want to come inside?” she asked. “Forest is there. I’m sure he’d like to say hello.”

Roman shifted, uncomfortable. He had conflicted feelings about Forest, but he didn’t want Iris to know that. The main issue being how he had watched Forest drag her along unknowingly during the bluff attack. How Forest had intentionally run from Roman, separating him from Iris.

And yet after living among Dacre’s forces, disoriented and lonely, carrying wounds that still ached … Roman understood things better. He felt like he had only been looking at life through a periscope before. And now he saw how vast the horizon was. There was also the fact that Roman, in a strange way, felt like he knew Forest, from all of Iris’s letters in the beginning.

“I’m afraid I need to get back,” he said, which was the truth. “But I’d like to see Forest soon. Perhaps we can go to the Riverside Park together?”

The park, which might be demolished by tomorrow evening.

Iris nodded, but Roman could see her swallow. He couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes, but he could feel his own sting in warning.

He kissed her goodbye. And he wanted to be gentle, but it was a clash of their mouths, nips with their teeth and gasps that made a shiver trace his bones. He felt Iris cling to him, and he knew if he didn’t pull away from her that instant, he never would. He would follow her into her flat. He would peel away their damp clothes and lie beside her in bed. He would hold her to his heart and pray the morning never came.

“Goodnight, Winnow,” he whispered, setting the sword in her hands. He took a step back, surprised how the distance made it feel like a rib had cracked. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“All right,” Iris said.

Neither of them moved. They had forged a plan to meet up in the north side of town, Iris and Attie using Dacre’s invitation for safety as a cover. Roman would hopefully have the key the girls needed to hand off to them at half past eleven. If he failed to snag it, then they would fall back to the only option they had: Roman would sneak them into the mansion and clear the way to the parlor door.

“I’ll wait here,” Roman said. “Until you make it safely inside.”

Iris took a step away, still facing him.