“You’re going to have to leave in five minutes, Cain. I have to go meet Bunny at the bar.”

Cain took a hard swallow of the drink he’d literally just poured and set the glass down on the table with careful precision. “Excuse me?”

Ella, of course, didn’t even look up from her phone, tapping away on the keyboard where she lounged on the other side of Levi’s sinfully overstuffed sofa. Decorations drenched the whole house now, top to tail with garish cheer that only underscored the brushes of delicate winter grace.

He’d rather thought he deserved a bloody whiskey and fifteen minutes with his feet up after helping Ella decorate Levi’s entire bloody house. And considering Levi’s house was a converted warehouse full of cavernous ceilings and far too long rooms, it really had been a gargantuan effort.

But apparently meeting Bunny couldn’t wait fifteen minutes for Cain to actually finish his drink.

The leather of the sofa creaked as Ella stretched out, toes curling an inch from Cain’s thigh and her arms stretching above her head. Not an ounce of concern tempered that idle motion. “I told you earlier I had to go out at half ten.”

“It’s not even five past!”

Finally, Ella glanced up at him, a reproachful purse to her lips while her thumbs lingered over the keys on her phone. Something tart laced her voice. “Alright, Six, I didn’t realise I had to run all my plans past you first.”

Oh brilliant. He was getting that now, was he? Get your bloody head on straight, Cain. No matter that wretch of disappointment wallowing in his gut, it was hardly a big deal. Much better, as well, to get up now and leave of his own volition.

Cain snatched up the whiskey again and drained the glass, not that it did a thing to wash the bitterness off his tongue. He stood up, his lips pressed tight as he straightened his shirt. Not looking at Ella and her sharply raised eyebrows.

“Well”—and as much as it should come easy, something sharp and bitter tainted the idle boredom he wanted from his voice—"at least I can get on with every infinitely more important thing I have to do instead of this ridiculous decorating.” Cain flashed her a tight, mocking smile. “Like feeding my cat.”

Ella let out a huff, rolling her eyes and kicking her feet off the sofa. “Cain—”

“Are you coming?”

It was a slow reluctance with which she moved from the sofa, her eyes flickering once more to her phone before she locked it and slipped it in her back pocket. Her eyes lingered on him as she shuffled over to the hall, glimpses of misty skin and doe-brown eyes between wisps of her hair.

Cain pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, drawing in a deep breath against the pang behind his ribs as he followed.

Stupid. It was stupid.

Why did he keep doing this? Why couldn’t he just smile and say goodbye without this strangling in his lungs turning him to bitterness and rot?

Out the lounge and its warehouse-high ceilings, they stepped into the hall, crimson walls slicking down to the front door. Outside, a shadow shifted through the sickly glow creeping through frosted glass.

Ella leant against the wall, nestled amongst three different hanging fur coats while Cain yanked at his laces. Something tight lingered around her brow, and her fingers slipped beneath her long sleeve to scratch at her wrist.

“I had fun doing this, you know, Cain. I don’t know why you’re sulking.”

A flash of indignance slapped him, and Cain shot to his feet with the laces on his left shoe half-tied and crooked. “I am not—”

“Yes, you are! I’ve known exactly what you’re like when you’re sulking since—”

“I’m not—”

“You’ve been sulking the same way since that time after we left Thermopylae!”

The splash of memory arrested him. Trickling water amongst a dusty haze. The flash of a bluebird’s wings, and his ring clacking against tin, over and over and over while the loose end of the bandages wrapped around each of her arms rippled in the soft breeze.

She hadn’t smiled quite this same way in the memory as now – somewhere between sweetness and triumph in the little flash of teeth and her scrunched nose.

Cain set his jaw, squeezing his arms over his chest like it might push back the ache. “It’s hardly sulking getting pissed off that you don’t seem to be willing to sacrifice two seconds of your time for me as soon as something better comes up.”

And it wasn’t. It was just taking the piss at this rate. But apparently Ella thought that was hilarious because her grin broke even wider as she stretched out her arms, rolling her eyes off to the side. “Just like it wasn’t sulking when you wouldn’t talk to me after I wouldn’t abandon everyone to leave Thermopylae with you?”

Some bizarre, strangling mess wrapped around his chest, the sweetness of nostalgia struggling to swamp all the venom that squatted on his tongue.

Cain spat his words, sharp and impatient, but not one of them dented Ella’s smile. “No, that was just bloody stupid considering there was a horde of literal bloody monsters outside the walls and more of your bloody idiocy had just brought down the wards.”

Ella straightened up, strands of her hair clinging to the soft fur as she stepped away. The teasing edge to her grin really was doing a number on Cain’s determination to keep sulking. “Says the one who rotted Bartholomew’s entire army of monsters just so he could actually sulk at me instead of going back to big bad Veil King business.”

With a click of his tongue against teeth, Cain turned away from her sparkling gaze. His coat was right there by the door. On that coat rack that he’d swear was made from voidbone. He should just grab it and piss off and make his point. “It was business getting you out of there when you were so brazenly determined to get yourself killed.”

“So you mean you really were just sulking over me telling you off after we left the walls?”

Christ, she was going to hold that against him for eternity. Cain kept his face turned away, now to hide the smile he could see twitching his lips in his reflection, stained sharply across the frosted glass by the hallway lights burning low and dense behind his head. “I don’t believe I remember.”

Like he couldn’t still close his eyes and see all of it. The awe on her face while she stared up at him – saviour, blood trickling down her throat while sorcery and hope shattered around her. A little bird trembling while he loomed above her, her lip stuck out and chin raised in defiance to a faceless mask that obscured all familiarity, nothing but violence and religious fervour to its name.

And out there in the desert valley, her laughter as she threw out his piss-poor attempt at coffee and how despite it all, more fear had clutched her face watching Levi laugh with Jack than any other moment that blood-soaked night. Glistening, fresh burns the shape of palm prints snared her arms.

Ella burst into delighted laughter, and Cain held his own glare in the windowpane until the lightest wisps of her hair dusted the reflection below his chin. Her heat soaked the air, pressing with a startlingly vibrant life against the chill of his skin. His eyes fluttered shut, a ragged breath dragging out of his lungs.

Right there. Close enough to touch.

“I still think about that.”

Finally, that softness of her voice drew his eyes. She stood before him, her toes curled beneath the tips of his shoes and a wistful smile curved over her lips. It put the smallest dimple in her chin, and the glitter in her nail varnish sparkled beneath the lights.

When Cain caught her eyes, her smile widened. “I still can’t believe you called me an uptight priss.”

Cain laughed before he could stop himself. Which completely ruined everything anyway, so finally gave into the smile and pushed his fingers back through his hair. It was a lot nicer these days, soft and clean rather than thick with grease and road-dust. “Well, you called me a self-absorbed egotistical asshole and a pig-headed dick, so I rather think we’re even.”

“I don’t know, you did lie to me for four months and try to trick me into murdering someone.”

A spasm of something wet and black thumped through his chest, ripping through all the softness. Cain dragged in a shaking breath and tore his eyes away. “Ella—”

She poked him in the gut, and when his eyes flew back down, she still had on that teasing grin. “I’m kidding. I know you were just tired too. I know you’re tired now, so go home and get some rest, Kitty.”

Tired… Cain rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose, a sigh easing from his lips. “Yes… I suppose so.”

He didn’t much like to tell her he was wide awake and he’d probably stay up for hours working on some project or another. That wasn’t much excuse for being an arse.

Ella nodded, sharpish with her hair bouncing around her face. Far too cute. She hustled him toward the door, babbling about leaving something secret out for Levi before she left, which was why Cain had to go so early.

Cain was still promising her he’d get some sleep, a syrupy smile maudlin across his face and some unbearable stream of butterflies dancing circles around his chest, when Ella pulled open the door, letting in a gust of cold air.

Cold air, and the tinny guitar strains struggling from the headphones dangling from Jack’s t-shirt. The worm snatched a bottle back from his lips when the door opened, and Cain’s heart dropped to somewhere about ten feet past Levi’s polished wood floor.

Something secret for Levi. Christ, he was a bloody idiot.