Illia:

Sometime in the after, her breath coming hard in her lungs, Ander lifted his fingers to his nose. "Am I bleeding?"

Illia lifted her hand to his nose. They'd settled across their cloaks, she lying by his side and halfway across his chest, the dim light of the water reflecting across the cavern ceiling. Everything was luminescent. She felt like she'd been drinking starlight.

"No," she said, unable to stop smiling. "Your nose is not bleeding."

"It's raining."

She tilted her face up. A steady patter of drops met her skin. "So it is."

"Inside this cavern."
Illia lifted a brow. "What's your point?"

Ander grinned and kissed her. Thunder rumbled ominously. Illia sighed, closing her eyes, and rested her chin on his bare chest. She wanted to never stop touching him. Never stop holding him.

"I had no idea you could do that," Ander said, his hands tangling in her hair.

"The feeling is mutual."
"It's like I was missing you all this time," he said, "all the years you stood next to me. Like there was still all this distance between us."
"No more," she said.

"No more," he said softly.

She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. Ander had silver in his eyes-one blue, and one gold. "Hello," she whispered.

"Hello," he whispered back, and it was as though they had discovered one another again for the very first time.

Illia traced her fingers very, very gently over the fresh, stinging marks on his shoulder. "Think they'll scar?" she said wickedly.

Ander laughed out loud, the vibrations rumbling in her own chest. "I hope so."

Illia traced her fingers across his chest, memorizing him until her fingers found the branches of ink, the tattoo that was his mark for her. "I cannot believe how long you've had this," she whispered. Ander was quiet.

"I missed you," she said. "I missed you so much." Ander nodded. Unable to quite find words. Her fingers traced the tattoo marking of her that he'd inked long before she ever marked him herself. Like a path on a map, showing the way home. "I feel like me again," she said.

"Do you?" he asked, a bare whisper.

Illia nodded.

She said, "I finally came home."

She couldn't have said how much time had passed. Hours, probably. They reassembled themselves slowly, movements like melting in reverse. When she sat up she was aching slightly and all her limbs were deliciously heavy. She watched Ander scan the cavern. How long had it been since he had sex? She hadn't had one of her vaguely childish, young-and-free tangles with someone else in six years. She had been both reassembling herself, and her self-image, and was now forever tied to Ander in a way she hadn't been before. Things had shifted irrevocably six years ago, and she could never momentarily set him aside and dive into a careless fling again. She knew he'd had similar experiences, before. What she didn't know was whether or not he'd had them since.

"Ander," she said. "Was that the first time you slept with someone in six years?"

"There was no sleeping involved in that."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes," he said evenly, looking up with his beautiful, uneven gaze. Illia's mind twitched to her own eyesight and she batted the thought away. Ander said, "You?"
She nodded. "That was certainly the best time," she said.

"I'm not sure I can walk."

"Good," she said primly, and glanced out over the surface of the lake. The monster's carcass had disappeared into the depths. "Ander, do you still have that eye?"

He sat up, looking around for it. "It may be in the shallows. I got distracted." He looked up at her with a flash of a smile that made her toes curl.

Illia stood, padding barefoot to the lake's edge, grateful to be so alone, and free. The shallows were crystal clear and empty. She turned back to him, half an invitation, and watched with great interest as he rose and walked towards her.

Illia dove in. The water was cold and clear and cutting. Her hair hovered around her like a cloud. Ander dove in after her, and blurred by underwater, reached out for it and touched it with childlike joy. He could touch any part of her he wanted, unchecked, unmarked, and she grinned into the darkness.

Together they plunged deeper into the water.

The monster's eye had drifted in the lake's swaying current nearly to the drop-off, where Illia could sense the great corpse looming beyond. She surfaced, treading water, and swam back to Ander, who was sitting in the shallows of the water, quite unbothered by the cold. He never was. Illia offered him the eye, ruby red and vaguely grisly and huge, quite smooth in lakewater. "Call it a mating gift," she said.

"You have terrible taste," he said, grinning. Illia turned and tossed the eye back over her shoulder, where it landed gently amongst the tangle of their cloaks and clothes. "I'm going to bring it back to my father and dance around with it, taunting him," she said.

Ander smiled, but it was a reminder of home they couldn't breach just yet. He nodded to the eye. "Your depth perception remains impressive."

They were laying a lot of details bare today. "Fae senses."

"It could tell that about you."

Illia shoved her mass of soaking hair over her shoulder. "It could tell a lot of things about me."

"All of which were unsettling." He cut a glance towards her. "Well. Is it true?"

"Is what true?" she hedged.

"What it called you. What-you were called back then."

Oh, he'd remembered that. Lovely. "It's as true as anything else."

"Gods above, Illia."

"Maybe not exactly the right term to use."

He exhaled. "So, godling. How do you explain yourself?"

"Ander, I don't know. I just know I'm not like anyone else. I don't know," she said. "Maybe that thing and I aren't so different. The last remnants of another age-of another world."

"Well, then, reason being, when was your mother actively exposed to another world?"

"I'm sure it happened at some point."

"Fair enough. That things called you both 'remnants'-it called the darkness a remnant, too. So whatever we're facing is left of another world."

"I lost my temper before we got a name."

"We got some clues."

"Like the link."
"Yes," he said. "The link."
The link to then. To six years ago. To Sanders' kingdom. Illia glanced at the water. She said, "I have a concept for you."

"A repeat performance?"

"Imminently," she promised. "But what if we went back?"

"Went back to Sanders' kingdom?"

"Yes."

His gaze met hers. "Are you-ready for that?"

"I'm so tired of being afraid, Ander. I'm so tired of running. And I'll have you. Won't I?"

"Yes," he said, "of course you have me. That's a long journey, Illia. Months. Do we have that kind of time?"

She almost instinctively said "yes", but then she remembered. Illia said, "Can I tell you something you are absolutely not supposed to know?"

"Obviously."
"Saskia's pregnant with Gav's baby."

Ander swore. Swore again. Then, "How? What?"

"How?" Illia echoed, half-smiling.

"You know what I mean."

"Gav doesn't know."

"Is she going to tell him?"

"She doesn't want to pin him down."

Ander shook his head. "Stubborn, noble idiots."

"Her choice is her own," she said. "But that changes if I disappear-and she may have to...it's complicated. Vanishing for months on end does seem like abandoning her."

"Then let's stay here for a while longer. Piece together what we can."

Illia nodded. Ander scanned the lake again. "This place is full of legends. You fit in here."

"Think I could've given Maeve a challenge?" Illia asked.

Ander raised his eyes to hers and said, completely serious, "You would have eviscerated her."

He knew. Every bit of her power. She tilted her head. "We didn't know her," she said.

"Maeve feared gods. She would've feared you."

"I love how I don't scare you," she said.

"Oh, you do," he said. "Whenever I ruin a page in one of your books."

Illia blasted him back with a bolt of wind, spluttering into the water, and laughing, followed him under the surface.

Sometime later, back in the shallows, Ander nodded out to the depths of the lake. "So what do we do with the bastard?" Ander asked.

Illia tilted her head, stretching out her neck."I could float it out of here on the winds."

"You mean on an actual hurricane."
Illia grinned. "What are you offering, hauling it back up and sliding it down Bald Mountain on a sheet of ice?"

Ander rolled his eyes skyward. "Why am I attracted to you? I'm offering solutions, love. Solutions."

"Say that again."

"Solutions."

"No," she said. "Please--please call me 'love' until the day we die."

Ander smiled, eyes unbelievably soft. "It would be my pleasure."
She had to kiss him, and then the problem of potentially transporting an enormous monster carcass was put on hold again.

In the end they settled on leaving it in the depths it had lived, though Illia dived down and harvested some of the meat, namely so it wouldn't go entirely to waste.

"Is this how this works now?" Ander asked, hefting his pack full of monster meat over his shoulder. "I transport your body parts?"
"More gifts."

"Oh, now I'll treasure it always." He hauled his makeshift sack of monster meat over his shoulder. "Shall we?"
They picked their way back down the mountain in nearing dark, senses pricked, but giggling-sheerly giddy with it all. Illia could have floated back to Mistward on a ray of sunshine. Instead she hauled a massive bloody sack of monster flesh up the back walk into the long-deserted kitchens. "For shit's sake," Ander hissed, stumbling over a stray cobblestone.

"Ssshhh," she said.

"Oh, shush, you're not supposed to speak this language."

Illia dissolved into giggles.

"I cannot believe you told me to shut up and here you are laughing the entire compound awake," Ander went on, the same dimpled grin he'd been wearing all afternoon flashing in the dark. She shoved the kitchen door open with a shoulder. "Why, you terrible disruptor of peace-"

"Shut up, Ander."

"How dare she," Ander whisper bellowed, as she struggled to haul the bloody sack over the threshold. "I won't be silenced."

Illia dropped her monster meat and swatted him. Ander swatted her back.

"What the hell have you two been up to?" came Luca's exclamation.

They both whirled guiltily, surrounded by heaping piles of bloody meat and covered in it themselves, dishevelled and armed and frankly exuding the giddy sort of guiltiness that came after sex, fairly glowing with a mating bond that had just been realized after twenty five years, and Illia couldn't come up with a damned thing to say.

"Hope you like fish," Ander said sheepishly.

Illia dissolved into near-hysterical laughter.

She was still laughing as Luca lit some of the torches within the darkened kitchen. He was shaking his head, near smiling. "Gods above. What have you done?"

"Well," Ander began, and tripped over some of the monster meat, directly into Illia, whom exclaimed, still laughing, "for fuck's sake!"

She realized her mistake, instantly, as Luca went still.

Not that she'd slipped up on her fake accent, or used their real names, but, well...it was as Ander said.

She cursed, undoubtedly and shiningly, exactly like both of her parents.

Ander met her gaze, eyes dancing. Oh, you've really done it now.

Illia turned guiltily towards Luca. He was staring at her, blinking wildly, and then he sat down hard on the nearest chair and got out, "Gods above."

Illia fought a smile.

"Illia Galathynius," breathed Luca.

"Hello, Luca," she said quietly, in her own voice, and gave in to the smile.

Luca stared at her. "Illia Galathynius," he said again. "You're Illia Galathynius. Gods above. You-you're-" he fumbled for words. "Gods above," he exclaimed. "How did I not see this?"

"I know," Ander said, boosting himself up onto the counter. "She's like a perfect hybrid of both of them."

Luca stared at him. "Ander Havilliard," offered to Ander. "Sorry to lie, but our resident Crown Princess is attempting to go unnoticed."

Luca whirled back to Illia. "You're Rowan Whitethorn's daughter," he exclaimed.

"One of three," Illia replied, and smiled, almost shyly. "You knew my parents."

Luca said, "They cursed constantly."

Illia broke into a grin. "That sounds like them."

"I can't believe you're her," Luca exclaimed. "That you're-here. Gods above. You really do look just like them."

Illia tucked her hair behind her ears, rolling up her sleeves as she said, "So I'm told." Luca's eyes flickered over her ears, her tattoos, as she smiled again, exposing her pointed canines. "Gods above," he said softly. "What are you doing here?"

"Besides slaying lake monsters? Research," Illia replied.

Ander leaned over the table. "Illia's been attracting some very legendary attention," he said conversationally.

"You're Ander Havilliard?" Luca exclaimed.

"The one and only. Pleasure to make your acquaintance," and they shook hands.

"I'm sorry to lie," Illia said. "You've been nothing but lovely to us, and we've been liars."

"Well, so was your mother," Luca said, blinking. "When I met her the first time. Gods above. How have you-what have-" He blinked at the bloody sacks again. Then, "is that what I think it is?"

Illia and Ander exchanged a glance. Ander said, "We also specialize in pest removal."

Illia dissolved into giggles, and in trying to smother them, produced a very unattractive choking snort. Ander howled. Luca shook his head. "I must be dreaming."

Illia said, "That's a more common reaction than you might think."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for answers," Ander said.

"Luca," Illia said, "I know we've lied, and generally been a nuisance, and intruded, but do you mind if we stay a while longer?"

"Stay forever," Luca said. "There's always room here."

"And I can keep working in the kitchens?"

"You like working in the kitchens?"

"Yes," she said, truthfully.

"Then stay," said Luca. "For as long as you need."

Illia looked to Ander, smiling at her in the warm light of the kitchen. Time-stolen time. But they still had it.

She reached out her hand and he took it, and they sat there with their fingers entwined, wholly themselves for the first time in years.