Chapter 20

ETHANIEL

“We should…figure this out,” Ethaniel rasped between breaths. Aubrey’s lips had been on his since the moment they’d all stumbled into Calix’s bedroom. The air smelled like wood and wine and if Ethaniel thought of nothing else but the lips on his and the hands on his body, he would never have another care in the world.

But the real world was never so simple. They were squirreled away in a manor in upstate with a malicious group headed up by his brother potentially on their heels. And on the personal side, he had reacquaintances to make with Aubrey, and new things to learn with Calix—

“Look at him” Aubrey said softly, mostly in Calix’s ear, but the words were snarled with so much lust Ethaniel had to let out a hard breath. “Do you want him, Ethaniel? He wants you. Look at how tightly strung…”

Aubrey ran his hands down Calix’s sides, every heaving breath making Calix lean closer. The berry-pink temptation of Calix’s lips was right in front of him. Ethaniel was grateful for the wall at his back as he reached for Calix, his entire being feeling unsteady.

“Look at how Ethaniel trembles, right at the end of his fingers,” Aubrey murmured in Calix’s ear as he placed a hand on Ethaniel’s arm and trailed it down, until their fingers touched. “That’s how you know he’s wound up. Like he’s trying so hard to hold back—”

“Aubrey.” Ethaniel slammed his eyes shut.

“— but he wants so badly to touch you —”

“Aubrey, god.” Ethaniel grabbed a fistful of Aubrey’s shirt, mind now made up. Everything was a mess, they shouldn’t squander their time in safety and yet…and yet…

Ethaniel pulled hard, yanking Aubrey forward until Calix was squashed between them, Aubrey caging them both in from the side. This kiss was everything Ethaniel remembered from Aubrey, biting and slick, the physical manifestation of wanton. Even months after their parting, Ethaniel hadn’t been able to look at that word without thinking of warm skin and clever hands and the way he’d felt important, cared for when Aubrey took him. With Calix here, it felt magnified. Aubrey was still taking care of him, but doing so with Calix as well, and having someone to share that with was beyond anything Ethaniel could have imagined.

Ethaniel broke the kiss only when Calix whispered, “I want this, but I don’t know how.”

Aubrey laid a kiss on Ethaniel’s jaw before replying. “We managed quite well back at the inn.”

That sent a bolt of lust snapping down Ethaniel’s spine. He smiled at Calix and reached out to him, linking their fingers together while Aubrey watched. “Did you like what we did at the inn?” he asked, voice quiet. “We can do that again.”

“No! I…” Calix swallowed hard. From the corner of his eye, Ethaniel saw Aubrey bite down on a smile. “Fuck. I mean no, I want to do something else.”

The implications rushed to Ethaniel in a dizzying array, images of limbs tangled and mouths swollen red and fingers linked together, clenching. He and Aubrey had gone to one party on the third floor of the Minotaur Baths and it had been…unlike anything he’d ever experienced. A night of satin and sin and he remembered in vivid, beautiful detail how Aubrey had held him while men in gorgeous gilt masks took him apart with their mouths and hands.

“What do you want?” Ethaniel managed to ask, his throat gone dry.

Calix bit his lower lip and looked down, only to have his head guided back up by Aubrey’s gentle hand. Christ, Aubrey’s hands were big enough to palm the back of Calix’s head and the sheer power of it made Ethaniel’s cock jump. “I want to watch you two,” Calix whispered, a blush staining his cheeks. His left hand grasped Ethaniel’s sleeve while the other planted onto Aubrey’s chest. Calix didn’t move his head from Aubrey’s grip and the entire scene was goddamn intoxicating.

Doubt tugged at Ethaniel’s mind, but he wiped it away. You’re safe. They’re safe. Lawton is alive. Your uncle is…hopefully living it up on the town. Vincent doesn’t matter right here, right now. You can only do so much.

Be alive with them now.

“Ethaniel?” Aubrey cocked an eyebrow at him, and the bastard looked so good doing it, Ethaniel almost dropped to his knees right there.

“Yes,” Ethaniel gasped out, reaching for both of them, frantic now in his need to be touched.

Aubrey was right there, his glass-colored eyes like the endless depths of some vast ocean. Ethaniel thought he might see all the way through them, right to Aubrey’s core. As he clutched and clung, stealing kisses from both of them, Aubrey and Calix worked to remove their clothes and peel Ethaniel from his. The warm air of the bedroom was freeing on his skin, smothering the itch that had burrowed there since the fire.

Ethaniel knew Aubrey to be fastidious, but the man was in a damned hurry to get rid of their clothes; the tunics and trousers dropped in piles to the floor, their trail of breadcrumbs leading to the bed. He pressed kisses to any bit of skin he could, entranced by the curve of Aubrey’s muscular shoulders and the freckles splashed across Calix’s long neck.

“Will you lie on the bed with us?” Ethaniel asked Calix, holding out a hand to him as Aubrey tugged him to the bed. They were both so beautiful and Ethaniel yearned so much.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Calix scrambled up on the high bed piled with recently-fluffed pillows and fresh blankets. Everything was done up in sapphire and emerald and butter yellow, tasseled to within an inch of its life and so plush Ethaniel wondered if the bed would swallow them whole.

Aubrey tossed a few pillows onto the floor, making him and Calix laugh between their moans as Aubrey’s hands wandered. “What is so humorous?” Aubrey teased, taking the chance to press his lips to Ethaniel’s neck as they settled chest-to-back on the bed.

Ethaniel started to answer, but Calix crawled up between his legs. His breath left him in a gust. “I don’t…I don’t know now,” Ethaniel stuttered, fully entranced by the fluid movement of Calix’s body. Calix pushed Ethaniel’s legs further apart with his knees, pale, slim hands warm and firm on Ethaniel’s skin. The entire world had narrowed to where Calix touched him, and how Aubrey was kissing his neck. Ethaniel fully believed he could have passed out from those simple pleasures. He felt pampered, luxuriated upon. He never wanted to leave.

“You said you wanted to watch, Calix,” Aubrey said. Ethaniel felt his lips spread into a smile where they were slick against his neck. “That’s not watching.”

Calix sucked in a sharp breath but stopped, his entire being frozen as if on command. He was so entrancing to watch, almost delicate. But there was fire in his eyes as he stared up at Aubrey. “I do.” Teeth sunk into Calix’s bottom lip and Ethaniel groaned. Aubrey only chuckled and ran his tongue along the shell of Ethaniel’s ear. “I need to learn.”

He blinked and Aubrey had Calix’s chin in that long-fingered grip and they were kissing. The few kisses they had exchanged before and which Ethaniel had borne witness paled in comparison to now. Calix’s eyelashes fluttered and his throat worked, as if he were trying to surround himself with Aubrey. Ethaniel knew that desire well, felt something like its kin swell in his chest and make his belly swoop pleasurably. And Aubrey…he looked utterly focused, pouring all his energy into that kiss, somehow able to still scratch his nails across Ethaniel’s scalp while kissing the breath from Calix.

When they broke apart, Calix was smiling. Aubrey looked besotted. They were both far too beautiful. “Not like any lesson I’ve ever learned,” Calix said, grin growing. “Incredible.”

“Ah, I see,” Aubrey said as he settled back behind Ethaniel. “We’ll have to watch out for him. I think your dove is a bit sneaky.”

Ethaniel tipped his head back onto Aubrey’s shoulder. He usually let Aubrey take control but with Calix so close and looking like he needed to be cared for, he decided to chance it. “Lie beside me,” Ethaniel said, patting the open space to his left, which Calix quickly occupied. “You can watch from here. You can touch yourself, but not me or Aubrey.” When Calix nodded, Ethaniel continued. “Remember what I said at the inn?”

When Calix only stared at them with a delightful blush staining his cheeks, Aubrey took the opening. “Ethaniel told you to be good for us, didn’t he?” Aubrey’s hand skated down his chest and Ethaniel groaned. “If I have to worry about you, Calix…” Aubrey circled clever fingers around his right nipple. “Then I can’t give Ethaniel all my attention. And my best work.”

“Christ, Aubrey,” Ethaniel bit out as Aubrey pressed a little harder. Already he was rattled and shaky, but the way Calix was staring at them was just as heady. “You going to leave me straining like this?”

“Only a little.” Blunt teeth nipped his earlobe. “I like watching you struggle for it. You make the most beautiful noises when you’re desperate.”

Both he and Calix moaned at that and Aubrey laughed. Bastard loved winding Ethaniel up as much as possible, got hard on watching him fight against the need for immediate gratification. But Ethaniel was tenting his boxers something terribly and Calix was shimmying out of his and Ethaniel thought he might burst.

“Such a cruel man,” Ethaniel whispered as Aubrey curved around him for another kiss. “Playing into what you know I want. We’re not alone.”

“He wants to learn. And I want to venerate you,” Aubrey said between their lips.

The bed dipped, breaking their concentration, and Ethaniel leaned away to watch Calix, naked and gorgeous and damp with perspiration, climb back on the bed to settle on his back in the spot he’d been allowed, pillows propping up his neck so he could watch. His cock strained upwards and Calix reached for it, only stopping to look at Ethaniel for permission.

“Touch yourself,” Ethaniel said, trying to sound stern. It was a difficult feat when Aubrey was busy pushing his fingers under the waistband of Ethaniel’s boxers, but he managed it.

“Authoritative is a good look for you,” Aubrey said, biting down on Ethaniel’s shoulder. The sweet, sharp pain of it made Ethaniel’s hips roll. Aubrey took pity on him and shoved at his boxers, tossing them to the floor..

“I’ll practice it later. Please touch me.”

Aubrey heavy and warm against his back. Calix staring up at them, adoring and aching and pleasuring himself. Ethaniel had never known such bliss. The sounds of heaving breaths and gasps and slick skin on skin began to find a rhythm. It filled Ethaniel’s senses, made his skin prickle and his nerves sing.

Calix was loose-limbed and flushed from his cheeks to his groin, biting his lip in that way he had. It had been moments, or minutes; impossible to tell when pleasure seemed to sink into the air around them. Ethaniel watched him thrust up into his fist, the muscles in his legs flexing with power. He was beautiful, like a painting brought to life.

Aubrey’s fist around Ethaniel’s cock was exactly as he’d remembered, the skin soft but the fingertips callused and catching. Aubrey’s abortive little thrusts against Ethaniel’s back were telling; he was such a master of control, but how could anyone not be affected by the beauty pleasuring himself feet away, the feel of Ethaniel’s cock in his fingers?

Ethaniel could feel the end nearing, the way his stones tightened and his entire body flushed with heat. He flung his hand out, fingertips grazing Calix’s calf. Calix groaned in response and stroked himself faster. A pace Aubrey matched. “Don’t stop,” Ethaniel panted. “Ah, fuck. Please don’t stop.”

His pleasure fed them, theirs looped back to him, and again and again the sensations cycled, rocking through Ethaniel until he had to succumb. He kept his eyes open through force of will when Calix cried out, his leg jerking under Ethaniel’s hand as he spilled. Through their connected gaze, Ethaniel felt Calix’s pleasure wash through him, leaving him gasping and thrusting up into Aubrey’s fist, then stilling.

“Aubrey,” Ethaniel said weakly, reaching back to grab at anything he could. Aubrey shivered under his touch. “Be with us in this.”

Aubrey pressed his temple into Ethaniel’s and rutted against him, finding his release with a shuddering sigh.

He’d fallen asleep curled between Calix and Aubrey, and awoke untold hours later to a darkened room backlit only by a low fire in the grate. The room was cold and the last thing he wanted to do was leave the warm bed, but he needed to get a fire going once more. He carefully disentangled himself from them and walked over to the fireplace, deeply disliking how the cold floor bit into the soles of his feet.

A few more logs and some nudging with the poker forced the flames to build, leaving Ethaniel shuffling back to bed as fast as he could. That was when a sensation, like sudden sea sickness, washed over him. It stopped Ethaniel dead in his tracks, torn between the need to lie back down and the demand of hot bile rising in his throat. He slammed his eyes shut and waited, hoping it was only exhaustion.

He should have known better.

Patterns in bold pink and green and yellow danced before his eyes, whirling and spinning. Ethaniel couldn’t follow their motion without wanting to vomit, but when he tried to open his eyes, his body resisted.

I have a wonder for you, pattern-seer.

I wonder what you might glean from the collected knowledge inside my pages. Knowledge that could help your uncle.

Could you heal him? Completely cure his illness, banish it from his body forever?

What if you could do that, and help your Oracle quiet his mind? What if, inside these pages, one of the many I’ve consumed over the years could teach the Cunning Man how to heal properly?

Would you help them gain what they lack, what they need?

What would you be willing to give?

Ethaniel slammed back into his body with enough force to send him scrambling for the bed. He landed on Calix, who awoke with a start, which in turn roused Aubrey. Their shock instantly bled away when they saw how panicked Ethaniel looked.

“What happened?” Aubrey asked quietly, holding out a hand to help him into bed.

“It was the book, wasn’t it?” Calix said. When Ethaniel nodded, he swore and said, “We need to get that thing in the vault. I’ve never put such an active object in it, but my mother had cast all kinds of wards to block any objects that wanted to be, er…rowdy, I suppose. The vault usually won’t open immediately after I arrive, to safeguard me and the items, but we can try.”

He felt shaky all over. Aubrey gathered Ethaniel’s hands in his and it helped. He shot Aubrey a grateful look before continuing. “I’ve never…heard that thing in my head before. If that’s even close to what either of you have gone through, the sooner we can put that thing away, the better. And it…offered me all manner of things.”

“A devil’s bargain, to be sure,” Aubrey said. “What kinds of things?”

“Help for my uncle. For both of you.” Ethaniel couldn’t bear to look at either of them now. The shame was too much, thick and oily and he thought he might be sick again. “It knew what to offer and how.”

Aubrey gently let go of one of his hands to drum his fingers upon his bare knee. “Convergence. I wonder…” He caught both of them staring and smiled, mercury-quick. “Oracles are rare, we know this. There are other strange objects and abilities I’ve read some tales about. Even that blasted book I tried to acquire at auction was rumored to have some stories in it from a court mage who had been given access to a royal vault. It stands to reason that any magical item that can speak in our minds and unwind our deepest desires would have, for lack of a better word, a rare ability or two of its own.”

“That makes sense,” Ethaniel replied, trying to see where Aubrey was headed. The man was brilliant, but so often his thoughts jumped in ways that defied logic. He could see it now, living on Aubrey’s face and in the tap-tap-tap of his fingers; Aubrey’s intelligence manifesting through something otherworldly in its own right. “So it’s potentially what?”

Aubrey’s tapping stopped. “Sentient,” he said. “I think it’s sentient. And more than that, I’m thinking it needs something from us. And I fear what that might be.”

Calix jumped in, shocking Ethaniel with how sane he said, “It latched onto me. An affinity, I think you called it? My mother’s powers were strange and rare. It seeks to reason mine are as well. What if it’s been looking for someone like me, to help it…” He sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. “I don’t have a bloody fucking clue, to be honest.”

“I have more thoughts on that, but they’re worth nothing without confirmation.”

“And I hate to interrupt,” Ethaniel replied, making them both stop and look at him. “But I want to help. I just don’t know how.”

Aubrey squeezed his hands. “Neither of us can see patterns. That makes you the scientist with the microscope, love.”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that…” Ethaniel smiled at him. Aubrey always knew how to make him feel better, and the last thing he wanted to do was hold them back. Maybe he wasn’t dead weight in this situation, after all.

“Let’s get it down to the vault,” Calix said as he turned his head this way and that before snatching up his discarded sweater.

“I agree,” Aubrey said, concern buried deep in the lines around his mouth. Ethaniel reached up to smooth them out and Aubrey leaned into the touch. “Do you feel up to it, Calix?”

Calix nodded. “I think with both of you here, I can get through the wards easier.” He cut his gaze to Aubrey. “I may need to…borrow again.”

That was new. Before Ethaniel could ask what was going on, Aubrey explained how Calix had managed to to amplify his healing abilities, mending the door faster than anyone could break through.

It was an astounding magical feat, and like nothing Ethaniel had ever heard of or read about. “Calix, that’s incredible.” Calix flushed under the praise. The man was made to go pink at the drop of a hat, and Ethaniel couldn’t tell if he found it charming or strangely enticing. “But are we taxing you in any way? I worry.”

Brows knitted together, Calix crawled into Ethaniel’s lap, forcing him to rest back against the pillows and steady Calix by the hips. Calix gazed down at him, sure and steady and as beautiful as the moon outside their window. “You are very sweet,” Calix said as he leaned down, hands planted on either side of Ethaniel’s head. “And I appreciate your concern. But you needn’t.”

But Ethaniel couldn’t shake that voice, offering him so many things that would make his worries cease. “It’s difficult to get past,” he admitted. “Both my worry for you two, and the things that book wanted to give me.”

“A devil’s bargain,” Aubrey said again as he laid down on his side, one hand propping up his head so he could look at them both. “And anything so untrustworthy tends to walk away with everything. The house always wins, and all that.”

“I had thoughts on that,” Calix said softly before brushing his lips over Ethaniel’s. “The vault is exactly what we might need.”

“Lock it away and pray my brother never finds us?” Ethaniel asked before lifting his head while pulling Calix down, eager for the distraction of a kiss.

“No,” Calix said after they broke apart. He fixed Aubrey with a sharp gaze layered with meaning Ethaniel couldn’t quite parse. “The item is sentient, right?”

“I believe so,” Aubrey said. His hand found Ethaniel’s and Ethaniel took comfort in how it felt to intertwine their fingers.

“I think it’s more than one voice,” Calix said as he sat back on the bed. “The tones…change sometimes, when it speaks. When it first spoke to me at the auction house, there were more voices. Discordant. Disturbing. Now it’s like one voice with echoes off it.”

Aubrey squeezed his hand and Ethaniel looked over to see calculation written all over his face. “Aubrey?” he asked, wondering what was churning in the man’s mind.

Aubrey blinked rapidly a few times, then graced them with a smile writ large in the language of cunning. God, the man was far too intelligent and it was deeply attractive. “More than one voice,” Aubrey said, sounding more and more certain with each word. “An affinity with you. It’s either looking for an owner, someone to wield it, or it’s looking for a new source of power. Those would be my top suspicions, anyways. We might be able to coax the main voice out.”

Pieces clicked into place in Ethaniel’s mind. “Are you wanting to negotiate with this thing?”

Their replies came at the same time. “Yes.”

“That’s madness,” Ethaniel sputtered. “It’s clearly intelligent! It could do anything!”

Calix snapped his fingers. “Exactly. It wants something. We can use that to our advantage.”

He was involved with two madmen. Ethaniel looked between them, flabbergasted and more than a little worried. “And…do what? Give it what it wants?”

Aubrey shrugged. “What do most intelligent beings want? Safety, comfort…” His glass-colored eyes glinted. “Freedom. Negotiating with it is only part of the plan, if I understand Calix’s intentions.”

“You weren’t wrong, Ethaniel,” Calix replied. There was a similar gleam in his eyes and Ethaniel could only stare. It was mildly terrifying and…admittedly, rather attractive, even if they had both lost their minds. Perhaps that said more about him than them, though. “The vault can hold anything magical. It’s what my mother built it for. What if we give this voice, or being, its freedom, but on our terms? What if I know of an artifact in the vault that used to be a soul phylactery?”

The air rushed out of Ethaniel’s lungs, but Aubrey beat him to the punch, only with more practicality than Ethaniel capable of in the face of such a rare (and some thought bogus) magical artifact. “You think I can mend such an object.” Aubrey leaned in, eyes alight with a bright hunger.

It wasn’t a question.

“I saw what you did the night of the fire, Aubrey,” Calix said. He wasn’t pleading or stating his case. He was, just like Aubrey, merely airing out facts. It was a bit of a shock to see how quickly Calix understood Aubrey, how to coax him out with logic when necessary. Their younger paramour was a quick study. Ethaniel would only interfere to halt an argument, but from the look on Aubrey’s face — perplexed but intrigued — it wouldn’t come to that.

Finally, Aubrey said, “That’s a terrible amount of trust to put in one person.”

Calix broke their mutual stare to look over at Ethaniel, then down to his hands. “You’ve trusted me this far. You’re in my home, with the man who is arguably most at fault for all of this mess just a few rooms down the hall. You trusted me to handle him. To bring you somewhere safe. Trust me now that I know you can do this, Aubrey. I’ve had your magic in my veins and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”

Ethaniel rose from his spot on the bed then, intent on dealing the finishing blow to Aubrey’s hesitance. “I think you’re both completely mad, but mad doesn’t mean wrong,” he said as he approached, drawing Calix near as he moved. Calix went willingly, seemingly happy to be touched once more. “Calix’s channeling, your mending, my ability to watch over the patterns. It could work. Or explode in our faces.”

When Ethaniel looked up at Aubrey, the man’s final wall of resistance melted. Aubrey had doubted his abilities for so long, it had forced him into a kind of complacency, leaving him to mend old books and reshape broken blades, all in the name of making the wealthy and powerful happy. Ethaniel had always known Aubrey had so much more in him.

“All right,” Aubrey said softly. “All right.”

After a long pause, Ethaniel said, “There’s still the issue of my brother. That won’t go away any time soon.”

“He won’t, that’s true. But we can give him the book once the strongest voice is stripped from it,” Aubrey said, his tone a bit gentler as they rounded the issue of Vincent. “I’ve been trying to parse out what the Golden Order might want from such an object, and it stands to reason that voice has some knowledge or power they wish to gain from. We might still have an enemy after that, but from what I understand about the Order, scrutiny isn’t what they want right now. They don’t have a large enough, or established enough, power base in the city. We would gain the chance to regroup and plan for the future.”

Ethaniel scrubbed at his face with his hand and sighed. “If we can get this to work, it’s a fine plan. But it hinges on a lot of unknowns.”

Calix’s expression turned sad. “That’s very true,” he admitted. “And there’s no guarantee we can work fast enough. The manor is held in the name of a trust which would track back to my mother’s partner, then eventually to her and me. But that kind of digging can take months and the lawyers who drew up the trust were well paid for their discretion.”

Even with his head spinning, Ethaniel had to chuckle a little. “Woe is the two of us then, to be trapped here with you, Calix.”

As he’d assumed, Calix laughed with him while Aubrey watched on with what Ethaniel would call a mix of fondness and interest.

Calix eventually went downstairs to find Richard and let him know what was going on, leaving him and Aubrey alone in the large master bedroom, the rumpled sheets and slightly humid air a delightful reminder of how they’d spent some of the afternoon.

Ethaniel stared at Aubrey for a long moment, simply remembering. The suddenness of it all, the spectacular way they’d all been pushed together, and how they’d each held on fast caught up with him. He was exhausted, but jubilant in it. Ethaniel hoped Aubrey felt the same way, and gazing at the man now told him just as much. His body, from the proud line of his shoulders to the looseness of his jaw and the soft lines around his eyes, was what Ethaniel had been hoping to see.

“I’ve missed you,” Ethaniel murmured as Aubrey drew close. “But this is a hell of a mess.”

“I’ve missed you as well,” Aubrey replied before kissing Ethaniel gently. Aubrey’s hands framed his face and it made Ethaniel feel seen and cared for, all at once. “I think this might work. Putting the book in the vault so I can better examine it will be very useful, but I haven’t the tools like I would at the Collectio.” Aubrey’s expression soured. “Pulling a disappearing act will not reflect well on my next performance review.”

“I know you’re only joking—”

“I am,” Aubrey said as he rubbed the edge of his thumb over Ethaniel’s cheek. “And I’m doing so because I know in actuality, Magnus and Alon and the others will be in an uproar looking for me, and then they’ll discover the burnt ruins of my home. Magnus is a very skilled mage and researcher. He may find us before the Order does, which would be helpful.”

“But you won’t drag them into this, right?”

“Not willingly. Like you wouldn’t with your uncle.”

God, his uncle. Ethaniel didn’t want to think about it. Jeremiah would be beside himself with worry, and Ethaniel had no way of getting word back to him without pulling him into the strife and danger of their current predicament.

“So we do this as quick as we can, and try to set things right,” Ethaniel said. He took strength from Aubrey’s warmth, his touch, his surety that their plan stood any chance at being seen through to the end. If only his worries could cease entirely. “You and Calix seemed to be of a similar mind when it comes to that book. I think you’re more alike than either of you realize.”

To Ethaniel’s surprise, Aubrey slid his hand down his chest while pulling Ethaniel’s up until he could cup Aubrey’s cheek. Aubrey closed his eyes and sighed; so many emotions layered into that single noise. But it was Aubrey opening his eyes and staring down at Ethaniel, saying, “I think you’re right. Stubborn and skilled, to be sure. We both drew to you like magnets, didn’t we?” Ethaniel gave a dry laugh that quickly died as soon as Aubrey ran a thumb over his bottom lip. “And there’s you,” Aubrey said, “the heart in the middle. You call Calix ‘dove’....what should I call you?”

There was only one answer. “Yours. Call me yours.”