It was the next day that Wren went home. Bandages covered the scab on her back, which ached and itched and flaked at the corners, then oozed blood. It stuck down the feathers in the middle of her spine where she could not reach them, and they dug into her skin and made her want to rip them off. 

At the very least, they were a nice color. Some people got gaudy colors--bright blue like Griffon's, or even orange like Gabriel was cursed with. She'd lucked out with a lavender that, while she would have preferred nothing, didn't stick out too much and wasn't too visible from far away.

She folded them in against her back and squeezed through the throng of people in the marketplace. Their eyes burrowed into the back of her head like diggers. Heat rose to her face and she kept her eyes trained on the ground. Her mother put a shielding arm around her and steered her between two tents, down an alley, and around the back of the wagons where their sleeping tent was waiting. 

Meria pushed her gently inside. Wren folded the fabric tent flap out of the way and stepped inside. A ceramic urn with a wilting cactus flower poking out the top rested on a table in the corner. Her breath squeezed in her chest. Her father would have picked it up in the market and tended to it for a few days before it faded and he replaced it. 

The hook on the tent post where his pack would have hung stood eerily empty. There were piles of clothes all over the floor where he'd rummaged for what few belongings he had to take with him. Scattered among them were the belongings he'd left behind, like ghosts. A set of catch-cards he played at night with other merchants while striking deals. A silver mug he'd been given as a gift.

"Try to get some rest," Wren's mother said as she smoothed her hair, which still felt prickly and awkward across her scalp. She suppressed a bitter urge to jerk away and nodded. Meria walked out of the tent and the loneliness crawled in around Wren like a living, breathing thing. It prickled at her neck and pulled at her arms. The inside of her chest was a hollow, empty space, where people once lived but had abandoned.

She looked across the room to where her father's pile of rumpled blankets still lay in disarray. She remembered the time when she was a little girl, there was a festival and he'd carried her on his shoulders so she could see over the throngs of people. She'd felt on top of the world.

Or when she was sick and he brought her juice and laid cold cloths on her forehead and worried incessantly until she was back out of bed and running around like she'd always done. She wondered if he'd always known. If he knew she wasn't his daughter. Wren's heart sank and her face flushed with guilt. All of it for nothing, for a child that wasn't even his. She didn't blame him one bit for running away.

Wren shuffled around the papers on her parents' work desk; really just a crate set on the ground so her father would have a place to fill out ledgers. Her mother's dignified scrawl curved over the surface of the parchment to spell out the numbers of what they had and what they needed. She scanned the page for a moment then placed it carefully down on the work desk.

She felt...strange. Like this place was home, but at the same time not home. An uncomfortable sort of in-betweenness she just couldn't shrug. Her back ached out and she lifted her arms to stretch it. The scab pulled at her skin. She twitched her newfound wings, stretching them upwards toward the ceiling. They still didn't seem quite a part of her.

She curled the wing around her body and rolled one of the feathers in her fingers. It tugged at her skin and wrinkled, the bits of it separating like fibers of yarn. They clung together in clumps as she tried to smooth them back into place.

The thought of flying through the air on them made her shudder. They looked solid enough on the surface but when she pushed her hands into them, they sank and gave way to bones that were gossamer-like, thin and fragile, like glass. All she could picture was falling through the sky and then her bones shattering like dropped pottery as they impacted the ground. Her bones. She ran a finger down the top edge of the bone and shivered, the skin was as sensitive as the skin on her neck and yet foreign, like the wings weren't yet truly a part of her.

Something rustled. Wren released the wing and it bounced into position and folded almost automatically across her back. She flinched at the strange sensation and tried to look nonchalant, like she hadn't just been playing with them.

"I thought you said you were going to the marketplace--"

Armand stepped through the doorway. Wren let out a small gasp and stepped backwards. There was a darkness in his eyes, a sort of forlorn emptiness that made it hard for her to look him in the face. He was dressed in a battered leather overcloak and his face was smudged with dirt, one eye still ringed with bruising, the other ringed with lack of sleep. Bits of hay poked out of his hair. He looked like he'd aged five years in the three days she hadn't seen him.

There was something else there, too. Wren would have mistaken it for rage, but she knew it well enough. He was annoyed with her. Only the tiniest little bit, but it was there. She'd spent enough hours and days alone with him to know how to read his face.

"I brought you some jerky," he said as he dug it out of the bag and tossed it at her. She fumbled it and placed it on the wooden desk.

"Thanks," she said, though it felt hollow. She wasn't hungry anyway.

"I didn't come to see you," he said. He stood to one corner of the room, arms folded, looking at the ground like he didn't know what to do or how to act. Like he was in a room with a total stranger instead of an only friend. Wren's stomach twisted uncomfortably as she tried to find something, anything to make the tension leave the room so they could talk like they normally did. When there wasn't so much thought involved.

"It's fine," she replied, even though at the time it really wasn't. Now she wasn't so sure if it would have been better or worse to be alone. She went to the corner of the tent where the cushions were laid out, where she'd sit and read on boring days, or her family would gather to eat. The wings reflexively moved out of her way, resting on the ground, light as the feathers that covered them. 

He followed and took a seat next to her, just far away enough that it didn't seem friendly. Silence penetrated the air so palpably it made her throat feel tight. She glanced over at him and he looked at the ground in response.

"Can I touch them?" he asked. Wren willed the wing that was closer to him to extend from her back. It felt stiff and creaky, like a door whose hinges had rusted. He grabbed gingerly at the edge and ran his fingers across the fine bone that extended from her spine like an extra arm. She shuddered, goosebumps rushing across her skin, making the down featherlets closer to her back rise on edge. She winced as his fingers hit the scab where they'd emerged and an ache ran through her shoulders. He let go and she folded it in again.

His eyes were unreadable, a terrible mix of sadness and longing. Her face felt hot and she wrapped her arms around herself like a protective cocoon.

"It's not your fault," he said quietly. "You didn't ask for them. I shouldn't be jealous but I am. I can't help it."

"I know," she said. She'd seen the look he'd given her when she writhed in Ittra's tent, splattered with blood and in terrible pain. Like she'd just stolen his soul or run a knife through his back. It had lifted as quickly as it came, but she hadn't missed it. She might have been angry if not for the fear.

He reached for her hand. His touch was like ice on her skin, but she let him take it anyway. He pulled her in carefully, like a piece of glass, and wrapped his arms around her, careful to keep his hands from where the scab was. 

She folded in on herself and rested her head against his chest. His heart thrummed like a hummingbird inside its fragile casing of bone and muscle. Her wings got in the way. She had a feeling they'd always get in the way. They jutted from her back at an awkward angle and rumpled like a cat pet in the wrong direction.

"I'm sorry," he said. Wren simply nodded. His embrace was too hot and the air was too thick and she felt like she might suffocate but she said nothing. She closed her eyes and willed the world to melt away, to go back to that place with the tree and the crow who knew such a great many things. Her heart nearly broke when she opened her eyes and all she found was the inside of the tent. 

She looked up at him. The indignation, the subtle rage that boiled below the surface was gone, replaced with fear and anxiety and hope. He cupped her face in his hands, leaned down, and kissed her. It was angry and desperate and ugly and it made her dizzy.  Just like everything else that was Armand. 

For a brief moment, Wren considered what it would mean if she let go of her misgivings. What would happen if she followed him to wherever it was he might land. If they grew accustomed to one another, and after a while the awkwardness faded, and maybe someday she learned to care the way that he did. The way he wanted. 

Wren's world constricted and collapsed in on itself until she felt certain she was drowning. Her choices ran away from her until the only future she could see was the one in which she traveled only with him and took her meals only with him and conducted her business only with him. She broke from him and pushed away. She was only glad nobody could see them.

"No," she said, fighting to keep her voice from cracking. Suddenly she knew what the crow meant. She wasn't so sure how she hadn't before. 

"I'm sorry, I--" he began.

Wren scooted away from him and avoided his eyes entirely. Instead she fixated on the floor in front of her as if by doing so, she could make him disappear. Her face burned up with heat. For a moment neither of them spoke. He reached out and touched her arm. She shrugged him off.

"When I said--" She stopped and took a deep breath and forced herself to look at him. "When I said I didn't want to get married I meant you, too."

"...Oh."

His face crumpled in on itself, all the hope and anxiety  replaced with hurt. His dark eyes looked at her and at the same time looked through her. She didn't have to try to see his heart break in his chest like an egg squeezed in her fist. She winced as hers too shattered.

He didn't say anything else as he pushed himself up off the ground, slung his leather overcloak over his shoulder, and breezed out of the tent like a ghost.   

---

Oof, what a hard chapter, for both of them. What do you think of the outcome? Do Wren's actions make sense? What would you do if you were her?