Astrid leapt up and out of that divine lake before the branch had even finished snapping.

Her heart gasped.

She was going to murder whoever had dared to disrupt her bath.

Bless the Skies that she hadn't removed all of her clothing to bathe herself. One of the items she had left on, besides her tunic since she wasn't about to allow herself to be caught completely in the nude, was her short-blade's sheath strapped to her thigh. In the span of a heartbeat, the dagger was in her grasp, her toes squishing into the soft sand beneath the shallow, crystal water, drops of it streaming from her hair and down her back. They fell from her eyelids as well. She blinked them away. Her eyes scanned the trees, mind flickering through all manner of Fae that could be sneaking up on her when—there!

A rather carelessly loud warrior for one of the Avylon Court.

Astrid swore and lowered her blade.

"Dammit, Seabass! Serah better have hit you upside the head with a large log."

His confused tone came from the night shadows. "What are you talking about?"

"Only a complete idiot would sneak up on a woman bathing."

"Oh."

She sank back into the lake far enough that it would hide the sight of her soaked chest. Not because she was indecent, per se, but because her heart was currently attempting to burst its way through her ribs, and she was sure even he would be able to see it. Calm down. If there was one thing she despised more than creeping males, it was her own fear. Besides, even if it had been a fae from the Court of Avylon, she was a warrior in her own right. Had even caught, tortured, and slaughtered a fae before.

You are perfectly fine, you dimwit.

Unless, of course, Sebastian had come to murder her before she could backstab him again. Truth be told, Astrid might be tempted to let him.

But not until she had freed her father.

Sebastian paused on the edge of the shore. The small wake she had made with her movements splashed up against his boots. His fingers twitched along the sides of his thighs in that familiar nervous gesture of his before he plopped down onto the muddy embankment, propped his arms over his bent knees, and watched her.

For some ungodly reason, her cheeks warmed. "Enjoying the show?"

"Not really," he said in that analytical voice of his, "it looks cold."

"Were you not just in here yourself? Or are you about to claim that new outfit of yours has caused your ego to inflate so massively that your mere attractiveness warmed its deepest depths?" Again, he quirked a curious look her way, and she only barely smothered her amusement. " You've been trying to catch your reflection far too often lately."

He seemed to choke on a laugh. Or embarrassment. She grinned to herself, pleased, when his gaze wavered self-consciously. His boots chuffed into the damp dirt. "It was cold, freezing, in fact, so I did this—"

Not even a second later, she felt the tug in her navel where their Spirits' threads had once been knotted together. Her gaze flicked to his hands, to the way his eyelids shuttered in concentration, and then she spotted the burning, scarlet thread of Fire emerging from the tree line. It sizzled when it reached the water, Sebastian directing its path with his long fingers, and a small portion of the water around her warmed instantly.

A small, grateful sigh escaped her as the chill bumps on her arms and legs melted back into her skin.

"I know," Sebastian said into the silence, "I was surprised it worked, too."

She wanted to be mad at him even if only for the way the elements flowed so easily from him. "I should have thought of that."

A thin, upwards tip of the right corner of his lips. "Yes, but, with your tendency towards brashness, you may have set this entire pond aflame."

Well, then. Her snort escaped her. "That would be quite the mess."

"Messy for me," Sebastian corrected. "How would I ever explain to your mother that her daughter burned herself to ashes simply because her bath was chilly?"

They were fully grinning now, and Astrid liked it, pleasure slithering down her spine. It was a comfort, this easy rapport between them, the return of it, the hope that perhaps she hadn't yet ruined the tether that held their companionship together. In the next breath, however, it frightened her. Her fingers clasped together beneath the water. There were certainly matters they should discuss, the least of which being how they were meant to retrieve the Black Quill. The harshest being all the lies she had told him. Judging by the way Sebastian held his knees to his chest so tightly on the pond's bank, Astrid could sense the whirring mechanisms of his brain. Knew they were forcing their way into understandable speech patterns and words that would surely crush her.

Because this reprieve between them had to be temporary.

She deserved nothing else.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Astrid startled, fighting the flush in her neck. "Just trying to figure out if my mother would actually mind if I burned myself to death."

Sebastian dropped his arms from around his legs. "I would mind."

He said it with such clarity, like it had been nothing more than a fact in the realm's most renowned textbook, that Astrid believed him.

The warmth he had sent her way followed her as she took another step away from the water's edge, away from him and his sweet honesty. It molded to the shape of her shoulders, chest, stomach, thighs and calves, and she became distinctly aware that her trousers were sitting in a messy heap at Sebastian's side. Curse the Skies! She moved deeper into the lake, her ridiculous lungs heaving. Her toes barely tread the sandy bottom now. Still, his gaze tracked her. I would mind, he had said, but why? She had been awful, but Sebastian was as polite as ever when he should be so much...more.

She looked back at him. "Why are we speaking again?"

One of his wayward curls flopped over his forehead. Her arm twitched to flick it back into place, but he beat her to it, obviously, and brushed it away. His eyes gleamed dark and green, somehow standing out against the night's shadows.

"You could have told me, you know," he said. "It wouldn't have changed a thing."

Her lips tipped downwards. Wouldn't. Past tense, then. Not a surprise, but still, the hurt it brought forth surprised her. She held her arms around her stomach like a barrier against her own emotions, using the water around her as a shield against him. Apologize, some inner, moral voice inside of her screamed.

"I need to free him," was all that came out instead. "My father."

"I know."

Two more simple words that sounded so sincere that they smashed through Astrid's barrier and clogged her throat.

She bit it back.

His hands moved restlessly again, this time aiming for his boots' buckles and laces, which he meticulously undid and untied. What was he doing? One by one, he kicked them off, peeled off his socks, threw them on top of her discarded pants but not before he folded them all. Then, he met her gaze again. "Perhaps you could tell me the truth now."

Her swallow was painful. "You already know it."

"I want to hear it from you, I think."

There had been a reason she had let Serah confess it all to him the day before. Because, underneath her armor and weapons and the mask of the Iced Guards, when it came to him, Astrid had come to terms with the fact that she was nothing more than a coward of her mother's making.

Coward, Davina hissed again.

Her heart flinched.

Well, perhaps she had not come to such strong terms with it.

Coward.

I want us to be a team.

Control leads to power.

Tell me the truth—

"I cannot!"

The words were out before she could stop their irrational outburst. They had shot from her heart, straight through her lips, and now left a smoldering crater between them. Horror tightened her intestines. She held herself closer and spun away, sending a wave of warm water over her shoulders, before his overly observant senses spotted the stinging in her eyes.

A short breath sucked through her teeth.

She tried to amend it, but the words were nearly lost under the vibrations of her breath. "I just can't."

"Why not?"

You are in control, Salvera.

But she wasn't. Not with him. No matter how hard she fought.

"Because you would hate me for it." Curling her hands into fists, she turned back to him, and their gazes collided like the tangled wings of Caius's mechanized dragons, and she was free-falling again.

"I do not want you to hate me." It was a near whisper. She couldn't stand the sound of it. "I am not sure I could bear it."

The silence that settled in the short space between the lake and the shore grew so unbearable that Astrid wondered if she should just drown herself to end it. Especially as Sebastian continued to peer at her from his perch on his knees, his expression caught between shock, fear, and...something else that sent her heart racing clear up into her throat.

Hate, most likely, considering the strangled sound he finally released, like a scream or one of Abel's choice swear words. But he was far too polite and kind for such a thing and—

"D-do you mind if I join you?"

Her muscles locked so severely that she wondered if this was a dream where she had somehow transformed into Matthias. "What? What do you mean?"

A small grin flickered across his otherwise nervous expression. "Is it warm enough for both of us, you think?"

Still dumbfounded like an idiot, she snapped her mouth shut and nodded.

That shy smile that somehow made her want to simultaneously smack him and run her fingers through his hair stayed in place as he stood and brushed off the front of his cloak like he needed to clean it before he submerged it into the lake.

"Wait!"

Her voice sounded garbled, too high-pitched, like a steam engine about to run right off its tracks. Sebastian froze immediately, lifting an eyebrow, cheeks brightening.

"Your cloak," she half-stammered, "take it off."

His brow raised higher up his forehead.

"Because it can't get wet!" she rushed on. "If it gets wet, it gets cold, and you could catch hypothermia, which would cause your body temperature to fall dangerously low..."

Oh, gods. She was rambling.

"I know how hypothermia works," Sebastian said, but his grin stretched as he slipped the heavy cloak from his shoulders and folded it neatly over his arm. Without taking his eyes from her, he added it to the pile of their other discarded clothing. "However, just in case, is there an element for drying I should know about?"

The idiot was laughing at her!

"Shut up." At any moment, she was going to burst into flames or die of humiliation. "You are a bloody show off."

"Still," he continued, stepping into the lake, "if we could manipulate fire's heat to dry us, it would be a smart idea—" His body jolted—"By the Scribes! It's colder than the glaciers!"

Her laughter broke from her. "Well, you do have the elements for that. After all, it's rather warm where I am. Toasty, even."

He pulled a face at her. "Is that so?"

And then, like the fisherman he had been, Sebastian dove head-first into the lake in perfect form, and in a few, mighty strokes he had broken into her bubble. Joined it. His hand brushed her bare calf as he pushed his head up and out of the water. Like a wet hound, he shook his hair. Droplets flew in all directions, splattering across her flushed cheeks, and she made to shove him in the shoulders, but her hand got lost somewhere along the way as she stared up at him.

His fingers brushed the lake water from his eyes, and it was impossible not to look at his hands. The delicate muscles he used to turn the pages of the books he loved to read, the small black freckle under his left eye, the movement of his throat as he swallowed and said:

"You were right." He grinned boyishly. "It's much warmer over here."

Astrid focused on his shoulders, the way his dark tunic clung to his subtle biceps, and had to swallow before saying, "I thought you hated the ocean."

"I hated fishing," he corrected, "and the ocean, I suppose. The creatures that live in its depths...if you had ever read such books about what lives down there—"

"Like the Mer?"

"Well, yes, but even without those Elementi, the truths down there are still rather terrifying," he concluded with a sheepish grin, "but I've always enjoyed swimming." His head lowered to scan the lake's depths for such monsters. "Wait...do you think there are Mer in here?"

Astrid smirked a bit. "One hasn't tried to kill me yet, so I would say it's doubtful. Though it could be because it has heard the rumors about how I defeated that cannibal one in Infinite Pond. I'm sure I could defeat another."

She was certain his gaze dropped to her right thigh under the water where her dagger was strapped. "I would never doubt you on that."

His warmth flowed from him and into her, or maybe it was Fire's thread he had manipulated, but Astrid swore she saw steam rising from his shoulders. Somehow, they must have moved together, deeper into the lake, because Astrid's toes suddenly stood on nothing. It caught her off guard. For a short second, she flailed to keep herself upright. Her nose hadn't even dropped below the surface when Sebastian reached for her, wrapping his hands around her wrists.

On instinct, he pulled her closer.

She couldn't help but glower. "I am perfectly capable of swimming."

"Are you?" The innocently inquisitive expression he quirked her way sent her blood racing. "There isn't any water in Halorium that isn't frozen."

"Always so logical." Astrid rolled her eyes at him—rather, up at him—as he pulled her backwards to shallower ground. "Have you forgotten the slaying of the cannibal in the pond fiasco? I did that. By myself, I might add."

"Right." His cheeks reddened. "Yes, well, now you don't have to do it alone, I guess."

Astrid felt like her tongue suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. "I...don't?"

Even when she could have stood unassisted, he didn't release her. Maybe he had forgotten, his thoughts already swept up into the rotation of the stars or the precise number of molecules in the water. If he had forgotten, she wasn't sure how. It was all Astrid could think about. The touch of his fingers looped around her skin. His thumbs tapping the inside of her wrists, instead of against his own. Ta-da-ta-da-ta-da. When she glanced up at him, unable to locate any of her sounds besides the drum beats of her blood, his eyes trapped her so thoroughly she swore she had fallen through a portal and into one of her favorite romance novels.

She bet he wouldn't mock her reading taste now.

The elements between them paused, holding their breaths.

Was this how it felt to be blinded by a solar flare?

It felt like it.

Sebastian blinded her without even trying. Without alchemy. Without any of the seven elements. Without magic. With only his bookish, insufferable, gentle self.

If she hadn't suspected it already, she was certainly in trouble now.

"Astrid?"

Her name was a breath from his lips, and it brushed against her cheeks. She must have shuddered, or stumbled backwards, possibly even squawked like the obnoxious Barred Owls hiding in the trees because his hands fell from her, sinking below the surface. Instead, he searched her face, jaw ticking, until his gentle voice said at last, "You should know I don't hate you."

This time, she did make a sound. It huffed through her nostrils, and the back of her neck grew feverish. "You should." She swallowed, for some reason, frustrated. "You should hate me. I can't understand how you don't! Even I hate myself."

When he raised a brow, her arms crossed. "Fine," she admitted, "I don't hate myself. Maybe just a little. But you—" Her incessant prattling jumped, halted, when his fingers found hers beneath the lake's waters.

She clutched them.

"I was angry with you," he said, voice soft. "Anger and hate are not synonymous, you know. I don't hate you, Astrid. I couldn't."

"But—"

He cut her off, his eyes so wide and green in his bronze face that she wished he were a tree that she could climb. "It is my choice to make," he told her, "and I've made it. I trust you." His sigh was warm, and it blew across the top of her head in a determined sweep. "And I want to help release your father."

Something in her chest exploded with light, and she was sure he could see fragments of it in her eyes. "Truly?" She gripped his hand tighter. "But Serah, she said it would affect you. Change you. You can't—I can't—"

Her nose was suddenly level with his chest, his skin warm where it touched her. "The choice is mine." His voice wavered when he placed his thumb on her chin to tip her head back so he could meet her gaze. "Unless there is more I do not know."

It took all of her training to hold his stare, but she wasn't sure what her voice would sound like with him so close, so she shook her head.

His grin flickered, nervous. "I do have one more question, however."

Why were words so hard? She could do nothing but blink like a complete fool. Even then, somehow, that simple motion brought them closer, her toes straining upwards.

"When you held that knife to my neck in Lambert's office, did you mean it?"

Her heart was thunder, raging through her chest, splintering her ribs into mere shards. "N-No."

His smile held true and wide. "I knew it."

She only had a split second to marvel at the triumphant shine to his eyes before he dipped his head, damp curls tickling her forehead, and--

Their lips met.

The elements around them erupted. 

_ _ _

Yes. We truly are ending you on a rather mean cliff-hanger, aren't we? Aw, well. Guess you'll just have to come back next week for more! :)

How do we feel about Bastrid? Love them? Hate them? Either way, the story's not over yet, so who knows what will happen between these two!