And that night, Faunus slept under the stars.

Nyx Chronis

Manor of the Captain of the Trusted, Fire City

FIRENZE

When she heard naught but men’s murmurs in her entryway, and her husband did not call to share who was at the door he had answered some minutes ago, Nyx rose from the divan in their salon and moved to the hall.

She smiled brightly when she saw Faunus standing with her husband.

“Ciao, Faunus,” she greeted.

His gaze came to her, and what she saw in it made her step falter.

He had found love, since they lost Teddy. He had found contentment, even happiness.

Thus, she did not understand why Faunus looked thrown back to before.

That before being when their loss was fresh.

“Nyx,” he murmured, dipped his chin to her, lifted it to Lorenz, and then murmured, “Until another time.”

And with a sweep of his mantle, he was out the door.

Lorenz closed it after him.

“What was that about?” she asked.

Lorenz turned to her.

She stood still, staring at his hands.

One held what appeared to be a broken off plank of old wood.

In the other, he held a book.

“Teddy left Faunus directions when Faunus was in search of him. Faunus liked the message, so he took it with him.” He lifted the plank of wood. “And then later, Teddy rose a god.” He lifted the book.

“I don’t—” she began.

He turned the plank of wood and she quickly read the scratchings.

But as she read, her eyes only started prickling when she saw,

…tell Lorenz and Nyx I died the man they made me, thus I did such with a clear head and a full heart.

“Come, amore, apparently there has been another message left for us,” Lorenz murmured gently.

She could barely tear her eyes from the wood, and only was able to do so when her husband caught her about the shoulders and drew her back to their salon.

He set the wood carefully, even reverently, aside on a table, and then he moved closer to her, holding the book up between them.

“Faunus says that we should read it all, but for the now, we must skip to the end,” Lorenz said.

“Is that…the journal you gave Teddy?” she asked.

“It is,” he answered.

“Faunus should keep it.”

Lorenz shook his head. “He says Teddy left him his love in a number of other ways, and so he wants us to have these things. He says he feels Teddy would want us to have these things as well,” Lorenz told her.

She shook her head. “I don’t—”

“If it would be too much for you to take—” he began on a rumble, her protective husband.

“Read it to me,” she whispered.

Her beloved held her eyes.

He then nodded, turned his handsome head down to the book, and opened it, flipping through to reach the end.

She watched Teddy’s handwriting glide by and closed her eyes.