The Librarian and the Assassin, a Sapphic Romance at the End of the World - 50. Chapter 50 - The Date

Tawni awoke alone in bed. She had fallen asleep next to Bix, but Bix was gone. Tawni suspected she had headed down to grab some food from the root cellar for breakfast, and Tawni made her way to the first floor, but Bix was not there. Tawni planned to check the roof of the building next, with the thought that Bix might be watching the sunrise, but as Tawni reached the second floor, she paused. She pulled open the door that led to the hall with her little curated library at the end. Before she reached the room with her books, she could hear Bix.

“R… S… T… U… V…”

Tawni opened the door, and Bix’s recitation stopped.

“Hey babe, I’m reading!” In her hands was The ABCs of Death.

Tawni beamed at her. “You absolutely are. I’ll let you keep going, and I’ll grab us a little something for breakfast from downstairs.

About ninety minutes later, Tawni was holding hands with Bix out in the sunny Stonespire city streets. The pair was headed to meet up with Xylda. She was still staying at the Oceanview Rock Inn, and she was excited when the two young women arrived.

“Girls,” Xylda squeaked, “I know what we should do today! I just heard about it.”

She was dressed in flared shorts and a crop top with her wide-brimmed hat on her head and a pair of chunky boots on her feet.

“Oooh, exciting,” Bix cooed, “where are we headed?”

“You’ll see!” Xylda replied in a singsong voice. She interlaced her fingers with Bix’s and waved for Tawni to go back outside.

“Lead the way,” Bix said to Xylda as the trio exited.

“We’re going up!” Xylda declared, and she pointed toward the island’s lone peak.

“Fun!” Bix replied. “What’s up there?”

Bix grabbed one of Tawni’s hands, positioning herself between the other two, which made Tawni feel happiness like she had rarely experienced. She knew Bix accepted her with all her feelings.

“When’s the last time you climbed it, Tawni?” Bix added.

“I never have,” she replied.

Bix and Xylda were confused.

“That mountain has sort of loomed over me my entire life,” Tawni explained. “Way back when I was a kid living in that group home, I remember hearing about the families who lived on the slopes and climbed the mountain, and it felt like an elitist activity that was never meant for someone like me.” Xylda’s recommendation had excited Tawni to a surprising degree. “But I want to see what’s up there! The view from the top of the poison garden building is incredible, and so the view from the mountain must be… well, more than incredible!”

Bix and Xylda laughed.

As they made their way along through the Oceanside neighborhood, Tawni asked, “Should we check and see if there’s another job?”

The direction Xylda was leading was going to be close to an intersection that would allow them to see the crosswalk pendant up the street, and a few minutes later, the trio was squinting into the distance.

The little flag was red.

“That slippery old toad is relentless,” Xylda grumbled. “Well, we’ll not let him spoil our fun. On we go, girls!”

“Should we find out who it is?” Tawni asked.

“Later!” Xylda cried out with glee as she pulled Bix, who was still holding Tawni’s hand, and the three made their way to the base of the narrow hilly region that surrounded the low mountain.

They began to climb, and although they needed to make their way past several of the grand manors, it was the middle of the day, and Xylda was leading them up a street that was far from the Kentonworth estate. There was no one who might recognize Tawni, and the trio would just be a forgettable group of young women on their way up the mountain.

Beyond the highest estates, the steep landscape was overgrown with the trees of a dense but narrow band of forest. It slowed their progress, but Xylda was getting more enthusiastic.

“Before we get there,” she stated, not revealing anything about their eventual destination, “we’re supposed to come to a wildflower meadow. I guess it grows up past these trees, and they sort of protect the flowers from getting too pummeled by the daily storms. I can’t wait to see them!”

After less than twenty minutes of hiking through the forest, the trees began to break ahead of them, and the flowers were revealed. Like a rainbow made of rainbows, the wildflowers stretched before the three women.

“Wow,” Tawni whispered.

“You’ve really never been up here?” Bix asked. “You’ve never seen this?”

Tawni shook her head no.

Xylda pressed herself against Bix. “I like that all three of us are popping our cherries climbing this mountain together.”

Bix snickered, and she pulled Tawni close against her other side, sandwiching herself between Tawni and Xylda.

“It’s so beautiful,” Tawni whispered.

“Don’t be shy,” Xylda replied. “Tell the flowers they’re beautiful.” She then shouted, “You’re beautiful, flowers!” and Bix and Tawni laughed. Xylda flashed them a toothy smile and wandered off a few paces ahead, picking some of the vibrant flowers.

Bix interlaced her fingers with Tawni’s, and she began to walk slower. “Tawni, I want to tell you something,” she said quietly.

Tawni looked from Bix to Xylda. “You mean, you don’t want Xylda to hear?”

Bix smiled. “I haven’t told you everything, Tawni. My story is… there’s more to it, and I kind of… well, not deceived you, but I intentionally told you things to make you think a certain way. I didn’t want you to know everything. I mean, I did want you to know everything, but I had spent the previous seven months telling people a cover story, a cover story that I also told you.”

Tawni was confused. “What do you mean, Bix? What did you tell me?”

“I told you that I helped the princess escape.” She paused, and her face fell. “I was Baby Twenty, and it was my handmaiden who I’d fallen in love with, and together we escaped Falland, only to be caught by Captain Dakrin, and she…”

Tawni’s jaw dropped. “And she killed your lover! Oh Bix, I’m so sorry for everything you went through! I’m so sorry for your loss! Please remind me, what was her name?”

The hint of a smile returned to Bix’s lips. “Her name was Stretil, and it’s okay. I’ve had time to heal, and as much as it still hurts sometimes, my memories of her that come up these days are fond ones. You’re not mad, Tawni?”

Tawni frowned. “Mad? Why would I be mad that you went through all that horror?”

Bix’s grin widened. “No, I meant, are you mad that I deceived you?”

“Deceived?!” Tawni hissed, trying to keep her voice down. “You told me what you felt safe to tell me! Why would I be mad at you over that?”

“You don’t feel like I lied to you by omitting or twisting the truth of certain facts?”

Tawni took Bix’s hands and stared into her eyes. “Sugar, I fall more in love with you every time I learn something new about you. I’m so sorry you felt like you needed to keep things from me, but I understand why you told me what you did.” Tawni flashed Bix a playful smirk. “Do I get to call you princess now?”

Bix burst out laughing, and it made Xylda look back at the pair. She was happy to see Tawni and Bix enjoying each other.

“Tawni,” Bix whispered to her in a sultry purr, “you can call me anything you want.” She then pulled her hand free from Tawni’s and smacked Tawni on the backside, causing her to squeal a giggle and go scampering off to Xylda.

Tawni hooked her elbow with Xylda’s arm and asked, “So, what’s up here?”

Xylda gave the flowers she had picked to Tawni. “These are for you.”

“Thanks, kitten.” Tawni selected a small blossom and reached up to tuck it behind Xylda’s ear.

Ahead of the trio was a creek, and Xylda paused. “Two options,” she declared, “we can either follow the stream around to the far side of the mountain, or we can follow it up. Which do you think we should do first?”

“What’s at the end of each?” Tawni asked.

“Since we’re most of the way up,” Bix interjected, “why don’t we finish climbing to the top?”

“But Bix,” Tawni added in almost a whine, “don’t you want to know what’s both ways?”

Bix grinned wide. “I’m kind of looking forward to the surprise.” She winked at Xylda and continued to hike up through the flowers along the side of the small brook. Tawni and Xylda followed her, and after a short while, she called back to them, “I think I see an old sign up ahead.”

“That means we’re almost there,” Xylda replied.

“What’s it say?” Bix asked, but the group was still too far to read it.

In only a few minutes, the trio reached the faded sign.

“Stonespire Hot Springs,” Tawni read, “I didn’t even know these were up here. I guess I also didn’t know the Alphabet District existed until you brought me there, Bix.”

“But hot springs,” Bix repeated, “is Stonespire a volcano?”

“No,” Xylda replied, “the fellow who told me about them said they’re heated by convective circulation. Put your hand in the stream. It’s supposed to be lukewarm up close to the top. The river flows cold, but it pours into a chasm that’s heated from deep under the mountain. The overflow from the hot springs bleeds back into the river and warms it.”

The cracked paint of the sign still bore an arrow that directed the women to the bubbling pool. It was a little farther, tucked away among some boulders that hid the water from view. As they rounded the big rocks, a series of interconnected pools was revealed. The river’s point of origin was hidden farther along at some different part of the mountain’s rounded summit, but it poured straight into the uppermost hot spring pool before splashing right out again and flowing down the mountain along its winding course. The water gushed from the top pool, and the overflow provided the water that filled the rest of the secondary pools.

“I was told that each pool gets hotter,” Xylda informed the other two, “the farther from the river you go, and the one at the bottom is a mud bath!”

Tawni screwed up her face. “Wait, a mud bath?”