Cassian held a clear glass vial high above the hard floor tiles. His gaze focused on his mate, he grew a wicked grin before he dropped it. There was no soft clink as the glass instantly shattered across the bathroom floor, and Nesta was immediately upon him.

Her hands wasted no time as they dove straight for the fasteners holding together Cassian's pants, and her nimble fingers made quick work of undoing them even as she strained her neck to reach Cassian's face so their mouths could begin their own dance. Cassian nearly shook with anticipation, a bundle of nerves as he debated what to touch and taste first. He disentangled their already engaged tongues long enough to ask her, "You sure about this?"

Nesta gave a breathy laugh, true humor glinting behind her lidded eyes. "I think it's a little too late to be having second thoughts. Besides, I'm certain." His pants now hanging loosely open, Nesta grabbed the material at both his hips and shoved them down his legs.

Cassian smiled in relief, using only his feet to finally shed his pants as he took Nesta into his arms. Naturally, she hooked her legs about his waist, and he pinned her against the door. She was already bare to him, having shed her own leathers and undergarments before they'd stumbled into the bathroom to retrieve the vial out of pure habit. Cassian had already memorized every inch of his mate's body and worshiped every curve and crevice. But he took a second to trace a path from her generous breasts to her hips and memorize her again. "You know this likely won't happen right away," he murmured, one hand straying from her hip.

"I know," she nodded. "I know this could take a while. But I'm ready to start now. It won't ever happen if we never start."

Cassian grunted in agreement and abruptly returned to his work. He buried his face between her breasts, moaned at Nesta's touch as her fingers clutched his head, and he leveled themselves to tease at her entry. "Nesta, it could be years." He swallowed. "Decades."

"I know," she assured him, drawing him impossibly closer. "So, you'll just have to take me until we finally get it."

Though Feyre's and Rhys's home on the bank of the Sidra was nearly always full of happiness and laughter, the estate rang especially loudly one weekend in the early spring. The High Lord and Lady and their family were gathered in the downstairs living room, the room full of boisterous laughter as they finished decorating the space. Streamers and pennant banners hung from the ceiling and between light fixtures, and a table piled high with sweets occupied a whole side of the room. Nesta stood before it with her youngest sister, the two of them working hastily to clear space at the center of the table.

The door to the living space swung wide as Elain, Nuala, and Cerridwen rushed in, the three women balancing a towering cake between them. "Over here!" Feyre beamed, jumping out of the way as she pointed. "Nesta and I cleared a spot on the table."

Elain quickly ushered the wraiths over, gently dropping the towering cake amid the piles of treats. A great lemon blueberry cake covered in violet frosting with the words 'Happy Birthday, Nyx!' done in pearly white icing in Elain's delicate handwriting. It was surrounded by croissants, tarts, candies, and a dozen of Nyx's other favorite treats. He was healthily spoiled, Nesta thought. The apple of his family's eye.

Feyre stepped back to look over the table for hardly a second before she hurried off to check Cassian and Azriel's decorating progress. Everything was already finished, ready for the birthday boy, so Nesta let her sister be, content to watch her race around the living room checking over every detail once, twice, three times over.

All for Nyx. That boy was so incredibly loved, had been loved so dearly by his whole family before he'd been born. His parents' pride, his aunts' and uncles' joy, his family's purpose and drive.

Nesta couldn't recall a birthday from her own childhood that could compare to the fuss Feyre and Rhys made for their son every year. If her parents hadn't been busy, her father not occupied in his office or her mother attending a luncheon with her socialite friends, her mother might have had the kitchen staff prepare a great dinner, break out the fine silverware, order a special dress for Nesta to wear just that day. She'd likely get another new dress or shoes. For her eighth birthday, Nesta remembered the new pair of soft dancing slippers her father had bought for her on his most recent trip to the continent. Her mother had gifted her a book on etiquette for young ladies since she liked reading so much. In the privacy of her own bedroom, Nesta had snarled at the book and torn out all the pages. She'd blamed the mess on little Feyre, and her mother had believed her.

As she'd grown older, her mother had thrown her and Elain balls, seizing the chances to flaunt their family's wealth and stay current in the market among the other families who had young boys Nesta's age. Nesta had never awoken early to her mother and father's soft kisses, their glowing faces smiling down upon her as they gently shook her awake and wished her a happy birthday. They'd never given her a big hug or asked her what kind of cake she wanted or gone to the toy shop in the market to buy her birthday present.

But Nyx had been showered with love from the moment he had first cried, cut from his mother's womb. He was spoiled just a bit, but he was loved first, adored. When he'd been nearly nine months old, Feyre had fretted that he'd never learn to crawl let alone walk because someone was always holding him. Between Mor, Cassian, and Nesta herself, baby Nyx's feet had hardly touched the floor.

But Feyre and Rhys had managed to wrangle him from his aunts and uncles long enough for him to learn to crawl and walk until he was running back into their arms to be carried.

It didn't seem so long ago …

"I can't believe he's already fifteen."

Nesta started, turning her gaze from the treats table to where Elain had come to stand beside her. "It doesn't seem so long ago that he was just a little baby with wings too big for him to carry." Elain laughed, and Nesta joined her as she recalled Nyx's first unbalanced steps with his arms and wings swinging wide to keep him balanced.

She nodded. "Yes, he's growing up too fast."

"Rhys keeps saying that he's only fifteen." Elain rolled her eyes. "I know a decade is nothing to the Fae. But still. We were human longer than we have been Fae, yet. I still remember. Time was precious, then."

Elain's sentiment tugged at the oldest part of Nesta. Her human heart. So much of her and her sisters' lives had changed since becoming Fae, and so many mortal traditions had lost their meaning. But things like this … Nesta wasn't sure the concept of human time could ever lose its meaning to her if she wanted it to.

Fifteen years.

Nesta forced herself to take a steady breath. "I hope we never lose that human part of us."

Elain beamed. "Me too."

"Oh! Everyone! Rhys and Nyx are back!"

Nesta grinned, amused with her youngest sister as Feyre hurried to join them in the center of the living room. They all crowded together— Nesta, Elain, Feyre, Mor, Azriel, Cassian, Amren, Varian, and a few of Nyx's closest friends. They cheered 'happy birthday' as Rhysand and Nyx stepped inside, the young boy blushing. His gaze went straight to his mother as he fought a grin. "You know it's not a surprise when you do this every year, right?"

Not caring one bit, Feyre threw her arms around her son. "Happy birthday, Nyx. I can't believe my baby is fifteen years old!"

Fifteen. Her nephew was fifteen.

Once he managed to escape his mother and father's arms, Cassian clapped him on the back and caught him in a great hug. "Happy birthday, kid!"

"Thanks, Uncle Cas."

"Just wait 'til you see what your aunt picked out for you." Cassian leaned down to not really whisper in the boy's ear. "And what I got you. Just don't tell Aunt Nes." He winked, grinning at his mate as Nesta approached, arms crossed. "Sharing secrets already, boys?"

"Hey, Aunt Nes."

Nesta took her nephew into her own arms, holding him close for as long as he would allow. "Happy birthday, Nyx."

"Thanks, Aunt Nes."

He pulled back, but Nesta held on a moment longer. Fifteen. Cauldron! Where did the time go that he was nearly halfway through his teen years, studying diplomacy under his father, becoming his own person and forming his own ideas. When Nesta looked at her nephew, she saw more than a little of his father in him from Rhysand's coloring to his brand of mischief in Nyx's violet eyes. There was more than a hint of Feyre; Nyx had her soft features, her smile, her kindness which he had also inherited animated in his spirit. But Nyx had his own sense of humor, his own quiet personality and empathetic touch. It was a wonder to see this mold of Feyre and her mate, how closely Nyx resembled them while also being wholly his own fiery spirit apart from his parents, the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court.

And it was inevitable that Nesta tried to imagine how her and Cassian's genes and personalities would mix, what they might produce and how it might become something so entirely different, yet infinitely more precious. Might they have her blue-gray eyes or Cassian's hazel? What about her mate's dark curls or the Archeron golden-brown. Or, his wide grin and ...

She may have gotten lost in a vivid daydream— an array of different children's faces that looked a little like her and a little like Cassian— as Nyx's voice startled her when he spoke gently but firmly, "Aunt Nesta."

She let him go, putting on an easy smile. "You're growing too fast."

Nyx smiled back. "I'll try to slow down."

He hugged her again before he kissed her cheek and left to greet the rest of the family.

Nyx's birthday. The one occasion that would be celebrated with as much happiness and excitement if not more than Feyre's birthday.

And Nesta knew if another child were to join their family, their every birthday would be celebrated just as joyously.

The Fae world was not like the mortal world. It would be incredibly rude and insensitive if Feyre were to tease Nesta and ask when she could expect to become an aunt, to nudge her and ask if she and Cassian had any plans, or whether they were trying. Nesta no longer had the body of a mortal female nor the cycle of one. If she were still human, her 'window' would be rapidly closing at her age of forty. She was no longer human, however, and she had an immortal lifespan ahead of her. And decades to keep trying. As she and Cassian had been.

Yet, Nesta couldn't fight the discouragement that had begun to shadow her recently.

Twenty Fae cycles Nesta has passed without success.

It was an effort not to despair at the thought. Just when she thought she had regained control of her life, made this body, this life that had once been forced upon her— just as soon as she'd made it her own, her body betrayed her once again, denying her of the one thing she still wanted for her life. For her and Cassian.

"I know this gets harder for you every year." Nesta startled once again, whipping her neck to see her youngest sister now beside her. Feyre brushed Nesta's arm, offering her a mournful smile. "Seeing Nyx, I mean. Everyone has guessed you and Cassian have been trying for years."

Nesta imagined the bitterness was clear on her face, and she cursed herself for it, summoning empathy in the soft glance she returned. "You say that like you don't think I know you and Rhys have been trying again for the last couple of years."

Feyre stiffened. Just slightly. A movement only her sisters or her mate would catch. She turned her gaze ahead, and Nesta granted her the moment to regather her nerves. "I know that it's different, though. You're still trying to have one." That last bit she spoke so softly, quietly so only Nesta could possibly hear. Remorse filled her expression as she said it. "We were lucky with Nyx. So incredibly lucky. Rhys could hardly believe it for weeks that we had managed to conceive that quickly."

Nesta didn't have anything to respond with, so she turned to the treat table and poured herself a glass of wine.

"Nesta." Feyre was once again beside her, taking her arm and squeezing her fingers. "I'm sorry. I wish I could do something to help you and Cassian."

Nesta drained half of her glass in one go. "Feyre, I am forty years old."

Feyre blinked. "You know that doesn't mean anything, right? We're— you are immortal. Forty is nothing. You have centuries ahead of you to live and to have a family with Cassian. It could be another century before you and Cassian conceive and you still have an immortal lifespan ahead of you. You have nothing but time."

She swallowed, no wine left in her throat, if only to stifle the burning behind her eyes. "I thought I was finally used to this body— this immortal Fae one. But it still betrays me. My body is immortal. And time is immortal. But I still have a human heart and mind. Mortal, I should say. And I feel forty. In the mortal sense. And I want to have a child now. I don't want to wait centuries. I want to start this part of my life with Cassian now."

"I know. You have to remember, Nesta, that with as many decades we pass, we still have centuries ahead of us. Centuries for you and Cassian to spend with any child you might have. Centuries to raise your child and watch them grow up. With time to spare."

"But you don't know!" she hissed, whirling on Feyre who stood just shorter than her. "You and Rhysand just decided one day that you wanted a child, and it took you a matter of months before you were pregnant with Nyx! You were twenty-one, and you already had your own family!"

Feyre blinked, and, though she didn't take a step back from Nesta, she could see the shock and hurt in her younger sister's eyes. Blue-gray irises flared with surprise and pain.

Just like years ago. Like nothing had changed. Like Nesta hadn't changed. When her first move was always to attack and inflict pain before her opponent could catch a glimpse of the wounds she herself was hiding.

But her sister wasn't her opponent. And Nesta had changed. Grown. She was better than this. Loved her sister more than this. Shame flooded her, and Nesta flinched as if she'd launched the attack upon herself. "I—" She couldn't say she hadn't meant it. Because she had. A buried truth she had once thought she'd pushed down deep enough to lock away. And Feyre knew that.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just— I keep imagining—" Nesta cut herself off, swallowing thickly as her gaze skirted away. "If we were still human, I would want my child to be close in age with yours. So they can grow up together. Be close to each other."

When Nesta found the courage to look back at her sister, the hurt was gone. A deep and true sympathy had taken its place, a soft smile brighter than Nesta deserved uplifted her lips. "Nyx really wants a cousin; it doesn't matter to him how much older he is— if he's fifteen, twenty, fifty years older than his cousin. They'll still grow up close to each other. Believe me, I still struggle to wrap my head around it, but fifteen years is nothing. Twenty is nothing. Regardless, our kids will still grow up close to each other."

She nodded shortly. "I just … I don't want to wait any longer. Me or Cassian. We want what you and Rhys have. A family. A piece of both ourselves wrapped up together. An innocent life that looks a little bit like me and a whole lot like Cassian, but also— different and unique from either of us. We want a child of our own that we can love and cherish and spoil, and tell them every day how much we love them like our mother and father never did."

Nesta found that she could have gone on, but she caught herself, ending abruptly as she took in a sharp breath, forcing herself to meet her sister's gaze.

Feyre just smiled at her. "I know."

Of course, she did.

But there was so much more to why she and Cassian wanted a family of their own, so many reasons and new, foreign desires that Nesta couldn't put into words. But she supposed Feyre knew that too.

Somehow, even though Nyx was no longer a tiny, adorable, drooling baby anymore, watching her nephew grow up had only intensified her longing for a child. Watching Feyre for fifteen years, she wanted to do it all. The pregnancy stuff, the baby stuff, the tiring toddler stuff. Even the hormonal teenage stuff Nyx was beginning to exhibit. Nesta wanted it all.

Every second. The late-night feedings, the sleepless nights, the tantrums, the sass, the drama. She'd take it all if she could just have that with Cassian. With a child who shared her eyes and Cassian's smile. Or, maybe her cheeks and Cassian's hair. She didn't care.

"Hey." Feyre smiled softly, taking Nesta's hand and squeezing. "You'll get it; I know you will. And when you do, it will be worth every minute of this wait."

Nesta didn't tell her sister she already knew that, that that was why she and Cassian wanted this so terribly. It would be worth this anxiety and pain, this desperate longing and need yet unmet. In her heart of hearts, Nesta just knew it would be.

If she and Cassian ever got it.

"Moooom! Can we have cake yet?!" came the holler of the birthday boy, and Feyre crossed her arms. "He couldn't get Rhys's patience."

Nesta chuckled. "No. He had to get that and his priorities from you."

Feyre rolled her eyes. She reached out a hand to squeeze Nesta's arm reassuringly, lovingly. "Just wait. This is what you and Cassian will have soon enough."

Nesta just nodded, as if she could make herself believe it.

As if sensing her downtrodden mood —on second thought, he probably had— her mate came up behind her, wrapping her up in his strong arms. She leaned into the embrace. "You alright?" he asked like he needed an answer, his breath a warm and loving caress at her ear.

"Mmhm."

Cassian's hold tightened around her. "I don't believe you."

It was Nyx's birthday. What right did she have to sour this joyful occasion for everyone?

But before she could get herself to even shake her head, Cassian's voice rumbled quietly, "You know I can read you like a book."

She stiffened. "I know. Mate." She looked at him pointedly.

Cassian shook his head. "I even know what you're thinking. I can't always, but I know what you're thinking right now."

"Enlighten me, mate."

The whole family gathered around the table where Nyx stood before his cake, Rhysand lighting the fifteen starry candles as he and Feyre gazed upon their son and sang to him with an infinite amount of love and joy.

While the family sang and Nyx beamed at the attention, Rhysand looked to Nesta, and his eyes turned glassy. 'Thank you,' he mouthed silently to her. Just as he did every year. And Nesta understood. Understood what he must still feel in gratitude to her for saving what was invaluable to him. What he loved and treasured above even his court. What Nesta desired so deeply.

As she did every year, Nesta smiled back, but tears burned behind her eyes, and she fought them as their birthday cheer ended, and Nesta kissed her nephew.

Nyx blushed, smiling up at her as his mother and father crowded him, and Nesta turned back to her own family, to her mate. She pressed herself against him, one hand and her shoulder pressed to his chest as she fought the flood of anguish drowning her.

Cassian didn't need to say a word. Just pressed his lips to her crown, kept up his usual playful, cocky demeanor, teased Mor and Amren, bantered with his brothers the rest of the evening until it was time to go home.

Then, he flew the two of them back to the House of Wind, landing softly on the balcony of their bedroom. Without a word, Nesta padded to the bathroom, changed into her nightgown, let down her hair. Cassian was already in bed. His gaze followed her as she approached, lips parted and brows scrunched in concern. "Wanna talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about." She pulled on her night robe, tugged the corners around her body. Her cursed, traitorous body. She crawled into her side of the bed. "Nothing to do."

"Nes. Nes, look at me." She did. "You know I want a kid with you as badly as you do."

Her gaze fell.

"Nes." His calloused fingers grazed her soft cheek. "I haven't given up yet. I'm not going to."

"When did I say I'm giving up?"

"I can tell you're losing hope, and that's about the same thing."

She only gave him further stony silence for an answer. She took up her book from the nightstand beside her, tapped on her reading light.

"Nesta."

"You said that you don't mind if I walk in silence—"

"So long as you don't lock me out, and you talk to me at the end of it. And you are locking me out, Nesta. You know I can't stand that."

She dropped her book into her lap with a light thud, more than a little of her frustration emanating from the gesture. It was the old wolf again, the one that had for so long been kept caged and had nipped and snapped at anyone who dared approach too close. Nesta balled her hand in a fist, forcing herself to release a heavy breath. That wolf was free. Loved. She needn't bite anymore.

"I don't see what more can be said."

"I want you to tell me what you're thinking."

"You don't already know?"

"Right now, I know how you're feeling, but I don't know what you're thinking. If I know what you're thinking, then I can help you feel better."

By the Cauldron! How could she snap at Cassian? Nesta wasn't alone in this— she knew that. So what made her think going after him would make her feel any better? This was his struggle as much as hers. His family as much as hers. His misery and dream and emptiness as much as hers. And she couldn't isolate him in this, either.

"I never thought this would be so important to me." Nesta sniffed. "Never saw myself truly wanting let alone yearning for this. It caught me by surprise. And now there is a part of me that is left yearning and empty. And it aches, Cassian." Once more, she looked up at him. "Why does it ache?"

Her mate's eyes were dark— darker than the last time he'd seen Bryaxis— and Nesta thought she saw that ache, that emptiness she felt reflected in those hazel eyes.

Cassian shook his head, the movement so subtle Nesta almost missed it before he leaned over her, one hand slipping between her fingers. "I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know how I could live this long thinking I have it made until you come burning into my life and I suddenly can't get enough. I don't know what it is, Nes, that makes me need more to share with you. But that's what I want too. I want the sun and moon and the stars just so we can share it together." He brought out his other hand just to caress the sharp corner of her ear, trail a devilishly slow path down her cheek bone, jaw, along her lips. "I want a child so we can share that too. Then, we can share the sun and moon and stars with them."

Nesta met his gaze through her lashes. "We have been trying for ten years."

Cassian merely shook his head, his hand wandering a calming and increasingly sensual path along Nesta's frame. "And I will try for another hundred just to see your eyes on our baby."

A hundred …

"Cassian. I feel like my body is failing me again."

"Nonsense." He leaned closer to nip at her arched ear. One hand shifted over her hip, down her inhumanly long leg, across the generous muscle she'd built in her thigh from training. "You are stronger than you ever were."

"Then, why won't my body give me this?"

"Because you are stronger. And you have time— we have plenty of time. And if there is anything I have learned from you, it's that the greatest blessings in life often require the longest waits. But I waited five-hundred and thirty-six years for you, my mate, and I will wait five hundred more just to have more of you."

"Where do you get your faith?"

"Nesta." He nudged her chin up. "The Cauldron may have favored Elain that day in Hybern." Cassian laid a hand over her abdomen, fingers splayed across her skin as if feeling for a heartbeat. "But when Nyx was born, when you were about to give up every ounce of your power back to the Cauldron, the Mother blessed you."

The tracks in Nesta's mind came to a halt for a moment as she took that in. Ever since that day, the rest of her family had called it a blessing that the Mother had chosen to intervene and leave her a kernel of her Cauldron-granted powers. But she hadn't cared that day, hadn't prayed and begged the Mother to let her keep a flicker of her silver flames. Her sister and nephew had been her only thought when she'd cried and begged the Cauldron for its intervention as she'd offered all that she had stolen back. But … a blessing. Like calling in a favor from the Mother when Nesta had never sought out her divinity and counsel. She hadn't asked for what the Mother had chosen to spare. And she certainly hadn't expected anything from the Mother since.

"You think the Mother will grant us a child."

"I think the Mother knows your heart just as I do. And I think she knows you have paid enough."