#just does

She doesn’t mean to go him. Nesta’s not even sure where she is when she begins to run, but suddenly she can hear music and she follows that sound to his room, because she can’t stand the roar of beasts. 

The door is open so sweetly, and Nesta brushes her fingers through her hair, trying to look composed. Confident and self-assured. Nothing that gives some secret of hers away. And when she steps from shadows, Eris looks up from his cello, the surprise strumming strings across his brows. 

“You look startled,” Eris observes. He twists that bow in his hands, tapping it lightly across strings. Not quite strumming its way across the broad instrument, but she can still hear one solid note. 

“The Autumn Court seems to love bonfires,” she answers. 

Eris stares, and Nesta knows he must be trying to decipher motivations and schemes. If they’re as innocent as she speaks. 

“Some fae can tell fortunes with the flames,” he offers, “read death in the ash, and they have a new princess living in this castle... some would say it suggests a change in the seasons.” 

You’re no prince, she wants to say, but Nesta swallows the words. 

His explanation offers no relief, but the sound of his voice soothes some part of her that listens. 

Keep talking, she urges. Drown out that noise. 

Nesta can still hear the flames through the walls, that wild crackling like bones and blood. It’s a curse to be so fae. 

“There’s no need to feel spooked. They’re not cursing you,” Eris hisses. The look on her face has him frowning. Though she isn’t sure if he’s annoyed or concerned. “You look like you’ve barely escaped with your life.”

Perhaps she has. Nesta squeezes her eyes shut, trying to keep the images from surfacing in her mind. Fathers and twisted necks and a head held up in her hands... Inevitably, she thinks of wings and the thought of him, has the words humming past of her lips. 

“The sound,” she croaks, “the fire...” 

Nesta grasps her neck, as if that might show him what she means, what she feels. The choking gasp of air, the head that severs, the twist and turn of bones. 

But why would he care? Eris with that cruel persona that doesn’t seem much of a façade. Who tells the better lie? The one who pretends or the one who accepts and embraces? Eris embraces cruelty. She’s a fool if she thinks he’ll offer comfort.  

“Does it make you feel uneasy?” he asks, pulling the bow across the cello like he can pull words from her lips. Nesta focuses on the sound. That beautiful sound singing in the midst of them. Settle, it says. Settle and listen to the rising notes. 

Nesta barely nods as Eris continues. The music is deep... soft... thrumming. Nesta feels it humming in her chest, and she drifts closer to him, lured by notes that rise and fall like waves. 

“Does the music help?” 

“Yes,” Nesta breathes. Her hand drifts to her heart as she feels it ease with every note.