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“There was an Elf,” said Finwë, “of great beauty and cleverness; but he had no wife.”

Fëanor had frowned. Sometimes his father’s stories felt too much like parables; and he did not much like the way his mouth turned down on describing his hero’s marital status. Impossible sometimes not to feel that Finwë was not entirely satisfied with Fëanor, that he was not yearning for something more than what his son could give.

Setting this aside for now, he asked, “What was his name?”

Finwë smiled. “The story does not say,” he said. “Perhaps he had none.”

Fëanor was not much impressed. “All the Eldar have names,” he said.

“I stand corrected!” said Finwë, with a laugh. “He had a name, then, but it is lost to us now. May I continue with the story, please?”

“All right,” Fëanor had said graciously. He did like his father’s bedtime stories, after all.

“The Elf did have a great tusk of ivory,” said Finwë, “near as tall as he was, from one of the mammoths that roamed the lands to the north.” He caught Fëanor’s doubtful look. “They are beasts like the elephants we saw on the plains — but bigger by far, and woolly all over!”

“Why have I not seen any?” Fëanor demanded. “I thought all the beasts of Arda dwell in Aman.”

“They do,” Finwë said, “but mammoths cannot thrive in the warm climes of Tirion. If you journey to Araman one day, you will find them there.” And when Fëanor nodded, placated, he went on, “As I said, this Elf was clever with his hands indeed — perhaps even as clever as you, my Curufinwë! And so from his tusk of ivory he carved an elf-maid of surpassing loveliness; and her beauty was such that he fell in love with her.”

“With the statue?” said Fëanor.

“With the statue,” Finwë confirmed. “The Elf was enamoured of the beautiful maiden he had carved from ivory, for his skill was such that she seemed to him to be made from flesh indeed. And he named her Ilimbë for the fairness of her complexion.”

“So the statue gets a name,” said Fëanor, “but the Elf doesn’t.”

“Yes,” Finwë said, with a laugh. “The statue gets a name. This is a story of the Deep-elves, after all! And we have always loved the works of our hands — perhaps overmuch.”

“But the great works of the Noldor are wrought in stone,” said Fëanor.

“They are now,” said Finwë, “but in the old days in Middle-earth we did not always have the leisure to delve as deep for stone as we would like. So ivory it was. May I continue?” Fëanor nodded, and he said, “The Elf loved Ilimbë dearly. He brought her such gifts as he thought an elf-maid would like: the most fragrant flowers, and rare shells, and droplets of amber.” He paused as if waiting for questions, but Fëanor knew what amber was. He had studied his materials just this past week. After a moment his father continued, “And he draped the statue in strings of pearls, and ran his fingers along her carved tresses as though he might hope to braid it, and sometimes in secret he even kissed her lips; and in his heart he hoped that one day she might return his caresses.”

“Atya,” Fëanor complained, “you did not tell me this was a kissing story.”

Finwë laughed. “You might not mind that so much when you are older! But very well. There came a day of festival — in those days, before Oromë found us, we worshipped the stars above all, and all our songs were for love of them. But I do not know what precisely the Elf in the story was supposed to be celebrating. Nor did he — for he would take no part in the merrymaking of his fellows, but sat before his ivory maiden, lost in contemplation. There were none whose company he desired above hers.”

His father’s voice had turned a little wistful. Fëanor said nothing.

“But when the time came,” said Finwë, “the Elf’s friends called to him to join his hands with theirs, and dance three times around the fire in a circle — and, unwilling though he was, he joined them. For he knew that if he made a wish upon the fire, it was bound to come true.”

“That’s not how it works,” said Fëanor. “A wish will come true if it is part of the Great Music, not otherwise.”

“You have been studying your theology well, I see,” Finwë said approvingly. “But recall that this story was made long before any of the Eldar had spoken with Ainur, and learned the ancient truths of the world.”

“Then it doesn’t mean anything,” Fëanor protested.

“A story can tell the truth,” said his father, gravely, “without being true itself. That is why our forefathers at Cuiviénen named themselves the Speaking People, after all! Anyway, our talented Elf knew what he wanted above all — but he did not quite dare to wish it. So he closed his eyes, and prayed: if I could only have as a wife, one like my ivory-maid, my Ilimbë! And Vána the Ever-young, who loves all living things, heard his prayer, although he had not named her in his thought: and the scent of flowers on the breeze came sweet and strong to his nostrils. Then the Elf went hastening to his ivory-maid, and kissed her lips again — and lo! her lips seemed to gather warmth from his. And when he clasped her — um, arm — the ivory seemed to soften at his touch, made flesh beneath his fingers. But he was hesitant still to believe what his senses suggested to him; very carefully, he pressed his fingers to her wrist”—Finwë squeezed Fëanor’s own thin wrist affectionately—“and felt the pulse of her blood beneath his hand. Then the Elf knew that Ilimbë lived in truth, that he had brought his ivory-maid to life with the strength of his love. And they dwell together in happiness yet.”

“Is that the end?” Fëanor asked. He was growing sleepy.

“It is,” said Finwë, drawing Fëanor’s coverlet over him. “Will you sleep now, dear one? It grows late: Telperion is near full-waxed.”

“Hmm,” said Fëanor, yawning. “Thank you for the story, Atya. Perhaps you can try it too.”

Finwë stilled. “What do you mean?”

“The next time you go to Lórien,” Fëanor suggested, “you can kiss Ammë’s lips, and maybe she will wake up.”

Finwë smiled, although it did not reach his eyes. “An excellent idea,” he said. “I will try that.”

Mahtan’s forges were vast and well-kept; it had taken three days for his new teacher to even finish showing Fëanor around the many interconnected workshops. At last he led Fëanor to a corner in the hall allocated to his apprentices. “Your personal workspace,” he said. “I imagine you will be used to a study of your own, Prince Fëanáro, but in my halls I find it best for my apprentices to work and study together.”

Fëanor thought of the cavernous workshop he alone occupied in the great palace in Tirion, for Indis’ children were forbidden from entering it. It was there he had first devised the Tengwar — alone — and there that his mother’s memory lingered most strongly, although Fëanor’s craft had never been in loom-work. (He had wanted to learn; but his fingers, otherwise so skilled, were clumsy with the fine fabrics.)

“That suits very well,” he said politely. “Shall I be sharing this desk, or might I spread my things across it?”

Mahtan smiled. “It is yours alone,” he said, “use the space as you will.”

Fëanor made quick work of arranging his possessions on the surface of the desk and then started. There was someone standing in the shadows near them. “Narwaner! I did not see you there.”

There was no response.

Mahtan laughed. He had a very pleasing laugh, rich and belly-deep. “That is not Narwaner,” he said.

Fëanor blinked at the figure before him. He certainly had the strong shoulders, sharp nose and copper-bright hair of Mahtan’s eldest son, although it was true that Fëanor had thought Narwaner had already departed on a short trip to Tirion. “Then—?”

“Look,” said Mahtan, and he pushed the figure gently. Instead of moving away from him it simply rocked a little. “He is marble, do you see? My daughter’s work.”

Fëanor stared at the statue. Although it was motionless, he could see nothing in its face to distinguish it from the living Narwaner; the light played off his features in such a way that his very pores seemed to glisten, and the little dimples of his smile were perfectly positioned. “The likeness is marvellous,” he said. “This must be her finest work.”

“Far from it,” said Mahtan, with a smile. “Nerdanel is very skilled — and it is a particular delight of hers to create such facsimiles of those she knows.”

Fëanor had never worked with stone before, but his fingers itched, suddenly, to hold a chisel rather than a hammer. “Might I learn from her, too?”

“Insatiable!” said Mahtan, but he did not sound frustrated. “She is travelling at present, and I know not when she will return. I promise you, my prince, there will be plenty of time to unravel the secrets of marble and granite — let us first cover the very basics of metalwork, at least!”

Over the next few months, Fëanor grew accustomed to life as Mahtan’s newest and youngest apprentice — he was, for one thing, also by far the cleverest. Life was easier here, with nothing but the work to hold his attention: no Indis with her empty smiles and grating voice, no half-sisters and half-brother clamouring for Fëanor’s attention, no father always watching him with those terribly hopeful eyes. No courtiers milling about the palace, whispering behind their hands (as though that could possibly stop Fëanor from perceiving it!) about how Finwë’s eldest son was Marred, how he had killed his mother—

There was nobody to disappoint, here.

Quite the opposite, in fact: the least of Fëanor’s crafts were exclaimed over with deferential admiration, his insights in dinnertime debates called cutting, his wit named sparkling. Mahtan himself had told Fëanor plainly that his royal status would not earn him special treatment — which Fëanor appreciated, having travelled a not inconsiderable distance away from Tirion for a reason — but his fellow apprentices had apparently not been informed of this, for they were all over-awed by his presence. It was rather nice to be adored.

He was still regularly startled by the statues Mahtan’s daughter had scattered about his halls, seemingly at random; there was one standing just behind the kitchen door, and several positioned in the gardens as though they were strolling down the walkways arm in arm, and (for some reason) a terrifyingly accurate likeness of the Lady Uinen herself, in her mermaid guise, perched at the edge of the communal bath the apprentices used. Admittedly, that was rather funny after you knew about it, but not so amusing at first.

Of the elusive Nerdanel herself his colleagues had nothing but praise. She was funny, and kind, and wilful; she was strong enough to carry great blocks of marble by herself, apparently, and yet gentle as Nienna herself with the homesick or unhappy, and yet again fierce and proud when provoked.

“One wonders she isn’t married,” Ontamo observed one evening, while the apprentices were relaxing in their common room after dinner.

Tammatan snorted. “You do, perhaps — you’ve never looked at a maid twice. The rest of us have eyes, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean by that?” Fëanor asked.

“She isn’t very lovely to look upon,” Tammatan explained. “You wouldn’t think so, considering how beautiful her statues are! But her own face is rather plain.”

“Oh,” said Fëanor.

The lady Indis was indisputably beautiful; everyone said so. It was why his father had fallen in love with her.

Tammatan seemed to follow his train of thought. “Prince Fëanáro will no doubt wed a great beauty,” he said. “King Finwë did so twice, after all!”

Fëanor turned a withering glare on him, and he fell abashedly silent.

“Prince Fëanáro is only just of age,” said Ontamo, who was the eldest of the apprentices and considered himself something of a older-brother figure to them all. “Give him some time before he starts thinking of marriage!”

Fëanor was not particularly keen on thinking of marriage, ever; but he decided there was no need to share that.

It was three months after he had first arrived at Mahtan’s halls that Nerdanel came home at last. Fëanor was not forewarned of this; he simply came into the corner of the apprentices’ workshop that had been designated his only to find a large block of black stone in front of his desk.

Fëanor did not like to have his workspace disturbed. He shoved the block of stone out of the way (as much as he could — it was heavy) with a frown and sat down to look over his iron samples. Absorbed in his studies, he quite forgot about the stone until some hours later, when an annoyed voice said, “Who moved my granite?”

Fëanor glanced up. Standing beside the granite was an Elf whose auburn hair was pulled into a rough ponytail. She was wearing an apron smeared with clay, and scowling. This could only be Mahtan’s daughter.

“That was I,” said Fëanor, deciding not to stand up. “It was in my way.”

“Oh, excellent,” said Nerdanel, casting her eyes in the direction of Taniquetil. “Another new apprentice who doesn’t understand the first thing about light and shadow — that piece was there for a reason—”

“My desk is also here for a reason,” Fëanor said. “And I want to use it. Can’t you put your rocks somewhere else? You have a whole studio to yourself.” He nodded pointedly to the door leading off the apprentices’ workshop, through which he had caught brief glimpses of many figures of stone in varying states of completion.

“My rocks!” cried Nerdanel. “You presumptuous child, do you really think your work of such importance that it couldn’t have waited a few days? Or do you suppose you’ll be revolutionising Noldorin society before my statue is finished?”

“Maybe I will,” Fëanor said, savagely; “most of my work on the Tengwar was completed in a week.”

He was not entirely sure what he was intending to achieve with that revelation. Shock, perhaps, or babbled apologies? Maybe Nerdanel’s creamy skin would turn still paler with alarm, or else flush red in embarrassment. Instead her lips thinned. “So you’re Prince Fëanáro,” she said. “As spoiled and arrogant as I expected. Don’t touch my works again.”

“Don’t leave them in my space, then!” Fëanor said, outraged, but Nerdanel had already turned on her heel and stormed out.

There was a stifled snort from one of the other apprentices. Fëanor looked around, searching for a target to glare at, before Ontamo said, “Back to work, everyone, come on.”

“You said she was nice,” Fëanor said grumpily.

“She is, my prince,” Ontamo said, amusement colouring his tone, “unless one provokes her.”

Well, what did it matter if Fëanor had annoyed Mahtan’s daughter by the simple expedient of wishing to use his desk? So what if she was talented, and he had been longing to meet her for weeks? She did not like him, and he did not care.

He sat up proudly in his chair and returned his attention to his work.

Nerdanel did not speak to Fëanor for some time after that. It was easy enough — even for one less perceptive than Fëanor — to see that she was determined to take a dislike to him, for although she was always friendly and good-humoured with the other apprentices she treated him with pointed disdain, which he returned wholeheartedly.

There were days when he barely saw her at all; she was restless, he soon learned, and fond of wandering the wilds by herself. Then there were periods when she was in her studio long before dawn, and left it only late at night, working with furious concentration on a sculpture. Sometimes she came out into the apprentices’ workshop to better catch the afternoon light. Fëanor liked to watch her work at those times; her look of absorption was fascinating, and the deliberate motion of her hands over the stone as smooth and graceful as a dance.

“So, what do you think of Nerdanel, Prince Fëanáro?” Tammatan asked him one evening. “We all know how she sees you! But you like watching her, do you not? Think you she is fair?”

Fëanor did not like the question much. Nor did he like its tone, which seemed to him reminiscent of all the sly innuendos and double meanings that pervaded the palace at Tirion. “I think she is a master at her craft,” he said, “and fair indeed to watch at her work.”

He had meant the compliment diffidently; Nerdanel was the best sculptor he had ever seen, but there was hardly anything else remarkable about her! Too late he recalled that he was speaking to his fellow Noldor — and Noldor, at that, studying under one of the greatest smiths of their people — and to them he might as well have expressed a desire to wed Nerdanel on the spot.

“That’s all, though,” he added with a sniff; but the damage was done, and from that day onwards knowing looks were cast Fëanor’s way whenever Nerdanel was around.

Fëanor supposed the sensible course of action would have been to stop watching her as she worked — it should not be said, after all, that all those of Finwë’s line allowed the passions of their heart and the desires of their body to rule them! Not that Fëanor had any passion for Nerdanel — and yet — if it was true that her face was plain, her fair complexion distinctly prone to unflattering blotchiness, and the grime constantly stuck underneath her fingernails unmaidenly, then it was also true that her eyes sparkled as she looked over a statue, that her smile when she regarded a sketched-out design was radiant, that the way curls of hair escaped her loose bun to rest on the back of her neck was captivating.

So who cared if she turned up her nose when he walked past, and narrowed her eyes when she caught sight of him at the dining-table? Fëanor had no desire to speak to her. It was only her craft that he admired.

Embarrassingly, he was still occasionally caught out by her uncannily realistic statues. Passing through Mahtan’s breakfast-room early one morning in an abstracted rush, he tossed out a brief greeting to the figure standing beside the table—“Good morning, Thamnë”— only to hear a snort of laughter in response. Nerdanel was sitting in her usual place, nibbling a pastry, and watching Fëanor with darkly satisfied eyes. “That’s a statue,” she said.

Fëanor’s temper flared. That the first words she addressed to him in weeks should be coloured with such scorn! “Clever,” he said bitingly. “I suppose you’re very proud of yourself.”

“I am, quite,” said Nerdanel. “I worked hard on it. Thamnë does not much like sitting for reference.”

Fëanor examined the statue. As always, it was impossible to deny Nerdanel’s mastery. “I like it,” he said, grudgingly. “The fabric of her robe is lovely. And her face—”

“Faces are always the hardest,” said Nerdanel, whose own had brightened. She loved her work — it was impossible to miss. “So much of the fëa is visible in them.”

“There is a story,” said Fëanor. “Do you know it?”

“Of Ilimbë, and the Elf who loved her enough to bring her to life?” asked Nerdanel. “Yes, I know it. You are not the first to think of it, seeing my work.”

Fëanor did not like to be called derivative, even by implication. “A shame you have not yet accomplished such a feat as he did,” he said sharply. “For his sculpture was so fine that she came alive.”

Nerdanel did not seem to take his words with the offence with which they were meant. She laughed. “Not yet,” she said. Her eyes gleamed with merriment. “But my greatest work still lies before me.”

After some months it was customary for apprentices to embark on a self-directed project, to be presented to one’s teacher upon completion. Apparently, a great deal of consternation often surrounded the beginning of this project. Fëanor, who had whiled away long hours of his childhood by setting himself to master some new skill or craft, did not see what all the fuss was about, and had chosen his project without bothering to ask for anyone else’s advice. He had decided to make a mechanical clock. Of course Laurelin and Telperion waxed and waned with perfect regularity, and the Eldar had, he thought, lost sight of the clever techniques they had used for timekeeping by the motion of the stars. Indeed several people expressed doubt about his choice, as much as they dared criticise the King’s son: tracking the length and angle of shadows was easy enough in Aman, was the general consensus. Why tinker with a system that worked perfectly well?

Fëanor paid no heed to these gentle suggestions. Rúmil’s Sarati had also worked perfectly well. The Tengwar were a hundredfold better.

Mahtan, to his relief, had not made any such foolish comment, but allowed Fëanor to proceed with his work as he saw fit. It was an interesting project, requiring both frequent use of the forges as well as careful, precise calculation, and Fëanor thought he was making very good progress on it until one morning when Mahtan called him into his private study.

Fëanor walked through the door and stopped short. Nerdanel was standing by her father’s desk with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “What’s this?” he said.

“We have encountered a small problem,” said Mahtan, who sounded more amused than anything else. “My copper stores are running low, and you have both expressed a wish to use them.”

“I need them,” Fëanor said swiftly. “Not a very large amount — but there is nothing else from which I can fashion my gears.”

“You have any number of other metals at your disposal,” Nerdanel said. She was pointedly not looking at him. “Use steel.”

Ire rose within Fëanor. “I don’t want to use steel,” he said, with what he thought was remarkable composure.

“Oh, and of course Prince Fëanáro must have what he wants!” Nerdanel snapped. “Atar, I have had those stores reserved for my next project for months—”

“Please,” Fëanor said, irritated, “you can just as well paint the hair onto the statue’s head, it isn’t as though you need it—”

“How dare you!” Nerdanel cried. “Think you that your projects are the only ones that matter? You have no idea what I was even planning to use it for—”

“Enough,” said Mahtan — quietly, but with authority enough that they both fell silent immediately. “Nerdanel, you know that we have no policy of reserving materials; everything in my halls is for common use, and for common replenishment when necessary. Prince Fëanáro, it is not done to denigrate the needs of others, nor to call them less important than your own.”

“Sorry,” Fëanor said grudgingly. Nerdanel pursed her lips and said nothing.

“It is not a major setback,” said Mahtan. “You will both simply have to bring us some more copper. Nerdanel, you know the way to our usual mine.”

“You mean we have to go travelling?” said Fëanor.

“Together?” added Nerdanel.

Mahtan’s mouth twitched. “Quite. You both want the copper, so you can both do the work of fetching it.”

“Atar,” said Nerdanel, “might I not go alone?” She cast Fëanor a look of deep dislike. “Prince Fëanáro does not often leave Tirion. He will only slow me down.”

In principle Fëanor had no objection to this arrangement — if Nerdanel was out searching for more copper, surely he would be able to use some of the current reserves — but his pride was stung by her dismissive words. “I can travel as swiftly as anyone,” he said acerbically.

“Very well!” said Mahtan. “That settles it. You shall leave on the overmorrow. We will expect you back in a week or two.”

Fëanor did not think that settled it in the slightest, and by Nerdanel’s expression neither did she; but there was no arguing with Mahtan when he used that tone. He looked at Nerdanel, who met his gaze coolly. Best to get this over with, then.

The first few days of their journey passed mostly in silence. Mahtan’s halls were north-west of Tirion, not far from the great forges of Aulë himself. The most abundant reserves of copper in Valinor lay further to the east, in the foothills of the Pelóri, and so they set a steady course towards them, cutting a wide circle around the outskirts of Tirion as they walked towards the mountains.

Fëanor was quietly pleased to find that, for all Nerdanel’s greater age and travelling experience, he kept pace with her easily, and once or twice when she disdainfully suggested that he might not be able to traverse a difficult path or leap over a particularly wide stream, he could not help but flashing her a smug smile on proving her wrong. He never received much more than an eye-roll in response.

The thing was — Fëanor was not used to being disliked. He knew he was precociously brilliant, and a charming conversationalist when he put in the effort, and fair to look upon besides; he did not see why Mahtan’s daughter of all people should find him so objectionable. Well, Fëanor’s will was formidable: she would like him, this stubborn maiden with her humorous mouth and strong muscled arms — he would make her like him.

“So what were you planning to use the copper for, if not a statue?” he asked conversationally, as they trekked through a grassy plain. “I liked the way you wrought Narwaner’s hair from it: it caught the light so well.”

Nerdanel looked surprised. They had not spoken to each other so far that day beyond a curt exchange of good mornings upon rising. But she loved her work too much to ignore a question about it, even from him. “I don’t always sculpt people,” she said. “I like to make shapes from my own thoughts, too. Abstract ones. I was thinking…” She trailed off and fell silent for a minute or two, her eyes bright with possibility. Then she looked back at him and smiled ruefully. “Those are not so popular as my Elf-figures, of course.”

“I think that sounds beautiful,” Fëanor said honestly. In the light of Laurelin, copper shone with such a coquettish array of undertones. A polished sculpture wrought of it would be splendid.

“Thank you,” said Nerdanel, without any bite to her words. The conversation dwindled there; but it was a start, Fëanor thought.

In the afternoon, when they paused to make a small lunch of berries and cheese, Nerdanel said — offhandedly, as though she had only just thought of it—“What were you going to use it for? One of your projects?”

“A clock,” said Fëanor. “I thought to make its moving parts from copper.” Nerdanel was watching his face, her expression unreadable. Fëanor lifted his chin proudly and said, “I suppose you would say that the idea is foolish, and there is no point in making devices for timekeeping when we will always have the Trees.”

“I did not say that,” said Nerdanel.

Fëanor felt compelled to justify himself further. For some reason it mattered that she did not think his work unimportant. “Aman is beautiful,” he said; “but it is not — it is not perfect. Should we not keep striving for improvement? Shall we be content with the gifts of the Valar, and put aside innovation, and live forever in idle glory?”

Nerdanel smiled. “We are Noldor, Prince Fëanáro. I do not think we will ever be idle.”

“You may call me Fëanáro,” Fëanor said, magnanimously.

Nerdanel’s smile disappeared instantly. “How gracious,” she said, and turned back to her cheese with a displeased expression.

So there was the issue. “Is that why you are so determined to mislike me?” Fëanor asked. “Solely because I am King Finwë’s son?”

“No, because you — I mean — who said I was determined to mislike you?” Nerdanel said, looking flustered and annoyed. “I think you arrogant, and prideful, and rather too enamoured of your own cleverness; but you are only a boy, after all.”

“I am of age,” Fëanor said, nettled. “And if I am prideful it is with good enough cause, I should think. In Tirion they say my intellect far surpasses that of many of the old loremasters.”

“Oh, in Tirion!” said Nerdanel, with a roll of her eyes. “You know far less of the world than you think, Fëanáro, if the opinions of loremasters in Tirion carry such weight with you.”

Fëanor was well aware that he was supposed to be insulted by this, but he could not suppress a smile. She had eschewed his title after all. “A deficiency indeed!” he said. “I shall have to remedy it.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Nerdanel asked. She was not smiling, but neither did she look hostile.

“I am going to travel everywhere,” said Fëanor, “and see the woolly mammoths in Araman and the sabre-toothed tigers in Avathar; and learn all your father has to teach me of metalwork and all Rúmil can of lore and all the King can of governance; and I shall make works of craft, too, and everyone will admire them for their loveliness as well as how useful and inventive they are; and next year I am going to Alqualondë to make a study of the ways the Telerin tongue differs from standard Quenya; and while I am there I shall speak to some veterans of the Great Journey to see if it is possible to construct a map of Middle-earth from their recollections, for they lingered there long years after we had departed for Aman — some might say we have no use for such a thing, living here, but why does that mean it should not be done? Why should anything not be attempted, if we have the means to try?” He was breathing hard; at some point during his speech he had flung his arms out expansively. “I want to learn everything. I hunger for it.”

Nerdanel laughed, but without derision. “Ambitious!” she said. If he had been hoping to impress her he was disappointed, for she was not looking at him with any of the worshipful awe that her father’s apprentices often turned on him. But Fëanor did not want Nerdanel’s worship.

“Perhaps you will not think me only a boy, then,” he said.

Nerdanel snorted. There — he had amused her, at the very least. “Perhaps not,” she said.

Travelling by night was a new and different sort of loveliness. Telperion’s gentler light edged black shadows with shimmering grey, made leaves and grasses into delicate things spun of frost and silk and snow, brushed the soft curve of Nerdanel’s throat with silver. When they found a camping-place for the night, they lit a fire and sat for a time beside it before sleeping. Fëanor looked at the leaping flames and thought about dancing around them, and wishing.

Nerdanel had been carrying a lump of clay in her pocket since the day before, when they had spent some time walking alongside a little river. She was working it with her strong fingers now, twisting it into shapes — some recognisable, some entirely abstract — and then squashing it again, the motion fluid and beautiful.

“Missing your work?” Fëanor asked.

Nerdanel flashed him a smile. “I have so many ideas,” she said. “My fingers are itching for a chisel.”

“May I see?” Fëanor asked, and when she nodded he came to sit beside her, and watched as she wrought out of her little lump of clay an exquisitely-shaped leaf, using the sharp edge of her fingernail to trace veins along its surface. “It looks real,” he said, marvelling.

Nerdanel cast him a sidelong glance. “Like Ilimbë, I suppose you might say?”

Fëanor raised his hands mock-defensively. “You brought her up.”

That won him another smile. “I don’t dislike the story,” she said. “Although it can grow tiresome, to be reminded of it every other week! No, it is only that — well, never mind.”

Fëanor did mind. He wanted to know all Nerdanel’s thoughts on everything. But he did not think she would take kindly to being pressed, and so he only said, “My father used to tell me the tale when I was small, for I always liked the old stories of Cuiviénen. Imagine it: being so skilled of hand that you bring your craft to life!”

“I think you will find that many of the Eldar have accomplished such a feat,” said Nerdanel; “else what would you call parenthood?”

Fëanor had never thought about it in such terms before. Parenthood was something his father had wanted — had kept wanting, more than what Fëanor could give — and his mother had not. “Is that a craft, then?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Nerdanel. “Although perhaps not one that can be studied! But it is a — a shaping, is it not? An expending of energy, even of the fëa itself, to bring forth something new.” Then she seemed to remember to whom she was speaking. She looked at Fëanor and her face fell.

“You are right,” said Fëanor. His voice sounded rather strange to his own ears; but he did not want Nerdanel to wear that uncertain expression any longer. Rallying, he said in a brisker voice, “I suppose it has rather a lot in common with sculpting, in particular.”

Nerdanel’s mouth twisted, but her displeasure did not seem to be directed at him, for a change. “Yes. There are many who have suggested that I will find my craft redundant, once I am a mother. Or more redundant than it already is — after all, what is the point of preserving that which can never die?”

“They are fools,” Fëanor said decisively. “There is a point! Art has value enough for its own sake — and besides—” He did not want to say, My mother died; but perhaps Nerdanel understood him anyway. “I imagine they are jealous,” he continued. “That they will never make any statues as beautiful as yours. I find lesser minds are often keen to criticise the greater.”

“The Elf who made Ilimbë,” said Nerdanel, “preferred the company of none above that of his ivory-maid.”

Fëanor grinned at her. “A cautionary tale, I suppose,” he said. “Although I must confess I often prefer working alone to suffering the society of fools.”

Nerdanel laughed. “In that, Fëanáro,” she said—his name again!—“we are agreed.”

It did not happen suddenly. Nerdanel was still short with him when they rose the next morning (she did not much like mornings, Fëanor was discovering); she still sighed with exasperation when he ignored her advice to use a walking-stick and fell behind her as they climbed a hill. She still often rebuffed his attempts at conversation, and once or twice implied, by look or tone if not in words, that he was not much more than an overzealous child — and yet before three more days had passed, Fëanor knew that he had won Nerdanel’s favour, in one sense at least, and that there would be no more petty spats when they returned to Mahtan’s halls. They were, perhaps, friends.

They found Mahtan’s copper ore with little difficulty, and between them soon collected more than enough metal to supply both their projects three times over. Nerdanel was stronger than Fëanor, and challenged him, eyes bright, to a competition to see who could haul their load out of the mine fastest: she won the first two rounds, but Fëanor, unwilling to be beaten so easily, surpassed her in the third.

“Well done,” she said with a laugh, flushed and breathless, a smear of dirt on her brow where she had wiped away the sweat. “I’ll grant you that victory, at least.”

“At least!” crowed Fëanor. “At least, she says! Admit it: you never imagined I could beat you.”

He was expecting Nerdanel to roll her eyes at that — and she did, but with decided fondness.

The trek back to Mahtan’s halls was slower, laden as they were. A day in, Fëanor realised the little stream to his right was unfamiliar. “This is not the same route by which we came,” he said.

“No,” said Nerdanel, “we are taking a circuitous route home. There was something I wanted to see.” But she would not elaborate on what that was, and Fëanor, who was beginning to learn what irritated her particularly, did not ask more than once. They walked then in silence, but it was companionable now rather than hostile.

It turned out that the sight Nerdanel had detoured for was a small grove of peach trees, growing wild by the banks of the stream. She broke into a smile as soon as they caught sight of them the next day. “Oh, they are perfectly ripe, too,” she said with relish.

“We added a day and a half to our route,” Fëanor said sceptically, “for peaches? One can get those in the markets in Tirion.”

“City princeling,” said Nerdanel, “have you ever in your life tasted a wild peach? Of course Lady Yavanna has taught us much of the arts of their cultivation — but there is nothing like the taste of those that spring from the seeds she scattered in the earth, unthinking, at the very dawn of the world.” As they reached the edge of the grove she broke a peach from a low-hanging branch and regarded it with delight.

“Let me,” Fëanor said impulsively. He set down his burdens and scaled one of the trees — that would show her, who had teased him so mercilessly that morning for wading through a stream rather than crossing it by means of the tree-branches that arched above it — up to where the scent of the fruit was nearly intoxicating, and the light of Laurelin beat down steady and inescapable upon his head. He plucked an armful of peaches, tossing them down one by one for Nerdanel to catch, and then descended to join her.

She had waited for him before starting to eat. “Try one,” she said, holding out a fruit to him.

Fëanor took it. It was red-gold and fuzzy, still warm in his hand. When he bit into it — messily, letting the juice trickle down his chin — it was hot and sweet and golden in his mouth, as though Laurelin herself had borne sacred fruit. He had never tasted anything better.

“It’s good,” he said, when it was done.

Nerdanel grinned. “I told you so,” she said. “Oh, look: we have picked too many to fit in our bags — a shame. We shall simply have to eat them now.”

Fëanor laughed and sat down beside her in the grass. For a while they were silent, the peaches being too delightful to receive anything less than their full attention. Nerdanel looked as happy as Fëanor had ever seen her, her mouth sticky with juice and her eyes bright and faraway. Watching her at peace, Fëanor thought, was scarcely less pleasure than watching her at her work.

It was getting to be the height of summer, and the heat in the middle of the day was unrelenting. They were following the stream, so there was at least plentiful cool water, but Fëanor still sighed with relief when he lay back in the shade and could draw the hot weight of his hair off his neck at last.

“Soft,” teased Nerdanel, but there was little bite to her words now.

“Me?” Fëanor asked, mock-offended. It was too hot to be offended in truth, and the soil on which he was lying was very soft. “Look at you! You are freckled all over.” It was true: Nerdanel’s bare arms were dotted all over with golden-brown freckles that had not been there when they had started the day’s journey. There was a smattering of them across her nose as well, and — he had noticed while they were walking — even one or two behind her ears. With a grimace, she rolled up the short sleeve of her tunic to reveal one white shoulder, which contrasted startlingly with her tanned upper arm.

“Not so much her maker as Ilimbë herself,” Fëanor said, before he could stop himself. What sort of compliment was that?

But to his surprise Nerdanel’s smile slipped, and she said, suddenly sounding very weary, “Well, that is the first time I have heard that comparison.”

Fëanor looked at her.

Nerdanel said, “Surely you have heard people say it. Oh, Nerdanel is not fair — Nerdanel makes beautiful statues because she is not lovely to look upon — Nerdanel, always the maker and never the subject, for who would ever want to capture her image?”

“They are all idiots,” said Fëanor, “and, what is more, blind. I find the small-minded and the envious often chatter in such a manner. Besides, who would want to be a subject rather than a maker?”

Nerdanel cast a sidelong look at him. To his relief, her eyes were sparkling once more. “No, Fëanáro? Should you not like to be — preserved?”

Fëanor wanted to say, That is not necessary, I am living, but his mouth was suddenly too dry to answer. It was the heat, only the heat, and the sweetness of the peaches: he got up to drink from the cool clear water of the stream.

Nerdanel was sitting up when he returned, her gaze distant, her posture statuesque. Fëanor liked very much to look at her, when he thought about it.

Impulsive again, he said, “Why do you think the Elf who made Ilimbë loved her?”

Nerdanel did not castigate him for the absurdity of the question. “Because she was beautiful, I suppose,” she said; “and all the Eldar love beautiful things.”

“But better to make a beautiful thing than to be one,” said Fëanor; “you cannot convince me otherwise.”

“Nor do I wish to try!” said Nerdanel. “But why do you think Ilimbë loved her maker, then?”

Fëanor had never thought of that question before. “Because,” he said, more hesitantly than was his wont, “well — how could she not? She was made for loving him.”

Nerdanel looked at him. Her grey eyes were very bright. “So she was,” she said. “Was she glad to fulfil her purpose, I wonder? A lovely crafted thing, to be admired and adorned! But there must be a comforting sort of certainty in knowing exactly what you were made for.”

“That would be nice,” Fëanor agreed. For some reason his voice came out hoarse.

Nerdanel smiled and looked away from him, as though she knew that the pressure of her gaze was almost too much to bear.

“Well, let us go on,” she said eventually, pushing herself up from where she was reclining on the grass. They had left a little cairn of peach-pits between them, as though to say, We were here, remember us. “We will be home again by the Mingling.”

Fëanor had been eager to return to Mahtan’s halls with the much-desired copper, and finish work on his clock, but he found himself rather reluctant to rise. But Nerdanel was looking at him expectantly, so he stood up and said, “All right.”

Her mouth, he thought later, once the grove was behind them, would taste like peaches.

They reached Mahtan’s halls, as Nerdanel had predicted, just before the Mingling of the Lights, and without further incident. Fëanor had stayed quiet for the last stretch of the journey. The thoughts that had awoken in him — no, if he was honest, the thoughts that he had noticed, for he had been harbouring them in his breast for some time now without realising — were unfamiliar. He would almost call them frightening, but Fëanor was not frightened of anything.

“To your clock tomorrow morning, then?” Nerdanel asked him, once they had presented the copper to Mahtan and were ready to retire for the evening.

Fëanor caught Tammatan’s eye across the common room. He looked surprised — as was to be expected, Fëanor supposed, for Nerdanel’s tone with him had not been so cordial before their departure.

“Yes,” he said. “Or — oh, I only just remembered — what is the date?” And when Thamnë, who was eavesdropping too, told him, he grimaced. “I must go to Tirion in another day or two — it is my little half-sister’s begetting-day, and the King is expecting me there.”

Nerdanel looked disappointed, but Fëanor found that he was strangely relieved by this. Going back to Tirion was a chore, of course, and dealing with Indis and all her Vanya relations who would be visiting for the celebration more so — but Nerdanel’s presence was become almost overwhelming. He could do with some time away to clear his head.

“Work on the copper sculpture, while I am away,” he suggested. “I should like to see some of your abstract work when I return, if you care to show it to me.”

Nerdanel smiled. How had he ever thought those smiles difficult to win! They came as easy as breathing now. “I should like that very much,” she said.

“You never told me what it was you were thinking of making,” Fëanor said.

“I forget what I was thinking of,” said Nerdanel, “but no matter: I have a new idea. I should like to try to capture a flame in motion.”

Fëanor caught his breath. He had spent many hours in Mahtan’s forges, captivated by the leaping dance of the flames; there was something alluringly contradictory in the idea of seeing them frozen in copper, of preserving in stillness something so inherently changeful. “That would be splendid,” he said.

“Do you think so?” Nerdanel said. “It might not be possible. To catch a leaping flame, and preserve it in cold metal! A challenge, certainly. But it will be very beautiful: and I do love to make beautiful things.”

“Indeed,” said Fëanor, and stared after her as she bade him goodnight and went to her own chambers.

“I take it you enjoyed your trip, my prince?” said Ontamo.

Fëanor cast him a disdainful look and went to bed himself. He was tired.

As soon as he rode into the courtyard before the king’s house in Tirion, a small blue blur launched itself at his horse’s hooves. Fëanor only just reigned in his horse in time to avoid crushing it. “What have I told you about running about when there are horses on the road?” he demanded, dismounting.

But when he picked her up Lalwen flung her arms around his neck and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “Fëanáro, you came, you came!” she crowed. “It’s my begetting-day today! Did you bring me a gift?”

“All in good time,” said Fëanor. Lalwen was dressed very finely indeed, in a gauzy little dress of violet-blue silk that brought out the sky-shades in her grey eyes; her dark curls showed no evidence of having been brushed that day, for they fell in a tangled unruly mess past her shoulders. “Where is your mother?”

“She’s making everything pretty for the party!” Lalwen said gleefully. “You’re coming to the party, aren’t you, Fëanáro? We’re going to have six different sorts of desserts and swimming in the pool — the big one, you know, with the fountain of Lord Ulmo — and then we’re going to dance and dance until the Mingling tomorrow morning!” She prattled cheerfully on in this manner about the invited guests, and all her beautiful presents, and how she had missed Fëanor, and whether it was nice being away from home, as he carried her inside; but it seemed organising the grand party was rather more important than keeping track of its small guest of honour, for he could see neither his father nor Indis anywhere.

There was a sound at the opposite end of the entrance hall. Fëanor glanced up to see Findis standing in the far doorway, with Fingolfin her ever-present shadow at her shoulder. “You came, then,” she said, with none of Lalwen’s enthusiasm.

“Fëanáro!” said Fingolfin, more eagerly. “It is good to see you.”

Fëanor ignored this. “You do not seem overly pleased,” he told Findis, without setting Lalwen down.

Findis’ blue eyes were cold. She shrugged. She had not been so sullen a child when he had gone away, but then it had been some months, and she was nearing adolescence now.

Fingolfin said, “Shall you be staying long, Fëanáro?” No doubt he, like his sister, could not wait for the day when Fëanor would be gone again.

“Perhaps a week,” Fëanor said. “I should like to spend some time with my father; but I am far too busy with my work to stay very long.”

Thankfully Finwë appeared at last then, with Indis by his side; and in his father’s warm expansive joy at seeing his eldest home at last Fëanor forgot to pay any further attention to his half-siblings.

The party was tolerable enough, if tiresome. If the court at Tirion was filled with petty gossip and infighting, it was at the very least large. You did not have to speak with any one person for much longer than you could bear. More strained was the small family dinner afterwards, although Fëanor was accorded the place of honour at his father’s right hand, and Indis was too busy curtailing Lalwen’s bubbly excitement — she had been given rather a lot of sugar — to pay much attention to the conversation. But she still cast Fëanor the occasional unreadable look, and his father’s smile was so desperately hopeful, and Findis was not smiling at all.

Fëanor had always felt like an interloper in their perfect little family; he was struck, now, not by the return of the old resentful feelings so much as the length of time for which they had been absent. In Mahtan’s halls nobody watched him with that odd tense nervous look, as though waiting for him to lose his temper explosively — and why would they? He never felt the need to lose his temper there. But he had been one evening in Tirion and Indis’ bland smile was already setting his teeth on edge, and little Fingolfin’s piping voice started an irrational spurt of annoyance within him.

Lalwen, at least, seemed unaware of all the tense undercurrents of the conversation. She chattered happily on about her party, and how so-and-so had got sick eating too many pastries, and how another of her small friends — only a baby, clearly — had started crying because she had missed her naptime.

“How dreadful,” Fëanor said gravely. He was fond of Lalwen — she was a sweet child, and he supposed she could not help being Indis’ daughter. “You are far more grown-up than her, Lalwen.”

Lalwen beamed and wriggled a little under this mighty praise. “I am,” she agreed, and then almost immediately undermined her point by saying, “Will you tell my bedtime story today, Fëanáro? Because it’s my begetting-day?”

Fëanor blinked, a little taken aback. There was a momentary flash of hurt in Indis’ eyes before her ever-present smile settled again; perhaps it was that, more than his father’s wide-eyed hopeful look, that led him to say, with more enthusiasm than he really felt, “Of course I will.”

He rather regretted this an hour or so later, when he arrived in the nursery to find Lalwen a bouncing ball of energy atop her bed; one of her nurses had evidently brushed her hair and washed her face, but no attempt had been made to settle her down for the night. “You didn’t bring a book,” she said.

“This story is all in my head,” Fëanor told her, pulling a chair up to her bed. “But I can only tell it if you lie down nicely and quietly — will you do that for me, Lalwen?”

Lalwen made a face, but said, with an exaggerated sigh, “Fine,” and got under her covers at last.

Fëanor stifled a smile. He was persuasive. “Very good,” he said. “Well, then. Once there was an Elf of great cleverness and beauty — and there was nothing he loved more than to work with his hands.”

“He sounds like you,” said Lalwen.

“I suppose,” said Fëanor. “One of his most treasured possessions was a great tusk of ivory — you know what ivory is, do you not? And, being crafty indeed, the Elf carved a beautiful maiden of ivory; and she looked much as a living Elf-maid did, so that more than once his companions would mistake her for a real person, and try to speak with her before they realised. Her skin was fair as milk, and so the Elf named her Ilimbë. And he did not think there was anyone in the world lovelier than she.” He paused for a moment. For some reason, his heart was racing. “The Elf brought Ilimbë gifts,” he continued: “all the finest gems, and ornaments wrought of gold and bronze, and sweet-scented flowers, too.”

“What kind of flowers?” Lalwen asked, interested. Her mother took great pleasure in her gardens — it seemed Lalwen was become fond of them too.

“Peach-blossoms,” said Fëanor, at random. “And in time the Elf grew to realise that he loved Ilimbë — that there was no greater joy in his life than to admire her smile, or to run his fingers along her carved tresses, or tell her about what had happened in his day. But he grew wan and sad, for he did not see how his love could ever be returned. And on a time of festival, when all his fellows prayed for what they wished above all, the Elf dared to think that he would take his ivory-maid to wife, or at the very least one like her; although he knew that was not possible.”

He faltered. The next part of the story, as his father had told it, was Vána hearing the Elf’s prayer, and bringing Ilimbë to life for him. O, the Valar were magnanimous! And Lalwen listening to him, this laughing-maid, this child who had known naught but bliss in all the years of her short life — it was not fair. “But he went hastening to Ilimbë,” he said, “and put his lips to hers — and to his great surprise, they gathered warmth from his. And the Elf watched as before his very eyes colour bloomed in Ilimbë’s white cheeks, and her lungs drew breath for the first time: for he had loved her enough, it transpired, to bring her to life. But as she stirred, and smiled at him, the Elf felt his own hands grow cold, and his heartbeat stuttered. For in his love he had given too much of himself to Ilimbë, and his own fëa grew weak as a candle-flame in too strong a breeze; and as Ilimbë watched he fell down dead at her feet. And he has never returned to dwell among his people, and his ivory-maid mourns him yet. The end.”

“Oh,” said Lalwen. She looked deflated.

The hot dark thing that had risen in Fëanor’s throat withered and died, leaving him feeling hollow and ashamed. He forced a smile. “Well, goodnight,” he said. “You have had a long day today! It is time you went to sleep.”

“I’m too big to sleep,” Lalwen proclaimed, but she was yawning, and made no protest when Fëanor tucked her into bed and put out her lamp. Rising, he turned to see his father standing silently in the nursery doorway, watching him rather sadly.

Fëanor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing until he had come out into the corridor and closed the door behind him.

“That is not,” said Finwë, “the ending I recall.”

“A story can have many endings,” said Fëanor; “they are malleable things.”

“Oh, Fëanáro,” said his father, and he sighed. “Will you sit awhile in my chambers, dear one? It has been so long since we two have talked — and letters, I find, are a poor substitute for you.”

Fëanor’s eyes were prickling a little. He had not missed Tirion. Nor, he thought, had he missed the person he was in Tirion. But he had missed his father! There was no-one in the world he loved more than Finwë.

“Yes,” he said, “I would like that.”

When they were alone in the King’s richly-appointed chambers, and Finwë had poured them both goblets of wine with a conspiratorial smile, he said, “An interesting choice of story, that of Ilimbë.”

Fëanor shrugged uncomfortably. “Mahtan’s daughter is a sculptor,” he said. “I suppose it was on my mind.”

His father’s eyes were sad. “And the ending?”

Fëanor took a gulp of wine instead of answering. He stared at the walls, which were hung with many of his mother’s tapestries. He had been gazing at these works for as long as he could remember. Still, now, as his eyes alighted on one tapestry on the opposite wall, depicting a starlit scene in the forests of Beleriand, he found himself marvelling. It was impossible to deny that its maker’s heart had gone into every careful stitch; the love of it shone out from every glimmering star and the painstaking detail of the leaves on every tree. Míriel had bent for long hours over this tapestry; her nimble fingers had brushed the cloth again and again. Fëanor could almost see her. Grief rose, bile-like, in his throat again.

Finwë had followed his gaze. “I remember when she made this one,” he said. “It was not long after we had begun the building of Tirion. Míriel did not wish for all we had done in Middle-earth — our sufferings, and our joys also — to be forgotten.”

Fëanor thought, oddly, of Nerdanel’s statues. He wondered whether his mother would have approved of them.

“I loved to watch her at her work,” Finwë said softly. “She was always so absorbed in it — when she was in the middle of a project she forgot to eat, sometimes, or else she would come to meals all distracted and starry-eyed. Her hands were always beautiful — you have her hands, you know, and her long slender fingers — but never more so than when they were weaving, so fast that one could barely even see them. Sometimes she neglected to bind her hair while she was working, and used a needle to pin it back; and then coloured threads would be caught in her tresses, and when she came to bed at last I would spend an hour or more combing them all out. I liked to do that for her.”

Fëanor only looked at him. He wanted to weep, but his eyes were dry.

“Míriel loved her craft,” said Finwë, “and I loved her, for loving it.”

Fëanor said, in a voice that sounded strange to his own ears, “And was I — was I a craft of hers, as one of the tapestries she laboured over? Did she love the making of me, too?”

“She loved you,” Finwë said firmly, which was not, Fëanor noted, an answer to his question. “O, Fëanáro, the brightest flame of the Eldar, the finest and dearest of all Míriel’s works! She loved you. As do I.”

Then why, Fëanor did not bother asking. This was no fairy-tale, and his father had no answers that could satisfy him.

The visit progressed — at times pleasant, at others less so. Fëanor spent long hours with his father, although his attention wandered during the daily councils with the great lords of the Noldor; but he could not help a smug little spark of satisfaction every time Finwë eschewed Indis’ company to sit with Fëanor, or told Fingolfin that he could not play with him at present, for he and Fëanor were going riding.

All the same, it was impossible to deny that Indis’ eyes went tight at the corners whenever Fëanor appeared for mealtimes, nor that Findis’ mouth had begun to twist when she caught sight of him; and there was always strain in his father’s smile on these occasions. If Lalwen was too young to be aware of any of this, and Fingolfin was clearly valiantly attempting to ignore it, Fëanor could not. You are not welcome here, Indis’ chilly expressions seemed to say, we were happier without you — and Fëanor in turn found his temper quicker and harsher here than it had been in Mahtan’s halls, his off-hand remarks crueller in their bite.

It was a flaw, perhaps, in the very making of him. A Marring, some would say.

Well, Fëanor was no mealy-mouthed Vanya, to let conflict simmer in silence. “You have not much enjoyed my company,” he observed to Findis one afternoon, catching her alone with a book in the conservatory.

“Do you not think so?” Findis returned evenly, without looking up from her book.

“Very diplomatic, half-sister,” said Fëanor. “But no: I do not. When you were younger you were eager for my attention, as Lalwen is. But you have grown rather cool.”

“Have I,” said Findis, “or have I just grown past Lalwen’s age, and being sweet and small enough to fascinate you? Nolvo has too, although he does not yet realise it. He still yearns to be worthy of your notice. It is a marvellous thing, to be noticed by you, Fëanáro — for you are marvellous, are you not?”

Fëanor said nothing.

“Nolvo will understand in time,” said Findis, “and so will Lalwen, once she has stopped being charming and interesting enough for you. There is nothing that can be done! You pick people up and then you set them down again, as you might some work of yours that has a defect in it; and while all the full blaze of your regard lasts it is wonderful, but once lost you can never earn it back again.”

Fëanor thought of the startled sadness in Lalwen’s eyes as he had finished telling her his story. “Daughter of Indis,” he began.

“My name is Findis, Fëanáro,” said Findis. “Use it, please.”

Fëanor did not like to do so. His father had named both Findis and Fingolfin rather pointedly, he thought: as though to say, These are my children, and I claim them, and none shall countermand me. Findis was Indis’ daughter, but she was Finwë’s too: and none who addressed her by name could forget it. Nolofinwë was yet more troubling, a reminder inescapable that this half-Vanya princeling was of the Noldor too, the eldest son of their King with his living Queen. There was a great deal that went into a name — a thesis statement, perhaps, setting out clearly and concisely what this child had been made for, for what purpose its parents had crafted it. Fëanor was not ignorant of that.

“I did not mean—” he said stiffly.

“I find myself uninterested in what you mean or do not mean,” Findis said, expressionless. It was a tone of voice borrowed from her mother, and it never failed to irritate Fëanor. She sighed. “You are — you are dazzling, Fëanáro. But I find I tire of all your brilliance. It is no substitute for your affection, and I will never have that. I am not sure you are capable of it, truly.” She shrugged. “While you were away… well, I found I cared less than I thought I would.”

Fëanor gaped at her, speechless. Findis, seemingly unconcerned, went back to her book.

Before he rode back to Mahtan’s halls, Fëanor made a detour, and spurred his horse eastwards. It was remarkable how quickly his heart settled outside the palace, how much easier it was to breathe without the great walls of the Calacirya rearing up on all sides. Perhaps there was something in Nerdanel’s derision for the city. (There! His pulse quickened again at the thought of her. He could not understand it.)

Few Incarnates entered the gardens of Lórien, for in these days of peace and plenty what need had any of the Eldar for healing? But Fëanor knew his way around the rustling trees and deep, dreaming pools. He had been here with his father, and once or twice alone in his adolescence, storming out of Tirion after losing his temper with Indis yet again.

Míriel’s body lay in a small clearing, surrounded by silvery willows. She was dressed in a simple white gown, and her long hair was fanned out all around her head on the green-grey grass. It was an area almost devoid of colour: strange, for as a general rule the gardens bloomed with flowers in every hue visible to the Eldar and many that were not, and were populated by bees and butterflies and birds whose plumage gleamed with colour in the Tree-light. But here Míriel was, white-skinned, robed in white, as though Ilimbë herself had lain down to sleep in the grass.

Was it Finwë who had not loved her enough to bring her to life? Surely not. He had spoken of her with such grief. Or — and here was the truth Fëanor had spent his whole life hiding from — perhaps it was that Míriel had not loved the world enough to live in it, had not loved her work enough to return to it, had not loved her son enough to mother him.

Fëanor sat down near her head, folding his arms around his knees. He did not reach out to touch his mother, for he knew from long experience that her body was cold. He looked at her shining silver hair again, gleaming and pristine, and thought of Finwë combing scraps of red and yellow and orange thread from it. All he had ever known of Míriel was this still and empty body: but she had lived, once. She had made beautiful things, and she had wanted to remember — what bitter irony, that she who had been so concerned with commemorating the past should herself become a figure of memorial. And she had wanted him! He must believe that she had wanted him, must imagine that she and his father had sat for long hours discussing the details of his design — Finwë’s hair and proud stature, Míriel’s blazing dark eyes and swift skilful fingers, a spirit that outshone them both in its brilliance — and for what purpose?

“What did you make me for?” Fëanor asked her. “Was it worth it?”

If they were in one of the old stories Míriel would come awake at the sound of his much-loved voice, colour leeching into her lips and cheeks; but Fëanor knew better than to expect that. His mother lay passive and unhearing, just as she had always been.

After a time Fëanor got up and went away. There was little for him in that clearing.

On his way out of the gardens he came across a peach-tree. In Tirion it was high summer by now, and the bounty of the fruit-trees was ripe and plentiful; but here in Lórien’s perpetual spring there were always flowers, and the boughs of this tree were laden with pink-and-white blossoms. Fëanor cut a small bouquet of them and buried his nose in them, inhaling their sweet overpowering scent. It cleared his mind a little. And he thought these would look lovely indeed in Nerdanel’s ruddy hair.

He looked at his hands, curled around the flowers’ stems. His mother’s hands, Finwë had said: but Fëanor was not sure he saw the resemblance. Míriel’s hands lay loose and empty on her breast, her fingers slack: Fëanor’s own were restless, always in motion, prone to fidgeting. Oh, it was a beautiful world, where peach-trees grew, and Nerdanel made statues so lifelike that people thought they were real! Fëanor loved it passionately — he gloried in it. How could anyone not want to live, in a world like this?

Decisively, he mounted his horse again and set his course for Mahtan’s halls.

He found his excitement only grew as the journey progressed, and he made the trip in what must have been record time. He rode up to Mahtan’s halls in the bright afternoon, with the rays of Laurelin full-waxed warming his face and making the bouquet of peach-blossoms, which he had carried with him from Lórien, exude their sweet scent like so many delicate kisses.

Fëanor stabled his horse and then went straight to Nerdanel’s studio. He had missed her: and, of course, he was eager to see what she had produced with the new reserves of copper in his absence. But when he walked in his eyes immediately began to water — there was stone-dust in the air. Strange: had not Nerdanel been working with metal? But as his vision cleared Fëanor saw her in the centre of the room, her messy curls held off her face with a bandana, a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. She was chipping carefully at a large block of marble, from which the shape of an elf was just beginning to emerge.

For the briefest moment Fëanor’s foolish heart leaped, and he thought Nerdanel was working on a statue of him; but when he looked more closely he saw that any resemblance he bore to the youth she was sculpting was superficial. And she was regarding the sculpture with such a fond and dreamy smile as she worked, so oblivious to anything else that she had still not noticed Fëanor standing in the doorway.

All Fëanor’s fond and cherished hopes seemed to be crumbling to dust before him, like the shavings of stone discarded on the floor. Nerdanel had not missed him; Nerdanel did not want him. She had found a finer work of art in which to lose herself, and he could not blame her. With an unhappy jolt he realised that he had clenched his fist so tightly around the stems of the peach-blossoms that they were bruised, and a few of them had even broken where his sharp nails had pierced them through. And why should they not? That was Fëanor’s way, after all: he had never found something lovely that he could not ruin.

His eyes were burning, although not, he thought, from the stone-dust. Stifling a sob before Nerdanel could turn around and hear him, he dropped the blossoms, half-trampling them in his haste, and fairly ran up to his room.

After some hours pacing hot-eyed around his quarters, he was a little calmer when he came down to dine with Mahtan’s family and the other apprentices. They were all eager to hear about his trip, and about affairs in Tirion; and in the friendly bustle of the conversation his pulse steadied a little. But all that progress was lost when Nerdanel wandered into dinner late and distracted, with white dust on her nose and in her hair.

It was not Mahtan’s policy to reprimand anyone for being late to mealtimes. Now he simply looked at his daughter fondly. “We have barely seen you for five days,” he said. “Is the latest work going well?”

Nerdanel blinked at him. “Oh! Very,” she said. “I think he is passing fair.”

Fëanor said, more harshly than he meant to, “I thought you were planning to embark on a sculpture in copper, Nerdanel.”

Nerdanel started. “Fëanáro! I did not realise you had returned,” she said. No more greeting than that! “No, the copper was not cooperating. And — well, you know how it is when inspiration strikes! My fingers were itching for cool white marble, the sort that glitters in Telperion’s light.”

“Inspiration is all very well,” Fëanor said tartly, “but there is something to be said for discipline, also, and completing works rather than leaving them half-finished.”

“Now, Prince Fëanáro,” Mahtan, amused even in his scolding, “I know you travelled quite the distance to retrieve that copper for us, but that does not mean Nerdanel is obligated to use it immediately. And there is more than enough for your own project still.”

“Sorry,” Fëanor muttered. Not that Nerdanel had noticed his jibe at all; she was eating rather mechanically, her eyes far away.

Of all the reunions Fëanor had imagined, he had not thought of this. He had thought — well, he was no coward, to dance around the truth! He had thought Nerdanel would be delighted to see him, that she would wear his flowers in her hair as proudly as she might bear any crown, that she would come laughing into his arms and press her hot sweet mouth against his, and listen with a smile to his own whispered words of endearment. He had hoped for it: but there had been as little chance of that happening, he saw now, as there had been of Míriel sitting up in the gardens of Lórien and answering his question.

He would not weep.

When Fëanor had been very small, he had not realised that his mother’s situation was unusual. He had thought it the natural course of things that a person could grow sad enough to lie their body down and release their fëa to the Halls of Mandos. Once, after he had spent hours upon hours sobbing over some small childhood upset — which had, nonetheless, felt calamitous at the time — he had declared that he would do as his mother had, and go to Lórien to die: and Finwë, who had been trying fruitlessly to comfort him, had reared back as though Fëanor had struck him. Do not say that ever again, he had said, and Fëanor, who had never once wanted to cause his father grief, had obliged; and in time he had grown to learn that the world was very beautiful, even if he was the only person in Eldamar so marked by grief, and that he did not want to leave it.

Now, however, he wondered if there had in fact been some truth to that childish hyperbole. There was no misery in the world, he discovered, quite like loving someone with everything that was in your heart, and wishing only that some small scrap of your affection might be returned. He loved Nerdanel — he did! The knowledge had struck him like a thunderbolt of Manwë, the very way Nerdanel claimed inspiration had struck her, the inspiration that drove her to sculpt someone who was not Fëanor.

And really, what did it matter? Fëanor tried to reason with himself. Nerdanel had sculpted many people before, and he had not been overcome with this awful sickening envy. But the way she looked at the latest of her works was different.

One day when she was busy working in the gardens, attending to a fracture in one of her fountain-sculptures, Fëanor slipped into her workshop to examine the statue more closely. Nerdanel had eschewed realism a little in favour of aesthetic: the sculpted elf was all marble-white, with no painted eyes or metal-woven hair as was her usual style. He stood tall, taller than Fëanor, his marble hair flowing unbound over his shoulders. The statue did look a little like Fëanor, when he thought about it. It was in his proud jawline, and his well-shaped nose: both very Finwëan traits, for Fëanor had seen that nose in Lalwen and that jaw in Fingolfin too.

Briefly he thought of his half-brother. Could this be some vision of him as an elf grown? But Fingolfin was still so young. And why would Nerdanel be sculpting him?

He could not think who else Nerdanel’s subject might be: it was not a visage he recognised. His first impression had been correct — the elf was only a youth, Fëanor’s age at the most. Although he was made of hard cold stone there seemed to be a little softness to his cheek, and his lovely humorous mouth looked as though it might break into a smile at any moment. His legs were slim and very long. He was not yet finished: Nerdanel had been devoting loving attention to his chiselled abdominal muscles, but she had left the details of his lower body thankfully blurred for now. Her talent was such that much of her subjects’ spirits and personalities showed on their faces, and it seemed to Fëanor that this elf was a patient sort, measured and thoughtful, and very easy to love.

Nerdanel loved him, at any rate. She loved all her work. Fëanor could not compete with that: he, whom everyone called so brilliant and compelling. Perhaps Findis had been right, and it was not enough to dazzle — that all his cleverness and quickness and charming manner could not compensate for the ugly unlovable core of him. He had fascinated Nerdanel for a time, maybe, but that had not sufficed to hold her heart. Perhaps that was why his mother had tired of him, too. And the marble-elf was so fair of face, so flawlessly rendered! Beside him Fëanor felt a mockery, a Marred version of that unblemished ideal. When the statue was finished, surely Nerdanel would put her lips to his and watch him come to life before her, a lover made for her alone.

Part of Fëanor knew that was ridiculous. Life was given to the Eldar from Eru Ilúvatar Himself, a kindling of the Flame Imperishable; it was not for any Incarnate to draw it forth from stone alone. But then — Nerdanel was so very clever with her hands. Surely, if any among the Eldar were to succeed at bringing a sculpture to life, it would be she. And Ilimbë’s maker, Fëanor could not help remembering, had loved her enough to make her alive.

He was too proud to keep vying overmuch for Nerdanel’s notice. Yet he could not deny that it gratified him when she deigned to smile at him, and that the cessation of their earlier feud was pleasing to him. And when she came over to his desk one morning, his heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest.

“How is your clock coming along?” she asked, with a friendly smile.

“Well enough,” Fëanor said curtly. He stared at the little copper gears he had arranged across his desk. And then, because she looked to be walking away, and he could not bear for her to walk away from him: “And yours? Your statue?”

Nerdanel’s face lit up. “Wonderfully!” she exclaimed. “Think you not that he is beautiful?”

“He is,” Fëanor said grudgingly. It was true, however much it tore at him to say it.

“I do so love to make beautiful things,” said Nerdanel.

“Is that what he is for?” Fëanor asked. “A lovely crafted thing, to be admired and adorned?”

Nerdanel did not seem fazed by having her words of several weeks ago thrown back in her face, although Fëanor’s tone was not pleasant. On second thoughts, he would prefer even her scorn to this starry-eyed abstraction. “Why not?” she asked. “I am proud of him. He might be the finest of all my works so far.”

Fëanor said nothing more then; but later, walking past the open door to Nerdanel’s studio and miserably unable to resist the impulse to peek inside, he saw that Nerdanel had draped a string of pearls around her statue’s neck, and turned away in bitterness.

If there was nothing else, there was still work. Fëanor turned his attention to his clock, and spent long hours ensuring it kept precise time and would not be affected by changes in altitude or humidity. Then he decorated it with inlays of mother-of-pearl from Alqualondë and rosy copper-gold he made himself, for there was now more than enough copper to use it on decorative whims. The result was a splendid thing, useful and beautiful both, and yet he could summon up little in the way of pride when Mahtan praised it.

His mentor looked at him keenly. “You are grown rather pale and wan of late, Prince Fëanáro,” he said. “Is there anything I can help with?”

Fëanor managed a feeble smile. “No, thank you,” he said, as graciously as he could. Mahtan looked concerned, but thankfully did not press further.

Fëanor could not think. He could not concentrate on anything. All his mind was consumed with the knowledge that Nerdanel did not love him, and with a bitter burning envy for her statue-elf, that Fëanor-who-was-not-Fëanor, who never lost his temper and said cold and careless things, who was tall and fair and lovely to look at, who had not been born amid destruction.

There was truth, perhaps, in the story he had told Lalwen: Fëanor thought it near a certainty that he loved Nerdanel enough he would fall over and die from it. It troubled him, how utterly helpless he was in the face of this revelation. He was not very accustomed to problems he could not solve, either with some clever invention or a few swift strokes of his quill. But what could be done about this? Nerdanel was no Ilimbë, to be sculpted and moulded at his will — he could not make her into someone whose sole purpose was to love him. She would wear no adornments of his making, his flowers in her hair or his gems at her throat: she was always entirely, unutterably herself.

He still found himself drawn unhappily to her studio, to watch her at her work. There were few others granted this privilege — Nerdanel, like Fëanor, did not like to be disturbed while she was thinking — and yet she greeted him with a cheerful smile day after day, and allowed him to watch as she caressed her statue-elf’s marble flesh and cast him fond admiring gazes. Sometimes she even asked Fëanor to fetch her a tool, or to help her in moving the statue to best catch the Tree-light; and Fëanor, complicit in his own supplanting, could not but oblige.

“He needs some jewellery,” Nerdanel mused one morning.

“He has some,” said Fëanor, trying not to sound resentful. “You gave him some pearls.”

“So I did,” said Nerdanel, looking with appreciation at the pearls gleaming white against the soft curve of the statue’s throat, “but he could do with something brighter. Some copper, perhaps! We have plenty of that.”

It was too much — he would fall dead at her feet, surely. “I can — I can make you something for him, if you like,” he said.

All his agony was worth it for the sight of the smile that lit her face. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “Thank you, Fëanáro.”

She so loved her craft; and Fëanor loved her, for loving it.

After a moment he realised Nerdanel was giving him a strange look. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Fëanor, “of course I am.”

She was frowning. Fëanor did not want her to frown. “Truly,” he said, forcing a smile. He nodded at the statue. “He looks to be nearly finished.”

“Oh, I am very glad to hear you say it!” said Nerdanel. “I thought so myself, but then I wondered if that was only my own pride, and he still needed more work. I do think him very handsome — and I have so loved the making of him.”

Fëanor’s throat was tight. “No, he is lovely indeed,” he managed. And then, because the thought was tormenting him: “You cannot complain about people comparing you to Ilimbë’s maker now, surely.”

Nerdanel laughed. “I suppose not! He does seem almost to be living, doesn’t he?”

Fëanor loved Nerdanel’s company, longed for it: but there were limits. “Quite,” he said; “excuse me,” and then he fled to his own rooms, where he could suffer in silence.

He wrought the copper circlet swiftly, in a single afternoon — basing it off the one Mahtan liked to wear on occasion, and cursing himself all the while for volunteering to make it. He might as well have been forging Nerdanel’s wedding-rings. For she had as good as admitted, had she not, that she loved her statue-elf as Ilimbë’s maker had loved his ivory maiden, and that she would bring him to life, if she could?

“Here it is,” he told Nerdanel once it was complete, endeavouring to sound gracious.

Nerdanel took the polished circlet from him with a smile and set it atop the statue-youth’s marble hair, surveying him with a satisfied eye. “Finished, I think,” she declared. She slipped a warm hand into Fëanor’s. “Look: we made him together. And he is the loveliest of all the works of my hands.”

Fëanor snatched his hand away. “You need not rub it in any longer,” he cried, unable to restrain himself further.

Nerdanel blinked at him. “What?”

“That he is better than me,” Fëanor said hotly, “and fairer, and kinder, and less arrogant — and that you would kiss his lips, and bring him to life, if you could!”

“Oh,” said Nerdanel. She looked at the statue, and then at the floor, seemingly at a loss for words. “Fëanáro,” she said at last, “is this all because I did not make the copper sculpture?”

Fëanor could not bear to be so misunderstood. “It is not about the copper!” he said passionately. “Only that — only that I thought at first sight that you might be sculpting me, and—” His cheeks were burning.

Nerdanel looked at him. “And you thought I did not want to?” she asked, her voice very low. “When you left for Tirion I was so full of hopes and plans. A leaping flame, embalmed in copper! But how could it possibly be done? You are all motion and restlessness, Fëanáro, the most alive person I have ever seen. It is — mesmerising. But you burn too bright to ever be preserved.” She took his hand again, and this time Fëanor let her.

Hope was beginning to kindle in his breast, but he dared not acknowledge it yet. “And him?” he asked, jerking his head to the statue. “Who is he?”

Nerdanel looked at the statue. There was, he saw now, no desire in her gaze: only a fierce prepossessing pride. She loved her work, after all. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully.

“He looks like me,” said Fëanor. It came out more plaintively than he intended.

“He does, a little,” said Nerdanel. She reached up to touch the statue’s face with her free hand. “It is in the nose, isn’t it? And the jaw. But he is not supposed to be anyone in particular — only his face came to me in a dream, and I could not shake the image from my mind until I had rendered him in stone.”

“Oh,” said Fëanor. He felt a little foolish.

“And you, I suppose,” Nerdanel said, “were thinking of the story of Ilimbë, and imagining that I would carve myself a husband the way the Elf made for himself a wife? And working yourself up into an awful state about it, I see now!” She laughed. It was the prettiest sound in the world. “You are dreadfully self-centred sometimes, Fëanáro.”

“You needn’t mock me,” Fëanor said stiffly, on his dignity. “Besides, I still think you could have made something very splendid of the copper, had you tried. Nobody would ever make great art if they did not try.”

“That is so,” said Nerdanel, a smile still glimmering about her lips, “but I find myself less interested in that, when I could be doing this instead.” And dropping his hand, she put her arms around his neck and drew him into a kiss.

Fëanor had never been kissed before. It took him a moment to respond, but then he found he was kissing Nerdanel back and it was the easiest, most familiar thing in the world; her messy curls were brushing his face and one of her strong sure hands had travelled down to rest against the small of his back and there was nothing that had ever been more real than the warmth of her pressed against him; she was certainty itself, as solid as marble, no crafted thing to be shaped and changed, but a maker and a preserver and a promise of forever; and her mouth on his was hot and sweet and golden as the taste of a Laurelin-ripened peach.

They broke apart at last. Fëanor’s hair was a mess. Nerdanel’s lips were rosy and a little swollen.

“Nerdanel,” said Fëanor, breathlessly.

Nerdanel grinned at him. “Not only a boy, I will allow,” she said.

Fëanor embraced her, and kissed her again. “I did not think you could love me,” he said against her neck, some time later. “I thought — I thought you would make a better version of me, fairer and less Marred, and love him instead.”

“Oh, Fëanáro,” said Nerdanel, almost sadly. “But I love you.” And she spoke with such simple finality that he could muster up no further protestations.

He was filled now with a miraculous lightness. All the despair of the preceding weeks seemed to have evaporated like early-morning dewdrops in the light of Laurelin, leaving only bright joy singing in his veins. “And I love you,” he said. “I was made for loving you. I love watching you work. I love how excited you get when you sketch out a design, and that you are strong enough to lift your stones by yourself. I love it when there is stone-dust in your hair and clay on your nose and you are so absorbed in your work that you must be reminded to eat. I love that you are so often travelling, and never content to stay still. I love your laugh. And I think you very beautiful.”

Nerdanel’s eyes were shining. “Do you!” she said. “Come here,” and she held out her arms, drawing him close again. Fëanor went without protest, although he had always prided himself on his self-will: so perhaps love was a yielding of sorts, the softening of hard stone into bruisable flesh. He could not stop kissing her! Her mouth was so dizzyingly sweet.

“Oh,” she said at last; “Fëanáro, you left the door ajar.”

Fëanor watched her as she went to close the studio-door, which he had, in fact, left open when he had come marching in with the copper circlet. “I’d kiss you with the door open, too,” he said. He thought of foolish Tammatan and his scornful assessment of Nerdanel’s beauty. “Let no one say I am ashamed to love you.”

Nerdanel’s fair cheeks were brilliantly crimson, even as she beamed at him. “You must have some limits,” she teased. “Or shall I rip your tunic off you, and have you model nude for me where you stand?” Her eyes raked over him appreciatively. “I do need a new subject.”

Fëanor’s thought turned to the statue he had envied so bitterly. He now felt rather fond of it, surprisingly. Perhaps it was lovelier than he, but Nerdanel wanted him — she loved him. “So you do,” he said. “Although he is not quite finished yet.”

“Is he not?” Nerdanel sounded surprised.

“He still needs a name,” Fëanor said. “Ilimbo, perhaps?”

Nerdanel snorted, but then her gaze turned thoughtful. “I made him,” she said. “I made him myself. The work of my own hands — and he is very fair!”

“He is,” said Fëanor, this time without any rancour. She loved him, after all.

“Then,” said Nerdanel, “I shall name him Maitimo.”