Vesper drew a breath to slow his pulse and calm his anger. His magic thrummed with his heart, skated along his flesh, and he released a wisp of it from his fingers. The relief provided a morsel of clarity, like a sunbeam that burned through dense fog. His wind rustled the papers strewn atop the table and knocked open the cover of a beige book about Ellynne law he’d cracked yesterday. Emmery blinked at the expression of magic.
“When I saw you for the first time, after all those years, you were like a … stranger. I don’t know how else to explain it.” Blood pricked his knuckles as the scabs split further. “I almost told you. Too many times. That night at the inn, I wanted to tell yousofucking badly.”
“Then whydidn’t you?” she hurled back at him.
“I couldn’t.” He stared at the ground until the words spilled out of him. “It killed me all those weeks lying to you, but I thought it was for the best. I thought that when we brought Izzy back, she could override the pactum. Somehow, I don’t know,stop the compulsion, but things went to shit so quickly—” He sighed, and his head fell into his hands. When he looked up at her, tears stung the back of his eyes. “I never wanted to hurt you. Don’t you know that?”
He willed his words to carry weight so he could fix this, or at least make it up to her.Anything. Anything at all.
Her stare hardened. “I don’t. I barely even know you.”
The words formed an arrow and shot straight through his throat. Bleeding out right there would have hurt less than taking the blow.
“Even though you claim you didn’t want to, you still lied to me.” Her eyes grew glossy as she said, “You acted like I wasnothingto you.”
“That’s not true.” He shook his head. “You were never nothing to me.”
Her brows drew together. “But clearly what we had wasn’t enough. Or you wouldn’t have done it.”
“I thought you betrayed me. You set fire to my home. Fuck, Emmery, I still don’t know why you did it. If it was intentional.”
She flinched.
He couldn’t take back the words once he said them. They hung in the air between them, suspended in accusation. He knew she didn’t know either, but she couldn’t have done it on purpose … could she?
Hurt twisted her mouth as her voice shattered. “How could you say that?”
His ribcage split down the middle and bared his heart, so vulnerable it ached. He didn’t know how to close the gap between them, to pull her back to him. At the inn, she’d looked at him like nothing had changed, and he would do anything to get that back. But the space between them seemed to grow by the second.
She swiped angrily at her eyes. Gods, he hated it when she cried. It was one of the most heart-wrenching things to watch, and he was the source of her tears. Again.
He’d never seen her like this, not even before they crossed the gate. She was shattered, like the mirrors surrounding them.
Helplessly, he studied her. The pain in his hand was forgotten, the agony now centered in his chest. “I know you don’t remember,” he said, softly. “You don’t remember who you were, or what we were. But I do. I remember it all.”
When she lifted her eyes to meet his, the rawness in her expression was too bloody much. He tugged a hand through his hair as she raked her gaze over the faded bruise from his brawl in Malheim and his bloody knuckles.
“Then tell me,” she said.
Though he knew it would be painful, he needed to reopen that wound from all those years ago.
With a deep, winded breath, he finally summoned his words. “I’ve always vowed to protect you. To be there for you. I wanted a life for us. Marriage bonds are rarely forged in love; they’re commitments. A promise of devotion. It would have been the highest honour to spend my life at your side, to take care of you, and you don't know how much this … hurts.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. An unbearable silence stole across the room.
“You were always my best friend. Youstillare. At one time, I did think I was in love with you, but we were so young, and I didn’t know what love was. My father insisted we marry. Thought it would be good for me. And gods, headoredyou, Emmery. I adored you. And I do now. But not in that way.” His breath snagged as he said, “I wanted to love you. Gods, Iwantedto love you so fucking much. I really did. I just—I didn’t know how. I was a fucking moron. It’s been a century, and I still am.”
She picked at her fingernails and sat with the silence and tension. Vesper didn’t breathe until she spoke. “We’ve always sort of butted heads, haven’t we?”
He laughed sadly. “You were always too good for me anyway.” It killed him to admit it, but it was true. If he wasn’t good enough for her back then, he certainly wasn’t now.
The silence grew deadly. “And how did I feel?”
Vesper studied his hands. “I think there was someone else. There was always something missing between us. You never looked at me like you loved me, but I think we’ve always been … drawn to each other? I can’t explain it.”
She gave a simple bob of her head, whether in agreement or acknowledgement he wasn’t sure. Maybe the draw was one-sided and something only he felt.
Then she padded over and stopped abruptly in front of him. It took Vesper by such surprise that his entire body turned to stone. She snatched his broad hand from where it rested on his knee and skimmed her thumb along his bloody knuckles. His lips parted and a strangled breath weaselled through.