Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Colum: I like sex.
Colum: A lot.
Franco: Yeah, you do!
Franco: Ready for your next book rec?
Colum:
X avier didn’t want to admit that he’d forgotten about the manuscript. About the mystery and the threat that started it all. At the beginning of this, he’d been fascinated by the lost Wilde manuscript. He’d always felt a kinship with the man, though Xavier’s life hadn’t been marked by the hardship of Oscar’s, but still, the feeling was there. Reading the manuscript, which was closer to a journal or diary, had been exhilarating. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to discover something. To rewrite what they knew about Oscar Wilde, who was something of an urban legend and cautionary tale within the Masters’ Admiralty, and world renowned outside the society.
This mission had felt so big, so important, when he first arrived in Dublin.
And now?
Now, he’d all but forgotten about it. It paled to the point of disappearing in comparison to what he’d found with Annie and Colum, and the future they had together.
From hopeless, to impossible, to certain. There was a part of him that was hesitant to believe they’d get their happily ever after—he was too cynical and too fatalistic to easily accept that they’d get to spend the rest of their lives together.
And yet, as he slid his hands and lips over bare flesh, he reminded himself that they’d fought and suffered for this. They’d lived lifetimes in the short time they’d known each other and earned this peace.
The rest of the world ceased to exist as they reveled in what felt like the first day of the rest of their lives.
At least until there was a knock on the door and a voice called out, “Another page was delivered.”
Colum and Xavier both popped up, Colum immediately rolling off the bed. Xavier bent, licking Annie once more, enjoying her moan of pleasure, quickly followed by a hiss of disapproval as he too jumped out of bed.
“Really?” Annie demanded as she propped herself up on her elbows, cheeks flushed, nipples hard, and hair messy. She looked delicious. Maybe he should tie her to the bed, just like this. If he had a vibrator to make sure she stayed aroused and frustrated…
Annie rolled off the bed before Xavier finished taking stock of what they had on hand to use as restraints. She smacked Colum’s ass as he pulled on pants and started hunting for her clothes.
Colum was out the door first. Xavier turned in a circle, frowning as he looked for his shirt, only to see Annie emerging from the bathroom wearing it.
“Theft, mon cheri ?”
She studied his bare chest. “I’m just making sure I have something nice to look at while we work.”
Together, they walked out the door. Xavier slid his hand up her back to her neck, gripping lightly while massaging the base of her skull with his thumb. She made happy little noises until they reached the stairs, where they stopped.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Annie asked.
“No.”
Just then, one of the Spartan Guards came down the stairs. “Follow me, please.”
They were led up the narrow castle stairs, Xavier’s bare chest and arms breaking out with goose bumps, thanks to the chill in the stone spiral stairwell. He smacked Annie’s ass as they reached the top.
Annie looked over her shoulder at him. “What was that for?”
“Stealing my shirt.”
Her gaze raked him, her smile wicked. “Cold, Xavier?”
He leaned in as they walked past the door the Spartan Guard held open. “Not as cold as you’ll be when I push ice cubes into your tight ass and then fuck you there while Colum’s deep in your pussy.”
Annie lost a step, causing him to bump into her. Xavier caught her by the hips, smirking at the way she inhaled sharply as he held her back against his front.
“That’s flirting sure enough,” Colum said with a smile, though he only spared them a glance, his attention on a package laid out on a heavy sheet of plastic on a table.
Xavier looked around the massive room for the first time, realizing this wasn’t a meeting room but an apartment with a large open living area and kitchen. One wall was all windows, with a view of the cliffs and the sea.
This was the fleet admiral’s living quarters.
Xavier and Annie joined Colum, the fleet admiral, and Regina at the table. Nikolett was noticeable in her absence.
“We X-rayed it and swabbed everything for harmful substances,” Regina said.
“You swabbed the page itself?” Colum demanded, outraged.
“It’s a dry cotton round swab.” Regina was unbothered by Colum’s outrage. “Same thing they use at airport security.”
“Fair enough,” Colum muttered.
Xavier and Colum both bent closer, reading the looping words. This page, like the one Nikolett received, was more damaged than either of the sections they’d found. The paper had yellowed while the ink faded, making the words only shades darker than what they were written on.
And this page had a large dark stain on the bottom right corner, obscuring a quarter of the text.
“This is the next page,” Xavier said after a moment. “And this must be from the section we’re missing. He mentions living in Paris and being alone.” Xavier’s heart hurt for the man who’d died long ago. “It might…I wish we could read what’s there.” Xavier pointed to the stained corner.
“I’ll have a go at cleaning it,” Colum said. “I need the cleaning putty I brought, maybe isopropyl alcohol?—”
“Hydrogen peroxide?” Annie suggested, bumping Xavier out of the way so she could study the stain.
“That too. And lint-free cloths.”
Eric stared at Colum. “Are you talking to me?”
Colum straightened and crossed his arms. “And sure who else would I be talking to?”
Eric’s exasperated fraternal expression made Xavier’s lips twitch. He turned to Regina. “Do we have any of that?”
“I’ll check, Fleet Admiral.” She was trying and failing to hide a smile.
Regina and Annie left to gather what Colum needed to clean the page. Xavier snapped photos of the page with his phone, then took a seat to study it, transcribing the part he could read and trying to guess at the missing words.
He lost himself to his work until Eric’s voice made him stand and return to the table to watch.
“Don’t you need gloves?”
Colum looked up at Eric. “No. Gloves make it harder to feel the paper. They used to think the oil from people’s hands was dangerous, but actually people did more damage to the pages while wearing gloves because you can’t feel the paper. Can’t be as delicate.”
Colum sat, popping the top off the small white bucket Annie had grabbed.
“Ugh,” Xavier muttered. “It smells.”
“It’s mostly vulcanized rubber,” Colum said, as he scooped out a bit of the stinky putty and began to knead it into a small, soft ball. “Sulfur is part of the vulcanization process, which is why it smells.”
“What are you doing?” Eric asked, hip propped on the table as he watched.
Colum adjusted his glasses and then bent over the paper. “With any luck, this is a surface stain, and the putty will pick it up. We start with this before introducing any liquid cleaner, as liquid is risky with old paper.”
Colum began to clean the paper, first simply tapping the stained area with the putty, then wiping in small motions.
Xavier frowned as the smell increased.
Colum brushed away the small eraser-like bits that had rubbed off the clean ball with his fingers.
“Is it working?” Annie asked.
“Give me a minute, we might have to switch to something stronger.”
Xavier continued to frown as he watched, an odd itchy feeling between his shoulder blades.
Colum paused, one hand on the paper, the other holding the cleaning ball. He stayed like that so long Annie took a step toward him.
“I… Uh…” Colum coughed. “This isn’t working. Better try rubbing alcohol.”
Annie undid the cap of the small bottle, passing Colum a long-handled cotton swab. He dipped it into the alcohol, then carefully swiped the very corner of the page. The new smell of alcohol was overshadowed briefly by an increase in the sulfur smell. Setting the cotton swab aside, Colum lifted the page to his face and turned it to the light. He gently brushed at the corner he’d just cleaned.
Once more, he seemed to freeze.
The paper fluttered to the table as Colum released it, his eyes half closed behind his glasses.
“Colum!” Xavier and Annie lunged as one when Colum tipped sideways, but it was Eric who caught him.
“Colum? Colum ?” Eric’s low voice boomed as he carefully lowered him to the floor.
Regina lunged for the table, folding the plastic sheeting over the page with quick motions and then racing from the room with the entire bundle.
But Xavier only had eyes for Colum, who was completely limp on the floor. Annie had two fingers on his neck, while Eric held a finger under his nose. Both Annie and Eric had gone stone-faced.
“He has a pulse. Barely.” Annie’s voice cracked on the last word, her expression crumpling for a moment.
“He’s not breathing.” Eric was deadly calm. “Beginning rescue breathing.”
Eric bent his big body over his brother’s, pinching his nose, tipping his chin up, and then sealing his mouth over Colum’s.
Xavier’s own heart stopped as he shook his head. No. No. This wasn’t happening. They were getting married. They’d planned their entire future together.
“No,” he muttered, though no one heard him, all of them focused on saving Colum’s life. He needed to do the same. Focus.
“AED. They must have one. Ask… We need…” Annie’s stony expression broke completely.
Xavier hit his knees beside her, feeling useless as Eric breathed for Colum. Distantly, he was aware of an alarm blaring, the heavy clank of metal shutters snapping into place as the castle locked down.
One of the Spartan Guards raced in carrying a case with a large red heart inset with a lightning bolt on it.
Behind him was Nikolett, held in the arms of one of her guards, who set her down near Colum’s feet. She balanced on her good foot, assessing them.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Xavier didn’t look away from Colum as he answered. “He was cleaning the page and he…he fell over. He’s not breathing.”
The guard with the AED pushed Xavier and Annie aside, but Annie regained control and started helping, grabbing the scissors from the kit and cutting Colum’s shirt open.
“Did you see anything? Smell anything?” Nikolett demanded.
“Sulfur, rotten eggs,” Annie said, as the guard stuck large pads to Colum’s chest. “But it was the cleaning putty?—”
“Poison,” Nikolett said immediately. She turned to the man who’d carried her in. “Do you have…”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“No shock advised,” the box announced in a mechanical voice.
That meant his heart was beating, right? Xavier fought to make sense of what was happening around him, but it was too hard to concentrate, his fear overriding his ability to reason, to think.
Nikolett gingerly lowered herself to her good knee, broken leg sticking out to the side. Her guard returned with a large kit, skidding to a stop beside her.
“What did he use?” Nikolett demanded. “Quick.”
“Cleaning putty and alcohol,” Annie said, voice tight. Xavier put his arm around her. She was shaking.
“Sulfur…” Nikolett looked at the guard. They spoke quickly to one another in an Eastern European language Xavier didn’t know.
And through it all, Eric grimly did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathing for a dying Colum.
Nikolett pulled three things out of the kit. “Eric,” she said loudly.
He paused, glancing her way.
“Do you trust me?” she asked softly.
There was a heavy pause, before he said, “Always.”
“Then move. You’re in my way.”
Colum blinked several times, trying to focus his vision. However, clear vision didn’t help.
Where was he?
Wait a second. He knew this place. But…he couldn’t be here. It wasn’t possible. He was just at Triskelion Castle…with Annie and Xavier and Eric.
So how the hell did he get from there to here?
He hadn’t been in this cottage in well over a decade. Actually…Colum ran his hand through his hair…this was wrong. Everything here was wrong.
Because the cottage looked exactly as it did all those years ago, when Eric rented it from Colum’s parents. After Eric moved out, the place remained empty and fell into disrepair. The last time he’d been here, it had succumbed to the elements, the roof starting to cave in, dust and mold covering every flat surface, and a mountain of mouse droppings, thanks to one hell of an infestation.
Glancing around the room, he was transported back to his childhood, to the countless evenings he and Josephine had sat on that cozy couch, warmed by the fire, the room cast in orange flickers from the bright flames. They’d spent so many wonderful nights there, discussing books and politics and what they were learning in school, with Eric.
Eric had never treated them like children, always speaking to them as if they were equals. Rather than being dismissive of their thoughts and opinions like the other adults in their lives, Eric listened to things they had to say, interested in their comments, always following up with questions that made them think more deeply. The time he’d spent here with Josephine and Eric had influenced his future, and when he looked back on those evenings, it was always fondly, always tinged with the longing to spend just one more night with the two of them, right here.
Colum’s eyes scanned the overstuffed bookshelves, amazed to discover the same titles, all with their well-worn spines, the much-loved books read over and over.
The fireplace was burning, providing some needed heat. Colum had been cold earlier, but now he was pleasantly warm. He drew in a deep breath, loving the smell of a turf-burning fire. It never failed to remind him of this place, of home.
He stepped closer to the fire, his hands reaching toward it to draw in more heat.
“What are you doing here?”
Colum jerked his head to the right, shocked to the very core when he saw Josephine curled up in Eric’s favorite chair.
“Josephine?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, scowling like he was doing something wrong. “It’s too early.”
Colum ran his hand through his hair, feeling for a lump. He must have banged his head or something. All he could recall was cleaning the newly discovered page of Oscar’s manuscript, the noxious smell, and then…
Jaysus.
“Am I dead?” he asked his sister.
She rolled her eyes as if his question was ridiculous. “Of course not. You’re not supposed to be here,” she repeated, like it was his fault he was.
Colum looked around the cottage, lifting his arms. “I’m not even sure where here is because?—”
“It’s Eric’s cottage,” Josephine responded.
“But the cottage doesn’t look like this anymore. It’s gone to seed.”
Josephine tilted her head, looking at him like he was six eggs short of a dozen. “It’s still in here,” she said, tapping her temple. “Therefore, it’ll always exist. Even so, you really need to leave, Colum.”
His temper spiked. “I haven’t seen you in years and all you can say is leave? For Christ’s sake, Sorcha…”
Josephine narrowed her eyes. She’d always hated when he called her by her middle name, which was why he’d done it a lot when she was alive. Their sibling bond was bound tight, but that didn’t mean they didn’t get a kick out of picking on each other.
“I’ve fecking missed you. I’ve fecking mourned you!”
Josephine’s features softened. “I know you have, brother dear.”
“And not just me. Nyx, the Librarians, Eric,” Colum started. “He fell apart after you died.”
Josephine huffed out a quiet breath that was half laugh, half exasperation. “Ah, Eric. He never could get out of his own way, could he now?”
She made a fair point, given Eric’s shitty handling of his feelings for Nikolett. Colum walked over to the couch, sitting on the end closest to her.
Josephine opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him to get out again, but wild horses wouldn’t pull him away from her.
“I’m not leaving,” he stated boldly. “I can’t. Please, let me stay with you.”
Josephine sighed. “Only for a few minutes. You really aren’t supposed to be here.”
He considered asking why, but that didn’t feel as important as the million other things racing through his mind. There were so many things he needed to say to her. So many things he’d regretted since her untimely death.
“I fell apart too.” He lowered his head, ashamed of how he’d turned to alcohol to numb the pain, how he’d buried himself in his work, cutting himself off from everyone and everything.
Josephine reached out, taking his hand in hers, and Colum had to swallow back the lump in his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his words thick with unshed tears. “For everything. For…”
Josephine squeezed his hand. “Don’t. Don’t say that. Don’t even feel it. Because you have nothing to be sorry for.”
If only that were true. “I should have gone to dinner with you that night. I should have?—”
“Stop now, gossin.” Josephine pressed one finger to his lips to silence him. “We’re not going to waste this time together on that foolishness. If you’d come with me that night, you’d likely be dead too.”
“But—” Colum started.
“But nothing. Tell me about your life, Colum. Please tell me you aren’t hiding out in that archive all day and night, tell me you’re not burying your nose in those books of yours without looking up, without going outside, without enjoying yourself.”
Colum smiled, aware his answer a month ago would have disappointed her. But now he could give her the answer she wanted. “I’ve fallen in love, and I’m getting married—a trinity marriage.”
Josephine’s eyes widened as she sprang from the chair, wrapping her arms around his neck, a million happy words bursting forth. “Oh my God! It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. Who are they? When did you meet? And where? What do they do for a living? Are you having a proper wedding? Did Eric arrange it? Were they your choice?”
Colum chuckled. “I thought you wanted me to leave.”
He’d meant his words as a joke, immediately hating that he’d reminded his sister their time together could only be short, when she released him and dropped back into her chair.
“You’re right. We don’t have long. Just tell me their names.”
“Annie and Xavier. Xavier is a poet. French he is, and looks just like you’d be wanting a French poet to look. And Annie, she loves art too…she’s from New York.”
Josephine clapped her hands together. “An American.”
“She’s beautiful, and Xavier…Christ, but he’s handsome. You’d love them both.”
“I know I would. Colum…I’m so happy for you.”
He grinned, so grateful for the chance to tell her about them, to let her know that he wasn’t squandering his life, wasn’t wasting the opportunities that she never got.
He recalled her dreams for her own future, pain piercing his heart at the unfairness of it all.
“Josephine,” he said, sobering up. “There are so many things I regret, so many things I handled wrong.”
She narrowed her eyes, but he forged on before she could stop him again because of his main regret, the big one, the one that had woken him up every night since she’d died.
“I’m sorry I never told you that I loved you that night. You said it, but I didn’t say it back.”
She laughed, the light tinkling sound so familiar and so missed. “You great gobshite. Do you really think I don’t know that?” She cupped his cheek affectionately. “I love you too, Colum, even though you’re a fecking eejit. And now…you really do have to go.”
She rose, grasping his hands and tugging him to the door, while he dragged his feet.
“I need more time,” he said.
She shook her head. “There isn’t any. The clock’s run out. Be happy, Colum, and take care of Eric.” Josephine opened the door, the world outside pitch-black, so dark he couldn’t see…anything.
Just as she was about to shove him out, he grabbed the doorframe, fighting to stay inside. “Josephine, will I see you again?”
She nodded. “Of course, brother. Of course.”
He opened his mouth to ask her when, but before he could utter the word, she slammed the door in his face.
Annie felt like she couldn’t breathe as she clung to Xavier, like her head was full of white noise, when normally in a crisis she was cool, calm, and collected.
Not this time. Not when one of the men she loved lay on the floor dying.
She wanted to be the one giving him CPR, but she couldn’t. Her own breaths were choppy with fear, and she was shaking so bad that if Xavier hadn’t held her, she felt like she would fly apart.
Breathe, Colum. Breathe. Please.
Annie closed her eyes. She’d never considered herself a religious person, but at that moment, she was prepared to pray to every deity there was if it would help. If it would bring him back to her.
“Then move. You’re in my way.”
Nikolett bumped Eric out of the way, and Annie nearly screamed when he stopped CPR. Beside her, the AED once again calmly announced, “No shock advised.”
Which could mean that his heartbeat was steady enough it didn’t need it.
Or that his heart had stopped altogether.
Annie lunged for Colum’s wrist, frantically pressing her fingers to it. There was still a pulse. She nearly sobbed in relief, and yet as she watched, his chest didn’t rise now that Eric wasn’t breathing for him.
Nikolett ripped a pre-filled syringe out of its packaging, yanked the cap off, and with one quick motion, stabbed it into Colum’s thigh, depressing the plunger.
Was she a doctor? How did she know what to give? What if she made it worse?
Nikolett opened a second syringe and stabbed that into Colum too.
From the moment Eric had stopped mouth-to-mouth to the second syringe going in, it had been less than a minute but felt like a lifetime.
Nikolett grabbed the third thing she’d taken from the kit, placing a small mask over Colum’s nose and mouth and squeezing the inhaler canister built into it.
Then she leaned back, falling awkwardly onto her butt with her broken leg still outstretched as she watched Colum.
Nothing happened.
“What did you give him?” Xavier demanded, voice shaking. “Are you a doctor?”
“No.” Nikolett didn’t look away from Colum. “But I’ve been poisoned multiple times, so we travel with antivenom, and things to treat anaphylaxis. He inhaled some sort of poisonous gas, and his lungs seized, so I gave him epinephrine, caffeine, and albuterol.”
“What if you’re wrong? About what it was and what he needs?” Annie demanded.
Nikolett met her gaze, the sympathy in the look almost undoing Annie. “Then we’ll?—”
But Nikolett didn’t have to finish that sentence because Colum took a breath.
He inhaled, the sound sudden and shocking. His body shivered as he took a second breath, his lashes fluttering but eyes still closed.
“Get him up,” Nikolett commanded.
Eric lifted Colum by the shoulders, kneeling behind him and propping him up. Nikolett pressed the mask over his mouth and depressed the inhaler again. This time, the inside of the mask fogged up when Colum exhaled.
He was alive. Breathing.
For several moments, it was as if Colum was the only person in the room capable of breathing, the rest of them still holding theirs as Eric held him.
Xavier and Annie shifted closer, each kneeling on either side of his outstretched legs. Annie was vaguely aware of someone helping Nikolett rise.
She’d saved Colum’s life.
Eric looked up at Nikolett, his face drawn, expression stark now that the crisis had passed, and the flat expression no longer masked what he was feeling.
Nikolett held his gaze, waiting for something.
Eric said nothing, his focus dropping back to Colum.
Nikolett turned to Annie, passing her the mask. “There’s one more dose in here if he needs it.” Then she left, hobbling out of the room, leaning heavily on the arm of her guard to use him like a crutch.
Annie lost track of time as they remained there, watching Colum breathe in and out, every inhale and exhale feeling like a gift. At some point, one of the Spartan Guard arrived with a small portable oxygen tank. They slipped a mask over Colum’s face, the green elastic going around his head to hold it in place, while a tube led to the small olive-colored tank.
Then finally, mercifully, he came to, those beautiful green eyes staring back at her the greatest thing she’d ever seen.
“Colum,” Xavier said.
Colum glanced around the room, his brows furrowed.
“Leave that,” Annie said, when he tugged the mask away from his mouth.
He shrugged off her hand and she allowed him to, despite the fact he was weak. She could see he wanted to say something.
His voice was raspy when he spoke. “I saw Josephine.” He winced as he swallowed, clearly in pain.
Eric’s arm visibly tightened around his shoulders and for the first time since Colum went down, Annie saw the fleet admiral’s composure crack.
“You were poisoned,” Annie said. “You were probably hallucinating.”
Colum shook his head, looking over his shoulder at Eric. “I saw her. We spoke.”
Eric didn’t contradict him, didn’t even seem to disagree. Instead, he simply nodded.
Colum started to cough, a dry, painful cough, and Annie tugged the mask back in place. “Breathe.”
He remained propped against Eric’s chest, his brother holding him tightly, refusing to let him go.
Regina returned, holding the page in a sealed bag. The corner of it was gone, the ragged edge black.
“What happened?” Eric demanded.
“The paper was coated in chloroethyl and a few other chemical compounds. It reacted to the sulfur in the cleaning putty, creating a chlorinated gas.”
“Mustard gas,” Annie said, feeling sick all over again.
“Or similar,” Regina agreed.
“Deliberate?” Eric asked.
Regina hesitated. “Chloroethyl is used in lacquer, resin…if this was a painting, I’d say no.”
“But it wasn’t,” Annie said. “It was deliberately soaked in it, knowing that we’d use a vulcanized rubber cleaning putty.”
“Are you sure?” Xavier asked, gripping Colum’s hand.
“All it would take is a Google search to see that the first step in cleaning damaged paper and old books is that kind of putty,” Annie replied.
“It was deliberate,” Eric said. “This is an attack by the Spaniard.”
“Even if we’d dipped the page in liquid sulfur, it wouldn’t have created enough gas to harm anyone more than a foot or two away.” Regina looked unflappable.
“No harm?” Xavier’s lips were twisted in a sneer. “He stopped breathing.”
“And he was holding it up to his face. And most likely… Colum, do you suffer from asthma?” Regina asked.
“I did as a child,” he said, voice muffled.
Regina held out a hand. “He had a more acutely adverse reaction than normal.”
“So this wasn’t an assassination attempt, not really. It was an attempt to harm but not kill. Just like all the fucking attempts on Nikolett’s life.” Eric’s jaw flexed. “Which means the Spaniard has been after her for a year and only showed his hand in Crimea.”
Annie tried to bring herself to care about the details—did Dodge hire the Spaniard, or did the Spaniard buy the manuscript from Dodge? Who was the intended victim? Who did the Spaniard think would be the one to try cleaning the page? Why was he trying to hurt but not kill Nikolett?
Those questions needed answers, but Annie wasn’t going to be the one to do it. All that mattered to her was Colum.
The four of them remained on the floor until Colum was finally breathing easier, able to sit up and support his own weight.
For a man who’d nearly died, he strangely looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. While she, Eric, and Xavier were only just calming down, Colum was smiling behind the mask.
When he lowered it again, letting it rest around him like a necklace, he reached for their hands. She and Xavier each claimed one, the three of them holding on tight.
“I told her I loved her.”
Annie’s chest tightened, aware of who he was talking about. She didn’t have it in her to repeat the fact he was most likely hallucinating, not given the way he looked so…happy.
“What did she say?” Xavier asked softly.
Colum chuckled. “She called me an eejit, then told me she loved me too.” He looked over his shoulder at Eric. “She told me to look after you.”
Eric didn’t reply, though Annie saw the way he swallowed deeply.
“I love you,” Colum said, turning back to her and Xavier. “And I always will. I need ye to know that.”
Annie batted away a tear, her voice thick when she repeated the sentiment. Xavier, equally affected, pressed his forehead against Colum’s, his eyes closed tightly. “ Je vous aime ,” he whispered. When he pulled away, he pierced Colum with a serious look. “You’re never allowed to die.”
Colum chuckled, mistakenly thinking Xavier was joking, but Annie knew he wasn’t. More than that, she agreed with her beloved Frenchman. “Never,” she reiterated.
Eric slowly rose from the floor, he and Xavier gently helping Colum up, guiding him to the couch. Eric perched on the edge of the coffee table, studying Colum intently. “You’re okay?”
“Aye, brother. I am.”
Eric remained there for another full minute or two before he was able to leave Colum’s side. Glancing at her and Xavier, he managed a weak smile. “You’ll watch over him.”
Annie nodded, as Xavier said, “Of course.”
“Colum.” Eric placed his hand on Colum’s shoulder, squeezing it, a surfeit of emotions crossing his face, though he didn’t voice any of them. Apparently, he didn’t need to.
Colum placed his hand over his brother’s, patting it. “I know, Eric. I love you too.”
Now that the terror had passed, Annie was struggling to hold her other emotions in check. She sniffled, tears filling her eyes, as Eric nodded and left the room.