Chapter 26
Archer
Breathing deeply, a calmness settles over me before I take a look around the meadow.
I know I’m in our meadow just from my other senses—the bluegrass that tickles my skin as it lightly blows in the wind, the golden sunrays that warm my skin, and the soft chirps of a few songbirds performing an evening ballad.
There’s one thing that’s new though—that soft, woodsy scent that mixes perfectly with the fragrance of floral tea.
I’m scared to open my eyes because even in my dreams, it feels too good to be true. That I could find her here.
Then I hear her quietly whisper, “Archer. Wake up.”
Slowly, I open one eye and find her leaning over me. Her silky white-blonde hair is creating a curtain around us. It doesn’t cover the look of concern in her eyes.
I open the other eye and let myself take in her beauty for a long moment, my gaze slowly stopping over every freckle that I can perfectly see from this close. I’m certain it won’t last long, so I appreciate those seconds she grants me.
The longer we stare at each other, the more her breathing grows labored and shallow, proving that I have as much of an effect on her as she does on me—no matter how much she refuses to admit it.
Her head dips the slightest amount, bringing our mouths less than an inch apart now. My breathing hitches, matching the growing rate of hers.
I take the risk of leaning forward a bit, inviting her to close the distance.
As soon as I do that, I can see the realization hit her like a hex as she quickly sits on her heels and shuffles back. I’d be lying if I said that added distance wasn’t like a dagger to the heart. I mentally shake it off and sit up.
“You’re here,” I tell her, scared to spook her again.
She rolls her eyes before looking down at the grass, mindless ripping pieces out as a way to distract herself. “Technically, I should be the surprised one.” She glances my way, and I see the teasing tilt to her lips. “You know, since you’re the one that brings me here.”
I move to my knees and crawl toward her, stopping only a couple inches away from my knee touching hers. “You’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding me,” I gently remind her.
She shrugs, but doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure how to read that, but it’s oddly reassuring that she isn’t arguing with me.
“Renata,” I murmur, and don’t miss the shiver that runs down her body in response. “You don’t have to be scared… I won’t hurt you.”
Her face almost crumples. She quickly pulls herself back together before admitting in a small, broken voice, “I’m not scared that you will hurt me.”
“What does that mean?” I ask desperately.
She opens her mouth to say something else, and I can’t help myself—I need to touch her. To know she’s real and that this isn’t my own dream fooling me.
Reaching forward, I brush my thumb along the apple of her cheek and let my finger follow the color that paints across her skin.
The moment is somehow more monumental than when I did this in the town’s garden.
I knew I would be able to touch her there, but I had lingering doubts that we would be granted such a luxury here.
Secretly, I felt like my magic failed me when it came to her. I could find her, but I couldn’t be with her for eleven years. She has no control over any of it, only I do. It became another reason I distrusted my magic.
The realization hits me before I’m thrown back from her.
I don’t know if it’s by an outside force, or the surprise of what happens next—all I’m sure of is it sends Renata backward, falling on her hands and butt, staring at me with wide eyes.
It’s the same look that Sybil wears when she’s not seeing me anymore.
I’m not sure whether I’m seeing her now or in the past. It’s all so jumbled in my mind, but everything is becoming clear as day at the same time.
Every moment we’ve spent together I wasn’t able to see her.
Every word she’s ever spoken I couldn’t hear.
Every hopeless attempt to touch each other that sent our limbs right through the other’s body tickles my skin.
It’s how people describe their lives replaying right before their eyes as they are welcomed by death—except I’m not dying.
I’m living.
I feel more alive, getting this connection to her, than I ever have before.
With that comes a wave of grief and protectiveness for her that’s so deep, it’s the closest I’ve felt to the ancient well of power all witches have but hardly use.
Except now, I could think of a few ways to use my air magic on her family—most specifically her mother.
It all hits me.
The nights we spent looking out at the lake when I could feel the faint whisper of her sadness, but it was so much more than that. It was true desolation and heartbreak. For so long, this beloved girl has been battling depression and isolation, and I wasn’t able to be there with her.
There are flashes of the nights when she sat—sometimes staring off into the distance over the lake, other times sobbing so loudly I can’t believe even a curse could have hidden that from me—trying to open up to me about her mother’s physical and emotional abuse.
Her estranged older sister and the young ones who have always hated her.
The pain of losing her father. How empty and alone she felt for the majority of her life.
Then I get the memory that nearly kills me. The one from the first night we saw each other after a month of me avoiding her.
The visceral anger she felt toward me, but even then, I could pick up on the betrayal and loneliness that festered underneath. Her attempted attack was a way to protect herself from more hurt.
Eleven years worth of her emotions and memories barrel through me, I sit back and take in every one.
There are some happy days mixed in—like the years before her father died when she was close with her sister, Agatha.
Or the nights we’d find each other after she spent time in the city, and she came back with a variety of stories she talked about animatedly.
There’s even one night—only one—that she mentions a human man she spent a night with during one of her adventures.
Dark envy hits my bloodstream like a shot of liquor. Her embarrassment and the way she awkwardly tried to backtrack, though I had no idea what she was talking about at the time, subdues most of that.
However, the bitterness of jealousy lingers at the confirmation that someone else has shared more than her company. It’d make me a hypocrite to be angry with her, but I hope she feels the same level of possessiveness toward me, especially after getting her fill of my memories and emotions.
She’s more mine than ever before, and all I can hope is she finally sees me as hers.
Once the memories wash through me, infiltrating my brain so deeply I can hardly separate what belongs to her and what is mine, I take a deep breath.
It’s like being dropped into the middle of the ocean and swimming up for air, and you don’t realize how close you were to losing it all until you get that first, real inhale.
I hear the same, ragged sound pull out of Renata as she comes back into her consciousness. She’s staring at me, unsure how to make out everything happening between us. I wish I could remember everything I’ve said to her or what I’ve brought here from my real life.
I don’t think I was ever as raw or vulnerable in our dream state as she seemed to be. It brought me a lot of comfort, but also confusion. Some of that I might have mused on in her presence.
It was a complicated thing to be more emotionally invested in her than any of my relationships. There were nights when I wondered if this was fair to her—if it was a violation to disrupt her dreams multiple times a week.
The one memory I hope held as much weight for her as it did me was the one when we saw each other after weeks apart. I need her to realize how desperately I wanted to see her, and how the heartbreak and will to give her space nearly drove me out of my own skin.
After a long moment of staring at each other and regaining our bearings, her face cracks, and she silently cries into her hands.
“Renata, Little Wisp,” I murmur, crawling to her—not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. I’d pull myself across the world on my hands and knees if it meant getting to her again.
Now that I have seen her, I’d rather be blind if it means having to see the world without her.
She doesn’t pull away, instead surprising me by twisting back onto her knees and leaning toward me, reaching out as I pull her into my chest. Her arms stay wrapped around herself rather than me, but she curls up, trying to fit in my lap.
She buries her face against my chest, letting me comfort her.
I do my best to keep my racing heart calm, now understanding how skittish she is.
“Shh,” I reassure her. “We’re here now.”
She looks up at me and I gently cradle her cheek.
“You were always here,” she whispers. Reaching up, she wipes below my eye, a tear I didn’t notice was there. “Most of the time, I thought this—” she waves her hand in the air, “—was an inconvenience to you.”
Shaking my head, I pull her closer and drop my forehead to hers. “No. Never.”
“You left… For weeks,” she argues, but the fight has faded. At least for now.
“I thought I was doing the right thing at the time,” I insist.
She lets out a sigh and mutters, “You weren’t.”
I slide my hand up her back to cradle the nape of her neck. “I recognize that now. It’s you fighting our connection.”
“Archer…” she says in a quiet, pained voice. She pulls away from me and sits up. “Things are complicated, and you know that. Hell, you’ve known more about this godforsaken town than I ever did.”
Oh.
There were probably a lot of nights that I spent talking about my family’s history and my visceral need to know what the truth is. Everyone else in my family wanted to move on from the sordid history but I couldn’t let it go—I knew it was deeper than a horrifying night a century ago.