Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
Sometimes you go to the nearest lake to watch the swans.
They’re always in pairs.
Their togetherness makes you wish you’d taken the potion, too.
The apothecary didn’t give Cyrus two bottles solely for him, did she. No. No, that second bottle was supposed to be for you. And you never even thought about it until this moment.
Will he still be where you left him? Or has he flown far away by now?
You have to try. You have to be with him.
Except—
You don’t want to be a swan.
You want him.
I love him enough to change my shape, your heart cries. I love him enough to be whatever would make him happy. I love him enough to be a swan. I love him enough to be the water he swims through. I love him enough to be the sky. Make me whatever shape he needs me to be.
Except you’ll never be happy. And he’ll feel it. He’ll feel your resentment build. And he’ll know that you’d give up swanhood in a heartbeat, and he’ll live with bated breath, waiting for the moment you leave.
He was your fate. His fate was the sky.
You spend a long time sitting with those two truths, reaching no conclusion.