Chapter Eighteen
My phone was buzzing in my pocket, but there was a knot in my throat, emotion blocking my capacity for speech. Still, mechanically, I pulled out the device only to see it was a text from Elias.
Everyone gave enthusiastic consent to attend your gathering. Benjamin says “the writer” has to work, and he’s not in the know anyhoo.
A question about dress code was floated. Float an answer back to me, will you?
And come visit me in gaol! It’s lonely here, and I miss your company!
“Oh,” I said.
Across from me, the tea now only lukewarm between us, Soyer was quietly…waiting? Fuming? Worrying? One of those. I held out my phone to him, and he looked at the message.
“That’s good. Everyone will be there.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” I swallowed, but my mouth was dry. I drank the rest of my tea, not tasting a thing. “Were you—back then. Did you get hurt?”
“Bruises. One or two scratches.”
“I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t even imagine it, Soyer, all alone, going into that black forest to catch a witch. No. Not catch it. Kill it. I took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”
Soyer refilled my cup from the pot. “I’m not. I went out to take care of a witch who was harming others. I ended her. She’s dead now, and I’m having tea with the man I love, the man who wears my ring. I won, Amory. Don’t be sorry for that.”
Tears came to my eyes, and I didn’t quite understand why, because Soyer was right.
He was here, and the witch wasn’t. “But you were hurt. And alone. I’m not sorry that you did what you set out to do, but I’m sorry there was no one to go with you and take care of you after. Can’t I be sorry for that?”
The question was garbled, messy, as tears flowed freely. When I closed my eyes to blink them away, I saw that room the witch had kept me in, the milky winter light from that small window, and felt the pain from my broken finger. Felt the witch drink my blood and enjoy it.
Then there were arms around me, arms like wings, and I felt Soyer’s heartbeat close to mine. I knew I was safe, had always been safe, but there was a root of anguish deep inside of me, and it wanted to burrow.
Soyer raised my arm, my watch arm, and tapped the glass of the watch face.
“Here. Look. What time is it?”
I blinked my eyes clear. “It’s almost two o’clock.”
“Exactly. Tell me the time exactly. To the second.”
“One fifty-six and thirty-eight, nine, forty.”
I felt calmer with each second that ticked away, and the tears slowed down. My vision cleared.
When it was just a few seconds past two, Soyer spoke again.
“There. Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” I ran a finger over the watch. “Why is that?”
“That’s just how it works. Do you want to go home? We don’t have to do any shopping today if you want to head home and rest.”
I shook my head, and Soyer took the chair next to me, our knees touching. “You want a new lemon squeezer. We’re getting you that. Fuck. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that.”
His left eyebrow shot up. “Says who?”
I rubbed my eyes. They were tender, swollen. An unattractive shade of red, probably. “All reason says so. It’s not really all that compassionate when I get so sad over you getting hurt that you have to comfort me, is it? Makes me feel very self-absorbed.”
That left eyebrow stayed up. “There’s no prize for being hyper-critical of yourself, Amory.
Has anyone ever told you that? Consider how you trying to be perfect makes me look next to you.
” He buffed his nails on his shirt, then examined them.
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not hiding how imperfect I am. ”
That made me chuckle, the sound coming out slightly watery.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You want to be perfect in how imperfect you are.
Your Black Shuck reputation is perfectly maintained.
If you want to criticize me for perfectionism, you might as well reprimand yourself.
” There was a saying about throwing the first stone, but I wasn’t going to use that.
It reeked of a past built on mores that had been stacked up and used to hurt me, and doubtless so many others as well.
From Soyer’s face, he’d never seen his reputation that way. Both his eyebrows were up, and his mouth was hanging slightly open.
“Who let your scalpel mind loose on the world?”
I picked up my cup to refill it. I was slightly shaky and the tea was cold, but I didn’t want to let it go to waste. “I don’t have a scalpel mind. I just…know you, I guess. A little.”
His expression shifted to a frown. “You know me a lot. Look, I just made you cry in order to tell you something about me I’ve never told anyone. You know me in a way no one ever has.”
I nodded. “Okay. But I know there’s so much more here.” I put my left hand on his chest, his ring on my finger bright as moonlight. “I know your heart enough to know there’s so much more I still don’t know.”
“Amory, when you say things like that, I want to kiss you and hold you close and keep you all to myself, for ever and ever.”
I shrugged. “Well, I want to know all of you, so I might not mind. Except taking those shifts away from me was already mean enough, and you’re not a mean person, Mr. Black Shuck of the woodchipper.”
“Fucking hell. Why do I ever tell you anything? I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have given you a choice after our first night. I should’ve just lied to you, told you I’m a spy. Maybe then you wouldn’t be like this…”
He wiggled his hand around me, encompassing whatever he was seeing there that no one else could.
“You’re exaggerating. I’m just me, and you’re just you, but we both have magic marking our skin. It didn’t start out as something good, but I think it turned into something good. Soyer, I’m really happy you found me. Really, really happy.”
And I was, the realization settling deep within me.
Like the phoenix bird crying out into the night sky, my firebird had been alone, the only one of his kind, and the cruelty of that was unimaginable.
Of course I’d cry for him, learning that he’d gone into the dark woods, knowing there was no one waiting for his return.
Of course I cried for all his hurts now, because I hadn’t been born yet to cry for them then.
My back warmed as if my own phoenix saw the truth in that and agreed.
Calmness settled over me like a cozy blanket. I was here now, and he’d waited for me without knowing it. Now, we’d never be parted again, never hurt from loneliness again.
My hand still rested over his heart, and he covered it with his own. “Amory, I… You’re okay, right? I was trying to remember whether I had a Xanax in my pocket five minutes ago, and now you look like you’ve already had one.”
“I’m fine. We both are. Do you think… The tea is really nice, right? And I cried into mine, I think. Can we maybe try another? I don’t want the seller to think they did a poor job.”
“His name’s Rose, and he probably assumes I made you cry.”
I laughed. “There you go again, big Black Shuck. I love you.”
“I love you too. What kind of tea do you want to try?”
In that moment, with so much going on in my head and in my heart, I couldn’t think of an answer to that very simple question. But that was fine. I knew I didn’t have to.
“Can you pick something for us? Something nice. I’ll finish this.”
He lifted my hand to his mouth and brushed a kiss against my knuckles. “Of course. You just stay here.”
“All right.”
He went into the showroom and spoke to Rose in a low voice. I looked at the face of my watch, smiling with every second that ticked by. I loved Soyer. This was love. It wasn’t an entirely comfortable feeling, or an easy one, but I decided that was okay. I decided it was worth it.