Chapter Fourteen Idris #3
“It is the price she has asked,” I counter. “Shouldn’t the one who was harmed be the one to name the cost?”
“I don’t know.” After a moment, Kit whispers, “Perhaps it is in the realm of men to take and women to suffer.” Before I can reply, she adds quickly, “No, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair to you.”
“I don’t think you’re wholly wrong.” I adjust my hand on her back. She stiffens, ever so slightly, and I loosen my hold. “But I think, maybe, you do not give yourself credit for resilience. You suffer, and you rise above it. You fight for what you love. You don’t sink.”
“Women are not saints. We rise and fall like anyone.”
“But you rise.” I bend a little, trying to catch her gaze. She won’t meet my eyes. I want to put a link between us, to have her feel my earnestness, as if feeling it would make her believe me. “Look at where you are, Kit. Who else would be trying to fix so much?”
When she speaks, her tone is suddenly hollow. Lonely. “There’s no one else to do it.”
“There’s me, and Abram, and Catharine.” I keep her close as we turn.
There’s a twist to her mouth that speaks of her skepticism.
I feel the protests to my words, which are nearly empty.
The words of someone who knows nothing. We four are connected, but aren’t we four still caught in this mess?
I reach for something more, something truer.
“And maybe … some things can’t be fixed. And maybe … that is all right.”
“How is it all right?” Her jaw hardens with a challenge. “Everything is wrong.”
I waver. We are in the Hidden Lands. I am dancing myself to death, and my brother is trapped here. Kit is wrapped in a body that isn’t hers. Everything should be wrong, but in this moment, with her near me and her fierce grip on my hand, I feel none of the wrongness. I feel strangely alight. Whole.
“Maybe,” I agree softly. “But you are not alone.”
She deflates a little at that. When she speaks, her voice is low and quiet, as if she were dragging the words from a very great depth. “I am tired.”
The exhaustion that radiates from her twists in my chest. I want to pluck it from the air. I want to tuck comfort around her like a shawl.
“I wish …” But what do I have to offer? Limited days and collapsing youth. I am so overcome by my own troubles, I have dragged her into them. I am drowning, and the best that I can offer is to not drown her with me. “Have you had a chance to find a cure for your curse?”
Kit shakes her head. “Abram’s asked various Hidden Folk, but no one has offered any useful information. And I haven’t been able to glean much from eavesdropping. Speir hasn’t been here tonight.”
I glance around the chamber, realizing she’s right.
“We need to find an answer so you don’t have to keep coming,” I say, half to Kit and half to myself. It is easier to track my thoughts if I speak them. “I could ask—”
My legs choose that moment to go weak, and I nearly topple over. Kit steadies me, bearing my weight until I can pull myself back into order. My feet still move with the dance, almost on their own, forcing us to keep going.
“What if you just stop?” she says, tapping the side of my hand again. “Just stop dancing. Can you?”
“I’m not sure …” I try to still my feet, but the music grows louder in my head, and the beat pounds against the back of my eyes.
I stumble my way back into the dance, nearly stepping on Kit’s skirt in the process.
She moves swiftly out of the way and manages to follow me.
My vision goes murky, and my head feels heavy. “I—I don’t think so.”
Kit lifts her hand and hesitates, fingers curling with uncertainty. But then she touches her fingertips to the fabric of my shirt over my collarbone. She taps, firmly. “When I am lost,” she says, “this helps the most.”
The tapping centers me in this moment, pulling my attention to the present.
I’m aware of my heart’s erratic beating, beginning to steady now to match Kit’s rhythm.
Her skin is warm, and as my eyes focus again, I realize we’ve come closer.
She smells of heather and earth. Her eyes are wide and silver, and she’s tilted her head back to study me.
A small, concerned crease between her brows smooths away.
Her eyes flick up and, for the first time, meet mine.
A breathless charge surges between us. My heart jumps, then beats harder still.
I’ve met Catharine’s eyes before—with her, it was only as a matter of course, a social norm.
With Kit, all the world vanishes. Meeting her eyes is a gift I’m not sure I’ve earned.
It wakes a burning I did not know slept in me.
Her lips are full and the sound of her voice—so soft I might not have heard it if I were not so near—reminds me of the low sigh of waves in a cove.
It takes a moment for her words to register: “You’ve stopped.”
I keep my gaze on her, and this time she does not look away. It would be an easy thing, to lean forward. It would take the space of a breath.
I am here, I want to say to her, with you.
Will you stay here with me?