Chapter 7
Less than an hour later, we made it back to the house, and Lizzy left with another whispered, “The apartment is always open.”
I pushed her out the door a little too hurriedly, then shut it behind her.
“Wait. The temperature has dropped, and she isn’t wearing enough layers.” William ran after her, slipping a little in the snow before righting himself and catching up.
Lizzy’s eyebrows drew up at his approach, then her expression morphed into a hesitant smile as he offered her one of his self-warming scarves.
I started to smile too, until a prickle inched up my spine. It wasn’t from the cold. I stepped closer to the window, peering out. Snow blanketed the trees. Lizzy’s car waited near the curb. The driveway stretched empty and still.
Everything was still. Too still.
It felt like we were being watched.
I shivered again and pushed the thought away as William came back in from walking Lizzy to her car, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. “So what are we going to do tonight?” he said. “I don’t feel good about staying here.”
“You’re right. The killer could come back and try to finish the job.
” I didn’t bring up that sense of being watched.
No need to worry William even more when it might just be an overactive imagination.
A mismatched pair of slippers shuffled out from under the couch and bumped gently against my ankles, as if urging me to make myself comfortable and stop worrying.
“I’m more worried about you than me.” William’s hand traced his cuff again.
“At least I have my magic to protect me, but you’re my frostpetal.
Brave. Resilient. But not designed for magical threats.
” He glanced at the washi paper lantern on the bookshelf like he thought I was also that delicate and easily torn.
My throat closed up at the honest concern in his voice.
He ran a hand through his hair once, then again, like he was smoothing out thoughts instead of strands. “We cannot stay here.”
“We could go on our honeymoon.” My stomach fluttered at the thought, and as if the stockings heard me, they scooted closer together on the mantle until they were almost touching.
“But I’m not sure how the barrier around the town would affect you considering you’re already dealing with a memory enchantment.
” At least I had a charm that would keep me from losing my memories.
“Hmm. Good point.” His brow wrinkled. “Who knows if they’ll interfere with each other or have some negative side effect.”
“I have an idea.” I glanced at him. “We could stay at my aunt’s house. She lives on the edge of town near the sea.”
“Stay with your aunt?” His eyes widened. “Has she met me yet?”
“Very briefly at the wedding,” I said. “But we didn’t have much time to talk.”
“What if she doesn’t like me?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I blew out a breath.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Meeting new people is one of the most unpredictable social variables. Maybe I could memorize a joke. People like those, right?”
“It’ll be fine. She’ll like you.” It was becoming too easy to do that.
“Actually, I know just the thing. I’ll figure out a few compliments and practice them,” he muttered to himself as he pulled out his journal.
We grabbed the suitcases we’d packed for our honeymoon and loaded them into William’s car.
Another glance around proved we were alone.
I watched the road behind us for a few minutes, but no one followed us as we headed into town.
Maybe I really had been imagining that feeling of being watched before.
In the car’s enclosed space, his cinnamon scent was even stronger, swirling around me comfortingly.
As we drove through town, I tried to call Chiyo Obasan, but it went straight to voicemail. Hopefully she was home.
“No luck?” William asked.
“No, but let’s keep going,” I said. “Sometimes she’s bad about answering her phone.
” I stared out the window, trying to work up the nerve to tell William the truth about our marriage.
It shouldn’t be that hard. I just needed to spit it out.
Get it over with. But for some reason, I couldn’t make myself say it.
We passed a few enchanted snowmen in a field across the road that were locked in a snowball fight while one stood off to the side, juggling pinecones with its twiggy arms. As strange as Austen Heights could be, it was the small, quiet differences between Japan and America that often caught me off guard—like how snowmen here were built with three snowballs instead of two or how they sometimes came alive and had snowball fights with each other.
I glanced at William from the corner of my eye. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, absentmindedly pulling on one of his short curls.
“You seem distracted. Are you okay?” I asked.
“What?” He glanced at me, his expression clearing. “I was replaying something Lady Catherine said at dinner.”
“What was it?” A clue, perhaps?
“It is probably not relevant to our current situation.”
The necklace warmed, letting me know there was more he wanted to say. “Even if it is, I want to know what’s bothering you.”
“She mentioned that the cases of Moonrot seem to be spreading more quickly.”
“Oh.” I blinked and stared out the window.
That wasn’t the direction I’d been expecting.
“That’s terrible.” Since my family was all Unmarked, I hadn’t lost anyone to the sickness that only seemed to affect those marked by magic, but my thoughts jumped to Lizzy’s dad, Mr. Bennet.
I hadn’t talked to him much growing up since he spent so much time in his library or his study, but he’d always welcomed me to the house with a smile and a quip—he was so much like Lizzy, and I knew how close they were.
It was going to be so hard on her if—when—they lost him.
“Yeah, I’m worried about it. Based on the progression curve, we’re probably already at the exponential growth point. While Moonrot isn’t contagious, I did notice a spike in clusters near ley lines.”
I blinked. “You made a graph?”
“A few, actually. There’s a spreadsheet on my laptop.” William was silent for a long moment, although his fingers drummed on the steering wheel, then again in the same pattern. “My mom died when I was really young, so my dad raised me until sickness took him.”
He didn’t clarify which sickness, and I didn’t press, but it had to have been something magical considering fae didn’t succumb to normal human ailments.
“It’s hard seeing everyone suffer with Moonrot,” he continued. “Logically, I know it isn’t the same disease, but the helplessness is the same.”
I’d known that William tended to avoid the sick people in his congregation, which was something he was sometimes criticized for as a pastor, but I’d never known the reason.
“I’m grateful you’re with me, Charlotte.” He gave me a soft look before focusing his attention on the snow-dusted roads again. “It makes things a little easier to bear somehow.”
My heart picked up speed, those little niggles of guilt springing to life again. “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat.
Why was this so hard to admit? Marrying him had been an easy enough decision when we’d both gone into it knowing exactly what to expect.
But now that he’d lost his memory, I couldn’t help but feel like I was somehow taking advantage of him or just masquerading as his wife.
“It’s something you need to know before we make it to my aunt’s house. ”
“Okay.” His gaze flicked to me before returning to the road, like he was checking for permission, then he slowly reached over and rested his hand over mine, which I’d curled into a fist in my lap.
William paused, then gently unfolded my fingers one at a time.
He traced a single finger along my palm, then returned his hand to the wheel without a word.
“Thanks for what you did at Lady Catherine’s, with my dessert I mean.” It wasn’t what I needed to say, but it was a start.
“It was nothing. There was a problem, and I fixed it.”
“It was really nice of you, but you don’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t do it out of obligation. I simply wanted to… so I did.”
We were only a minute away from my aunt’s house, so I blew out a breath, then forced my confession out on the tail end of it. “We didn’t get married because we were in love, so you don’t need to do those thoughtful gestures for me.”
My confession hung in the air like our breaths misting in front of us. I turned up the heat in the car, not looking at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that we aren’t in love.” I stared down at my hands in my lap but could still make out his profile from the corner of my eye. “We got married because it was convenient for both of us.”
He shook his head. “That can’t be right. It feels like love.”
“I got married because I needed to prove to my aunt that I’m over my distrust of men so she’d give me my inheritance to open my shop, and you got married because… well honestly I don’t know. From what I could tell it was just because Lady Catherine told you to.”
He followed the last instruction on his GPS, then parked the car in front of my aunt’s Japanese-style cottage by the sea before turning to me. His hazel eyes narrowed as he took me in. I fidgeted under the force of his gaze. I was so used to him not looking directly at me.
“Maybe it was a marriage of convenience, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t also care for you.” His gaze traveled over me as if he was recounting everything he knew about me from the moment he lost his memory. “After all, there’s so much about you to admire. How could I not have been in love with you?”