Chapter 36 #2
“I think you do. But I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. It’s none of your damned business.”
“It is my business!” he erupted, causing Gur to lift his head and open his eyes wide. Kaelan moved closer, lowering his voice to a growl. “If you’re in love with him, then I can’t trust you. He wants me dead, Magda. Or would you like it better if I called you Magpie?”
She shoved him hard. He stumbled back, but the stony set of his face never wavered. The fire in his eyes only grew hotter.
“I already told you I had feelings for him. And I told you that those feelings didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to join with him, ever. Because I don’t trust him.”
“How did he find you?”
Her righteous anger faltered.
“Have you been communicating with him? Or maybe that thing is his spy.” Kaelan pointed behind her at the semargl.
Gur bared his teeth, tail lashing.
“I don’t know how he found us,” she said, measuring her tone. “How do you find where you’re going in the Shadow Realms?”
He frowned, righteousness stalling out.
“I know you hate him,” she said, holding up her hands, placating, “and with good reason. Don’t you think that’s part of the reason I hate him too? That he can be so easily dismissive of his own brother’s life?”
“I find places in the Shadow Realms, not people,” he grumbled.
“Well, maybe he can find people and not places,” she shot back. “You two aren’t identical if you hadn’t noticed.”
“No, he’s manipulative and cavalier and domineering, just like Cae was, right?”
Her hands balled into fists. “He is nothing like Cae.”
He shook his head as if dismissing her and it was all she could do not to break his nose.
“You knew,” he said softly, “didn’t you? About the heart-place? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t know anything. Other than what Ilene said while you were dying,”—she lofted a brow—“but I wasn’t paying much attention to her at the time.”
He blew out a heavy breath. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who did it.”
“I was panicking. I was dying,” he said, kneading his fist into his palm. “I was looking for anything to hold on to—”
“And foolish me, I was there to be held. So now I have to worry that if you die, I’ll go mad.” Which was exactly what had started to happen when he had died, she saw that now.
“And what happens to me if you die?” he asked.
“You think twice about being such an imp-hole?”
He prowled to the back of the cave. “Is this why . . .?” He half-turned towards her. “I need to know more about what a heart-place is. How it works.”
“You and me both, but we have bigger issues to deal with at the moment.”
“Do we?” he asked. “Ever since I came back from the dead, I’ve been struggling.”
“We’ve all been struggling.”
“I know,” he snapped and then more calmly, “I know. But everything keeps getting worse, and there’s never time to think. I feel like . . . I need to get away from you.”
She hadn’t expected anything he said to hurt her, yet it did. Maybe it had something to do with the bit of his heart he’d stowed away inside of her.
Keeping her tone cool, she said, “I told you that you don’t have to—”
“Not forever,” he said. “I just wish there was time to breathe. We’re always running or flying or fighting. When I start to think I’ve got a grasp on the situation something like this happens, and then I’m right back where I started.”
“Nothing’s changed. You knew I had feelings for Endreas.
So what? I have feelings for lots of things, but that doesn’t change what I’m going to do.
And as far as I can see, I’m the one who’s bound to suffer because you gave me a piece of your heart.
I was already worried you would die—again.
But now I understand why it affected me the way it did.
Endreas was right. If you die, I’ll go mad.
The last time, I was ready to hunt down the King and kill him myself.
And I would’ve tried. That is madness. You did something to me that I didn’t ask for.
And now it’s inside of me, like a bomb waiting to—”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything. I wish I could change things for you. I wish I could send you back in time, back to your forest with your nymph, when life was simple and happy. I wish I could go back to California and be content on the beach, reading trashy novels and painting my nails. But we can’t—”
“Are you sure?”
“What?”
He moved closer to her. “We could go. To the human world, both of us.”
She stared at him for a long moment, speechless.
“I know you think you have a duty to the Lands,” he said, “to the small folk and Ouda, to me and Honey, to Damion and your family, but you don’t. Not really. It’s not fair, Magda. It’s not right for all of them to demand you to sacrifice yourself for what they want.”
“I thought you agreed with the Resistance, with Python and—”
“I do,” he said. “But—” He ran his hand over his face, shaking his head as if he didn’t even understand what he was saying or why.
“And what about Honey? You know nymphs can’t leave the Lands. They’ve tried. They’ve died.”
“She would be safer if she stopped following us. If she went home.”
She found it hard to breathe. The air grew too thick and warm. His words—the same words she’d spoken to Endreas only a week before—left her dumbfounded.
To go back to California, away from all of this .
. . But why was he suggesting this to her now?
Did he feel guilty about giving her a piece of his heart?
As if he owed it to her to protect their lives so that she wouldn’t go mad if he died?
Was he afraid? Had he finally realized how difficult it would be to defend himself, let alone start a war against the King?
She was deeply tempted to accept and leave all of this behind for good.
But she just . . . couldn’t. Even when she’d asked Endreas before, she’d known she wouldn’t really be able to go through with it.
The Rae part of her was still too strong.
Besides, others were counting on her . . . Ouda, Tamia, Hero.
“I don’t really believe you want to go into exile,” she said finally. “I think you want to stay.”
“We’re not talking about what I want,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to get away from me,” she said in a challenging tone, disturbed by how enticed she was by his offer—even though she knew she couldn’t accept.
Some distant voice, that woman she’d been in exile, was still begging to leave the Lands and all its troubles behind.
“Why would you want to go into exile with me?”
“I don’t really want to get away from you, Magda. I think . . . I should want to. Sometimes I feel like I need to, but that’s not what I want.”
“Then—”
“If we’re staying,” he cut in strongly, “then we’re staying. And we’re doing this together, right?”
“Right,” she said.
“Then you have to be honest.”
“I have been—” She bit her cheek, catching the lie. “All right. But honesty isn’t exactly in our nature, and it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s better to lie than to start a war.”
“But our lives are in too much danger right now. I need to know I can depend on you. That I can trust you.”
“You mean you need something to hold on to.”
He hung his head. “Magda—”
“And I’m here,” she said. “Just like I was before, right?”
He nodded, grim-faced.
She folded her arms as the pressure continued to build. “So ask.”
“I don’t need to—”
“I didn’t sleep with him. Do I want to? Yes. Will I? Not if I can help it.”
His voice was low. “Can you help it?”
“I’ve managed to resist more than one Elf lately,” she said archly. “I think I can handle myself.”
His face darkened as he blushed. “Magda, that wasn’t me—” He grimaced. “I mean, that’s not how I wanted . . .” He pulled in his lips.
“You don’t need to explain. Eris’s magic gave you the power to change form at will. Getting you to put your hands down my pants probably took as much effort on Eris’s part as it does for Gur to take a nap.”
Gur grumbled, but didn’t stir.
Kaelan eyes widened as though he’d been slapped.
She laughed. “You know what you are? A romantic. You think every time you touch a girl it’s Romeo and Juliet?”
“Romeo and—?”
“Never mind, it’s not important. The point is you don’t have to gut yourself every time you feel a little pleasure or a little guilt.
Eris pulled a dirty trick. It felt good, but it wasn’t really us.
We both know that. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to make more of it than that.
And just because I’m attracted to Endreas doesn’t mean that I’m going to do something stupid.
Not unless there’s a conniving witch around.
We have more important things to worry about.
Our lives. The lives of our friends. The Lands themselves.
Let’s just stay focused on those things and put the rest aside for now.
We have too many distractions as it is.”
He gazed down at her for a long moment.
And it seemed, for the first time in a long time, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Her chest ached slightly as if the hollowness, which she’d thought gone, had returned briefly.
“All right,” he said, taking a step back. “You’re right . . . I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
He retreated to the other side of the cave without another word.
She frowned after him, attempting to articulate a question that hadn’t yet formed in her mind. As she laid down, she tried to put the unsettled feeling aside, but it lodged in her head like a seed between her teeth, irritating and unmoving, no matter how much she picked and prodded at it.
She drifted off to sleep watching Kaelan’s chest rise and fall, wondering if she had made a mistake.
Maybe it would have been better to go back to California, with him.
And maybe she was lying to herself. Maybe the reason she wasn’t leaving had less to do with her duty and more to do with a Prince named Endreas.