Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
If all the Arthurian tales Edith ever read had taught her anything, it was that sometimes terrible decisions had to be made. Love or honor. Chivalry or victory. A noble death or a ruthless triumph. Edith had always imagined herself to be a noble knight in pursuit of truth and knowledge.
She wasn’t noble anymore. And she did not regret her choice.
She should’ve known sooner who she was. It was clear now.
Edith was a woman who would choose love above all else.
Above reason and morality and honor. She might be the worst kind of villain, but she did not regret her choice.
There was a man dead at her feet. She didn’t know how she was going to live with that, but she didn’t care just then, because Thomasin was alive.
When the chief raised his gun, leveling it right at Thomasin’s forehead, she hadn’t had any time to think. She’d drawn her blade and plunged it into his back, right through his heart. All she’d known was that there was no part of her that could let Thomasin die.
“Edith,” Thomasin said hollowly. Her lip was so swollen that it sounded more like Edif. She tried to sit up, but her arm buckled underneath her and she crashed back to the earth.
Edith let the knife clatter to the ground, then fell to her knees at Thomasin’s side.
Edith reached out but faltered, unsure of where to touch that wouldn’t hurt her.
Even more unsure about whether Thomasin would ever want to be touched by her again.
Edith forced her hands back into her own lap.
There was blood flecking her fingertips, and her knuckles cramped from gripping the knife so tightly.
“I couldn’t let you die.” It was the only thing she could think to say, an echo of the thoughts that had been spiraling in her mind since the moment she touched the knife.
Thomasin’s eyes pinned her to the spot. She was studying Edith, staring so intently, it felt as though Thomasin was trying to see inside her. Eventually, Thomasin reached out a shockingly steady hand.
“Help me up,” she commanded.
Edith obeyed, her bloody fingers clasping Thomasin’s.
She gently helped the other woman to her feet.
Thomasin swayed slightly but remained upright after Edith let her go.
Not that she wanted to drop Thomasin’s hand.
Edith was very concerned about all the blows to the head Thomasin had taken.
Wounds and broken bones could heal, but if her brain was injured, then Thomasin’s life was truly in danger.
“How do you feel?” Edith asked.
“Alive.” Thomasin took a few experimental steps.
They were slow, with a slight limp. The worst of her injuries seemed to be centered around her face and torso.
She held one hand to her ribs as she walked.
Her split and swollen lips tipped up into something that might have been intended to be a smile, but looked like more of a grimace.
“Thanks to you,” she said, tossing her gaze at Edith.
“I couldn’t let you die,” Edith said yet again. The statement grounded her. It was the one thing she knew was true and right.
Thomasin let her shoulder drop against a tree. “I still don’t forgive you.”
Edith looked down at her feet. “You don’t have to.”
A curt nod was the only response she got.
Edith had thought that there were two kinds of silence.
The steadfast kind that kept her company when she was alone, and then the bristling, awkward kind that clogged the air when she was in the presence of people she was meant to be socializing with.
In Thomasin, she had discovered a third kind, a rare combination of the two.
A silence that felt comfortably shared between them.
In the moments when they were not talking, Edith still enjoyed her company.
There was no pressure in it, no expectation. It was calm.
That was not the kind of silence that fell between them now.
This silence was jagged, grating against Edith’s skin until she was desperately searching her mind for something to say.
But nothing was adequate. Everything was too heavy and too inconsequential all at once.
I love you. I killed someone. I would do it again. I’m sorry.
None of it mattered. None of it changed the fact that she had left Thomasin in the first place.
Eventually, Thomasin put her out of her misery. “We need to go,” she said. “Worthing will be coming back, and we can’t be here when he does.”
“Can you walk?”
“I’ll manage.” Thomasin shoved off from the tree. Edith watched her throat bob as she swallowed, and then grudgingly said, “I might need some help, though.”
“Of course.” Edith nodded, probably too eagerly. She delicately laid Thomasin’s offered arm over her shoulder, then wrapped her arm around Thomasin’s waist. Edith tamped down every emotion that popped up at the sensation of Thomasin’s body pressing against her side.
As they walked, Edith took as much of Thomasin’s weight as she could.
It was slow progress, winding their way through the trees in the dark, with only the glow of the full moon trickling through the leaves to light their way.
They didn’t have a destination yet, not even an inkling of a plan.
Edith only knew that they needed to put as much distance between themselves and the church as possible.
She almost laughed at that thought, at how much could change so quickly.
Twenty-four hours ago, Edith had been lying atop the velvet curtains, tucked in Thomasin’s arms. She had stared up at the stars through the peeling slats of wood above them and let her be mind swept away into beautiful imaginings.
They would return to the island someday, once their discovery of Excalibur had brought them riches and fame.
They would restore the church. Thomasin would rebuild the roof, patch the walls.
Edith would hang red velvet curtains to frame the stained glass windows.
As sunlight filtered through them like a kaleidoscope, they would walk down the aisle.
The colors would dance across the satin of Edith’s white dress.
Now, running away from that church might be the last thing they ever did together. Edith swallowed the lump in her throat. She had no right to be sad.
“How are we going to get off this island?” she asked, forcing her thoughts to more relevant topics. “My father and Worthing have the only boat. They’re certainly not going to just give up and leave us here.”
“We hunker down somewhere we can keep an eye on the boat. When they leave to look for us, we steal the boat.” Thomasin’s words were tight. She was trying to hide it, but Edith could tell she was out of breath.
“I can’t leave my father for dead,” Edith said. Though she was loath to argue with Thomasin, she knew there were lines she just couldn’t cross. “And you need a doctor as soon as possible. We don’t have time to wait.”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
It wasn’t a better one. In fact, it was terrible.
But Edith voiced it anyway. “When Worthing leaves the boat, we go talk to my father.” Thomasin began to protest, but Edith barreled on, “I agree to return home with him on the condition that we leave immediately, without Worthing, and that he provides you a doctor, then lets you go free. Now that Worthing has taken me captive and tried to extort more money from him, he won’t dispute going back on his original deal. ”
“What about you?” Thomasin mumbled.
“What about me?”
“You’ll have to go home. Is that still what you want?”
“Of course not. It was never what I wanted. It was just what I thought I needed to do,” Edith said as she ducked underneath a branch, then held it up for Thomasin to pass under.
“Why would you offer this plan now, then?”
Edith shook her head, gave a short, bewildered laugh. She looked up at Thomasin. “Because it would save you.”
Thomasin avoided her gaze, looking toward the trees. “You don’t make any sense.”
“I know,” Edith admitted. She was only just starting to understand herself as well. “So we have a plan?”
“I suppose,” Thomasin said after a beat.
“Good.” Edith forced her lips into a smile.
But then something occurred to her, the weight of her satchel suddenly heavier.
For Thomasin, she could sacrifice a life of adventure, of freedom.
But she couldn’t condemn her grandmother to the same fate.
Edith tightened her grip on Thomasin’s waist and slowed to a stop. “There’s something I need to do first.”
“What is it?” Her voice wasn’t exactly unkind, but it wasn’t welcoming either.
Edith chewed on her lower lip and glanced at Thomasin out of the corner of her eye.
She could see the exhaustion written plainly in the slump of her shoulders and in the way she leaned against Edith.
“I can do it alone. We just need to find somewhere to hide you for an hour or two at most. There was that little cave we found near the tree with the first N.” She tried to take a step forward, but Thomasin was a deadweight at her side.
“Tell me where you’re going.”
It was a fanciful, sentimental task, but it was important.
Edith knew if she didn’t do it, she’d regret it forever.
But she didn’t want to admit what she needed to do to Thomasin.
Not when she already owed Thomasin so much, when Thomasin had already suffered for her.
It was terribly selfish of her to ask Thomasin to sit in a cave for an hour, while she—
“Tell me.” Thomasin’s command cut off her thoughts.
Edith looked away as she said it, fixing her eyes on a patch of brambles.
“I need to return to Merlin’s tomb to scatter my grandmother’s ashes.
” Her cheeks were hot, and shame clogged her throat.
She would always be a silly, emotional girl.
She would always place too much importance on things other people derided.
But as always, Thomasin surprised her. “I’ll go with you.”