Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
They emerged, not in the cave on Bardsey Island, but in a narrow chamber made entirely of cobblestones.
It was impossible to enter a door in one place, only to exit that same door and be led to an entirely different place.
Yet that was exactly what had happened. Thomasin just shrugged.
It was hardly the most unbelievable thing that had happened in the last few hours.
There was a door a few steps away, and Edith pushed, but it didn’t budge. Thomasin came up next to her and gave the wooden door a great shove. With a cough of dust, the door fell open, taking the both of them with it.
Thomasin helped Edith back to her feet and then looked up, expecting to still be somewhere on the island. But they weren’t. They stood upon a grassy knoll, in the shadow of a stone tower that rose high enough to pierce the sky.
“Where are we?” She looked at Edith, but the other woman had already drifted toward the other side of the little room they’d shown up in. Thomasin joined her where she stood, staring at a headstone.
Here lies Arthur Pendragon, it read.
“We’re at Glastonbury Tor,” Edith said with a little laugh.
Thomasin remembered Edith telling her about Glastonbury Tor.
About how the hill used to be at the center of a lake, and that when remains had been found there, they were believed to be King Arthur’s.
This led people to believe that Glastonbury Tor was actually Avalon.
“It really was a gate to Avalon, all along,” Edith said.
“More of a back door, really,” Thomasin said, leaning on one foot so she could peer into the cobblestone room once again.
A mausoleum, she realized belatedly, that’s what it was.
The archway of shadows that had delivered them here was nowhere to be found.
“I don’t think we could get back into Avalon from here. Just out.”
“Yes, I think so too,” Edith said absentmindedly. She hadn’t yet looked away from the headstone.
“Are you alright?” Thomasin laid a hand on her lower back.
“Sorry.” Edith glanced up at Thomasin, managing a small smile. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it all.”
“This is your moment, you know,” Thomasin said, nudging her with a shoulder, lips tugging up into a smile.
“You get to give the world the biggest ‘I told you so’ anyone’s ever seen.
” When Edith didn’t return her smile, she sobered.
“Bad timing. Just trying to lighten the mood.” Thomasin knew they had much to talk about, but for the moment, she was just glad they were both alive and whole.
Edith looked at her fully then, eyes softening, shoulders relaxing. “Thomasin, I’m happy.” But she didn’t look happy. Her eyes were tired, and her mouth was tipped into the slightest frown.
“The sad kind of happy?” Thomasin joked gently.
Edith paused in thoughtful consideration, then nodded. “Yes. The kind of happy you are when something ends well, but it’s ending all the same.”
Thomasin knew—well, she was pretty sure—that Edith was talking about the quest, about her grandmother, and not their relationship. But she needed to hear her say it. “Is that your way of saying that you’re leaving me again? Heading home?”
Edith turned away from the headstone to face Thomasin fully.
There was a sheen of tears in her eyes as she took Thomasin’s hands.
Edith took a deep breath, then said, “I never should have left you. I will regret it for the rest of my life, and if you let me, I will spend that life making it up to you.”
There was hope bubbling up in Thomasin’s heart again.
She couldn’t stop it, was helpless against it.
She could still feel the miserable disappointment that had colored her entire being as she had watched Edith walk away from her.
She could still feel the anger that had burned in her gut.
It had all happened less than a day ago.
If Edith could change her mind that fast, then what was to say she wouldn’t change it again?
But Edith had also thrown herself into a room with no escape just so she could die with Thomasin.
That was an unchangeable choice, and Edith had made it.
As acts of repentance went, it was a showstopper.
“Why did you leave?” Thomasin asked, because she had to know.
She had to know if it was because Edith had indeed realized Thomasin wasn’t anywhere near good enough for her.
If it was because Thomasin was a terrible, ruthless killer.
If it was because Edith never actually loved her at all.
If she would ever leave again for the same reason years, or months, or days down the road.
Edith led her to the edge of the hill, where they sat down in a bed of long grass and wildflowers.
Thomasin drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped an arm around them.
Her other hand was still intertwined with Edith’s.
Their clasped hands rested on the ground between them, soft grass tickling their knuckles.
Edith stretched her legs out in front of her, the length of her skirt looking like an icy blue stream cutting through the grass.
Thomasin studied Edith as she tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
The sun was just beginning to rise. The orange glow painted Edith’s face in the softest light.
Her not-quite-blonde, not-quite-brown hair hung loose and messy, and Thomasin’s fingers itched to weave through the strands.
She was so painfully beautiful.
Thomasin could stare at her forever and die a happy death. Her round eyes and red cheeks. The stub of her button nose and the curve of her lips.
“Edith, why did you leave?” Thomasin asked again, because if Edith didn’t feel the same way for her, then this was all just the worst kind of torture.
Edith turned her head, and her chin tilted down so she was looking at Thomasin. “I left because I thought it would hurt less than you leaving me.”
Thomasin’s brows knit together, and she opened her mouth to tell Edith that was ridiculous, that the thought had never even crossed her mind, but Edith held up a hand.
“Let me finish, please. You deserve to know that it had nothing to do with how much I love you, how absolutely wonderful you are. When we couldn’t get that door open, I thought I had failed at the one thing I cared about more than anything, the one thing I thought I was good at, that made me worthy of existing.
Failing the quest meant I was also failing my grandmother.
Or so I thought,” she added with a wry twist of her lips.
“Because I was scared, I ruined my grandmother’s chances of going on the quest herself. And then to not even be able to accomplish it myself, it just felt like the last nail in the coffin. Like my one chance at redemption was gone forever.”
Edith swiped at a tear that had escaped down her cheek.
Then, her eyes drifted up to Thomasin’s, and her lips tilted up into a sad smile.
“Then there was you. The quest was over, which meant the adventure was over too. Without the quest, you would see that I’m not fun, or exciting, or brave.
I’m actually quite boring, nothing special really.
I thought it was only a matter of time before you got bored with me.
I mean, you are the most legendary criminal in London.
Someone like that wouldn’t be happy with a mundane, everyday life with someone like me. ”
Thomasin squeezed her hand but kept quiet.
“If you left me because you were bored, then maybe I could’ve dealt with that.
I would’ve understood it. But Thomasin, you gave up everything for me.
You gave up the syndicate and your whole career as a criminal to help me go on this quest. You let Worthing, your nemesis, take the syndicate so you could stay with me.
You wouldn’t just be bored, you would resent me.
You would grow to hate me when you realized that I was never worth all you had lost. If I let you be with me, I would be ruining you the same way I ruined my grandmother.
” Edith sighed deeply, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
“So, I left for your own good. I left so that you could be free of me, so you could go back to your own life, where you’d never be bored.”
“If you thought all that, why did you come back?”
Edith smiled again, but this time it reached her eyes.
“Because I love you too much to be selfless, and I want you too much to be scared. I realized that I can’t let fear make every single one of my decisions.
I don’t care if you’re going to leave me tomorrow.
Even one day of loving you is worth being utterly destroyed when it’s over. ”
“What if it’s never over?” Thomasin murmured.
Edith’s smile crumpled, and her shoulders sagged. “You still want to be with me?”
“Of course I do, you ridiculous girl.”
They met each other halfway, lips crashing together.
Thomasin clutched at Edith with a desperation that she had never known, and then the grass flattened beneath her as Edith rolled on top of her, knees framing Thomasin’s hips.
Edith’s hair hung in a curtain around them, and Thomasin snaked her fingers up to fist a hand in her hair.
She tugged gently, just enough to pull Edith’s mouth away from her own.
Thomasin licked her lips, tasting Edith on them. “You have to promise me that next time you freak out about ruining me and decide to run away, you’ll talk to me first.”
Edith nodded, pressing her forehead against Thomasin’s. Their breath mingled in the scant space between their lips.
“Because then I can tell you that I was miserably bored before I met you.”
Edith’s eyes widened, and she drew back to look at Thomasin more clearly. But Thomasin just pulled her right back down to press kiss after kiss along her jawline, down her neck. In between kisses, she said, “I’ll tell you that I haven’t been bored since the second I laid eyes on you.”
She tugged on her hair again, exposing the soft skin beneath Edith’s ear.
Thomasin grazed her teeth across the lobe of Edith’s ear before whispering, “I’ll tell you that when I’m with you, I feel more like myself than I have ever before.
Because being a criminal, it was just armor that I wore to keep myself alive, to prove to everyone that I had a use.
But with you, I don’t need to be useful, or dangerous, or uncaring.
I can just be me, and somehow that’s enough for you. ”
“More than enough,” Edith said, her voice trembling.
“You did not ruin me,” Thomasin said, kissing her way back to Edith’s mouth. “You saved me.”
Edith held Thomasin’s face in her hands, the tips of her fingers pressing hard into Thomasin’s skin. “I love you. I will never stop loving you.”
“I love you too,” Thomasin whispered against her mouth. “If that wasn’t already obvious.”
Edith burst into laughter, and Thomasin’s lips broke into a lopsided grin. As she laughed, Edith rolled off of her, landing on her back next to Thomasin. She pressed her hand against her stomach as she giggled.
Together, lying on the hill at Glastonbury Tor, they watched the sun as it finished rising, as it crested over the hill and threw pinks and oranges into the blue sky.
“What happens now?” Edith asked, her eyes closed.
“If we go to my home, my dad will lock me in a room and probably try to kill you. If we go to your home, well, the entirety of London will try to kill you, and who knows if Worthing made it out alive. I cut pretty deep, but I wouldn’t put anything past him. ” Edith laughed.
“No one knows we’re here,” Thomasin mused. “Everyone who wants to kill us thinks we’re still on Bardsey Island, but here we are, all the way across England. You know what this is?”
“What?”
“A head start.” Thomasin smirked.
“To where?” Edith felt her own smile stretch impossibly wide.
Thomasin gave an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt or China, India, Spain …” She trailed off, waiting nervously for Edith’s response.
She didn’t have to wait long. Edith laughed, the sound light and airy. Her eyes were bright as she looked at Thomasin. “I’d go anywhere with you.”
Thomasin sat up, then rose to her feet, bringing Edith along with her. “That settles it then,” she said, tucking a strand of Edith’s hair behind her ear. “Edith Darling, will you run away with me?”
Edith launched herself into Thomasin’s arms, and whispered yes a thousand times over.
Though the quest was over, Edith had a feeling the adventure had just begun.
THE END