Chapter Thirty-Two
Adeline
She could tell something was wrong from the moment he walked in the door. Adeline felt the split-second panic in a bolt through her limbs, snapping her upright from the settee until she was moving across the living space, racing to the frost-framed door.
“Ger?”
Her hands locked on his arms, holding him still as she looked him over for injury or upset.
He’d been assigned to help Imogen and her team as they began digging the tunnels—had it gone wrong somehow?
Had someone noticed his too-keen attention?
He seemed physically fine, unharmed, and his every breath unimpeded.
But when she raised her eyes, she found his gaze locked on hers so intently it made her rock back a bit.
He looked like he’d drunk a vat of coffee, blue eyes nearly manic beneath a charge she didn’t understand.
Before she could ask, though, Ger broke her hold on him to reach up …
and cup her face, very tenderly, in one hand.
Her breath caught in an awkward splutter.
“Let’s just go, Ade,” he said softly, gaze overbright as it flicked feverishly over her own. “We can just go, you pack up, and I’ll get us out through the kitchens, and we’ll find a way past the ports—”
“What are you talking about?”
Adeline jerked her face from his grip, backing up a step, then another when he reached for her again. She needed the space to see him properly, to take in the full picture—to let him see her, too.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly.
Too firmly, maybe, from the way Ger’s face shuttered.
The instinct rose in her at once to step in again and soothe that hurt, to soften her words.
But before she could right it, Ger’s jaw set, something hot rolling over his brow.
She knew in an instant that he was going to regret whatever he said next.
“What’s keeping you, Ade? Kai doesn’t want you here anyway.”
She flinched all the same, and just as she’d known it would, Ger’s face fell.
“Ade, shit—I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Kai loves me.”
“Of course he does,” said Ger, and his adamant tone echoed the exact cadence of her own. He nodded vigorously, too, overcompensating just a touch in his remorse. “Of course he does. If he didn’t, he’d be an even bigger idiot than I am.”
Ger raked a hand down his face, pulling his hair over his brow and then groaning into his own palm.
He made such a pathetic sight that Adeline wanted nothing more than to hug him, idiot though he was.
She knew from experience, though, that coddling him would do more harm than good.
He needed to sit with himself a moment, even if it was uncomfortable.
So, she set her lip in a firm line and, with her arms crossed, retreated to the settee once more.
Only when he didn’t move to follow her did she give in and pat the seat beside her.
“What’s going on, Ger?”
He dragged his palm the rest of the way over his face, peering over his fingers at her with some of that odd charge in his eyes diluted. When he moved to join her, every step was reluctant, and he sighed as he sat, the breath gusting out of him.
“Do you know when I first knew I loved you?” he said, finally.
Adeline stiffened, but at the pleading look on Ger’s face, she indulged him with a hesitant shake of her head.
“No,” she said quietly. “When?”
“It was that day in the stables, remember? You were down there, fussing over Papou as usual, and I was a brand new initiate trying to coax my stupid, stubborn horse out of the pen. You tossed me an apple to feed him, and when I fell over trying to catch it and winded myself, you laughed at me. Cruel little thing that you were.” Ger laughed then too, hoarse and short-lived before he forced his gaze up to meet hers.
He struggled to hold her eye, earnest and deeply uncomfortable with it, like he meant every word and still wished he could keep it to himself.
“It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
Then you came over, still giggling and trying to hide it, and when you hauled me to my feet, that smile knocked the breath from me all over again. That was when I knew.”
She blinked at him.
“Ger, that was the first time we met.”
“I know, I’m wildly romantic.” He huffed, then scooted urgently closer. “That’s not the point. I’ve been thinking about that day because—well, there’s this other smile. And it didn’t bowl me over right away like yours did. It’s more like—”
The tips of Ger’s ears turned alarmingly pink, and his gaze flicked away, but he forced it back to her and held it through every word.
“It’s more like it picked me back up.”
Adeline’s chest throbbed.
“Ger,” she said softly, and reached for his hand. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in months.”
And it was. What he was saying was lovely.
Even more so because she knew how hard it was for him to express those kinds of feelings; they’d always understood that about one another, bonded over it even if they never said it aloud.
So for him to tell her now how hard he’d fallen meant more than either of them could put into words.
He didn’t seem to agree.
“It’s a disaster, Ade. Caring about someone, in this palace?
You know she used you to torment Kai, even when you weren’t here.
Jack is here. He’s here, being fucking wonderful and doing stupid things like delivering food to my rooms and squaring up to the Queen’s Gard.
I had to peel Benan off him not even an hour ago. ”
He’d gotten more agitated with every word, but he took a long breath now and turned his hand in hers so their palms met.
“That’s why,” he said carefully, lacing his fingers with hers, “I think we should just go. It’s safer. For everyone.”
Adeline pulled her hand from his.
“I couldn’t do that.”
Ger glanced down at the space between them, but there was nothing but resignation in the drop of his gaze. No slump to his shoulders, no sorrow in the way he tucked his chin. Just complete, apathetic acceptance.
“And neither could you,” she said, knowing it was true. It emboldened her to move closer, to reach for his chin and tilt his gaze to hers. “It’s not safer, Ger. He needs you here, looking out for him.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Of course you can.”
He wrenched his face from her grip, shallow creases carving into his smooth blond brow.
“I can’t. I’ve never been able to work up that kind of courage, and you know it. I’m a fucking coward, Ade.”
Adeline could not help the swell of bitter anger that bled through her at that; couldn’t stop herself from aiming a sharp flick at Ger’s arm.
“Ouch,” he hissed. “What the fuck?”
“Stop that,” she said sternly. “You have more courage in your baby toe than Benan could hope to find in his entire mountain of a body. Being scared doesn’t make you a coward, Ger, it makes you human.
It makes you brave, because that fear means something different to you than it does to most, and you still get up and fight your way through it every day. ”
He dropped her gaze, shoulders sagging.
“I’m tired of fighting.”
He sounded tired. He sounded utterly defeated, looked it too—and that gutted her more than his talk of leaving ever could.
“I know.” It came out on a whisper, and she swallowed back the sudden tightness in her throat. She did know; she was tired too, they all were. “I know you are, but we’re so close. It’s almost over.”
At that, Ger looked up.
“What if it isn’t?” His face was slack, nearly drained of emotion, but the strain in his voice tightened every word, forcing him to speak faster and louder, racing against his own body.
“I was there at the Laune today, they’re moving quickly.
What if the Merrow can’t keep up? What if they don’t make it?
What if Avette gets there first? How the fuck are we supposed to stop her? ”
Adeline threw a look at the door as his voice rose to near hysterics, hands reaching out to hush him.
“I’m working on that.”
“How?”
Adeline hesitated, but Ger’s panic pressed down on her like a physical weight, stirring an urgency in her chest. Like a call and response, the ancient thing in her pocket gave a quick, cool pulse.
Alright, she told it, and could have sworn she felt it shiver with delight.
Ger watched her wordless exchange with his brow furrowed, eyes wary on the hand she slipped into her pocket.
The moment the seaglass met her palm, it sent a current through her skin.
She welcomed that charge, let it sing through her, a breeze through the branches of her veins.
Ger’s focus was still on her concealed hand—so when she reached out her other hand to him, he did not notice right away.
Not until her fingers unfurled, the bright pink nycta bud mirroring her gesture with its petals.
It spilt open, bright pink and so vivid in the stark frost all around them that Ger’s eyes moved like magnets.
And he froze.
Ger was rarely unreadable, not to her at least. His emotions came too readily, and in this moment, he was a puppet to his own shock.
It tugged at his brow, his eyes, his jaw, even twitching in his fingers as he reached, tentatively, for the nycta.
Its roots were still buried just beneath her palm, and she felt the brush of his touch over the petals before she released the bloom from the tangle of her own nerves and let it tumble into his hand.
“Was that,” he whispered uncertainly, “under your skin?”
She nodded; then withdrew her other hand, the seaglass pendant gleaming just enough to cast green over Ger’s blue gaze.
“That’s Kai’s,” he said at once. “Imogen had it.”
Adeline nodded again.
“She’s been teaching me. I found out what I could do in Dhalias, and Imogen—well, she found out too. I’m—I’m not very good yet, but if all else fails, the very least we can hope for is the element of surprise.”
Ger’s face was still soft and slack with shock; his gaze slid to the flower in his hand, fingers curling up to form a cradle around it.