16. Three Days Until Bonding
Chapter sixteen
Three Days Until Bonding
Laurel
We find the conservatory last. At the end of the second-floor hall, a narrow staircase leads down to a pair of glass doors.
“What’s this?” I ask, noticing the light that sneaks through a crack at the bottom of the door. It’s green like it’s been filtered through the bottom of a lake.
Carrson shakes his head. “I have no idea.”
He pulls at the handle. The door resists at first. Then it opens with a dry whisper, and humid air moves in a gust over my face.
The conservatory ceiling is made from arched panes of glass held in place by metal ribs mottled green with age. Several panels have cracked, leaving narrow openings where ivy has pushed its way inside.
Most of the plants are dead. Brown vines curl around empty trellises. A row of clay pots sits shattered beneath one window.
Not all of it, though. Life persists under the broken panes where rainwater has reached it.
Ferns spill from a long stone planter near the far wall, their leaves glossy and green.
A lemon tree leans toward the light, its branches bowed under fruit no one has harvested.
White orchids climb from a ceramic urn in the corner, their petals bright.
A shadow passes beyond the glass. I turn, but the old panes warp it into a dark smear moving between the trees. It disappears before I can decide whether I saw a person or only a branch shifting in the wind.
I keep watching the spot, waiting for it to return.
“What’s this?” asks Carrson, drawing my attention back to him.
He stands in the center of the conservatory by a large piece of furniture covered by a dusty sheet. Carrson rips it away with a flourish, the fabric rippling to reveal a grand piano.
Its black lacquer has faded to a soft charcoal, and vines have curled around one carved leg, but the instrument is otherwise untouched.
Carrson lifts the lid. The hinges answer with a rusty groan. He presses a key, and a warped note rings out.
He tries another, which is better. Then a third.
“Most of them still work,” he says.
“You play?”
He glances at me over his shoulder. “A little.”
“That means yes.”
He looks down, a lock of hair falling over his forehead, almost embarrassed. “I took lessons when I was younger.”
I raise a wry eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like I’m a mystery you’re determined to solve.”
I gesture to the piano and grin. “Satisfy my curiosity.”
He rolls his eyes. Then he sits down on the bench.
A melody emerges, some notes clear and others dulled by age.
Carrson adjusts, building the imperfections into the song until the music itself sounds haunted.
It moves slowly through the room, slipping between the ferns and clinging vines.
There’s grief in it, the kind a person keeps hidden because they’ve learned no one’s coming to save them.
I think of Carrson slipping into bed after everyone else has gone to sleep, pulling me against him and burying his face in my neck. The way he holds on as if caring for me is the only thing that’s ever made him afraid.
I sit beside him on the bench.
When the final note fades, Carrson leaves his hands resting on the piano.
“I have something for you,” he says without looking over.
“You already gave me the key.” I pat it in my pocket, staring at the room, unable to comprehend that all this beautiful ruin is mine.
He turns toward me and reaches into his jacket, pulling out a dark blue rectangle. He hands it over, and I read the words out loud.
“Passport,” I say. My finger traces the embossed gold letters. “United States of America.” I hold it up. “What’s this?”
“Look inside.”
I flip past the first page to find a picture of me staring back, but the name isn’t right. Neither are the rest of the details.
“Willow?” I ask. “Santa Barbara?”
“It’s fake, obviously, but real enough that it’ll take you anywhere you need to go,” says Carrson, staring downward.
I pull the key out of my pocket. I line them up on the music stand before us.
The brass key. The blue passport.
A place to stay. A way to leave.
“So you’re giving me a new identity and my old identity all at the same time?” I ask.
He hesitates a moment, weighing his words. “I’m giving you options to replace the ones I’ve taken from you.”
“You said that before,” I remind him.
“I’m repeating it because it’s important.” He gently presses a piano key, and a single note sounds out, melancholy without the rest of the chord to keep it company.
“Do you have a fake passport too? Because I’m not going anywhere without you.” I cross my arms over my chest, curling my fists.
“I know you won’t.” He smiles a little at that, but his eyes are still distant. “It’s for if I’m not here to go with you.”
My heart contracts painfully. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t asked where I was yesterday.” He turns and straddles the bench facing me.
“Your father said you had to run an errand for him. That you needed to deliver some computer stuff.”
Carrson gives a humorless laugh. “It wasn’t an errand. It was a mission.”
The word makes my stomach go hollow. “What kind of mission?”
“The Order sends us on them sometimes, me more than most.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “They’re…dangerous.”
I look him over. “Were you hurt?”
“Thom used the healing spray on me,” he admits.
“Carrson!” I exclaim, reaching for him.
“I’m okay, really.” He holds up his hands. “I never minded the missions before. I was good at them, and being useful made the risk feel worthwhile. I didn’t care whether I came back hurt.”
“Now?” I ask. Mirroring him, I throw one leg over the bench so I’m straddling it too.
He chuckles ruefully. “Now I’m fastening my seat belt. Checking the mirrors twice. Making sure I survive, because of you.”
My chest swells at that, how Carrson Ashford, who has spent most of his life walking into danger like it has nothing to take from him, is checking his mirrors because he wants to come back to me.
“You were injured.” My hand traces over his cheek, imagining bruises I can’t see, cuts that no longer bleed, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt.
“I told you, I’m fine.” He turns his head away slightly.
“If you were fine,” I counter, “you wouldn’t be getting me a fake passport.”
He’s quiet at that, his own logic working against him.
“I’m glad,” I add, “that you’re being careful. I need you to live, Carrson. I can’t—I can’t.” The words stick, caught on the lump in my throat. “Can’t live in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”
I lean forward, and Carrson meets me in the middle, one hand coming up to cup the back of my neck. “Yes, you could,” he says against my lips. “You’re Laurel Turner Bellefleur. You might hate it, but you’d go on.”
He kisses me, his lips soft, his tongue darting into my mouth. He pulls me closer until our knees meet. I kiss him back harder, wishing I could keep him here with me, pull him free of the missions and the danger and the life The Order keeps risking as though it belongs to them.
It does not.
Not anymore.
Not if I have a say in it.