Chapter Twenty-Two
His reflection is a patchwork of parts he didn’t choose, his skin sallow and his body traitorous. It pains him in ways that go beyond physical—an ache made sharper with knowing he would choose to bear it all over again if it meant staying by her side.
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
Anna plants the peach pit in the heart of her garden.
It’s the wrong time of year for it, but as Khiran helps her bury it one handful of soil at a time, she can’t help but feel that it’s right. Magic doesn’t wait for seasons.
Off to the side, Jiro watches with his hands in his trouser pockets.
They had exchanged stories over wine the night before. Trading histories until they could see the framework of the tapestries Life had continued to weave while they had been apart.
He doesn’t live at the cottage full time, but he drives up almost every other weekend to maintain the place.
His home is in Santa Cruz, where his restaurant, his wife, and young daughter are.
The three of them like to spend the summers up here.
His daughter, Ami, took her first steps in the same kitchen he learned to cook in.
She likes to play in the garden and listen to him tell stories about gods masquerading as humans between the stems of rosemary.
Sometimes, he overhears her trying to retell the same stories to the neighbor’s little boy.
They’re only stories to her—myths and legends spun of the same magic as cursed princesses and magic spinning wheels—but sometimes he catches her on the front porch, staring out over the horizon with her favorite stuffed bunny in her hands as if she’s waiting.
Stories have a way of snaring hearts—of following children as they age into adults until they pass it down to the next generation.
Jiro admits that was his hope—that the gods who gave him a home could live on in his daughter until they could return and prove themselves real.
It’s why he strived to leave their home unchanged.
Time has left a patina on every item within its walls, but everything Anna once cared for has remained the same.
Her little murals still decorate the doorways and float down the halls.
There’s an entire corner of the greenhouse devoted to storing all the faded remnants of artwork she hadn’t had the heart to get rid of.
In the living room, Khiran’s leather wingback sits in the corner, the shelves framing the fireplace still carrying the weight of all their books.
Anna can even recognize some of the titles.
By the record player, the Ray Charles album they danced to their first Christmas sits on top.
It feels, in all ways, like the home they left.
Settling back into the life she once cherished takes longer than Anna expected.
For as much as Jiro tried to keep things the same, it doesn’t change the fact that she is changed.
Sometimes she’ll prepare a meal, the hilt of the kitchen knife pressed into her palm, and she’ll remember how blood had spilled over her hands and the terror that had seized her heart.
Last week, when Jiro helped her burn some of the waste from the garden, she had to fight to hide the way her body shook in front of the flames, the burns on her hand twinging with painful memories.
Considering the concern she saw in his dark eyes, she’s not entirely convinced that she succeeded.
In the garden, the pit has sprouted.
Its leaves uncurl and soak up the last offerings of summer, reaching up on a spindly trunk towards the open sky above it.
It’s already as tall as Anna, growing faster than her eyes can keep up.
Some days it feels like it’s gained a month of growth in a single afternoon.
Whenever she feels shaken by old fears and past regrets, Anna takes a seat beside it and admires its green foliage with a gentle hand.
It helps ground her; reminds her of the hope they’ve earned and the pain they’ve escaped.
Somehow, the threat of The First still lingers despite knowing it’s no longer real.
Anna worries that Khiran must feel it, too.
When summer wanes into fall, the colors of the landscape turn warm and vibrant beneath its cool touch.
It’s beautiful—just like she remembers—but it means they’ve been home for months, and his face still looks gaunt.
His skin still pale in ways that suggest sickness.
He’s not gaining weight.
Anna starts adding more fat, more butter, more cream, to their meals.
She can see the effects of it in the heaviness of her breasts and the softness of her hips and thighs, but when she explores the dips and valleys of his body at night, his ribs read like braille beneath her fingers, spelling out her failures.
She thinks of his beginnings. Thinks of the night they spoke of memories carried and memories left behind.
I came into Eira’s care because I was unwanted. I never knew why—I was too young to understand.
He didn’t understand then, but Anna does now.
There are days he spends more hours sleeping than awake.
Days where his muscles ache and swell even when he’s done nothing to warrant the stiffness.
For all of Anna’s experience, all her knowledge, she can’t name what ails him, but she knows with a certainty that echoes in the hollow of her chest like a nightmare that his frailty was the reason for his abandonment.
He was the mouth not worth feeding. The child they didn’t expect to live.
She wonders if he’s come to the same realization she has.
The bathroom mirror is shattered.
Jagged pieces lay scattered in the pedestal sink, shining against the white enamel. On the floor, shards wink up at her like sharp confetti. With the way the evening light shines in from the window, tiny reflections cast out like stars around the room. It would almost be beautiful.
Almost.
There’s blood dripping from sharp fragments, smearing across the mirrored surface like a stain. It matches Khiran’s knuckles.
She calls his name, soft with concern and lined with questions.
He doesn’t look up.
“It’s not me.” His voice is serrated at the edges. Raw. “This face. This body. It’s not right. I can’t—I’m trapped. I’m trapped in this form that isn’t of my choosing and I don’t know the person staring back.”
Anna doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to fix it.
She thinks of Silas, of how he feels lost in a world that no longer whispers in his ear.
Thinks of Malik and the way his anger bled away until all that was left was fear.
Cassius, who’s having to learn how to trust a world he can’t seduce.
Kaia, who lives by the ocean she can no longer call home.
Each and every one of them are struggling to adjust to mortal life the same way Khiran was forced to.
A life of less. Less power. Less magic.
Somehow, Anna knows that’s not the reason why there are shards of mirror littering the floor. The blood branching across the back of his hand and dripping into the sink isn’t for feeling lost in the world, but being lost within himself.
Stepping into the tiny bathroom, pieces of mirror splintering beneath her slippers, Anna wraps her arms around his waist. Forehead resting between his bony shoulder blades, she can feel the way his breath hitches a moment before his uninjured hand covers hers.
His thumb brushes over the ring on her left hand like a worry stone.
“Let’s pick up some hair dye when we go into town tomorrow,” she says, turning her head and pressing her cheek to his back so she can hold him closer.
One breath, two, before he answers, “What?”
She closes her eyes, wets her lips. “Last time I was at the drugstore, it seemed like there were a lot of different options for the home dye kits. Maybe you could try one out, if you’d like.
” Her fingers curl into the cotton of his shirt.
“I know it’s not—I can’t give you back what you’ve lost. What I’ve taken—”
“Don’t,” he commands, turning in her arms until he’s facing her. His palms cradle her face. She can feel his blood against her skin, wet on her cheek. “This isn’t your fault.”
Don’t shoulder blame that isn’t yours.
“This isn’t that.” She takes a lock of dark blonde hair between her fingers.
“You’re still Khiran to me. You always have been, no matter the form you take.
But if wearing this face hurts you, it hurts me, too.
” His hair slips through her fingers and she traces the shape of his low brow before resting her palm on the hollow of his cheek.
“Our happiness, our burdens, we share them. Remember?”
The muscles of his throat work around a swallow. “I don’t know how to share this.”
Her answering smile is gentle. Soft with empathy and brimming with hope.
They both still carry their demons, but give them time, and they will rob them of their teeth.
Wear them down until they’re more memory than ghost. “That’s okay.
We’ll figure it out. Together.” He stares at her with those eyes she still hasn’t quite come to know.
Give her a year and she’ll memorize every fleck of amber; memorize how the shades of brown turn caramel in the afternoon light and chocolate at sunset.
They don’t have forever, not anymore, but Anna doesn’t need eternity to learn this face, this body, as well as she knows his heart.
He echoes her, voice so soft it’s more a whisper. She hears the promise in it, anyway. “Together.”
It’s almost winter when she wakes up to blood.
It’s been so long, it takes Anna longer than it should to realize her thighs are wet with it. In her chest, her heart stutters—caught between the grinding gears of old regrets and current realities.
Her hand shakes as she reaches for his shoulder. “Khiran?” His name trembles on her lips, so weak Anna doesn’t think it can wake him.