Page 78 of The Isles of the Gods
And that’s what I was running from tonight. That, and the knowledge that soon I’d be leaving behind the only thing that’s helped me survive it—this girl who sees through me, understands who I am. I’ve been so focused on our struggle that I only realized tonight: soon we’ll part ways, and I’ll never see her again.
I made her a little paper boat just an hour ago, to remind myself of the inevitability of our separation, but I want to cling to her, hold her hand, enjoy her insults, know she’ll be there to lean on.
But she doesn’t want that. How could she, after I cost her everything she ever knew and loved? If I were her, I’d want me gone.
“I’m the reason they’re all dead,” I say again, softer.
And I don’t know what I was doing, trying to run from that, except it’s all I’ve ever known how to do.
And it would have been so nice, to dance with her tonight.
Our eyes are still locked, and I can still barely hear the music, barely see the lights. I can’t look away from her, and so I see the exact moment she crumbles, my words echoing between us.
They’re all dead.
For an instant, everything she’s been keeping packed tight inside is there in her eyes, and then she’s in my arms. I don’t know if I reached for her or she came to me, but we’re together, clinging to each other like we did to theLittle Lizabetta.
I’m her lifeboat, and she’s mine. Sobs shake her body, and I hold her tight, tucking her in against me.
Thisis what I’ve been running from. Not just what I did, but what it cost her.
Neither of us speaks, and the band switches to a new song, and the crowd on the dance floor moves into a new pattern. The boy in the waistcoat who bought my drink salutes me over Selly’s shoulder, raising his glass in a wry toast. He thinks he lost out on my company for the evening. He’s right, just not in the way he thinks.
I can’t let go of her, and I don’t want to. So I hold her, and she sobs into my shoulder, and running here tonight seems just as foolish, just as hopeless as she said it was. Because there’s nowhere I can go that will let me hide from what I’ve done.
And tomorrow I’ll be on the ambassador’s ship, and she’ll be gone.
A couple of songs go by before she lifts her head, and now the glimmering lights catch the tears on her cheeks, and they sparkle like the beads on her dress, like the lights from the mirror ball. Gently I run my thumb across her cheekbone, across her freckles, chasing away the tears.
“I’m sorry,” she says with a sniff, unwilling to look up and meet my eyes.
“The apologies are all mine.” I bow my head until our foreheads press together, keeping my voice low. “There’ll never be enough of them.” The truth of that sits hollowly inside me.
I see her pull herself together—I see her deciding to take hold of herself once more and tuck it all away. She’s so strong. I only have a second before she’ll be back behind her shields. And I want, so badly—
“Can I kiss you?” I whisper before I can think the betterofit.
Her breath catches, gaze flying back up to meet mine, and she goes still in my arms. The moment stretches forever as the lights play across her face.
“Leander,” she murmurs. “I can’t.”
The knot in my gut tightens to a physical pain, and I know my mask can’t possibly be good enough right now. “Of course. I shouldn’t— You don’t want—”
“No,” she says quickly—her hand, resting on my arm, tightens. Suddenly all my awareness pours down that arm and into the skin yielding to her fingertips under my sleeve. She swallows, hesitating, her cheeks darkening. Her eyes and lips darkening. “I do want.”
Her voice, barely audible over the music, echoes in my ears. I can’t move, a tangible shock coursing through me. Hope, longing, wanting—they tangle in my throat, like horses jostling at the start of a race. And then dismay catches up and overtakes them all. “If you do, then why can’t we…?”
“It’ll only make it worse,” she says quietly. “Tomorrow.”
I want to argue, but there’s a look on her face that remindsme of just how much she’s already lost. A mother who gave her away at birth. A father who sailed up north and left her behind. The ship that was her home, and crew who were her people…all gone.
Everyone and everything she’s ever tried to love has left, and in the morning I will too. When I made her that little paper boat, and promised her she’d have a real one soon, a part of me hoped she’d turn it down, say she wanted something else. That was a foolish idea, even for a daydream.
I’ve taken everything from her, and I don’t have the right to ask anything more. All she has left is the sea, and I won’t strip that from her too.
So I find the smile everyone knows so well and get it back where it belongs. “Well, you look stunning, and we shouldn’t waste it. Let me teach you one dance, and then we’ll go back to jail.”
She smiles, keeping hold of my hands. The backs of mine are etched with the intricate designs that mark my magic, hers with the thick green stripes that mark her lack of it, hidden beneath green lace unless you know they’re there. But she’s looking down at her glittering dress, moving so the beads shimmer in the light. “I thought you’d like me better in this.”
