Page 124 of Harbinger

I trail away, but the admission bleeds between us.

I wait for him to argue. To tell me that it isn’t my fault. Convince me I couldn’t have known how poorly it would end. That the world is cruel and unfair.

Instead, he almost smiles, and the sadness there crushes me. “You’ll always wish you’d done things differently,” he says quietly. “I do.”

The certainty in his voice chills me.

And for the first time, I really see him. Behind the authority, the armor, the careful restraint. There’s something old there. A scar opened too many times to ever heal properly.

“How many?” I can barely bring myself to ask.

His forehead creases. “How many what?”

I take a deep breath and force the question out. “How many people did you lose before you stopped wishing?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares past me like the question sent him somewhere else. To a different life. A log pops gently in the hearth, and he flinches.

“Too many.”

Not a satisfying answer. Or a complete one.

But it’s honest.

I nod slowly.

“If I ask you something,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “will you tell me the truth?”

His head tilts, and he hesitates a beat. “That depends on the question.”

“Figures,” I grumble.

Everything with him comes with terms.

“One question.” He holds up a hand before I can ask it and adds, “Choose it carefully. I’m not answering more tonight.”

I can’t blame him. Now that the adrenaline has finally burned out, my head throbs, and my legs ache. The night has already taken too much. Exhaustion presses in from all sides, but I consider what he says.

“Why did you come after me?” The question that’s been circling me since the clearing.

He glances out the window like he’s looking for an answer.

“You left a note,” he says after a moment.

This again. “That—”

“Isn’t an answer,” he finishes for me. He tips his head as if he agrees. “Because I know what it feels like to run.”

The idea of Bishop running is so unthinkable that I nearly laugh.

“Because,” he adds, lowering his voice like it’s a secret, “I know what it costs when you do.”

That cost is already burned into me.

Before I can ask anything else, he straightens. “You need rest.”

Confession time is over.

I slump into the pillows, frustration warring with relief. Exhaustion finally wins.