The smile on my face is instant.“I know.”
“Do you love him?”
“I do.”
“You should let him know.”
“I have.”
She bursts into a grin.“He knows?Oh, thank goodness.I know Crane is Crane, and he doesn’t really seem to show his emotions, he just states them, but I can see how much he loves you and that all he’s wanted is for you to love him.”
“What about you?”I ask.“He loves you.Do you love him?”
She rubs her lips together.“I think so.”
“Kat,” I warn her.“I know you do.And you haven’t told him.”
She shakes her head.“No.I think I’m afraid to.”
“Why?”I frown.
“Because then he’ll ask me to marry him.”
I stiffen at that, a stab of jealousy between my ribs.
“And you don’t want that…,” I say carefully.
She licks her lips.“Actually,” she says.“I do want that.”
I close my eyes in pain and she presses her palm to my cheek.“And I want that from you too.I want you both.And I don’t know how I can have you both.If Crane asks me to marry him, I will say yes.”
“And if I ask you first?”I open my eyes.
She stares at me and exhales.
“You’ll have to say no,” I answer my own question.
“You know why, Brom,” she says imploringly.
Because of the horseman, the coven, the bargain.
“I know why,” I tell her.
And it doesn’t matter in the end anyway.
She belongs to us both, but in the end, there will only be Crane.
“Oh, look,” Kat says, gazing past me at the roof.
I glance over my shoulder to see a swarm of blue and black butterflies flying just above the hole in the barn and watch as they slowly start to fly down inside toward us.
To my surprise they start landing on Kat’s limbs, her hair, her face, then they do the same to me.She laughs, pure joy, and I join in too.
I make a promise to myself to never forget this.
—
We took alittle more time in the barn then we should have, so once we got on our horses, we galloped the rest of the way back to the school.It was a freeing sort of ride, cool wind in my hair, the scent of fresh earth and bonfires and fallen leaves, the thunder of Daredevil’s hooves underneath me, trying to beat the setting sun.
