“Why would you say that?” I managed, noting that I had gone hoarse and not allowing it to matter.
“Because she will ask,” he said. “Because she will build a story you look good standing in. Because every door that has ever been closed to you will open, and at the end of that hallway, she will put something you love behind glass. And because you are a hinge,” he added, almost gently, “and hinges turn when asked.”
“I choose where I turn.”
“Then choose,” he said. “Every day. Loudly.”
“Five days,” Keegan said, voice low like iron. “Stonewick. Meet us for the joining.”
Gideon inclined his head in a shape that wasn’t obedience and wasn’t refusal.
“Five days,” he echoed.
Gideon stepped through the opening in the shroud and out into the neutral winter.
The hexagon felt larger without him. It worried me that relief arrived that fast.
Luna stayed planted in her chair, shawl tucked tight like she could hold herself together if the wool remembered its job. Awkward settled around her like an ill-fitting coat. Her eyes went to the place he’d been and stayed too long.
“You all right?” I asked. “Did he hurt you?”
She blinked, the soft, surprised blink of a woman unused to being the object of suspicion.
“No,” she said, and it sounded true in here. “I’m… fine.” She breathed in and set the breath down like a teacup. “I knowyou don’t feel… settled with me, Maeve. I wouldn’t, in your place. I will say he is not a kind man, but self-preservation is a big motivator. I felt his call during the battle and…I went.”
“You were the only one he could reach in that moment, and you did the math. But we’ve been guessing for four weeks. That’s a lot of time to spend with a knot in your stomach and a town counting on your hands. But I’m forever grateful.”
Luna’s fingers smoothed the fringe of her shawl.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve kept worse secrets for longer, but I hated this one more.”
And all I could do was wonder what other secret she had kept for so long?
“Because it touched us,” Stella said as she draped an arm around Luna’s shoulders and absorbed some of the awkwardness into her own glamour until the shape of it changed and felt more like concern. “And because he’s the kind of man who makes other people’s good decisions feel like accidents. You did not make a mistake, sweetheart. You made a call.”
Luna made a small, broken noise of appreciation that explained why half the town told Stella their worst mistakes. Nova watched them with her winter-quiet mercy, then glanced at me. “You’re not wrong to be nervous,” she said. “Nervous is a sign your heart is listening.”
“I’d like it to listen less loudly,” I muttered, chuckling.
“I thought if I could keep him moving,” Luna said, words picking up pace now that the first confession had been carried, “if I could keep him on the long road, away from the shortcuts, give you time to set your beliefs, then maybe when we arrived here, he’d be tired enough to see sense.”
“Is that what he did?” Keegan asked.
Luna looked at the empty space where Gideon had stood. “He said yes, didn’t he?”
“He did,” I said. “And the ground didn’t spit him back out for saying it.”
She nodded, swallowed. “Then I’ll count that a small success and wait for the large one.”
The urge to hug her and the urge to shake her wrestled inside me.
“If anything changes,” I said softly, “you tell me before you tell the thought you think first. Even if it’s half-formed. Even if it’s ugly.”
“I will,” she said, and it felt like a vow.
Bella drifted nearer, human again, hair sugared with frost.
“He’ll come,” she said. “Men like that always want to see if they can stand still without breaking.”
