Rummy.
I wanted to be soft for her. I wanted to lean into her, to coax the truth from her, to tell her I was here for her and I would always fucking be here for her. But that wasn’t us, was it?
The two of us no longer possessed a bond like that. I was no longer the nice, supportive guy she could lean on. I had fucked that up a long, long time ago.
I knew it. Rummy knew it.
“How could I tell you?” she asked, voice wavering. “How could I tellanyone? You don’t understand what it’s been like for me.”
“I don’t understand because you don’t tell me. You don’t tell me anything anymore. Not since…”
I snapped my mouth shut, but what I wanted to say, though I knew it would make me irrecoverably idiotic if I did, was,Not since you shut me out. Not since you decided you were no longer the fun, kind Rummy. Not since you shut yourself off with no warning, no explanation.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she sniffed them back.
I took a step toward her, and to my surprise, she didn’t retreat.
“You’d never look at me the same if you knew the truth. None of you would.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “All we want is to be there for you. Huntyr, Wolf, me. That’s all we’ve ever wanted.”
A tear trailed down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand.
“You all have gifts of magic, not curses. You heal people. You help others. You… Hells, I don’t even know half the shit students learn in Moira.” She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself. “But I know that this darkness inside me isn’t a gift. What did the healer at the inn call it? Adisease?”
Anger bubbled in my gut. “She had no clue what she was talking about.” And I would hunt her down and kill her for calling Rummy’s magic a disease.
“It doesn’t matter. Cornelius knows what I wield, and he says he can help me.”
My heart stumbled. Cornelius knew?
I didn’t consider myself to be a jealous man. But this?
Yeah. Cornelius had to go.
It took effort, but I maintained a neutral expression. “And what else did Cornelius say about it?”
Shrugging, she smiled, but it was not a smile of joy or happiness. No, it was cracked, full of pain, flickering in agony. “He understands me.” She lowered her head a fraction. “He knows what it’s like. He’s the first person I’ve ever met who has wanted me for my gift.”
“That’s not fair.” My chest constricted sharply. “Nobody else knows you even have this gift. How can we want you for it when you’ve never shared with us that it even exists? How did he know, anyway?” I moved in so we were toe to toe, so she had to look up at me. “Are you two just that close now?”
Her eyes sharpened. “I didn’t have to tell him. He could sense it inside me the moment he saw me. He said he’s been waiting for someone like me for a long, long time.”
The still wind of the caves picked up again, a soft breeze swirling around us.
This wasn’t right. Nothing coming out of her mouth was right.
“You don’t actually believe that, do you?” The words were more condescending than I meant for them to be, but this female was too smart to fall for tricks like that.
She tilted her head and looked at me like I was the daft one here. “Of course I believe it.”
I scoffed. “Come on, Rummy. You’re not that dense. Sure, he’s charming, but I thought you were only pretending to be affected by his endless flirting.”
She stepped back, and I swore the walls around her mind rose higher, brick by brick, step by step. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jessiah. Cornelius has been dealing with gifted fae for a lot longer than we have.”
Rage filled me, making my blood run hot. “You’d believe anything he tells you, wouldn’t you? Even after what you saw him do? He’sevil,Rummy.”
“Obviously he’s evil! But he’s still the only person I’ve met with magic like mine. He called it chaos. If his magic makes him evil, what does that make me?”
