Another day passed. Another day of drifting from place to place, doing nothing of worth, contributing nothing to no one. Another day of waiting as she witnessed the rise and fall of the world from her new vantage of eternity.
It was then, on the third day, that sleep miraculously came to her. She wasn’t sure if it was sheer will and determination, boredom, or the fact that even if her body didn’t need sleep, her mind eventually demanded a reprieve. In fact, were it not for the heavy knock on the door waking her, she wouldn’t have been certain she’d slept at all.
“This better be good,” she mumbled into the pillow. She’d just been on the cusp of a dream—she’d swear it. It may well be a decade before she’d find herself able to actually shut her mind completely off once more.
Jo flipped her wrist, looking at the time that illuminated the strip of fabric. It was some time after three in the morning and two hours after everyone had broken off from the common room and gone to bed.
Jo pulled herself from the bed and shook the drowsiness from her mind. Who could possibly be knocking—
Her hand froze, hovering above the doorknob. If magic was a current of electricity, the metal of the knob was conducting it between her and the man on the other side. She couldfeelhim there, and for the briefest of moments, an alarm bell rang faintly in the back of her mind. Something about this was ill-advised, the alarm warned. Perhaps, it was because there was something akin to her now dream-like memory of meeting Pan, an ominous threshold from which there was no going back from.
But Jo willfully ignored it all and opened the door.
Snow, even untouched by the Paris skyline that illuminated her bedroom windows, still radiated moonlight. His silver hair swept over an eye, but seemed looser and rougher at the edges. His eyes were sunken, hollow.
This wasn’t their fearless and stoic leader. This was the man in agony she’d seen through the Door months ago—the man she’d forced herself to all but forget. There was clearly no path forward to discovering anything more about him.
No path, until he presented one to her.
“I don’t know why I’m here.” His voice belonged to someone who’d spent hours screaming at the shadows in the corners.
“Come in.” She moved on instinct—on an invisible tide that ebbed and flowed between them. If he was the moon, then she was the sea, pulled along by the mysterious aura that he wore like couture.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why?” It wasn’t a particularly good argument, so his lack of fight when he did surrender was all the more glaring. While she was used to his feet seemingly never touching the ground, the wounded, once-majestic creature now walked with the heaviness of a body robbed of all ethereal grace.
Snow closed the door behind him, leaning against it as if to draw space between them. There wasn’t much, and it pulled her a half-step closer in. . . what? Fascination? Concern? Sympathy? He was all of it wrapped in the most beautiful enigma she’d ever seen.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he repeated.
“Well, you are, so that’s that,” Jo said as gently as she could through her exasperation. “Snow. . . What happened?”
“Warning you is pointless.” He pressed his eyes closed and hung his head. “It will do no good. You can’t stop it, none of us can.”
“Stop what?”
“And now, now we must do this.” He shook his head again and the long bangs all but concealed his face. “Why did I come? Telling you will do no—”
Jo summoned magic she didn’t realize she possessed and silenced him with a touch.
It was the most delicate, timid touch she’d ever given. Lighter than a butterfly landing, her fingertips on his cheek. Right first, then left.
He was warm. Warmer than she thought he would be for a man who looked so much like his namesake. Had he been this warm when he’d taken her hand at the Ranger compound all those months ago? Had he been this warm when she’d helped him most of the way back to his room after he’d allowed her to witness his magic?
When he didn’t flinch or pull away, the pads of her fingers made shallow indents in his skin as she pulled his attention forward.Look at me, she wanted to say,let me see you. Her lips were still, voice silent, but everything about her was alive. His presence had done for her what sleep could not; it rejuvenated her.
Perhaps it was some residual magic that lingered between them from his pulling her into the Society, but this man made her feel something indescribable. Something she’d never felt across universes or realities. In a fake world outside of time, this was real.
It was something she’d been missing all along. Something she longed for. Something that was almost like. . . a reunion.
“There’s been a wish, hasn’t there?” she whispered.
He nodded and pressed his eyes shut again, as if in pain.
“Tell me.” He’d have to sooner or later and if he did it now, he’d have practice keeping his composure for the rest of the group.
As if reading her mind, Snow took a shuddering breath. Then another, slightly more stable one. And then, he found length in his spine and strength in his shoulders. He rose to his full height and looked down at her. His carriage wasn’t overbearing, nor was it the aloof comportment she’d seen him muster so many times before.
