“Do you always stare when you think no one will notice?”
He did not bother to feign innocence. “Hard not to,” he murmured. “When someone looks as though they stepped out of a dream. But, I imagine you’re used to that.”
“I assure you, I am not.”
A long pause.
Then, softly, he added, “You know, if I believed in fate, I’d say it has a twisted sense of humor.”
“What persuades you so?”
A smirk in the half-light. “Because out of every poor soul you could be tethered to…you ended up with me.”
I turned toward him fully, folding my hands beneath my cheek. “Perhaps fate knows something we do not.”
He gave a small laugh that faded too quickly. His eyes caught mine, and there was a flicker of something I could not name in the depths of that look. Was it possible that fate, in all its cruel arithmetic, had balanced its scales by leading me to him? For a time, the only sound was the wind moving beyond the shutters.
Then his voice came again, quieter. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“This tether—” he hesitated, eyes tracing the now invisible connection between us, “—you can’t hear what I’m thinking, can you?”
The question startled me. “No,” I said. “It does not share thoughts, only emotions.”
He exhaled, half-relieved, half-uncertain. “But when I feel something…you?—”
“I sense it, yes,” I finished for him. “The stronger the emotion, the more easily it crosses the bond. The same is true in the inverse. You can sense my emotions as well.”
His lips pulled into a frown. “Why do you think it works that way?”
“I am not certain,” I admitted. “But if the tether binds souls, then emotion would be the most natural current to flow between them. Words belong to the mind. Feelings belong to the soul.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I didn’t realize you were so…sad.”
The words pierced more deeply than expected. I managed a small smile that did not quite hold. “I have known tremendous sorrow,” I confessed, “but I seek every opportunity to find joy. Both are part of living. Even for one who has not lived in a very long time.”
His gaze lingered on me, gentle and uncertain, as though he wanted to respond but could not find words to suit.
The candle burned lower, its final flame shrinking into a golden curl before vanishing with a whisper. I lay still beneath the quilt, eyes open to a ceiling I could no longer see. My thoughts drifted—not through centuries, for once, but through now: this narrow room, this fragile hush, this man who looked at me as if I were a person rather than a possession.
I thought of Vesper’s words.“Life is an accumulation of small, meaningful things.”
I had not known what he meant then. Not fully. But lying here, Mav’s steadiness wrapped around my solitude. What would it be like to be wanted only for who I was? Neither for the magic in my blood, nor for the curse I bore. Wanted for the girl who picked wildflowers and named constellations she imagined no one else could see. For the woman who still dared hope for a glimmer of happiness after decades of loneliness.
The tether pulsed softly, more promise than chain.
My eyes closed.
And still, I could see him.
The subtle lines at the corners of his eyes. The quiet ache hidden in his laugh. The way his hands moved when he was not thinking—always prepared to catch, to carry, to defend. I was not ready to name it, whatever this was between us, yet the weight of centuries lessened in his presence.
Perhaps sleep was not always a prison.
Not if someone waited on the other side.
TEN DAYS REMAINING
