“What happened?”
“Your aunt… she never saw us elves as people. She looked at us the way you look at your plants.”
The tension in his voice silenced any follow-up questions she might have had. Whatever her aunt had done to him or Haruko, maybe it wasn’t something to speak about.
Everything was starting to make more sense.
She lowered her voice. “I shouldn’t have said you were an experiment.”
“You didn’t mean it,” Taiyo whispered. “I know you didn’t.”
“Still, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Taiyo shifted again, pulling his gaze away. “Don’t… Don’t.”
What?
Hellebore watched as he stared at his desk in the corner. “I’m not… I’m not innocent. I… I’ve used what happened in the past to justify myself time and time again. But that doesn’t change what I’ve done or make it right.”
“Taiyo, what are you talking about?”
He turned back to her. “If I was in the wrong, what would you do?”
Had both he and her aunt been guilty twenty-five years ago?
“You mean like the things you did in order to marry me and secure my help?”
“Yes. Hellebore, if I told you… If I had done something awful, truly despicable… If I hurt you, would you forgive me?” Taiyo closed his eyes. “Or would you let me die?”
“I’m not letting you die.”
“But would you forgive me?”
“Do you want to put your life at risk by telling me something you know will make me angry with you and distract me from focusing on this cure? Or will you let me focus on curing the irises and trust me to figure the rest out afterwards?”
Taiyo nodded.
“Besides, I refused to let you die even when I thought you were actively kidnapping me—and you were—and I got over it eventually. Have a little faith.”
She squirmed out of his grip just enough to set her notebook to the side and blow out the candle. As they both settled back down to sleep, Hellebore rested her head on his heart to measure the beats. He ran his fingers through her hair, brushing his thumb over her rounded ears. She was thankful the darkness hid her blush.
“Speaking of afterwards,” Taiyo murmured, “maybe you’ll be ready to write to your brother? Or even invite him here? Surely you can’t stay mad at him forever.”
“One problem at a time. Go to sleep.”
Hellebore was fairly certain she was the one who fell asleep first as Taiyo’s ministrations steadied her.
Whatever it was… if he was able to forgive her for using their iris, surely his secrets couldn’t be so bad? And if they were… Well, Hellebore would have to save him first to find out.
Chapter 22
In all Hellebore’s life, she had never worked harder at anything than she did during the last month she had to save the irises and save her husband. She was both hardly conscious of anything, the days all blurring together, and also conscious of everything as her mind spun in a million different directions; the well-developed habit of meticulous notetaking and recordkeeping of experiments drilled into her from a young age was the only thing saving her.
Each day that went by without a cured iris, Taiyo’s protests about her overworking herself and her health got weaker until they vanished completely. She felt it in the way he held her at night. She knew it from the tears that occasionally fell onto her skin in the darkness. It was burned into her from the way his hands trembled against her.
He didn’t want to die.
Hellebore brushed her fingertips over the sloped, pointed edge of his ears. She ran her fingers through the orange ends of his hair. But she never had the words. She was trying.
