My pulse hammered in my throat. “Youcould.”
Gideon’s jaw flexed once.
And that’s when I realized something I hadn’t wanted to admit.
He wasn’t refusing because he didn’t understand.
He was refusing because he understood too well.
“You could let me talk to her,” I said, slower now. “Really talk. One last time.”
Gideon stared at me for a long moment, and in that stare I saw something I didn’t usually see in him.
Fear.
Not for me.
For himself.
“That’s not something I do,” he said, voice quieter.
“But you can,” I pushed. “You can do it. I know you can.”
Gideon stood, abrupt enough that his chair scraped. He moved to the window and stared out into the garage like he needed distance to breathe.
Outside, Cal was holding an air filter like it was a microphone, doing some dramatic reenactment for Mason, who looked like he wanted to be swallowed by the earth.
The ordinariness of it made my chest hurt.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Gideon said.
“I do,” I snapped. “I’m not asking you to bring her back. I’m not asking for a miracle. I’m asking forminutes. Two minutes. One minute. Let me hear her voice. Let me—” My voice cracked. I swallowed hard and kept going anyway. “Let me ask her if I’m allowed to want something else. If I’m allowed to… to look at someone and feel something without it being betrayal.”
Gideon’s shoulders rose and fell, slow.
When he spoke, his voice was rough, scraped raw. “Death magic isn’t a phone call, Michael.”
I flinched at my name in his mouth. It sounded too personal.
“It’s not,” I insisted, because my brain was a mess and my grief had teeth. “It’s not like that. You’ve done it before. You’ve called things. You’ve?—”
Gideon went perfectly still.
So still the air felt thick.
Then, quietly: “Don’t.”
The single word carried history. Warning. Pain.
My anger faltered.
I swallowed. “Youhave.”
Gideon turned from the window slowly, and his eyes were old in a way that had nothing to do with the silver in his hair.
“I’ve done a lot of things,” he said, “that I will carry until I die.”
My throat tightened. “Then do one more.”
