I take hold of his hand. “No. Say it again.”
He goes still. “I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” His fingers wrap around mine. “If I could undo it, I would.”
There was a time when that would’ve been enough to unwind everything that’s happened between us, but not now. But as I consider the way he sat beside me on the carriage and revealed shadows of his past that I don’t think he’s ever shared with anyone, I wonder if we’ve begun to forge a new path.
So I give his fingers a squeeze. “You still can,” I say.
A light sparks in his eye, and he leans in to brush his lips against mine. Very soft, very chaste, but it sends fire through my veins anyway, especially when he smiles. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER 27
TYCHO
Despite Jax’s idea, it took him a while to get the forge set up, especially when we headed back to his workshop with the queen and discovered one crucial problem.
“I took most of my tools to Emberfall,” he said with a scowl. “I forgot.”
I thought we’d have to scrap everything right then and there. The queen’s immediate dismay was visible.
But Jax looked around the workshop and said, “Wait. Some of Da’s old things must be under here somewhere.” He dug through dusty piles of iron and wood until it all began to stick to his damp skin. Eventually he emerged with a hammer and a pair of pincers, blowing dust and grit off the metal.
The queen looked a bit dubious, and she glanced at me worriedly. We could clearly see that the hammer seemed crooked, and the pincers were rusty.
Jax saw her glance and smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It won’t take long to make new ones.”
Sure enough, within minutes, he fashioned a new hammer like it was nothing. Now, we’re standing back and watching as he crafts a new pair of pincers, too. The rain is rattling on the roof overhead, and we’re all exhausted, but there’s something peaceful about the rhythmic smacking of his hammer, the scent of the smoke. Jax moves with careful precision, and I remember the way he used to shift around with benches and ropes to help him maneuver without his crutches.
Now that he has the false foot, he doesn’t need any of it. He was always quick and efficient, but this is a new level. I can’t take my eyes off him.
Lia Mara must notice me staring, because she bumps me in the arm, then leans in to whisper, “He’s a useful one, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking of everything we’d been through over the last few days. “He is.”
“I knew it.” She leans in again and drops her voice. “I kept telling Grey to leave you alone about him. But you know how he is.”
That makes me snap my head around. Until this moment, I had no idea that Grey and Lia Mara had discussed me and Jax. When she and Grey separated, I hardly spoke to Lia Mara at all.
“You did?” I say.
“Tycho! Of course!” She bumps me in the arm again.
My expression must reveal that there’s noof courseabout it, because she frowns and looks away, then sighs.
“I keep thinking our challenges are simply ourown,” she says. “But they’re not, are they?”
I turn those words around in my head, then frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“For so long, my conflict with Grey seemed . . . very private. Very solitary. Something that affected us.Onlyus.” She pauses and looks up at me. “But it wasn’t.”
I shake my head.
She sighs. Jax’s hammer swings.Plink- plink- plink.
“How is he?” she finally asks.
“Grey?” I say, like it needs clarification.
She nods, biting her lip.
