Silence. Tears stung her eyes. All this time, she’d been fighting them, but what was the point of fighting now? Her chest shuddered with the first of her sobs.
“If you’re in there, come back to me,” she sobbed. “Please, Maxwell.”
Her chest constricted so much she couldn’t breathe, and she rested her head against the door, doing her best to find her composure, because if he didn’t open it—if he wasn’t there to open it—then she would have to find a way of breaking the door down herself, and she couldn’t give way to her despair untilafterthen, so?—
There was the scraping of a lock, and the door opened. Thalia nearly stumbled forward, her weight off-balance, and she landed against something hard.
Maxwell made a small sound of pain, and she remembered too late that he had been boxing. But just as she was about to withdraw, his arms came up around her.
“Thalia?” His voice scraped, as though he had not used it in a long time.
But she didn’t care about that. She didn’t care that his shirt was damp, and she could smell wet clay, and that she was almost certain her studio was destroyed. All she cared about was the fact that he was here. He was here, he was alive, and she was holding him.
She gripped his shirt in her hands, pressing her face into his shoulder and struggling to control her breathing.
“Why did you leave?” she choked. “All I knew was that you had left for here in the middle of the night, and I—” She broke off, her voice shaking.
Maxwell slid his hand up and down her spine. Now her dress would be ruined, too. But she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“I needed some time and space to think. And this is your room, Thalia.”
“What are you doing in here?” Finally, she broke away, peering at the rest of the room.
His arms barely loosened, but she still saw enough to make her heart throb in a new, wholly unexpected way.
He had destroyed her room. There was clay everywhere—piles of it slowly drying in the corner of the room where he hadevidently gotten frustrated and dumped it. Clay-slick water was everywhere, darkening the floorboards.
And there, in the center of the room, was a… creation.
She couldn’t say for certain what it was. A misshapen lump that vaguely, possibly resembled a human form, if she squinted a little. Maybe tilted her head.
“What areyoudoing here?” Maxwell asked, turning her so she met his gaze. She couldn’t hide her flinch of shock.
His face was bloodied and swollen. One eye looked almost purple, nearly swollen shut. There were great, blooming bruises across his jaw and cheek. His lip had split; a red line down the middle created a harsh divide.
He looked almost like a different man.
“Oh, Maxwell,” she whispered.
“It’ll heal.” His eyes were fixed on hers, hard and unyielding. No matter what damage had been done to him, he could not hide his spirit. “Now tell me why you’re here, Thalia.”
“I came when Simon told me you had left here in the middle of the night. And the boxing.” She reached up to touch her cheek, not realizing she was crying until she tasted the tears. “What were you thinking, getting yourself hurt like this?”
His fingers closed around her wrist. “I hurt you.”
“Not like this.”
“I was afraid I might.” He released a long sigh, wincing at whatever pain he felt in his ribs.
She needed to call a physician immediately. Why Maxwell hadn’t done that for himself, she didn’t know. But his hand curled around her cheek, and she knew she would forgive him anything. No matter how angry she had been, or how hurt, her relief at seeing him here trumped everything else.
“You are a fool,” she said, her voice breaking. “As though you would ever harm me like this. I know that. I have always known that, even at the very beginning when I saw you boxing and when you faced off those men. I have never, ever been afraid of you.”
He shook his head. “I always swore I would never love someone, so I would never have a chance to become like my father.”
“We are not the same as those who sired us. Maxwell.” More tears flooded her eyes, both at how shortsighted he had been and how afraid he must have been. How awful his father must have been to have left such long-lasting scars. “How could you think you were ever that terrible?”
“I have a temper,” he said evenly. “It’s why I box.”
