“Maya.” Her name flowed off his tongue and took all his tension with it. He turned towards her—hesitated—then raised one hand to touch her arms. “I asked you to let me deal with this.”
“No, youtoldme to wait inside. You’re not my boss anymore, Corin. You don’t get to order me around.”
The barest ghosts of expressions flitted over his face: wry regret, and a warmth she couldn’t put a name to. “I apologize.”
“Good. Don’t do it again.”
“I can’t promise that.” Thunderclouds built behind his eyes. “These three shouldn’t be here. They endangered you.”
“Pff. Hideaway sees worse than that when I try to put Tomás to bed at night.”
“I wish that were the case.” He looked behind her, and she followed his gaze to the broken window above the Hook and Sinker’s front door.
“It’s only a broken window,” Maya reassured him. “Caro might try to gut you for it, but she does that to everyone. She probably can’t even fit you into her gutting schedule until next week. I’m sure the mighty Corin Blackburn will helicopter in a full crewof glaziers well before then, making himself plenty of friends among the local construction workers.”
He didn’t even smile. Time to bring out the big guns.
“So this is what you meant when you said your magic brings back old wounds. That’s exactly the same way the window was broken after Montfort started stomping around.”
The Dans hissed in a collective breath. She wasn’t sure who whispered, “Ugh, you fired upMontfortdamage?”
But it worked. Corin’s lip twitched.
For all of a microsecond.
“It’s only a window,” she reminded him.
“This time.” He grimaced. “The duskfire. When the end of the day is near, and you think you’re home and safe, the duskfire brings back all the pain and hurt you thought you left far behind you. Not just the physical. Our power feeds on misery, and returns it to the world tenfold.” His expression was icy, but his eyes were full of sorrow.
“Corin—” She reached up to touch his cheek. “Your grandfather didn’t have a solution, did he?”
“No.”
A strained noise came from one of the triplets. There was a strong sense of all three of them trying to edge away.
“You all stay right there,” she told them. If they wanted to get themselves into awkward situations, they could stick around and deal with the consequences.
“Please—”
“Stay.” She turned back to Corin.
His eyes were distant galaxies. Frozen. Lonely. Whole worlds he believed could hold nothing but pain.
God fuckingdamnhis magic, and all the misery it put him through.
“I don’t care,” she told him, before he could say anything else.
“You said—”
“I know what I said. That doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you can never hand me a single earring without your magic throwing a fit. I don’t need gold. I don’t need jewelry. I needyou.” She took his hands. “You should have left me to solve my own problems if you wanted to be free of me, Corin Blackburn. I had almost convinced myself I was happy without you. The moment you were back in my life, I knew that was a lie. And I’ll never be able to make myself believe it again.”
“I’ll hurt you—”
“You’ll do no such thing.” She stepped closer and, before he could move away, kissed him. His lips moved in surprise, and then he gathered her into his arms and held her with everything he had.
“Your magic feeds on hurt and grief? Well, I was perfectly capable of being a miserable bitch on my own. No magic needed.” She held him close. “Then you turn up, and all the shadows leave my mind. Even when things are hard, they’re easier, because you’re here.”
He relaxed in her embrace.
