“You’ve changed,” I said, smiling when I looked up from the foamy brew. “Did you get my letters? I went to the building you stayed at. I talked to Ikrin. I’m staying there now too. He said he hadn’t seen you in months.”
“Ah,” Luc said, scratching the back of his neck. Something else that hadn’t changed. He’d always done that when he was nervous. Was I making him nervous? That had never happened before. “That place was always a dump. I was glad to be rid of it.”
“But you never got my letters?” I prompted.
“No,” he replied. “Ikrin doesn’t hold anything for past residents. I’d meant to write once I got settled again—I really did. I just…I didn’t realize how long it’d been.”
“It’s okay,” I said softly, squeezing his hand. He pulled it back, using it to take another draw on his drink.
But I was hurt he hadn’t thought to tell me where to reach him. It would’ve saved me a lot of worry since I’d arrived in Laras. I’d thought the worst. It had kept me up at night sometimes.
“I just didn’t know how to find you.”
“When did you come?” he asked.
“A few weeks ago,” I replied, the stench of the brew a little too overpowering. I breathed through my mouth. “I’ve beensearching for you everywhere. It was lucky I happened to spot you today.”
“And how long are you planning to stay?” came his next question.
The question caught me off guard. He’d spoken it casually, as if I was just visiting him as I passed through.
“Well, I—I left Vyaan,” I stammered, cocking my head to peer at him. “I left to come find you. Just like…just like what we always talked about.”
Luc looked at me. He sighed. “Erina…”
He shook his head, and I felt my stomach drop.
“All our plans,” I said, my heart suddenly speeding. “Of living in Laras. You running your merchant shop and me writing our stories to get distributed one day.”
“Erina—”
“No, they…they were good dreams, Luc. They wereourdreams. What we always talked about. What we promised each other. When we were children and in our letters. We were?—”
“We werechildren, Erina,” Luc said quickly, a thread of irritation lacing into his tone. “Children just trying to get by, to pass another year, so that we would be one year closer to starting a life.”
“You…” I trailed off, biting my lip. “You said in your letters that you were running the shop. That you had trade deals in place with merchants. You said you would send for me. Even recently, this last year, you promised…”
Luc drained his jug for a third time. I looked at him. Really looked at him. His clothes fit him well but were threadbare in some places. Salt clung to the material in the creases, but whether it was from sweat or the sea, I couldn’t be certain.
“There is no shop,” I said quietly. “Was there ever?”
And why had heliedto me?
Luc ran his hands through his hair. His eyes were more glassy than they’d been when we’d first sat down. His elbows wereplanted on the table as he scrubbed a hand over his face. Salt flecks dusted the table.
“Briefly,” Luc said, lowering his hands. “There had been a shop.”
“When?”
He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “About two years in when I first came here.”
Eight years ago? I felt like my lungs were being squeezed by a vise.
“You…you always said the shop was going so well. That credits were pouring in. That’s why you didn’t want money I sent. I don’t understand.”
Luc, for his part, looked embarrassed. “I didn’t want you to keep sending money, Erina. It was yours. I didn’t want you to know…to see what a failure I’d become.”
My brows drew together and my throat tightened. “But I would never think that of you! How can you say that?”
