“Do it,” Simon said.
“Hold on, hold on.” Everett gave a slight smirk, eyes passing between the two of them. “I’ll do it—”
“Thank you!” Shanna breathed.
“If you keep quiet about what happened between the two of us,” Everett continued, looking at Simon. “And give me Aries.”
“Done,” Simon said within a heartbeat.
“No!” Shanna stepped in front of him. “You can’t.”
“But you need him.”
“And Aries is your life’s work. You can’t lose it—to him, of all people—because of me.”
“Yes, it is my work.” Simon’s chest rose rapidly. “And therefore, I can decide to give it to whomever I want. Including him, if it’s to save you.”
Shanna gritted her teeth to stop herself from stomping like a disobedient toddler. “Simon, please. Don’t do it.”
Simon pursed his lips.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Everett said.
Simon looked past Shanna’s shoulder at him. “Everett, Aries is—”
“No!” Shanna covered his mouth with her hand. “No, you won’t!”
He shook her off. “Let me help you!”
She couldn’t. The curse, in the end, was her burden to bear. Her problem to get around, even if she wasn’t directly responsible for it. It wasn’t Simon’s, to give away his life’s work, his greatest treasure, for. She didn’t want the curse broken at this cost. Not with Simon having to sacrifice everything. Anything.
“Don’t ask this of him,” she said to Everett.
Everett’s gaze passed between her and Simon.
“I know you care about Aries,” Simon said to him. “I know it feels yours, as much as mine. But I know—I know—you always cared about me, too. I’d like to think you still do. Even if I changed, and I have. Remember when we met? You sensed I wanted to be in that meeting with you and Dad, and you convinced him to let me stay. Remember when you offered togive me accounting lessons, so that, like you said, I wouldn’t go to college without knowing when somebody is trying to screw me over with textbook pricing? There was no Aries back then. Just you and me.”
Everett’s chin shook ever so slightly.
“Remember that night when I was coming back from Vegas,” Simon continued in a more morose tone. “The night I had the accident. There was something I should have told you. I know I would have, had I ever gotten the chance. I’d gotten married. To her.” He wrapped his arm around Shanna. “And I’d share the happy news with you first, because Dad was gone, and Mom was gone, but you were still there, and there was no one I wanted to tell more.”
Everett took a step back, floundering, almost as if drunk, and collapsed on the chair.
“I’d like to think you would have been happy for me. Even if it changed me. Even if I wasn’t your perfect, cutthroat businessman anymore. I was still Simon. I always will be.”
Simon lowered his head; Shanna gave him a little nudge, and he stepped over to Everett and clutched his shoulders.
“Forgive me for not staying your perfect Simon,” he said. “I forgive you for your actions. Because you’re my friend, and I know you would have never really, actually, tried to hurt me.”
Shanna wrung her hands, not daring to even take a breath in the charged atmosphere. Tears welled up, but the onslaught of emotions made it hard to figure out which was the one that brought on the crying. Perhaps she was crying for Simon, for having to go through this, for having his life turned on its head, in no small part because of her. Perhaps she was crying for that connection—friend-to-friend, child-to-parent—that she could never properly have herself, and that was now slipping through Simon’s fingers, too.
Perhaps she was just crying for herself.
“I forgive you,” Everett’s low voice came. But when he raised his head, he wasn’t looking at Simon. He was looking at her.
“For whatever stupidity our ancestors did, I forgive you,” Everett repeated. He slumped his shoulders with a deep sigh.
Seconds, feeling like minutes, passed in the tiny room. Simon turned his gaze to Shanna with the slightest hint of a smile, as if he couldn’t dare to believe yet. She couldn’t either, even as shivers spread up her hands. But they weren’t the shivers of magic being enacted or destroyed. They were only nerves as she waited for the telltale signs of a curse being broken. Would the real sign be a tingle? A warm wave under her skin? A cold vibration, instead?
