Her eyes widened.
“You understand what I’m saying?” he said, still in a whisper.
“Yes.”
He strode to each corner to drop a stone, taking her with him, clutching her hand because he was half-afraid she would run if he didn’t hold on tight. When he flicked the switch, her face—pale, pinched—was the last thing he saw before the room was thrown into darkness.
He reached into a pocket and drew out three leaves. The pulse in his wrist leapt at the sensation—his body aching to spellcast,yes, finally—but he put them in Beatrix’s hand instead.
“One,” he said. “Two. Three.”
He called out“scield!”as loudly as he could to drown out her voice saying the same thing. He felt her spell catch—her arm vibrated with it—and they stood together in the dark, both of them breathing raggedly.
“All right,” he said. “All right.” He passed her two additional leaves. “One. Two. Three.Lang read leoht!”
The room lit up an uninterrupted red around them—no white remnants of spellcasting except where they stood. He let out a relieved breath. Beatrix slipped her hand into his side pocket, pulled out extra leaves and cast two spells in quick succession, first to soundproof the room and then to undo the eerie spell-detector.
They were still standing very close in the dark. He reached out, carefully, and trailed his fingers down her jaw, hearing her breath catch.
“Peter,” she said, “do you understand what you’re doing to me?”
“Making you want to marry me despite it all, I hope?”
Her laugh was one notch off frantic. “Tell me what this atypical marriage would look like. Be specific.”
“Well,” he said, hope rising, warming him, “I won’t try to control your life. I absolutely promise not to override your wishes regarding your finances, property and all the rest.”
“And?” Her voice wavered. She sounded as if she thought there was fine print involved—something bad he was holding back.
A part of him rebelled against that. She knew him as no one else did or could. How was it that she had so little trust in him?
He thought then of the first Vow. How, indeed.
“Is there something else you want?” he asked tentatively.
“Love!” Her answer was fierce. “I want you to love me as foolishly as I love you, and I refuse to marry you under any other circumstances.”
He stared open mouthed into the darkness where she was, shocked speechless.
“Right,” she said, more sob than word. “I think I should go?—”
He kissed her. It was a ferocious kiss, an I’ll-show-you kiss, a kiss powered by all the times he had wanted to touch her and could not. She sagged into his arms for a moment, boneless, before pressing as close to him as it was possible to get. When he pulled away, she said, “Oh ohoh,” with so much emotion it made his heart ache.
“What in God’s name,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers, “could have possibly given you the idea”—he took one of her hands and pressed it to his hammering heart—“that I might not love you?”
“Well … first off, you never said you did.”
“Ifrequently?—”
“After the Vows were broken.”
He paused, thrown by this. “I didn’t?”
“No. And when I said I loved you, coming out of the hospital, you didn’t say anything back.”
He thought about that, trying to remember. Why wouldn’t he have …oh.“I was too choked up to speak. But surely that alone?—”
“And you all but stopped touching me.”
