More silence. Then, because Clara couldn't help herself: "Do you ever go there? To the garden?"
"No."
"But you said the rose…"
"I can see it from my window. It's everywhere now. It has completely overtaken that section of wall."
"You could have had it removed."
"I tried. It grew back. Rather like yourself, actually. It is quite impossible to be rid of it entirely.”
Clara didn't know whether to be insulted or oddly touched. "I'm going to make it beautiful again."
"It's withered, Clara. Everything in that garden is withered except that cursed rose."
"Then I'll bring it back to life."
"You can't resurrect the past."
“I have no wish to do so I'm trying to survive the present.”
He sighed, and she felt it through her whole body. "Aren't we all?"
The clock struck sevenon the hour. Morning had properly arrived, and with it, the harsh reality of what they'd agreed to. Master and servant. Employer and employee. Two strangers who happened to share a history neither could acknowledge.
"Edmund will return with clothes and food," Gabriel said, shifting slightly. "Until then, you should rest."
"I've been resting."
"You've been unconscious. There's a difference."
"You're full of differences today."
"I'm full of differences every day. You'll learn."
It sounded like a threat and a promise all at once. Clara closed her eyes, overwhelmed by everything, the pain, the humiliation, the bizarre twist of fate that had brought her back to the one person she'd sworn never to need again.
"I won't make this easy for you," Gabriel said quietly.
"I wouldn't expect you to."
"I'm difficult, demanding, and deliberately cruel."
"I observed."
“I shall ensure you rue the day you ever set foot in this house.”
“You have already.”
He made that sound again,not quite laugh, and not quite sob. "Why did you really come here, Clara? The truth this time."
She thought about lying, about protecting herself with whatever fiction might make this bearable. But she was too tired, too broken, and too empty for anything but honesty.
"Because even your cruelty felt safer than being alone," she whispered.
His arms tightened around her, just for a moment, before he forced them to relax. "You're a nothing but a simpleton."
"Yes."
