He looks away, all his focus on the quiet beat he started. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The two feet between us feel like miles.
I scoot closer, scraping the metal legs of the stool noisily over the floor. “I feel things around you. Your dark and light sides have different effects. No one has ever mentioned anything?”
His brow scrunches. “No. And everyone else only sees one side.”
“Are you doing it to me then? Making me feel this way?”
“I told you I don’t know anything about that. And I wouldn’t do anything related to this curse. I don’t want it.”
OnlyIsense and taste and smell and feel all that?
Iamlosing my mind.
But what if it’s… whatever this is, this connection between us? I lean in, careful not to touch his drumming arms. “Do you feel things when you’re with me?”
He halts the rhythm, silence echoing in its absence. “When I’m with you, I feeleverything. You turn my body upside-fucking-down and take over the beat of my heart like a favorite song.”
I look away, letting the desire sweep over me. I couldn’t have predicted that answer to tumble from this man’s mouth so easily in all his lifetimes combined. I swallow back the unease, only worsened knowing he can feel my heart going berserk in his own chest. Yet, in some manner, it’s a comfort to be felt in such an intimate way, not to be alone.
“Maybe your mother’s other lover could undo the curse. Is he still alive?” I recall Kaleida’s stories of the shortened lifespan of Vaile, their years cut short since the Separation. Calderans live twice as long, but no one has explained why… if anyone even has an idea.
“I don’t know who my mother was screwing behind my father’s back, only that he cursed me to punish her.”
I resist grabbing his hand, consoling him. “There has to be a way to break it. Every fantasy book I’ve read—”
“There’s a way.”
“And?”
He taps the drumsticks and returns to his beat with a heavy sigh. “It’s not an option. I don’t want to break the curse. I’d rather keep my dark and light sides.”
I don’t press him further. This is how he opens up, in his own time, his own way, sharing only as much as he’s willing. But what keeps him from breaking the curse if he knows how? What could be worse?
All in black with those raven curls and amber skin, he looks more like a shadow in the dark room than a man grappling with feelings.
“How did he curse you? Is casting curses one of the gifts of magic from the gods when linking?”
“No.”
Silence hangs between us despite the tap of the drumsticks.
I lose the smidgen of patience I had convinced myself to portray. “Dammit, Elivander. Give me something.”
His mouth tightens. “It’s not easy to talk about my mother.”
“Since she was your motherandyour lover?”
“My father’s lover. I already told you she killed me—him.” His breaths come faster, matching the quickening beat. “It came out of nowhere. We were happy together. She loved my father.” He swaps back and forth between himself and his father, the merge of their souls and memories clearer than ever before. I can’t imagine what that’s like, much less being intertwined with all his ancestors back to the beginning of time.
And Kelter.
As my heart begins to open, to let him into one of its gaping holes, it slams shut so hard my chest rattles. I throw a hand over it. What is wrong with me? Can’t I have compassion for more than a few seconds? Even after all he’s done, I want to. But my heart won’t allow it.
“She didn’t know about the mistake, about my broken immortality.” He slouches on the stool, then straightens, trying to find a comfortable position while he drums away. But clearly it’s his soul that’s searching for solace. “It was easier that way. For her sake. I don’t tell them.”
“All your lovers over the years?”
