“What was it?” I whispered. “What did you get back?”
“Can’t you guess?” He looked down at me, smiled a little, but it was a sad smile. “Trust.”
It made such perfect sense I wanted to smack myself in the head for not seeing it sooner.
“I’m sorry, too. For…not caring.”
“Don’t be. You did, even when we thought you didn’t.”
“I didn’t, though.”
“But you never hurt anyone once,” he insisted.
I never would have guessed this, either, but it made me feel infinitely better.
“We’ve done this before,” I said after a while. We both knew this, and my cheeks heated up at the mentioning of it, but I had to say it out loud once more.
“We have. My body remembers yours.” He brought his hand under my chin and raised my head a little bit so he could reach my lips with his. I melted on that kiss, and I held nothing back.
“Here I thought you hated me in the beginning,” I muttered with a lazy smile.
“I didn’thateyou,” he said with that chuckle my ears loved. “You just made it impossible to think straight, and I was angry at you for it. I also wanted you like mad for it.”
I kissed the side of his neck and he swallowed hard, then leaned down to kiss my lips again.
“And you always made it worse by just standing there like you were innocent, like you weren’t doing anything wrong,” he whispered.
“But Iwasn’t!” I said with a laugh.
“You were owning my every thought. That seemed prettywrongto me,” he said with a grin, pulling me even closer until I was half sitting on his lap.
Like that, it was easier to kiss slowly. Both of us wanted slow, even though we wanted fast, too.
I settled with my head under his jaw, eyes half open to watch the dancing fairies, my body perfectly relaxed, all myinstincts at ease. He was magic, March. He was unlike anything in the world.
“What do you think he was like?” I wondered a few moments later, and March knew who I was talking about right away.
“Silas?” I nodded against his chest, snuggled closer. “I think he was…”
“Not the type of person to want the whole world to end?” I said when his voice trailed off.
“Precisely.” He kissed the top of my head again. “We’re being lied to, but I don’t know why.”
Words he could have plucked from my mind, one by one.
“I want to go to the garden when they’re done,” I said, nodding at the dancing fairies. I’d been meaning to go there, and I couldn’t even tell why. Something about the idea of Silas and that place that I couldn’t exactly point out. The reason was in my head, yes, but it was muddy, and it kept slipping away any time I tried to focus.
“Then we’ll go to the garden,” March said.
So, we did.
46
March didn’t let go of my hand when we walked down the stairs and the hallways of the palace nor when we went outside. We didn’t really see anyone at that hour, but I loved every step we took like that anyway. He kept me grounded with his presence just like I kept him grounded with my memory.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“I saw the drawings,” he said as we went. “I really do feel like shit about it, but I saw them.”
