She felt something within her sag. Felt her face grow warm. ‘I see,’ she said, watching the coal blacken her fingertips. She turned her focus to the oven – twisting small threads of old newspaper for the bottom layer, and placing the coal atop it before she lit it.
She watched the paper catch first, watched the mesmerizing way it began to curl, and blacken. ‘You know,’ she said quietly. ‘My mother always used to say that misfortune never visits once, but thrice. And after today, after Lillian, and my brother – I’m starting to wonder what else is awaiting me.’
She glanced up at him then, and saw his expression twist.
‘Do you still …’ He broke off, and she watched his throat move, watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. ‘Do you still love him?’
And yet the look in his eyes asked another question.Was it a mistake – what happened between us?
Part of herdidstill love him. Jem had been family to her – and so of course she still loved him. In the same, unrelenting way she loved her brother, despite his foolishness, and her father, despite his hermitage. And then she looked up at Damien, and the voice in her mind sang a different answer.
No.
Because what she’d felt with Damien was nothing like what she’d felt with Jem. It was … warm, and bright, and when it stretched between them it felt as though she couldn’t breathe, as though her heart were thudding too fast in her chest to draw a full breath.
Her gaze flicked to his – and for a moment she wondered if he could see all of this, written upon her face, for his expression shifted just slightly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at his shoes. ‘That was … it wasn’t my place to ask.’
The flames were gathering now, and she moved to close the grate. She straightened, and for a moment they stood like that before the stove – almost toe to toe, a sea of unsaid words stretching between them.
‘It’s not so easy as that,’ she said softly. ‘Ididlove him, and I stilldolove him, but not in the way—’ She stopped, looking up at him.
Something softened in his expression. ‘Not in the way—?’
Don’t say it, warned the voice in her mind. The one that used to chase her onto stage, and wait for her in the darkness. The one that sounded like her mother – pushing, encouraging – or like Lillian – cold, cutting.
And yet here, now, in her father’s kitchen – she couldn’t remember what that reason was. And the words slipped from her lips before she could stop them.
‘Not in the way I care for you.’
Ava saw it immediately. The way his expression changed. Damien opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it again – tension written into the rigid line of his jaw – and it made something within her ache.
‘I won’t do what your father did,’ she said softly – stepping closer to him. ‘I shan’t turn from you, Damien.’
The look he gave her was like the first, hairline crack in glass – rippling outwards, spreading further, until all it would take was one, gentle touch to shatter it entirely.
She reached up, her hand cupping his cheek. ‘I promise, Damien.’
His gaze met hers slowly, reluctantly, and she felt the slow thud of something deep in the pit of her stomach as she closed the sliver of air between them, and kissed him. She wanted the world to disappear. She wanted to feel light again, weightless, if only for a moment – as though the world had stopped spinning, as though it had contracted until they were the only two people left upon it.
Until she realized he hadn’t moved. He just stood there, like marble, and she pulled back, his half-frozen expression making her heart stutter in her chest.
When his gaze finally – slowly – lifted to hers, it was like watching the last flicker of a candle before it sputtered out.
‘I’m sorry, Ava …’ he said quietly. His voice flat. ‘I-I can’t do this.’
And just like that – she was back on that doorstep, Jem saying those words instead of him. The kettle let out a low, breathy whine, and then it rose – shrill and unrelenting – to fill the silence that stretched between them.
‘I should go,’ he rasped.
The whistle climbed higher – and Ava found she couldn’t pull a full breath into her lungs. It seemed to snag, seemed to get stuck there, and it was all she could do to nod, and turn away from him – for she wouldn’t watch him leave. Instead she focused on the kettle – one hand clutching the handle, the steam pillowing up, fogging the high window. She let it shriek a moment longer, two. It was only once she’d heard the front door slam shut that she finally took it off the heat, and sank into the quiet that was left behind.
Chapter Forty-Eight
That night, she’d dreamt of the theatre. She’d been sitting in the audience, the darkness cloaking her as the curtains had pulled back, and the lights had come up – revealing a woman on the stage. It was her, and it wasn’t her, all at once. Itlookedlike Ava – with her pale blonde hair, her mother’s purple gown – and yet when she spoke, when she moved, Ava didn’t recognize herself in the woman’s languid movements. Her confidence.
‘I thoughtyouwere the Memory Binder?’ A woman said beside her, her shoulder nudging into Ava’s. And Ava had turned to see Miss Lillian sitting there – her copper hair drawn up into an elaborate bun, her red nails tapping a rhythm into the armrest that separated them.
