Her fingers tingled, wanting to reach out, wanting to touch him. Instead, she shoved her hands in her pockets and whispered, “Zach?”
He shook his head, just once, his frown deepening further until he was almost glaring at her. There was no warmth there at all. How could she have been so wrong?
“Coffee?” he prompted.
Emma looked into his face, her eyes locked on his, and had to admit the truth. Shewaswrong. This man really didn’t know her.
People changed. There was no way to be certain that her golden memories from long ago were even accurate. There was no way to predict how a young boy would grow and develop. And didn’t they say that everyone had a double somewhere?
Emma let out a shaky breath. She was off-balance after a difficult few weeks. She’d been thinking of the past too much, and somehow, she’d convinced herself that Zach had found her, which was impossible. She swallowed down the grief, the loss, and the frustrated irritation with herself. She knew better than to attempt to make predictions. She knew better than to think she could ever have a vision worth a damn.
She forced herself to smile. “Sorry. I thought you were….” She cleared her throat and tried again. “How would you like your coffee?”
“Latte, please. Takeaway.” His words were clipped, almost rude. Nearly sharp enough to make her wonder if he did know something. If he was, in fact, a Shadow Weaver.
Emma’s hand crept up to the locket at her neck. When she was a child, sent away from home, she’d held on to it like an anchor. The last connection to the loving mother she’d lost. As a teenager, newly alone in the world, she’d held her locket rather than reach out and touch people by mistake.
It was a habit that she’d largely cured herself of. It had been years since she’d last cried herself to sleep holding the heavy weight in her palm and running her thumb over the etchings. And it had been years since she’d touched anyone at all. Something about this man standing in her bakery had brought it all back.
She forced her hand back down and straightened her spine. He wasn’t Zach, and he also wasn’t from the Order. He couldn’t be. If he’d been sent by Gordon, he would have known what to expect and have no problem with showing his disgust. Anyone else—anyone who could see her Shadows but wasn’t expecting them—would have revealed their horror already. God knew she’d been through it enough.
She poured the coffee and put the paper cup onto the counter for him. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No.”
Alright then. Not-Zach dropped a note on the counter and then turned and walked away without saying anything more. And it was a relief.
Emma’s Zach was a Shadow Weaver. He would have seen her Shadows and reacted, most likely with revulsion. But more than that, her Zach had smiled. He’d been good and kind. He’d been her friend. Her Zach would have known who she was, and if he turned away it would have hurt. Deeply.
It was a relief that this man wasn’t Zach, because she couldn’t bear to lose him twice.
Emma’s hands shook as she wiped down the display case. A dull throb started up behind her left eye, but she ignored it. It couldn’t be her Shadows and it definitely wasn’t a vision. It was just the aftereffects of rising hope and then crushing disappointment.
It didn’t mean anything.
ChapterFour
Fuck.Zach’s stomach heaved. It was all he could do to keep himself together. He had to force words through his lips and make himself hand over his money. He had to concentrate on picking up the coffee and getting himself out of the bakery and onto the street, and then up the road far enough that he could dump the cup in the first bin she wouldn’t see. Would the food she’d touched be contaminated? How the hell could he judge?
Shadows pulsed around him, and he looked down to realize that he’d already called a long Shadow sword into his hands, ready for an attack. It was his preferred weapon, its very essence a part of him that he had honed over thousands of hours of practice. And one that he didn’t need out in the sunshine of the busy street. Thank God the Duine around him couldn’t see his Shadows.
He walked a little further away and sat heavily on a hard wooden bench, pushing the horror back down. Locking it away deep inside him. He had to think, and he couldn’t do it with emotions churning through him.
It was her. Of course it was. He’d half known it when Elizabeth’s dream sent him here. And he’d been almost certain as soon as he’d seen the bakery—The Holly Tree—with its windows etched with a glorious tree of life, stylized branches and roots wrapped around the swirling spirals of the triskelion. Emma had always loved holly with its bright berries and rich green leaves, and she’d especially loved its symbolism. Hope after the winter.
Then he’d seen her, and there’d been no doubt at all. She had the same wide blue eyes, soft strawberry-blonde hair, and big smile that he remembered. It was Emma, but all grown up. She had the healthy glow of someone who spent plenty of time enjoying the local beaches. And God, she was beautiful. Not only beautiful—something about her was magnetic, calling to him in a way he’d never experienced before. He’d longed to reach out and hold her. Wrap his arms around her and pull her into him. But then he’d looked at her Shadows.
They were dark and twisted in on themselves. Pulsing sickly in places, shrunken and gray in others, like some half-dead thing. And even worse was how his own Shadows had gone insane, rioting to reach out and touch hers, but then flinching back, stung. Again, and again.
She hadn’t even seemed to notice. She had been completely unaware of the way his Shadows were churning viciously in the air around him. Emma should have seen his Shadows, but she couldn’t. There was only one possible explanation—hers were so damaged that it had somehow stunted her abilities. And there was only one waythatcould have happened: backlash from using blood Shadows.
If he’d had any doubt that she was involved with whatever Gordon planned, it was gone. The only thing he couldn’t explain was what the hell she was doing in a bakery in the South of England. Could she be hiding from the Order? Had she already done something serious enough that she’d had to drop out of the Circles and run away… like James had? Or did Gordon want to keep her hidden somewhere she could have her visions away from the Order?
Zach leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs, letting his head drop. What the fuck was he going to do?
His first instinct was to call James, and wasn’t that just another kick in the teeth? For the past fifteen years, that’s exactly what he would have done. James had been more than his friend—he’d been his brother. But now that trust was gone.
He could call Kay or Ethan, but they had enough on their hands. They didn’t need his problems on top of everything he’d already left them to handle. He had to deal with Emma by himself.
