She held his face turned to hers, making him look at her as she continued. “Do you trust Kayleigh? Do you respect her and her opinions?”
“Of course. I trust her with my life.”
“She always said that you were trying to keep her safe. She told us about how Gordon forced your compliance. Emma told us the same thing. Kay fought for you because she believes in you. You need to start believing too.”
“I don’t know if I can,” James whispered.
“That’s okay,” she whispered back, letting her hands fall away. “For now, we’ll believe it for you. And until you do, I’ll sit with you as often as you need.”
“Why would you do that?” The confusion—threaded through with pain—in his voice stabbed her heart.
“You’re one of mine, James. I should have told you sooner, and I’m deeply sorry that I didn’t. I was….” Damn, she didn’t want to have to say the words aloud. They sounded more selfish than she wanted to admit.
“Hiding from me,” he suggested softly.
“No… and yes,” she admitted slowly. “I was hiding, but not from you.”
He raised a skeptical blond eyebrow, and she knew she would have to finish the thought. For James, but also for herself. “I was hiding from David.”
James gave her a long look filled with skepticism. “David wasn’t there.”
“Exactly.”
He snorted sadly. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Elizabeth shrugged. She was a Seer; she was used to not making sense. But James needed more from her. “After so many years of pretending we mean nothing to each other, David swooped in like an avenging angel. All protective and attentive. He wrapped himself around me, and my stupid Shadows roared up and tried to claim him once more. Iwantedto claim him. And I wanted him to claim me. But then he left. Again.” She let go of James’s hands to press her fingers into her too-hot eyes. “I hadn’t predicted that. At all. I hadn’t Seen the danger to Kay, the danger to you. I’d failed Emma. And all my Shadows wanted was a man who didn’t want me back.” She tried to smile but failed horribly. “I wasn’t hiding from you, James, I was hiding from myself.”
James watched her for a moment, his eyes traveling over her face. Whatever he saw there made him reach over and take her hands back, holding them in his, just as she had done for him. “David loves you,” he said firmly. “He just fucked it all up.”
“How do you know?”
“Everyoneknows he fucked it all up,” James said dryly.
Elizabeth let out an amused snort and then sobered. “But how do you know he loves me?”
“He told me years ago.”
God. How was that possible? “He told you?”
“We were looking for a Circle to join as a triad,” James explained. “Zach wanted to move closer to the Council and Kay wanted to learn from an experienced Guardian. London was the best place for them… but I didn’t want to suggest it if the animosity between you and David was going to be a problem. And we’d all seen how you fought.” James’s lips twitched. “Although now I’m starting to think that there was another layer to the tension we hadn’t properly understood.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and James chuckled before continuing. “I ditched college and came up to London for the day. I met with David and asked him flat out if he was biased against Kay.”
“And what did he say?” Elizabeth asked, trying to contain just how desperately she needed to know.
“He looked me in the eye and said that he would be honored if we joined his Circle, that he had left the roles of Guardians unfilled specifically for us and was planning to recruit us after college. But I still wasn’t convinced, and I told him his actions didn’t support his claim.” James's hands were warm and reassuring on hers as he continued. “David told me that when you were both very young, he’d made a terrible mistake and hurt you. He said he’d spent his entire life wishing he could go back and do it differently. That you had every right to hate him, but that nothing you ever did could change the way he felt about you. And he said he would treat any granddaughter of yours as if she were his own.”
Elizabeth swallowed. Her throat was tight and her eyes were prickling, but somewhere deep inside her, her Shadows settled. “You always knew?”
“No.” James shook his head ruefully. “I was only twenty. In my mind, when he said, “very young,” he meant twelve or thirteen. I assumed it was a fight between children that got out of hand. It’s only over the last few weeks that I remembered that conversation. And then it occurred to me that from his perspective, anyone under twenty-five was still a child. And I also remembered that David genuinely has always treated Kay as if she were his own family… or perhaps as if he wished she were.”
Elizabeth groaned. Maybe David really did still love her as he claimed. Maybe hehadwished he could be with her all this time. And what was she supposed to do with that? So many years had been lost. There was so much pain between them. So much grief.
“Do you think…,” James said, breaking into her tumbling thoughts, but he let the sentence drift as if he didn’t want to finish it.
“Yes?” she prompted.
The moment stretched, and she didn’t think he would continue. But after a long minute, he asked, “Could you ever forgive him? I mean, do you think it’s possible?”
