James sat in his room,staring at the wisps of Shadow in his hands. He’d tried again and again to form a shuriken, but he had failed every time.
The Guardian in him knew he should rest before the coming battle as Kay had suggested. But what would be the point? Sleep was something he’d given up on weeks ago.
He only had a couple of hours, and he needed every minute to get a grip on himself and force his Shadows to listen. His triad was going into danger, and they needed him to be strong. Riley was going into danger, and she needed him to be strong. If she got hurt…. He couldn’t even think about it.
Riley thought he was the problem. And God knew, he usually was. So that meant he had to find the solution. He closed his eyes and tried to focus.
His mind drifted to a long-ago conversation with his triad. Back when Kay had first moved to Wales. She’d been trying—and failing—to climb a tree with a Shadow rope. He’d wanted to impress her, but Zach had been the one to really help. “If your mind is full of angry thoughts, your Shadows will be just as churned up,” he’d said. “You have to use those thoughts to manipulate the Shadows, not let them swirl around out of control.”
James dragged his hands down his face, pressing his fingers into his tired eyes. It was one of the most basic practices. The first thing any Dru-vid learned when their Shadows came in. But he’d been so consumed by his grief, his certainty that everything was lost, that he had lost sight of even the most fundamental principles.
Now—when they were completely out of time—he had to make himself apply his forgotten training.
He settled into stillness. Focused on the air in his lungs. Concentrated on breathing in for four seconds. Holding for four seconds. Breathing out. Holding.
Everything grew quiet. There was only him and the air. Him and the Shadows.
He was almost there. He reached out, calling for the Shadows. Feeling their texture, their soft pull as he reeled them in. Riley was right, he could—
The thought of Riley dragged his mind down a different path. Memories rose, sharp and painful. Riley stood outside Elizabeth’s house, devastated disbelief written all over her face. Riley lay in his bed, flushed and smiling. Riley watched him with horror as he confessed his plans to murder Gordon. Riley kissed him. Riley pushed him away. Riley—
A noise startled him. He opened his eyes, and she was there, standing in the doorway.
He blinked. But when he looked again, she was still there. He glanced down at his hands. His sky-blue-streaked Shadows were drifting away. There was no way to tell if they’d been any good at all.
Riley tucked her thumbs into her pockets, unaware of the turmoil in his thoughts. “Can I come in?”
James resisted the urge to look over his shoulder and check she was talking to him. She had to be. No one else was there.
“Why?” The question fell out, but he didn’t take it back. He honestly hadn’t expected her to ever seek him out again, and he couldn’t imagine why she would.
“I wanted to explain something.” She stepped inside. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders, enhancing the clear green of her eyes, and it almost didn’t matter what new failing of his she had come to reveal. Almost. There was still a part of him that couldn’t bear even one more loss.
He stood, pushing himself away from the bed where she’d kissed him to prove her theory, and leaned on the wall beside the window instead. His Shadows lifted, rising slowly, stupidly wanting to reach out toward her, and it took him a moment to drag them back.
Riley looked wary, and he wished he could wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, but he didn’t dare. And he didn’t believe it anyway.
She wandered closer. “Earlier, when we… when I….” She bit her lip, watching him. “After I kissed you, I panicked. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel anything. It was because I was trying to protect myself.”
James slumped heavily against the wall. She didn’t need to explain. He completely understood why she felt that way, but hearing that she was afraid of him still hurt more than he expected.
He opened his mouth to tell her that she didn’t need to apologize. That hearing her reasons was almost worse than what had happened. But Riley was still speaking. “But then I realized that I don’t need to protect myself from you. I never did.”
What? That didn’t make any sense at all.
“I realized that if we’d spent less time trying to protect ourselves from each other,” she continued, “we probably would never have landed up here in the first place.”
Maybe that was true. Maybe he should have told her everything right from the beginning instead of trying to prove himself first. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Earlier, you said that you wanted more all along.” Riley’s eyes held his, full of determination. “I did too. But I didn’t trust it. I was scared that you didn’t feel what I felt, how much I… cared for you.”
James flinched. Did she mean that she hadn’t trusted him? Even before she knew what he’d done for Gordon. Or did she mean that she hadn’t realized what she meant to him? He’d tried to explain how precious she was to him. How much she meant. Surely, she knew….
“Within days of moving to London, I’d heard all about James Williams and his revolving door,” she said quietly.
God. It was even worse than he imagined. “I never…! God. I would never—”
“I know. Sorry. That’s not what I meant.” She took another step closer. And he almost dreamed he could feel her Shadows reaching out toward his. He didn’t dare look and break the spell.
