“Also,” Reaper said. “Your little mouse said something about leaving while she still had a chance. Still had a choice.”
Damnation.
Maxen’s gaze caught on the wardrobe. Brows furrowing, he stalked over, bending over to carefully lift a very familiar slipper. The companion to the one he still had in his possession.
It was her all along.
Reaper cleared his throat pointedly, the chair scraping forward. “Will someone untie me, please?”
“No.”
“Why the devil not?” Reaper demanded.
Dagger chuckled. “Isn’t it shameful that you haven’t been able to free yourself in the minutes between her leaving and our arrival?”
“How about I tie you up and you try escaping this travesty of looping?”
Dagger scoffed. “I’m not an idiot like you, you clout. Maxen? What do you want to do?”
Maxen clutched the slipper in his hand.
“You’re not going after her,frère?” Reaper asked.
No.
Yes.
Not yet.
He needed to catch his faculties first.
Perhaps this outcome was better. Better for her. Better for him. Better for them all. Not because she was troublesome. Trouble, yes, but those were two different things. He’d rather keep that trouble where he could see it than have any unforeseen danger slip beyond his sight. The latter was far more troublesome.
Dagger shifted near the door. “You’re not exactly the sit-back-and-let-it-be type, brother. I need to know what you’re planning to do.”
“She made her choice.” He only still wrestled with his, torn between hunting her down or letting her escape him.
“She made a choice without understanding the scope of that choice,” Dagger pointed out.
“Agreed,” Reaper muttered, straining against the bindings. “You didn’t give her a reason to stay.”
Maxen’s jaw flexed, his thumb stroking over the slipper. “And if I do? I drag her deeper into this world. Into danger. Into us. Into me?”
Dagger pushed off the doorframe. “She’s already in our world, brother.”
“He’s just stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the truth, like stubbornly refusing to untie me.”
“Reaper is right. You don’t have to acknowledge the fact aloud, but don’t lie to yourself. We don’t lie.”
Bloody hell. Since when was denial lying?
However, somewhere between their first and last meeting, he’d grown used to the idea of Calliope Turner in his life. Not as a meretenant.
But as something else.
Something vital.
Indispensable.
