“Have you come to ask me if heaven is real? Rhion beat you to it.”
“I didn’t think faeries believed in heaven.” The whole immortality thing makes the entire concept baffling to them.
Lydia adds a streak of orange across the sky of her painting. “They don’t, but Rhion heard all about it from humans and finds it a fascinating concept.”
“What did you tell him?”
She shrugs. “The truth, I suppose—that I’m still not sure.”
“Did Rhion tell you anything else?” I prod.
Lydia turns to face me, her brows knitted together in confusion. “Like what?”
I sigh against her pillows. “Come on, you can’t really be that dense.”
Lydia flicks her paintbrush at me. “Don’t do that. I hate talking around things. If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Did he also tell you that he’s hopelessly in love with you?” I say only somewhat sarcastically. It’s glaringly obviously by now.
Lydia’s cheeks go pink and she glances at the floor. “I don’t have time to think about those things. Not yet, at least.”
“I don’t think he has any problem with waiting for you.”
I watch her paint for a few minutes, then break the comfortable silence. “I’m sorry about Bram.”
Her back is to me, but she goes still and her shoulders fall. “Don’t be. He brought it upon himself.” He did, but it doesn’t lessen the rope of guilt, pulling like a noose around my heart.
“I’m still sorry. I know you loved him.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she paints a patch of pink flowers with the tip of her brush. “I loved who I believed him to be, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. What about you?”
I sigh. “It was only ever Emmett for me, that was part of the problem.”
After another long beat, I continue. “I have something else to tell you.”
She nods, her back to me. “Anything.” There are no more secrets between us now, there can’t be.
In the dark of her room, I confess what Bram said to me. “He saw me first on the edge of the woods. I was six and you were eight,” I begin.
Lydia listens carefully as she paints clouds over her canvas. Her back is to me, but her breath hitches like she might be holding back tears.
“He timed his arrival at court to my coming-out in society. He spent a decade watching me, planning this.” I’m crying too, but I don’t stop to wipe the tears until my story is done.
When I’m finished talking, I feel as if I’ve been wrung out. “I’m so sorry. I brought this upon us. It’s all my fault.”
Lydia turns to me, her eyes puffy with tears. “If I told you to forgive yourself, would it make a difference?”
I let out a sad laugh. I’m so sick of crying. “Probably not,” I confess.
Lydia turns back to her painting. “I’ll say it anyway. It wasn’t your fault. I do not blame you. If it wasn’t us, it would have been some other poor pair of girls and—” She swallows hard. “I’m glad it was us, Ivy. I’ve grown to love this place. It’s given me a purpose.”
It’s plain to see. She’s got a glow about her, like she’s more at home here than she ever was in London. I might have been the one who longed for magic, but it’s come to Lydia like it was always meant to be hers.
“You will come home, though, won’t you?” I ask the question a shade quieter, suddenly terrified of her answer. I’ve never considered a life in which we might be apart.
Lydia sets down her brush and turns to me. Her jaw is clenched, her brows furrowed.
“I don’t think so.” She presses her lips together until they go white. “That is, I mean, I don’t think I’m able to.”
