“They all watch me.”
“Not like that.” She’s looking at Kieran. “The other two look at you like they can’t believe their luck.” She takes a drink. “That one’s already figured out how to lose you.”
He won’t lose me. But I get it. It’s probably the same emotion I feel when I look at them. That same ache in my heart I can’t quite name though I know how to.
I look at them like I know how to lose them. I know how precious it is that they exist. That they’re here.
Moments come too fast and snatch everything away. Holding something you love close, knowing you could lose it—that’s the real gamble with love, isn’t it?
I take a drink and the amber burns going down in a way that feels like punctuation.
“Kieran doesn’t?—”
“I’ve got five mates, Ash.” Her voice is flat. “I know what it looks like when a man loves someone so much it’s already breaking him. Jasper did the same thing for two years before I finally told him to stop mourning me while I was still alive.”
I look at something else.
Vanessa laughs at something Orion says and his whole face opens. I’ve only ever seen that look aimed at me.
Huh.
Finnian’s eyes find mine across the room.Are you all right?
I nod.
He goes back to Sabina. And I go back to pretending.
Everyone in this room came for me. Crossed worlds. Bled.
And I still feel like I’m borrowing something that isn’t mine.
They came because they’re good people. Not because?—
I take a drink and hide the thought somewhere I can never look at it again.
“Hey.” Pepper’s voice. Quiet enough that only I hear it. “Your face just did a thing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.” She doesn’t push it. Just sits beside me with that quarter inch of air and lets me lie.
She shows up. She doesn’t leave the light on, but she shows up.
I don’t know which is harder.
Across the room, Kestra appears in the doorway. She takes one look at the scene and her eyes find mine immediately.
“Ash.” Her voice carries something I don’t like. “We need to leave. Now.”
51
Finnian
Amarantha knowsshe doesn’t have the true Stone.
It’s a feeling in the core of who I am. Twisting and twisting and twisting like a knife. From the inside out. My ribs ache with someone else’s rage.
Rage I cannot escape. Just as I can’t escape anything that comes next, and I have no reference point for what that could even be.
