The words land like a punch to her gut, knocking the air from her lungs. “You want to say goodbye?”
“It’s the last thing I want,” he says. “But I think it’s time we do.”
“But you could come back again,” Beatrix says, her mind reeling. He could rest more, take more time off between visits. “It could still work.”
“It might,” Oliver says. “But it might not. I don’t have a lot of time left.”
She swallows against the lump rising in her throat. “How long?”
“Do you really want to know?” He won’t look at her.
Her heart plummets. This is it. The end.
She shakes her head and her vision blurs. She doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to waste a single moment with Oliver counting down to his last.
A tear rolls down her cheek. He wipes it away with his thumb. “I don’t want to leave you waiting.”
“I’m always waiting,” she whispers.
“Not like this.” Not with no end in sight. Not with the treacherous hope she will see him again hanging over her for an eternity. “I can’t do that to you, Bea.”
So he would leave her in Lancaut instead.
Her stomach drops and her heart races a frantic rhythm. She’s too hot, and the thoughts buzzing through her head are too loud. She might just be sick.
Oliver takes her face in his hands, his touch rough and cool against her skin. “I’m sorry.”
“Will you try to come back?” she asks.
“With everything in me.”
And there it is. A pinprick of hope, like one of those bright stars shining in the heavens above her, keeping the darkness at bay.
She pulls away, lets Oliver’s hands fall from her. “Then I’m not saying goodbye to you.”
“Bea—”
She shakes her head, stopping him. “But if it doesn’t work—if you can’t make it back—will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. “Find me. In your time.”
Oliver’s eyes grow wide. “That’s not for another—”
“Two hundred and thirty-seven years.”
He tips his forehead against hers. “I can’t do that to you, Bea. I can’t.”
“Please,” she begs. “I don’t care how long it is.”
“I do.” He shakes his head. “It’s longer than when I left you before the Frost Fair. More than twice as long. I can’t leave you alone like that.”
“The time will pass anyway,” Beatrix pleads. “I will be alone anyway.”
“Don’t you see?” His eyes shine in the starlight. “You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to wait for me.”
“Yes, I do.”
