“Is that what you were doing in Great Yarmouth?” Oliver asks, more accusation than question.
Beatrix laughs, but it’s a biting thing. “No one knew they were going to bomb Great Yarmouth except for you.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “What about the Winfield house?”
She straightens and the bed shifts beneath her. “I thought I might learn something about ending faerie curses,” she admits. “I didn’t find anything.”
“But what if you had?”
“I don’t know,” Beatrix says. She waves her hand dismissively, as if she can wave the question away.
Oliver won’t let it go. “That’s not an answer.”
What would she have done if she’d found a way to end her curse hidden in the professor’s books? Would she have left Oliver to find nothing but her empty room when he came calling? Or is whatever they have enough to make her stay? That’s what he’s asking. Is he worth living for?
“It’s my answer,” she says. Because she doesn’t know.
Oliver scowls.
“You have no right to be angry with me.” Beatrix bristles. “Not when you’re—” She stops herself before she says something unforgivable.
“Not when I’m dying?” he guesses. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
“Neither do I,” she says.
He laughs, but it’s mirthless. “Not even close to the same thing.”
Anger flares through Beatrix, hot and sharp. “Is that what this is about? Are you… jealous?”
“No,” Oliver scoffs.
He turns away, but Beatrix has already seen the resentment in his eyes, dark and ugly. “You are, aren’t you?”
He won’t look at her. “I just think you shouldn’t be so eager to throw it all away.”
His words knock the air out of her. “How long have you known me?”
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“Weeks? Months?”
“The Globe was a month ago,” he admits.
A month is practically nothing, a drop in the vast ocean of her life. “The Globe was over three hundred years ago, Oliver.”
“I know,” he says.
“You don’t.”
He shudders suddenly, a shiver without the cold. “Fuuu—I have to go,” he groans, scrubbing his hands over his face.
Angry tears prick at Beatrix’s eyes. “Of course you do.”
Oliver throws his hands up. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Bea!”
Stay. She wants him to stay.
Oliver stands, leaves her sitting alone on their unmade bed. He grabs his shoes from the corner, slips them onto his feet. Shrugs on his overcoat.
