I wish the arms around me were Declan’s. I canalmost feel the memory of his hands on me, the comfort of his touch.
I press my cheek harder against Tarek’s shoulder and let the grief be as big and as ugly as it wants to be.
Finally, this bout of grief drains away. Taking a deep breath and wiping my face with my good hand, I say, “I want to say goodbye.”
The watery light of the rising sun pools around me, haloing the stage with something tender as I kneel beside Declan. Hiccuping back sobs, I place my head on his chest because that’s all I can do when there’s nothing else left.
His skin is cool under my hands, the blood dark and dry at the edges where it soaked through his shirt. A crimson smear of dried blood crosses his lip, and I brush my fingers over it as tears leak from my eyes.
The wheel is turning, and everything is changing, but even with Fortune, with magick and the Tower, I can’t bring him back.
“I’m sorry.” I sniffle, my tears dotting his shirt. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry for not letting you in sooner.”
The list is clumsy and useless and also the only offering I have. The only thing I can give him before they take him away, and he’s gone forever. When I’ll have to live with his absence, build a life around the hollowness he left behind.
“I’m sorry, Declan. Forgive me.”
My hand throbs where I press it to his chest, and I splay my burned, blood-smeared fingers over the place where his heart should beat. Heat answers the wound in my palm, and a sharp pain flares up my arm.
Dawn washes over us, and a hush falls across the kingdom so complete I can hear the sound of the wheel.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Ash coats my tongue, and smoke curls into my nose. When I look up, Fortune is there, a heat shimmer between the trunks of two great palms, burning a path between the trees.
“I remember,” I tell him, her, the universe. “I remember how bad you are at flirting. I remember how your skin feels against mine. I remember the way you smell—clove and spice and home. I remember how you listened to me talk and never once thought I wasn’t enough. I remember the way you laughed and would carry that damn cat and how you were just like me, pretending to be the person you thought others wanted. I remember the taste of your mouth and how you made me feel like the world had room for me. I remember that I love you, Declan Thorne, that I willalwayslove you.”
The sunlight around the stage swells, and the air thickens until its crackling around us, filled with smoke and heat. Theclickof the wheel quickens into a cadence I can feel in my teeth, and I clench my jaw. Sparks spill from my fingertips and arc into the pooled light. I press harder, emptying myself into the magick taking hold.
Declan’s chest twitches under my palm. Then, impossibly, he inhales. His small, ragged gasp is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Cold, stiff fingers curl around my wrist, his touch light as ash, then warmer, firmer. Color washes back into his face like a tide discovering the shore.
Under my hand, the wound on his chest draws together. Blood dulls to dust and flakes away as the gash draws closed from the inside out. Skin smooths around the puckered edges until it’s whole again.
The magick in my palm folds back on itself with a soft, sibilant note. Threads of smoke draw back into my fingers, into the living drum under my ribs, until the fire is gone and my hand is only heat and damage. A fresh pain flares along my fingertips and the curve of my palm, a bright, piercing ache. But I can barely feel the hurt beneath the tide of joy that has just come in.
Tears spill hot down my cheeks as I release all the grief I was still holding.
With a groan, Declan sits up. His dark eyes find mine, and the world contracts to the shape of them. I cup his face with both hands, my thumb tracing the thin line where blood became ash on his lips.
“So,” I say, voice breaking more than I’d like, “you do exist.”
The corners of his mouth curl into a smile I know and love. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”
He pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. He holds me as I sink into him. His palm slides up my back to my neck, fingers threading through my hair as he presses his lips to mine. I part my mouth and his tongue sweeps in, warm and tasting of smoke and salt.
“I love you, Amanda.”
And this time, I let him. I let him love me, the woman who once carried laminated affirmation cards in her purse because saying the words felt safer than living them; the woman who treated manifestation like control; the woman who built walls and believed they were shelter.
I let him love me, the woman who is messy and imperfect and learning and healing and powerful in ways I am only just beginning to understand.
He drops his forehead to mine and blinks down at my hand. “Are you okay? That looks terrible. What happened?”
I grin, wincing a little as he turns my hand over in his. “It’s kind of a long story.”
