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“You cared for them.” He reaffirmed what she didn’t seem to know herself.

“I tried to make sure they were okay, but everything happened so fast… I never got the chance to know for sure. I wanted to go back, but Luka—I couldn’t leave him alone. I couldn’t cross the border. I couldn’t do anything without making things worse… Even not knowing, I don’t regret what I did. I mean, I didn’t. Not until”—she bit her lip and shook her head—“I’m wondering now if I should.”

Her voice sounded like it had when he brought up Luka earlier in the tavern. She’s thinking about him again and whether or not he’s worth what she’s going through. Jarek didn’t know how to feel about it. A part of him ought to be relieved that even the Wraith had its doubts, but he felt nothing like that. All he felt was guilt for putting it in her head to begin with.

And he’d still done nothing to abate her unhappiness.

Jarek loosened his posture—lifting a knee and throwing an arm over it, thinking back to what worked that night he found her chasing ghosts. “In a symphony of distant echoes, resound as a solitary melody, unique and unmatched.” Lilith flicked her bewitching eyes in his direction, and he made a point to put a smile in front of his anxiety. “Reatia has proverbs too. They were always so long, and I detested memorizing them, for all the good it did me…” He cleared his throat. “That line comes from a prayer that was presented to new monks in the Guardian’s Order. The way you speak of your friend made me think of it.”

Lilith’s brows creased as she examined him like an insect pinched between her fingers. “That was a thoughtful thing to say.”

He frowned. “I was trying to be helpful.”

“Those two things go hand in hand, you know?” She laughed, still quiet. It was authentic, and even though it was at his expense, he’d take it. “I didn’t know you were capable of being nice.”

“It’s all in the same vein as common decency, yes?” Jarek shrugged. “Which isn’t that difficult.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, brushing him off. “Not all of us can make it look so easy.”

“You’re decent, Lilith. More so than I am. You are… misguided, is all.”

Another round of guilt didn’t have time to manifest in Jarek’s gut before Lilith shot him a glare he was convinced would kill him on the spot.

She stuttered nonsense, groaned, and turned to the rain. “Knock it off.”

“You’re mad now?” He chuckled to cover how he was struggling to figure out what he said wrong. “I thought niceties were supposed to do the opposite, but this is more like you, so I’ll call it an improvement.”

She wallowed in her confusing frustration until she sighed again, this one short and abrupt. “You’re looking at me like my troubles are your fault. They’re not. I made my decisions.” She sat up, touching her chest and speaking to the open balcony. “My life has been fine, by the way. No better and no worse than the ones I’ve ignored.” She slumped against the wall, arms crossed. “But thank you very much for your concern, Jarek.”

Well, she wasn’t mourning anymore. Jarek regarded what she had to say and all of her courage that outweighed his own. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Not care about what happened! Amalia doesn’t act like it, but I know she carries contempt for me despite the fact that her people went relatively untouched by everything I did. I don’t understand it, and it’s so gods damned irritating.”

Jarek knew she was watching him, but he dared not look.

“I don’t take what you did lightly,” she said with a sharp tone. “But I think you’ve paid for it enough.”

He ground his jaw at the caution creeping into her voice. “Keep your pity.”

Jarek’s frustration hung in the air while Lilith’s broke apart like the clouds clearing in the sky. “Is that what you’d like then?” she asked. “For me to resent you the way Amalia does?”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t see how that matters.”

“It’s a yes or a no, Jarek.” That earned his acknowledgement, and she grinned at him, all too prideful, not showing any trace of anger. “What would make you happiest?”

Damn her for everything visceral she was putting him through. That was the question, wasn’t it? Jarek didn’t want her hate, but he didn’t deserve her kindness either. He sought punishment for his past, but he preferred when she offered him admiration, and accepting or denying any variation of either concept terrified him.

“That doesn’t matter either,” he said.

Lilith’s face turned tender—eyes like fields of lilacs at sunrise. He detested the sympathy wrapped in her features, almost repeating what she said to him about looks until she twisted toward him and pulled off her hood.

Draped in that overcoat that was too big for her, short hair returned to a blend of silvers and grays mingling with the shadows under her eyes, she was as how he’d come to know her, and it hit Jarek how horribly sober he was. That he could no longer deny or argue with himself how fucking perfect she was exactly like this.

“I wasn’t going to anyway,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. She straightened, legs crossed with her hands in her lap. “I can tell you’re trying, and that’s enough for me to see past Valen’s First Incarnation. What I’d like in return is for you to treat me as someone other than Keara’s reincarnation.”

Jarek considered the request, and honest to Ettan’s name, he did it in earnest. He let himself stay drawn to her face without fear of what was behind her eyes, taking in the few freckles atop her skin, the shape of her bottom-heavy lip…