Page 147

The mind, I have learned, does not return home simply because the body has been carried there. Mine lingers in Austria. In the room with blue walls and white daunting silk. In the place where I became smaller each day and still did not disappear. I hate that and I hate myself for it. Edward finds me in the library, standing near the shelves with a book clutched against my chest so tightly the spine creaks. He stops at once, not close enough to startle.

He has learned distances like another language. “Olive?”

I cannot answer. The fire popped and that was all it took. A small crack from the hearth nothing more, just wood splitting in flame, but my body heard a pistol. A slap. A lock. Now I stand with my back against the shelves, unable to make my hands unclench from the book. Edward’s face changes.

“May I come closer?” he asks.

I close my eyes. The question should comfort me. It does. It also humiliates me, because I need him to ask. Because I might shatter if he does not. I nod.

Edward crosses the room slowly, stopping several feet away. “I am here.”

Such simple words, they undo me and my throat tightens until breathing becomes work.

“I hate this,” I whisper.

His expression breaks. “I know.”

“No.” The word scrapes out of me. “No, you do not. I hate this, jumping at every sound. Flinching when someone reaches for me. I hate that I cannot sleep, that Elisa reads to me like I am ill. I hate that Morrigan guards me as though I am already half-dead.”

He says nothing, the silence makes space and I wish he would interrupt. I wish he would save me from my own mouth, but he does not. So the rest of my words spill out.

“I hate that you all look at me so carefully, like one wrong word will break me. As if I am glass. Like I am not—” My voice cracks. “Like I am not her anymore.”

Edward’s hands curl at his sides. I laugh, and it sounds awful. “Perhaps I am not. Maybe he was right. Perhaps he took too much and there is nothing left worth loving of me.”

“Do not,” Edward says.

The quiet fury in his voice startles me as my eyes lift to his and he looks devastated and angry. Not at me.

“That is his voice,” Edward says. “Do not give it your mouth.”

A sob rises and I press the book harder to my chest. “He made me nothing.”

“No.”

“He made me weak.”

“No.”

“He made me—”

“No.” The book falls from my hands, the sound of it hitting the floor is too loud. Everything inside me collapses and I crumple before I can stop myself, knees striking the rug, hands flying to my mouth as the sob tears loose.

Not elegant, not quiet. A broken animal sound. Edward moves, then stops himself so sharply I see the pain of it. “Olive, may I touch you?”

I cannot speak, I just nod once. Then he is on the floor with me, not pulling me, just simply there. A wall of warmth beside my shaking body and I fold toward him because I cannot help it. His arms come around me slowly, carefully, and when I do not pull away, he holds me tighter. That is when Lazarus enters, he freezes in the doorway and Alcott appears behind him a moment later. Both men take in the scene, me on the floor, Edward holding me. The fallen book, and my shattered breathing. Laz’s face loses all color as Alcott’s hand grips the doorframe hard enough that his knuckles pale.

“I am broken,” I sob into Edward’s shirt.

“No,” Edward says against my hair.

“I am.”

“No.” He pulls back just enough to look at me. “Then we will love every broken piece.”

The words strike so hard I cannot breathe. Lazarus crosses the room and kneels several feet away.

“May I sit here?” he asks softly.