“Ruv.”
“I’ll ask you once. Do you believe that I could be your cornerstone?”
I swallowed thickly. “You could have been. But you won’t ever be. Because I found the one who makes me whole. And that’s all I have ever wished for.”
He smiled sadly… and pulled away. I slipped my hand out from underneath his, thankful that he wasn’t pushing this.
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“This is where our paths diverge, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said honestly.
He laughed. It sounded a little hollow, but I didn’t blame him. If anything, I blamed Vadoma for filling his head with something that could never be. It was yet another life she’d interfered with, and it wasn’t fair. “For what it’s worth, Sam of Wilds, I think you aren’t what anyone expects you to be.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you, Ruv.”
He leaned forward, and for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. Before I could pull away, he pressed his lips to my forehead, the lightest of touches, and then he was up and walking back down the dock. His footsteps fell away until there were no sounds but the water.
I looked up toward the stars and breathed.
RYAN FOUND me a little while later. I’d been planning on using the summoning crystal to talk to Morgan, maybe even Mom and Dad, but the crystal was back in the room I shared with Ryan, and I couldn’t force myself to go up and get it. I was too tired, too angry, too worried, too… everything.
I heard someone step onto the dock behind me, felt it shift. I tensed for the briefest of moments but then settled. I knew who it was. I didn’t even need to turn around. Soon enough, I felt a hand on the back of my neck, the fingers scratching into my hair. I hummed quietly and leaned against him when he sat next to me. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he rested his atop mine.
“Okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just… a lot. You know. In my head.”
“Gets loud, huh.”
“A little.”
“Need anything?”
“Just you. Just… you.”
He chuckled. “That I can do.”
He gave me time to parse through my thoughts, to try and put the pieces together and to discard the ones that wouldn’t fit. He didn’t know everything, but only because I hadn’t told him. Given what Morgan had told me before we’d left Castle Lockes, I hadn’t been able to work through it all. It’d been swirling around my head, the betrayal of it all, the anger, the anguish. Coupled with the fact that I had no idea what to expect in the desert, I wasn’t sure I could have given it the time it needed.
It didn’t help that I’d still felt the sting of betrayal. That my whole life had been foretold. That most of the major events that had happened to me, the things that had shaped me to become who I was today, seemed to have been done deliberately. That the man I looked up to almost the same as I did my father knew more about my past and future than he’d ever told me. One of the first things he’d ever taught me was that a wizard had his secrets. I knew that. I understood that.
It still hurt.
Especially to know I was keeping secrets too.
“My head feels full,” I muttered. “I don’t know what to focus on.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, turning his face to kiss my hair. “Let’s focus on one thing at a time.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you do what you needed to do here? With Zero.”
“I think so.”
“Will Zero help us when the time comes?”