“I thought . . . I thought it would be easier for you.”
“Easier?” My voice was shrill. “Easier than what?”
“Than making you finally say out loud what you had been thinking for weeks. That every time you looked at me, you regretted saving me. Because if you hadn’t, your mother would still be alive. That you wanted me gone.”
I cast my gaze away. “I think, perhaps, I’m more tired than I thought . . .”
He gave a barking laugh, grabbing my arm and pulling me back to face him. “Don’t do that. Don’t just keep it all bottled inside.”
I fumbled for words, something that would articulate the pain I felt every time I glanced his way, terrified I could lose him, guilty that saving him had cost my mother her life. My searing, all-consuming anguish and fury when I’d thought he’d died. At Castillion. At him, a little. But mostly at myself. “What do you want me to say?”
“Anything!” he said. “Just talk to me. Yell at me. Something.”
“You really want to know why I pushed you away?” My words crackled. “Because every single time I looked at you, you were dying on the tower. Again and again, over and over. Nothing but decay and loss.”
“You know what I saw when I looked at you? A wall. I witnessed the collapse of one, only to be confronted by another.”
“Everything that happened was my fault. Every single loss was my fault. Mother, Kate, Falada, Lisette, Father Cesare . . . I’m a . . . a . . . plague to everyone I come in contact with. An infection. A poison. And when I thought you’d drowned . . . it broke me, Zan.” I felt tears pricking my eyes. “How could you do that?” I whispered. “How could you do that to me? After I died for you.”
“And I died for you in return!” he burst. “By all the bloody stars, I would have gone into the afterworld, or death, or whatever miserable thing waits beyond, and dragged you back just like you did for me. But I am not you, Aurelia. I have no magic. No power. After Stiria, it became clear that Castillion would stop at nothing to see me dead. It didn’t matter to him who was on that ship; he killed them all to get to me. Dozens of innocents . . . Everyone around me was a target, including you. There was only one thing I knew to do to keep you alive, and, Empyrea save me, I did it.” His jaw tightened. “I ‘died’ so you could let me go and m
ove on with your life. And as soon as I was gone, you gave up magic. You got well.” He waved at the building behind us. “You made friends. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong!”
“Am I?” He moved in close. “Prove it. Let’s find out what would happen if you finally stopped running and let me find you.”
He glared down at me, mere inches from my face now, close enough that I could have kissed away the hard line of his lips if I wanted to. Which, of course, I didn’t.
His eyes, on me, weren’t green anymore; they were gold. A trick of the light, I thought, still trying and failing to catch my breath. But that wasn’t true—they were definitely gold. Churning , molten pools of liquid gold.
That color. It reminded me of something . . .
My hand went to the charm at my neck. The firebird.
Twice now, Zan had risen from the dead.
I gently lifted the cord over my head. “Kellan sent soldiers to the wreck. They found this on the shore.” I placed it into his hands. “It belongs to you.”
“Aurelia . . .”
I pulled away, leaving the necklace behind in his grasp, and went inside without another word.
* * *
I let the Canary girls coax me into a bath, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to argue against it. Though the water was warm and soothing, my hands remained dirty, and even after I finally scrubbed them clean, I could feel the stain of Golightly’s unwilling blood under my skin.
Jessamine came into the washroom to find me sitting in the basin of long-tepid water with my knees tucked under my chin.
“Hello, lovey,” she said softly. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head mutely. My mind had me trapped in another endless loop of regret and worry, replaying everything I’d said and done, intensifying its blame and criticism with each go-round.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head again.
“If you need anything . . .”