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That little smile faded. “Hardly.”
She eyed him. “Do you bring this up because you’re worried you won’t be able to offer me what you think I want?” Maybe their thoughts weren’t so different after all. She was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to give Darien what he wanted, but perhaps he feared the same in a different way.
He shrugged. “It’s always been a fear of mine, since the moment I realized I had fallen for you. I want to give you anything—anything you want.”
“I already have everything that I want,” she told him gently. The guarded expression in his eyes thawed. “Anything else is just a bonus. You’re my real gift.”
“Pretty sure you’re the gift.”
“Pretty sure you don’t see yourself clearly,” she volleyed back.
“Pretty sure you don’t either.” He winked.
“I can do this all day, Darien,” she warned with a smile.
“Good, because we’ve got a lifetime.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
And there was that shadow of a thought again—the one that reminded her of the mortality constantly breathing down the back of her neck.
“We’ll take a rain cheque on the kids conversation,” he said. He was watching her closely, no doubt picking up on her concern.
She forced a smile. “When we’re ready. And when I’m not twenty and practically a baby myself.” It was a joke, but something…strange entered Darien’s eyes, and she had no idea what it was. A shadow darker than anything she’d seen on his face in a long while. Darien hid it quickly, and before she could ask him what was wrong, he moved onto another topic.
They sat at that little table and talked for a long while. About everything that’d happened while Loren was in a coma, about Maya Reacher. Everything Loren hadn’t been filled in on before, she was filled in now.
And then it was her turn to do the talking.
“You said you saw,” Darien began, “Erasmus and Roark in the spirit realm.”
She nodded. Drew a breath. “I saw them create the Arcanum Well. They were both human—both attending Angelthene Academy thousands of years ago. They made a trade with a Nameless creature so they could use the prima materia.”
Darien’s brow lined with confusion. “How did a couple of mortals have something worthy of a trade of that magnitude?”
“They didn’t,” Loren said. She glanced about the bakery. “They made friends with Helia. She was the one who made the trade.”
“Your mom.” Darien had been with her that day at Erasmus’s townhouse—when Loren had asked Erasmus what her mother’s name was. He’d told her it was ‘Helia’—he and Cyra had both told her it was ‘Helia’.
“She bargained with the Nameless, so she could keep her friends with her forever. But—Darien… Cyra is Helia.” Her mother had been right under her nose. This whole time—right under her nose.
Darien stared at her, looking as shocked as she still felt as he tried to make sense of it—why Erasmus had aged, and Cyra hadn’t. Why Erasmus was human again, and Cyra wasn’t. Why neither of them had told her the truth. Erasmus was spelled—Loren knew that much. She figured Cyra was too. It was the only reasonable explanation for the many secrets they’d kept. The secrets they were still keeping.
“Cyra is my mom.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Darien stood in a phone booth, listening to the line ring as he watched cars roll by on the Avenue of the Waning Moon. Loren was here with him in the drafty booth—tucked against his side, her big blue eyes flicking up to meet his every once in a while.
Something was bothering her, and he didn’t know what—whether her silence was due to thoughts of her mother back in Angelthene or a fault of Darien’s own. Maybe he should’ve kept his mouth shut about kids. She was probably thinking too deeply about his words, the way he so often thought about hers. Thinking could ruin so many moments.
“You okay, baby?” he said quietly as the line kept ringing.
She gave him another of the same smiles she’d given him in the bakery, after they’d finished filling each other in on what they’d learned—a forced smile. “I’m fine.” She dropped her gaze to the ground, hands in her jacket pockets, hair falling in her face like a curtain of light.
Yeah, it was definitely what he’d said in the bakery. Goddamn it.
Look what you’ve done, Bandit grumbled from his shadow. We just got her back and she’s already distancing herself. He gave a low growl.
Can you mind your own business? Darien shot back.
It’s hard to mind my own business when we share a head.
