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And to some degree, she did. Simian was what had made Renault County its worst, and she had destroyed him. Who was to say that without him, its denizens couldn’t have made something better of themselves?
They could never have returned from the mire in which they were sunk, the Song said with certainty. They never do.
She could argue with it, but what would she say? She was not a creature of hope, not a creature who believed in humankind’s better nature. She did not honestly believe that Renault County would have improved, if left to its own devices. But she would not have chosen to destroy them all on the basis of that belief. Choosing how they ended, deciding that they weren’t capable of improvement, it made her feel like… like Alaric. So smugly confident that he knew what was best for everyone else.
But it didn’t matter what she would have chosen. Because though it had been the Song that burned her birthplace, it had been her choice to let it happen. Her choice, to trade the lives of everyone there for Numair’s. And she would make it again. If that made her a terrible person, then she could live with that. Because he was still here, and right or wrong, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to ensure that he was always here.
Even if that meant she never stopped seeing the blood on her skin every time she closed her eyes.
She climbed out of the tub and dried off, but she couldn’t bring herself to put her old clothes on. They smelled of smoke and death and she didn’t want to crawl back into them. She spied one of Numair’s shirts, thrown over the back of the vanity chair, and shrugged into it instead. The hem hit midway down her thighs, and she had to roll the sleeves up twice so they didn’t cover her hands, but it smelled faintly of him, and being wrapped in his scent eased her tension.
The bedroom was empty when she stepped out of the washroom. She bit her lip, wondering if he would care if she rummaged through his dresser in search of pants. She was still debating whether it would be an invasion of his privacy when he walked in. He had on different clothes and his hair was damp, so presumably he’d gone to clean up in one of the half-a-dozen other washrooms the house likely boasted.
He stopped short just inside the doorway and sucked in a breath, his eyes raking over her before snapping back to her face. “That’s—are you wearing my shirt?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “My clothes were dirty.”
“Of course.” His voice sounded strained and a muscle ticked along his jaw.
She crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “I didn’t think you’d mind.” He had dozens of shirts, what was this one to him? But he certainly looked as if he minded, his hands clenched and his eyes hot with—oh. That wasn’t anger in his gaze.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t meant… “I’ll put mine back on.”
“Don’t,” he said roughly. She opened her eyes to find his were softer now, his body less tense. He exhaled heavily and gave her a rueful smile. “I’m sure you feel like burning yours.”
“I might have considered it, but you were all out of matches.”
He didn’t laugh, but then it wasn’t much of a joke. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small cloth bag. She could make out the shape of the Siren’s Tear within it, the magic sewn into the bag masking the stone’s power. He offered it to her. “Here. You should take it to Verol and Marquin. I wanted it for them—for you.” He swallowed. “For…us.”
She stared at it, trepidation a hollow in her gut. “If I take it, are you going to disappear on me again?”
Shadows fell across his eyes and he dropped the bag onto the dresser, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t know.”
She clutched her arms tighter to her stomach, her fingers digging into her ribs. “How can you not know?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, looking more tired in that moment than she’d ever seen him. “There are things I need to tell you. Things I don’t know how to tell you and don’t want to, and I…can’t tonight. Not after everything.”
She understood. Or thought she did. But her patience had limits. She closed the space between them, until she had to tilt her head to look up at him. “When can you?”
He was silent for a time, and she gave him the space to weigh his answer, because she knew that if she did, the one he gave her would be the truth. “In the morning,” he said finally.
“Promise?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “If you stay, you can hold me to it.”
“Do you want me to?” After weeks of him ignoring her, she needed to hear him say it. Needed the reassurance, even as she hated how that need felt like vulnerability.
“I always want you to.” He lifted his hand, gave her time to refuse before he brushed her hair back and said, softly, “Stay with me.”
“Okay.”
She pushed onto her tiptoes, bringing their faces level, needing something more and not knowing how to ask. But she must have asked it by the way her gaze fell to his mouth, because all he said was, “Yes.”
So she kissed him. Their lips met, somewhere in between the shadow of their first kiss and the violence of their second. Somewhere that might be halfway close to normal. And she marveled at the way she could close her eyes and not feel the darkness. The way the gentleness of his mouth moving against hers could blot out the pain that had so recently been dredged up again. The way the slide of his tongue against hers could stir an ache inside her she’d never expected to feel.
Her hands tangled in the fine silk of his hair and his slid around her waist, drawing her closer. She wanted him to keep touching her and never stop. And it scared her, because she wanted everything, and she didn’t. She drew back, her breathing shallow and rapid. “I don’t know that I want— I don’t think I can—” She couldn’t finish either sentence, didn’t know how to explain. But she didn’t need to. She never needed to with him.
Because while her own want was mirrored in his eyes, the thing that held her back was there in them, too. “I know,” he said softly. “I can’t either. Not yet.” He pressed the lightest of kisses to the tip of her nose. “But I also don’t want to let you go.”
