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“Are you real?” I whispered.
Atlas leaned his forehead on mine, closing his eyes and taking a deep, resounding breath. “I sure hope so.”
My teeth chattered together as I tried to make sense of it all. “You remember me?”
“How many times have I told you to trust me?” He crushed me to his chest, though there was no warmth to be found. “You’re freezing, Marley. You tried to cross this territory in the middle of a fucking blizzard. There’s… someone holding the storm at bay, but we need to get you some place warm immediately. Ask questions later.”
I jerked. “Who’s holding the storm?”
“Later,” he growled.
With little effort, Atlas lifted me to the back of a horse and mounted behind me, his firm body and the friction between us helping to bring a semblance of warmth. The breeze from the trot should have chilled me more, but I’d convinced myself I’d never truly be warm again and likewise would never feel the cold.
* * *
Eden, who had been summoned to the castle under Atlas’ very watchful eye, had somehow found a way to warm me, starting from my toes and moving all the way to the top of my head. She’d been kind and thorough, but as Atlas paced the room, the questions of how this moment came to be still sat with me. And though it’d been hours within the castle, he’d still said nothing.
When Eden insisted I needed my rest and the room finally emptied, Atlas snuck back in. Standing at the edge of the bed, he massaged my feet as he stared down at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I never got the chance to say it before Future sent you away, but I am. I’ve spent so much time running. And I don’t know. I saw the way you were watching me, and I wanted it, Marley. All of it. Late mornings in bed and holding your hand. Sunsets and holidays. I wanted inside jokes. I wanted to be the reason you smiled every single day. I wanted to never blink again, out of fear you’d disappear one day. That’s why I’ve clung so tightly to my friends. Because if they are with me, they’ll never leave me.”
“They will never leave you because they love you.”
“Past trauma is a sleeping beast. Sometimes, you forget it’s there, and sometimes, you’re running with fangs on your heels.”
I felt those words in my soul as images of my brother’s youthful face swirled in my mind.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
He cleared his throat, the serious look on his face melting into humor. “I was born one cold, blustery night. You’re familiar with the kind.”
I launched a pillow at his face, glaring. “I don’t want your life story, prick. And don’t use jokes to deflect. I want to know how you’re here and how you remember everything. And how you found me.”
He flashed that lopsided grin as he picked up the pillow from the floor and tossed it onto the bed beside me before kicking off his boots and jumping in.
“It’s because I’m roguishly handsome. The Spirits took one collective look at this face and just decided they couldn’t go through with their side of the bargain.”
Rolling to my side, I jabbed his ribs with an elbow. “I’m serious, Atlas.”
He turned to face me, tucking a finger under my chin. “The hows are not important.”
“They are to me.”
“Okay,” he conceded. “But consider this a bedtime story. You have to rest if you want to come to Solstice, and it’s already almost midnight.”
“Deal,” I said, staring into his searing eyes. “I don’t care about Solstice, anyway.”
“Future never cast upon me. According to her, I only had to agree to forget everything. I didn’t lose a single memory. The act of choosing was the final test.”
“Okay, so that’s it? You just walked away from it?”
“Not exactly. There was paperwork, of course, a formal meeting with the goddess, the traditional gift giving ceremony, some random thing they needed some handsome beast blood for, but otherwise, that was it.”
I gasped. “They took your blood?”
He leaned in with a smirk. “No, Marley. It was a joke. Present showed up to tell me you were near death in the blizzard, and I used a door Bash leaves for Eden to get to the castle. I’ve always been a fan of those doors.”
I couldn’t help my smile. “You’re such a liar. You refused to use them days ago.”
