“Are you well?” I asked.
He sat up gingerly. “He’s dead?”
I looked to where Goosevar had fallen, riddled with Jack’s strange arrows. Jack and the priest stood over him. “If my eyes aren’t playing a cruel trick.”
Harker’s hand closed over mine, and I turned back to him. He drew my palm to his mouth, pressing his lips against it. I studied him, anxious.
Finally, he said, “It’s gone, Mina.” His voice was low but charged with feeling.
“What’s gone?”
His chin lifted slightly, and his nostrils widened as the air moved through them. “I can smellyou, but I can’t smell your blood.”
The others were stirring out of their shock and beginning to speak to each other—Mr. Hilliard among them—but I shut them out as I strove to understand Harker. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve lost the thirst, Mina.”
My heart leapt. “Are you sure?”
“Since the day I became a vampire, I’ve never—not for a single moment—been without it. I’m quite sure.”
“Oh, Harker.” My throat tightened, heart beating fast.
He shifted and reached for me.
“Careful,” I said, taking his hands but holding back. “I think you’ve broken a rib.”
“I think I’ve broken two,” he replied with a husky laugh. “But they’ve partly mended. Come here.”
His hands came to my waist, and he pulled me close. He rubbed his nose lightly against mine, sending a ripple of heat through me.
Behind us, Jack cleared his throat. “Mina?”
I moved to speak into Harker’s ear. “I think the others need not knowall.”
“I will be guided by your wisdom,” he murmured. “In this and in all things.”
The two of us got stiffly to our feet, and Jack took a slow step toward us.
“I thought I had lost you,” I said carefully.
Studying him, I saw that his face was a picture of boyish puzzlement, lacking the resentment and fear that so often twisted his expressions these days. He looked more like the old Jack than he had since our parents died.
“Much of this I don’t understand, Mina,” he said, “but Idounderstand what you did to save me.” His eyes flickered to Harker, whose hand had come to the small of my back. “I’ll be sorry all my days for what I did, and if I could take it back, I would. It was out of worry, and hotheadedness, and too much drink, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“Harker is not a killer, Jack,” I said, raising my voice. It was pretty clear that Jack had come to this on his own, but I felt it needed to be stated in front of the others. Father Kelly and Mr. Hilliard—even Mr. Couch in his own way—were all men whom people in the village listened to.
Jack nodded, seeming to understand my reasons. “I’m only glad my aim wasn’t better.” His brows knit as his eyes moved over Harker, and I knew he was looking for signs of the injury he’d caused. Jack’s aimcouldn’t have been truer, but it seemed best to let him keep believing otherwise.
“Let there be no bad blood between us, Jack,” said Harker, drawing Jack’s eyes to his face again. “I know how much you care for your sister, and we have it in common.”
Harker put out his hand.
Jack stared at it a moment while I held my breath. “You mean to make an honest woman of her?”
“As soon as I possibly may. The banns will be read this Sunday.”
Jack grasped Harker’s hand, and once they’d shaken, I put my arms around my brother.
