“Do you believe you could ever love me?”
He didn’t look at Briar as he said it. Briar struggled to read him. Now that he’d met Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, he understood why their young prodigy might guard his feelings, why public mockery might trigger fight or flight.A deified pillar of the people, stripped of humanity in the eyes of those who love him from afar.Wasn’t that how Niamh had described him? Briar wondered if Linden had ever known what it was to be loved up close. The curse of celebrity.
In all this mess, Briar found himself caught between two lonely men locked away from the world—by completely different circumstances, but the results were the same.
Linden’s expression bowed under the weight of Briar’s silence. In a crushed voice he said, “I see.”
Remembering the prophecy, Briar said, “I could love you. I think I could. In time—I don’t know. It’s been hard to get to know you.”
A brittle look. “I do not let anyone in with ease, it’s true, but I have been incautious with you. Perhaps too incautious. I moved too quickly.”
“I’m the one that screwed up.”
“It hardly matters now. What will you choose to do?”
The words felt thick. “I can’t string you along. I’d rather pay for the cure than use you for it. Whatever it costs.”
Linden told him how much it would cost, in clearly enunciated digits, the syllables of which seemed to echo and carry on for a long time. It was far more than Briar had. Far more than he’d made from his work on the fashion line, far more than they’d make even if they scraped home every award at the gala, more than he could make in a lifetime.
“It will require an excruciating amount of power,” Linden explained.
Something about the words prickled, but exhaustion both physical and emotional made it hard for Briar to parse. It was all too much to absorb. There was a cure. He couldn’t afford it. He waited, knowing an olive branch was coming, and not understanding why he feared taking it.
Delicately, Linden picked Briar’s hand up in his. “I would forgive you all of it,” he said. “I can take you to Pentawynn, away from this ghastly place. Cure you of this affliction and spend the time we bought together where prying eyes can’t meddle. Tell me, if it were a simple choice, would you give me your heart?”
Briar wanted to be true to his feelings. Now, it seemed selfish.
Beyond that, Linden had the cure.
He had the cure.
A chance at survival, and not just his own. A cure could free Rowan from the forest’s hold, too. The effects of his scar nulled. Still, none of it felt right. If Fate held his hand and guided him down a path to prosperity and good fortune, why did he feel as though death awaited and sharpened its scythe?
Vatii nudged his arm. “If Rowan found the cure, he wouldn’t hold your heart ransom for it.”
And there it was. It had niggled, but he’d been too distraught to put a finger on it. Or perhaps too sick and ailing. Linden would charge him if he didn’t agree to this elopement, and he knew Briar couldn’t afford it. Echoes of the painful slap to his cheek throbbed in dim reminder.
The hairline fractures in Briar’s esteem for Linden cracked. His hopes that their relationship might prosper foundered.
It was no choice at all. A heart with three swords stabbed through or a skeletal rider to take him beyond the veil. Heartbreak or death?
“Of course. Of course I’ll come with you,” he said.
Linden’s smile was relieved.
And a tiny bit triumphant.
CHAPTER 25
Linden insisted they could discuss everything further in the morning after rest. He helped Briar back to his flat and undid the rest of the buttons on Briar’s dress; Rowan’s presence was a physical thing between them when Linden’s fingers encountered the three pearls already loosed.
Then Linden pulled a shining slip of something from his pocket. A ferry ticket, its location stamped in gold-embossed lettering: Pentawynn.
“The city is quite spectacular to see from the water,” he said.
Briar’s throat constricted.
After Linden left, Briar collapsed into his own bed, Vatii crooning softly in his ear. He drifted into restless half-sleep, in and out of dreams. In them, he thought he heard a bell.
