“I love you,” I whisper, feeling choked with it.
“I love you.” She sounds just as overcome.
Her gaze strays back to the exposed stairs leading to the hidden room down below. Slowly, I walk up until I’m standing beside her, both of us looking down.
Rosemary looks torn.
“She’d looked peaceful, in my memory, when she’d put the orereowe in her chest.”
“She’d done that to herself?”
“Yes.”
“So she’s just stuck like that? Forever?” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
“Rosemary,” I start in concern, attempting to pull her into my arms.
She takes a step back. My hands drop to my sides.
“I can’t die,” she admits abruptly. Her teary gaze meets mine. “It’s not just that I can’t be killed. I can’t die. I’m probably never going to die.”
“Oh.” I admit, a part of me had wondered, but she’d kept specifying otherwise.
I think about the oerhwu on the slab; she’s going to remain that way until the end of time, frozen in an eternal sleep of her own choosing. Since all the plants are doing is keeping her asleep, not actively killing her, her ability to revive would never be triggered.
“I’d said before that my gift—being an oerhwu—had been what had held me back from reaching out, but I hadn’t truly been honest about why. This is it.” Her chest heaves, her breath hitching. “How can I let myself love, let myselflive, when I’m going to outlast everyone and everything I know? How am I going to stand it when—” She cuts herself off, her lower lip wobbling until she desperately firms it, like she doesn’t want me to see.
“Fuck. Rosemary.” Her heartache makes my eyes sting. I see what she sees: an endless stretch of time, most of it spent alone as she watches everyone around her eventually leave her behind, through absolutely no choice or fault of their own.
I reach out, then again when she dodges me the first time, letting me hold her hands tight.
“Then I refuse to die, too. I refuse to leave you behind.”
“Genevieve.” She tries to pull her hands away once again but I refuse to let go.
“I literally ate your heart to steal your humanity—”
“Borrow.”
My lips twitch with amusement. Hers does, too, making my heart stutter with love.
“Fine. I literally ate your heart to borrow a bit of your humanity. Who’s to say I’m not borrowing a little of your immortality, too? My grandmother connected to the eshé, did you know that?” Rosemary’s eyes widen slightly. “And I’m pretty sure legbajus aren’t supposed to be able to do that. She can’t have gotten it from anywhere else.”
We both glance at the dark opening.
Rosemary turns to face me, but her head is ducked. “But … how can we be sure—? Maybe your grandmotherhadborrowed some of my ancestor’s abilities, maybe even her immortality, but she’d still been killed. She may not have died naturally, but she’d still been vulnerable.”
“Then I guess my very powerful oerhwu is going to have to do her best to protect me, isn’t she?” I tease, tugging her into my arms.
“Genevieve—” she whines, but she comes willingly.
“Isn’t she?” I repeat playfully.
“Yes.” She pouts. Smiles. Her expression softens, then goes serious when mine does. “Yes,” she repeats softly. “She is.”
Every step I’ve taken toward you, I’ve taken on purpose.It’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.Donefor me.
Despite her fear of an endless slew of tomorrows, she’d still chosen me. She’d chosen to live.
