I managed to recover myself in time to see everyone out and bid them goodnight without promising a repeat gathering. Rosie and Thoma both hugged me goodbye, and Rosie pecked a kiss on my cheek before they took their leave. The door was barely closed and locked behind them before I turned and scurried down the hall to our bedroom.
On the off chance Kit had managed to doze, I pushed the door open a crack. Ember and Nutmeg barreled out and skittered between my ankles, eager to explore the house now that our company had departed.
Inside, the fireplace was lit and Kit was on his feet before it with his arms crossed, still fully dressed. I slid inside, softening my steps as I padded up behind him and snugged my arms around his waist, clasping them over the buckle of his belt. He was only a few inches taller than me, but I couldn’t quite hang my head over his shoulder, so I turned it aside instead, resting it against his back and feeling the subtle swell of his chest as he drew a deep breath.
“Made an ass of myself,” he grumbled. It wasn’t the kind of statement that merited a reply, so I kept quiet until he added, “Didn’t embarrass you too badly, I hope.”
“No.”
He sighed again. “Good.”
Covering my hands with his, he pulled them apart then turned so we were facing each other. Sorrow made his face droop, and he looked weary. Not tired, though I was sure his day in the smithy had taxed him. This was a pervasive exhaustion, stemming more from the soul than the body.
I pulled him to me as I moved backward. In only a handful of steps, my legs hit the edge of our bed, and I dropped onto it, still tugging on Kit’s arm. I scooted until my back was against the wooden headboard. He tried to sit beside me, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what he needed. So, I blocked his dodge and pulled again until he got the idea.
His lips quirked in a sheepish sort of smile as he lowered himself in front of me with my legs tucked around him. He was stiff, I assumed uncomfortable at the reversal of our usual positions. I rarely hesitated to crawl on top of him whether sitting or lying down, but he seemed to think of me as some delicate flower that might be crushed if I bore his weight. He wasn’t that big, and I wasn’t that fragile.
Given a bit more encouragement, he gradually relaxed, leaning into my chest until we were both reclined against the headboard and he was fully enveloped in my arms.
I nosed into his hair and ghosted my lips over his brow, taking in the feel of him. His warmth, his smell, and his presence that had become a constant comfort. I reveled in the chance to comfort him this time, and I held him in quiet until he was ready to speak.
“It’s not their fault,” he said softly. “The problem has always been me.”
I frowned in protest as Kit carried on.
“I’m trying to be better about trusting them. Convincing myself not everyone is like my father. He deceived plenty of people here. He deceivedmefor a long time…”
He paused for a breath that eased in, then out, deep and long, and his arms looped around my ribs, pulling us even closer together.
“I know if we want to have allies,” he said, “if we want to change this place, we have to work together. I’m not good at that. I’m better at being alone.”
“You’re not alone, Kit,” I assured him.Iwas here. I would always be here with him. For him. I would have told him that, too, but he was already nodding because he knew.
“No. Not anymore, and I don’t want to be.” He kissed my temple, then laid his head on my shoulder while heaving another sigh. “They seem like good people. I’m glad you brought them here. It just… hurt. More than I thought it would.”
His fingers dug into my side, and I nuzzled into his hair again, letting my breaths ruffle his soft curls.
“What did?”
“The fact that they cared?” Kit huffed an unhappy laugh. “They’re doing this for their children. For Reimond and Rosie. They want to change the world, to make it better for their kids. My father only ever made things worse for me.”
My thoughts traveled back to shortly after I met Kit, when he’d showed me his father’s journals and I’d first read some of the things the former cult leader had penned about his life and his mission within the Bone Men. In all the pages of text I’d seen over the weeks that followed, one sentiment had stood out above the rest.
I will not allow Kit to grow in a world that hides him away from pain. No son of mine will be spared the suffering that forges a boy into a man.
It felt backwards. The greatest suffering of my life had occurred after the barn fire and, as guilty as I’d felt about my part in the incident, I felt even worse seeing how my mother and father worried and fretted over Sayla and me. They were nearly as ruined as all our winter stores. Devastated that their children had been maimed, nearly killed. I never doubted my parents would spare me any discomfort they could. Imagining them throwing me into another kind of fire, hoping I would emerge stronger for the experience, was haunting.
It was also the farthest thing from my understanding of love, and made sense of Kit’s penchant for solitude. Better to be alone than in the company of someone who didn’t love you, and I was suddenly very certain that Vaughn Koesters never loved his son.
Kit was going limp against me, exhausted from work and the incidental clash with our growing resistance. I gathered him up as best I could and held on tight.
“I love you, Kit,” I whispered, as much a statement of fact as a balm for the wounds that had been opened long ago. Then I repeated it, needing him to be as sure as he could be that, while Reimond and Rosie’s family were fighting for their children, I was fighting for him.
I would change the world until he felt safe in it.
Until he felt loved.
20
